We are studying this in our college class as we learn about teams. This is an example of Team Conflict in the Administrative Team at IWETHEY.

Basically there are two types of conflict:

#1 A-type conflict of affective conflict. This is emotional conflict, which is personal, defensive, and resentful. It is rooted in anger and, personal friction, personailty clashes, ego, and tension.

#2 Cognitive conflict is largely depersonalized; also known as C-Type conflict, it consists of argumentation about the merits of ideas, plans, and projects. Cognitive conflict is often effective in stimulating creativity because it forces people to rethink problems and arrive at outcomes that everyone can live with.

Why is A-Type conflict bad for team functioning? Affective conflict interferes with the effort people put into a task because members are preoccupied with reducing threats, increasing power, and attempting to build cohesion rather than working on the task. In contrast, C-Type conflict can improve decision-making outcomes and team productivity by increasing decision quality through incorporating devil's advocacy roles, constructive criticism, and stimulation of discussion.

"Tools for Teams", Leigh Thompson, Elieen Aranda, Stephen P. Robbins and others, Person Custom Publishing, ISBN 0-536-61750-3 p218

Well that sums it up a bit. Generally one would want to turn an A-Type conflict into a C-Type conflict. Based on Karsten's anger and people's reaction, I think there was an A-Type confict here which resulted in Karsten leaving the team. Give him time to cool down and rethink things and maybe he might want to come back. What should be addressed here is the issues, as in what an Admin is supposed to do, and that something as serious as removing a member from a mailing list or using a mailing list for Internet registrations should be discussed with the team before something is done.