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There is a user in our small community, who had caused a lot of trouble in the past while doing a few sporadic good contributions (mostly when he felt the need to improve his amount of points) too.

These days he is fortunately mostly silent, but I realize that since quite some time already his name appearing in the list of recently active posts is enough to raise my blood pressure even before reading what he has posted ...

How can I keep (or regain) my cool concerning this user?

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The simple answer is to get another admin who doesn't have any history with this user handle the situation.

You've realised that you're not going to be impartial when dealing with him so it's best to take a step back in this case.

This is one of the main reasons you want more than a single moderator/admin for even the smallest sites. There will be users you just don't get on with and having someone else available to handle them will save you a lot of time, anguish and raised blood pressure.

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    It also protects your community from the appearance of moderator bias. If it's known that you dislike or are frustrated by this user and you take negative actions against him, then unless it's stunningly clear to all that what he did was wrong, there will always be some doubt. And since sometimes you'll get it wrong, acting on your feelings about the user and not the post in question, he can legitimately complain up the chain. Far better to recuse yourself.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Nov 30, 2014 at 4:18

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