To echo everyone else, your “top contributors” are not contributing to what you want to build. They may provide volume, but they’re not fostering a healthy community. You’re far better off without them.
In my opinion, it’s a tactical mistake to try to take things offline. They already feel empowered and entitled. Pulling them aside to say “please be nice in public” is only going to feed that sense of power, leverage and entitlement.
The rules are the same for everyone: Be nice. Be respectful. Be constructive. There’s nothing about that that needs to be kept private. In fact, it needs to be a public reminder when people aren’t doing that. The folks who’ve been bullied need to see that a change is being enforced.
And at the same time, you should read these complaints very carefully to see if there’s anything you can agree with. Why? Because it’s incredibly effective to say - along with the “Be nice…” message - “I understand that you’re frustrated about X and your point about X[1] is very fair.” Then follow that with a response to X[1] that carefully ignores the petty, shitty parts of the complaint.
@Drew_Warwick I’m really interested to hear how you set the example.
Did you just remove the user so they silently disappeared? Was there a public announcement that “We’ve removed BadGuy”? Was the removal declared in a particularly noxious thread? Something else…?