If you know me, you know I like to keep private business private. I don’t like to air dirty laundry. When someone violates our guidelines, it’s removed completely and we contact them privately and ban them privately, if appropriate. We try hard to keep details internal, even if it means that people believe some lie a banned member told them. This is my policy and I am happy (and proud) to say we are great at sticking to it.

But, that doesn’t mean that exceptions won’t be made. It doesn’t mean that you can push me around, lie to me, trick my users, try to intimidate me on Twitter and take advantage of countless forums, blogs and social spaces and get away with it. At some point, eventually, you can go too far. And when that happens, as much as I don’t enjoy it, I will tell people about what you are doing because there is a consequence and there are repercussions for unethical behavior.

This is what happened with Sports Legends Challenge. They have engaged in despicable activities and deceived people in their marketing efforts. The funny thing is that there are a few details left out of that post, too, that make it even worse.

Make no mistake that my intention is to shed light on this, but I was also careful to keep the discussion productive, to the best of my ability and resisted name calling and things that would serve to derail the post’s true purpose, which is to expose these activities. I hope that it is taken as a learning experience.

It’s a good read, I believe, for community managers because it’ll help you to see how far some people can go and what you need to look out for, if you haven’t already experienced it. Good luck.