Managing Community Leaders Who Violate Guidelines and Multi-Space Banning Strategies

July 08, 2026

Hey all, I’m at Clay and I’m building out a system to manage members who violate our community guidelines and would love to chat with people who have built a robust system. This is more 201 than 101; how do you handle community members who hold leadership positions that you have to remove? When do you ban someone from multiple spaces (ex. both your online community and IRL events)?

23 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Joel P.
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Never had to do what you're doing to that degree but my main thoughts on this would be:
What is shared is with a member and when via text
Verified proof of statements to the members
Specifics that they have broken in regards to your code of conduct, or similar doc, as well as any program-specific expectations — especially legal docs
Conversation with legal is likely needed on this process for any legal-specific requirements
Conversation with your overall agreements, as well as the operations team on how to widely ban, per se, people from the community with a clear, auditable process
Hope these thoughts were helpful for you!
➕2
2
Max P.
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^^ Joel knows his stuff
Max P.
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Similar to the above. Would need to ensure that you have everything documented and looped in legal/other partners as necessary depending on the severity.
Shriya N.
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Thanks so much Joel P. - if you have time for a call in the next few days lmk, I know there's always a lot going on but it would be AMAZING, and if there's a way I can help you too lmk -
I built out a tracker with who, what & where (screenshots), when (timeline if multiple instances)
Now I'm trying to figure out how we act on those violations consistently
"You spammed in our Slack -> We remove you and email you to notify" = Easy case I inherited a couple of members who have caused issues, yet have also been given leadership positions among customers. Some team members thought they were awesome, others thought they were causing problems -- they're tricky situations! I'm using these 2 people, and 1 in particular, as an opportunity to figure out a system.
😓1
Shriya N.
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I don't think I need legal involved, but I'm also not 100% sure when to get them involved.
Max P.
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Do you have guidelines in place + shared with members where they have to acknowledge/sign as they sign up for the community? Do members who cause trouble threaten anything such as taking action against the company? These two situations is where I would involve legal
Shriya N.
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(edited)·
Yes! We have basic community guidelines. Which is why the "simple case" is easy -- "Hey you violated X guideline" & remove.
I don't know yet abt the threats
Max P.
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Could you give more context on this: I inherited a couple of members who have caused issues, yet have also been given leadership positions among customers. Some team members thought they were awesome, others thought they were causing problems -- they're tricky situations! what have they done specifically that would fall out of the easy case?
Joel P.
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Welcome, & happy to chat — DM me your calendar link 😊 2 thoughts:
I'd involve legal early and often in this type of process
They'll be able to help you define and back up your stance on a community-ban on these individuals, especially when it comes to people in leadership roles with customers.
I think there's a couple opportunities here:
Community tour to introduce yourself and talk about the programs encompassed within the Clay Community, including moderation/bans
How to bring transparency internally on the process for others to also understand vs them having to blindly trust you (not saying they shouldn't trust a teammate, of course)
Thanks for the kind words, Max! Appreciate you 🙌
❤️1
1
Shriya N.
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Max P. it's a long-ish list which is why I'm putting it in the higher category! They did a mix of positive things (helped others in a cohort-based online course, co-lead an IRL club), medium-bad things (badmouthed employees in the Clay office, spammed/was overly-familiar to a teammate), very-bad things (showed up to the office unannounced)
🫡1
Max P.
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My advice, prob worth having a conversation with these folks on a 1:1 basis on the things that wasn't cool and giving them a chance to redeem themselves but also being stern on last opportunity, etc.
Shriya N.
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Definitely; I think we have to define though -- what would make someone lose their Host position for the IRL Clay Club? Does he lose his spot now, and if yes, which of the violations was the tipping point?
Max P.
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Yeah definitely something for you and the team to decide on but since it sounds like none of the violations were shared that I would suggest giving them a warning and not removing them just yet.
Carrie M.
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We've just been through a really intense moderation process and pilot with another internal moderation team with one of our clients. One thing, since it sounds like you're still fairly new, is that you can use your new-ness as an excuse to level-set with these people and bring clear, documented evidence that their actions are not in alignment with the program's values (said in a nicer way) and put some really clear boundaries down. It's going to require a fine balance between authoritative and curious. For the larger process, I think you'll need to get clear documentation of the complaints leveraged against these people and start to put those gray areas into the guidelines for the leadership program and for the community at large. If there isn't a clear process for reporting these complaints and they've just kind of bubbled up, that also needs to be remedied.
❗1
Carrie M.
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Is there anyone else internally who does moderation work? Maybe someone who works on the social team and manages social moderation at scale? If so, I'd form an alliance there, even if it's informal coffee chats on the regular (but ideally you get time to swap notes with them or even more ideally, pilot a collaboration where you create one unified protocol for incident management and response that is managed by someone who isn't as customer-facing)

Joel P.
·
·
Never had to do what you're doing to that degree but my main thoughts on this would be:
What is shared is with a member and when via text
Verified proof of statements to the members
Specifics that they have broken in regards to your code of conduct, or similar doc, as well as any program-specific expectations — especially legal docs
Conversation with legal is likely needed on this process for any legal-specific requirements
Conversation with your overall agreements, as well as the operations team on how to widely ban, per se, people from the community with a clear, auditable process
Hope these thoughts were helpful for you!
➕2
2
Max P.
·
·
^^ Joel knows his stuff
Max P.
·
·
Similar to the above. Would need to ensure that you have everything documented and looped in legal/other partners as necessary depending on the severity.
Shriya N.
·
·
Thanks so much Joel P. - if you have time for a call in the next few days lmk, I know there's always a lot going on but it would be AMAZING, and if there's a way I can help you too lmk -
I built out a tracker with who, what & where (screenshots), when (timeline if multiple instances)
Now I'm trying to figure out how we act on those violations consistently
"You spammed in our Slack -> We remove you and email you to notify" = Easy case I inherited a couple of members who have caused issues, yet have also been given leadership positions among customers. Some team members thought they were awesome, others thought they were causing problems -- they're tricky situations! I'm using these 2 people, and 1 in particular, as an opportunity to figure out a system.
😓1
Shriya N.
·
·
I don't think I need legal involved, but I'm also not 100% sure when to get them involved.
Max P.
·
·
Do you have guidelines in place + shared with members where they have to acknowledge/sign as they sign up for the community? Do members who cause trouble threaten anything such as taking action against the company? These two situations is where I would involve legal
Shriya N.
·
(edited)·
Yes! We have basic community guidelines. Which is why the "simple case" is easy -- "Hey you violated X guideline" & remove.
I don't know yet abt the threats
Max P.
·
·
Could you give more context on this: I inherited a couple of members who have caused issues, yet have also been given leadership positions among customers. Some team members thought they were awesome, others thought they were causing problems -- they're tricky situations! what have they done specifically that would fall out of the easy case?
Joel P.
·
·
Welcome, & happy to chat — DM me your calendar link 😊 2 thoughts:
I'd involve legal early and often in this type of process
They'll be able to help you define and back up your stance on a community-ban on these individuals, especially when it comes to people in leadership roles with customers.
I think there's a couple opportunities here:
Community tour to introduce yourself and talk about the programs encompassed within the Clay Community, including moderation/bans
How to bring transparency internally on the process for others to also understand vs them having to blindly trust you (not saying they shouldn't trust a teammate, of course)
Thanks for the kind words, Max! Appreciate you 🙌
❤️1
1
Shriya N.
·
·
Max P. it's a long-ish list which is why I'm putting it in the higher category! They did a mix of positive things (helped others in a cohort-based online course, co-lead an IRL club), medium-bad things (badmouthed employees in the Clay office, spammed/was overly-familiar to a teammate), very-bad things (showed up to the office unannounced)
🫡1
Max P.
·
·
My advice, prob worth having a conversation with these folks on a 1:1 basis on the things that wasn't cool and giving them a chance to redeem themselves but also being stern on last opportunity, etc.
Shriya N.
·
·
Definitely; I think we have to define though -- what would make someone lose their Host position for the IRL Clay Club? Does he lose his spot now, and if yes, which of the violations was the tipping point?
Max P.
·
·
Yeah definitely something for you and the team to decide on but since it sounds like none of the violations were shared that I would suggest giving them a warning and not removing them just yet.
Carrie M.
·
·
We've just been through a really intense moderation process and pilot with another internal moderation team with one of our clients. One thing, since it sounds like you're still fairly new, is that you can use your new-ness as an excuse to level-set with these people and bring clear, documented evidence that their actions are not in alignment with the program's values (said in a nicer way) and put some really clear boundaries down. It's going to require a fine balance between authoritative and curious. For the larger process, I think you'll need to get clear documentation of the complaints leveraged against these people and start to put those gray areas into the guidelines for the leadership program and for the community at large. If there isn't a clear process for reporting these complaints and they've just kind of bubbled up, that also needs to be remedied.
❗1
Carrie M.
·
·
Is there anyone else internally who does moderation work? Maybe someone who works on the social team and manages social moderation at scale? If so, I'd form an alliance there, even if it's informal coffee chats on the regular (but ideally you get time to swap notes with them or even more ideally, pilot a collaboration where you create one unified protocol for incident management and response that is managed by someone who isn't as customer-facing)