To think some Facebook group admins are power mad martyrs?

[TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl]

I admin a Facebook group with some other lovely admins for women with a particular health condition. It’s all very low level work, and there is an occasional bun fight in the group it TBH us admins acknowledge that it requires very little sweating over. It’s just a Facebook group after all!

However I am a group member (not admin) in another group that started off as support for home schooling in lockdown and is now more of a generic support group around all types of education.

Because initially the group had a lot of families struggling through lockdown and facing various issues, the admins imposed a “Group members are not allowed to PM each other or exchange personal information”. I remember thinking how, though they have the best intentions WRT the safety of members, they cannot possibly impose that ridiculous rule.

however they STILL have the rule and love to remind members about it. They are posting what it seems like every single week saying something passive aggressive and angry like

“GROUP REMINDER

When you accepted the T&C’s of this group you accepted the rule that members CANNOT PM each other. We have YET AGAIN found out this rule has been broken!!!

Us admins give our free time, time away from our families, to run this group and we honestly feel exhausted trying to get members to keep up with basic rules. If you can’t follow the rules you know where the leave button is!!!”

I got kicked out today because I commented that they cannot impose a rule that disallows grown adults from messaging other people, let alone police it. And that they’d have more time if they didn’t spend so much of it chasing and dealing with silly rules.

I first got booted then got a PM from an admin saying I had “violated the laws and principles of the group” (😂) and also upset admins who work really hard to keep everyone happy and don’t appreciate their hard work being thrown back in their face. She asked for an apology.

I was feeling slightly childish and just replied with this emoji —> 😭

AIBU to think some Facebook admins are fucking nuts? They’re not managing a small country, it’s a Facebook group, and the weird power trips are utterly baffling. It’s not the first time I’ve seen something like this either and it spoils simple enjoyment of these groups.

Yep. Agree

Local buying and selling group here: i posted something and then it got rejected and a PM saying i didnt state which part if town i
Live in

Isnt that admin person just creating unnecessary work for themself? Interested buyers can just comment if they have questions

I've come here to add my ten pence worth.
I've just been given a 24 hour ban from a group because someone asked me what tea I buy for a health complaint. I told them but they kept asking for specific information.

I basically said where it came from and I've been told I am spamming and promoting my business and false advertising? I don't even have a business!

There are other similar posts on there where other folk have done the same and the posts are still there.

Yesterday I happened to like a couple of posts that the moderator opposed so I'm guessing it is a bit of tit for tat. It wasn't even anything heated or bad (it was about tinned pears 🤣), just someone's opinion which I and a few others agreed with.

I have noticed the mod wielding her truncheon at others on occasion too for very little. I will likely come off this group tomorrow when the ban is lifted.

Honestly, if I didn't need Facebook for other reasons, I would honestly come off it, it does my head in!

You can still leave the group during your ban. It's just a posting ban. Sounds like you'd be better off tbh!
I admin 2 groups and mostly leave them to it unless they need me to do anything! Especially the Emma Bridgewater one.

The only admin work I've had to do on the local business adverts group is to delete posts from businesses ignoring the '1 post per week' rule imposed by the group owner. That's the only rule the group has, just to give every business chance to post 🤷🏼‍♀️ I've only ever had to delete two businesses in 6 years as they brazenly ignored it and were posting 3+ times per day.

@SchoolTripDrama I didn't realise that. I'm just away now to leave the group, thank you,x

Yanbu, I understand why they want it to be a rule but I don't see how they can police it so why bother?

I've been banned from 2 Facebook groups for ridiculous reasons.

Apparently commenting something along the lines "thanks for stating the obvious" when someone tried to mansplain something to me was "too aggressive" for a Disney group....

I was also in a walking group where someone posted a picture of a Lake District fell covered in snow (purporting to be from that day). Everyone got excited and said they were heading to the lakes over the next few days. I commented that it can't have been a recent picture as there had been no snow in the lakes for weeks and I could see said fell from my house.

Poof. Banned.

I’m an admin of a large group (50k members, mostly blokes) and my main duties are to roll my eyes at the things they complain about, delete bot / scam posts, break up a few skirmishes, and admit / decline new members. Probably “takes me away from my family” for as much as 7 minutes a day.

I have my head in my hands at some of these... I'm an admin of a medium-sized fb group and one of the other admins is a powercrazed pisshead, who deletes posts, comments, bans people without reason, etc.

It's really awkward for the rest of us, because we actually have to work with him in real life. We've tried a few times to bring it up in a 'general admin chat' way, and he always replies with 'yes, absolutely, we have to be reasonable' and then the next morning I check the activity log and see he's thrown out five members for no reason, insulted 4 others, and deleted any comment he doesn't personally agree with. It's always in the early hours of the morning too, funnily enough.

This sounds familiar, was it a group about a kids show that explores, rescues and protects animals? I realised it was like a support group for the woman running it when all I was interested in was kids toys!

I’m a member of a dress selling group on Facebook only because of the dramatic admin and the people that defend her hissy fits to the hilt.

She has a huge list of rules - many helpful but many OTT.

she won’t allow anyone else to be an admin. She approves every single initial post. She then comments constantly on how long it takes her…

if anyone dares make a suggestion or ask a question without being fawning enough of her there’s a dramatic complaint about how rude people are and how ungrateful they are. Cheergirled by her weirdly affectionate group.

And most of said group are very very unrealistic women trying to sell £700 occasion outfits for £650 on the basis it was “only worn for a few hours”. If you ever suggest on one of the posts lamenting that their stunning dress that they got lots of compliments in that maybe someone who can afford £650 for a dress will likely stretch to £700 then you’re unsupportive and get kicked out.

Have you considered creating a very similar page and just shuffling the various members over there? That is what I and a couple of fellow mods did in a similar situation.

One group I am on has this weird set of posting standards, based on an apparent belief that there is a tax on pixels. The mods go nut if anyone asks a question that has been asked in about…. I dunno, the last five years? Someone will post innocently to ask for a ear piercing salon recommendation for their child, and the mods are in there, snapping WHY DON’T YOU USE THE SEARCH BAR, PEOPLE HAVE ASKED THIS QUESTION IN THE PAST?? Yet incredibly rude behavior among posters is tolerated, with never so much as a word of reproof from the mods. Just plain odd.

I know I’m late to the party but you are soooo right about this! I was even kicked out of a group this morning for asking why my post was declined after following all of the ‘rules’

Us admins give our free time, time away from our families, to run this group and we honestly feel exhausted trying to get members to keep up with basic rules. If you can’t follow the rules you know where the leave button is!!!

This is ALLLWAYS the comment aswell. It’s always referring back to we give our time blah blah blah crap. I’m so over it.

My local FB group for giving away stuff put a post on last week moaning that members weren't following the rules and were giving their items away to the first person who asked. Apparently we are supposed to give it to the person 'in greatest need' or whoever we feel most deserves it but without automatically choosing friends. No advice given on how we are supposed to decide who is most in need from half a dozen comments from strangers all saying some variation of 'yes please'.
If I want to give away random household objects it's because I want them gone with minimal effort on my part. I don't want to have to conduct interviews or hold a competition to decide who is most worthy to receive my unwanted junk.

@AuntMarysPinny yes I think that’s the one. To be fair I got some nice toys for my son’s birthday, which was why I’d joined. But it was all quite strange, quite an odd little part of Facebook to stumble across.

The 'no private message" rule is really easy to police, we have it on the selling group I admin. If someone recieves an unsolicited PM they forward a screenshot to admin and then we ban/remove depending if they have form.

Had similar in a ladies friendship facebook group. Admins/mods have advised all meet ups have to be publicised on the page, cannot arrange separate meet ups and not tell other members 😂 completely batshit crazy rule.

My cousin got a warning from a legal group a year after recommending a vulnerable poster look into the freedom programme 🙄 the poster agreed they were needing help. When my cousin tried to message the mods to ask why the strike against them they got a really snotty warning back about trying to contact them in a way against the group rules. Complete bunch of power mad twats 😂😂

We have a local Facebook selling group like this. They go on holiday to have breaks all together (loads of them, can’t share) so people can’t trade in the holidays, which is probably the most convenient time for most families. They invent constant rules to police, it started as no multiple pictures but now you can’t even post something like ‘pick up before Monday please’. You can only post if you are prepared to hang on to an item whilst a million people ‘ltb’then never post again. It doesn’t even help, it’s the worst group for ‘ltb’ and time wasting. They constantly martyr over it like they are slaving in the coal mines, not clicking ‘approve’ here and there. I mean if it’s that hard… don’t volunteer! I admin groups and it’s really just not as hard as they make out.
Sadly home Ed groups also have some nightmare admins. It’s only a very few people but they empire build and admin huge numbers of groups, making all groups look bad. They used to contact our local group to try and force us to comply with their way of doing things. I was very very childish once and make a fake profile to join their groups then pointed it out how easy it was. Their rules didn’t make the group super safe as they claimed

I used to admin a group on FB and the only rule was that all posts had to be admin approved. This was simply because FB kept banning our group because a lot of the posts ' went against community standards '
After the group was banned for the fifth time, we simply left FB and set up our own forum.
I don't understand the banning of DMs etc, what a ball ache that must be. Power tripping at its best.

It’s funny this should pop up as I had another experience the other day. Someone posted on a single mums group asking if there was any groups for disabled single mums as she felt lonely in her situation and couldn’t relate to other single mums, I commented saying I don’t think there is but advised her to join a group for people with her disability and then ask on there if anyone is a single parent I said that’s why I do because my child has a disability and not many people in the group get it (I highlighted that I didn’t mean all Just that most dont understand if there child is not disabled as it’s different to being a single mum to a non disabled child) well was I jumped on by not one admin but 3 who all had a go at me for saying people in the group don’t always understand as when I post I usually get comments that whilst they are good advice, the advice is for children that are not disabled so won’t apply to me, so it’s not always the best place to post if you are looking for very specific advice that matches your situation. I don’t know what I said wrong but 3 of the admin was very rude and aggressive to me.

Ugh yes.. Chris Cook I'm looking at you.

I've been booted from several vegan groups for replying to people with words to th effect of "Guys, this is why people don't like us" 😁

Bet I can beat your vegan admin story 😉

you’d be more than welcome in my group saying that. We say that all the time 🤣

I joined a 'leaving teaching' group on FB which grew rapidly and significantly. The attention it attracted and generated clearly went to the heads of the founders, and the self-righteous nature of the moderators was so nauseating in its insistence on 'be kind' etc. that I could no longer watch them being played by the plants, infiltrators, spying SLTs and general troublemakers.

Naivety all round, detracting from the original purpose of offering support. Sometimes groups of this nature are a self-fulfilling prophecy.