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The Care and Feeding of On-Line Communities
Eugene Chan
| 15 May 2007 - 10:57pm
Two recent essays on on-line communities struck a chord with me.
Matt Haughey over at Fortuitous writes Some Community Tips for 2007. I particularly believe in number two:
“Be human” is popular piece of advice I’m reading about and hearing at conferences this year and I’ll write more about the subject later on, but it’s important that members of your community know the leaders are humans themselves.
Cory Doctorow writes about the other end of the spectrum—how to defang trolls that are there to feed off of discord and misery. How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community is part cookbook, part technique, and part psychoanalysis written from one of the Renaissance guys on the web.
Trolls can infect a small group, but they really shine in big forums. Discussion groups are like uranium: a little pile gives off a nice, warm glow, but if the pile gets bigger, it hits critical mass and starts a deadly meltdown. There are only three ways to prevent this: Make the pile smaller again, spread the rods apart, or twiddle them to keep the heat convecting through them.
What other strategies exist to successfully grow on-line communities?
O'reilly Bloggers Code of Conduct
One of the biggest fears of starting an online community, for many, is maintaining its integrity. One of the links in the "How to Keep Hostile Jerks from Taking Over..." article was a link to T. O'Reilly's Draft Bloggers Code of Conduct http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/draft_bloggers_1.html
I'm not sure why folks don't just automatically realize that blogging demands the same courtesy as communicating with others in person or by phone. Perhaps the anonymity that is often allowed through online communication gives folks the impression that they get a "pass" on etiquete and consideration. I follow similar standards to the O'Reilly Draft Code of Conduct as a moderator for online groups as I would enforce a code of conduct for in person meetings or exchanges that I am moderating or facilitating. If an in person meeting turned into a heated and unrelated dialogue, I'd step in to determine whether the exchange has any usefulness to the group or whether it is a conversation that needs to be taken offline or at least into another forum. I guess I just try to be a Troll Whisperer when possible, btw that is a great title!
I like the idea of putting either the badge indicating that the code of conduct is respected on that site or putting the "anything goes" indicator for folks who just really want to read through literally anything that is posted. It give bloggers options, which is what it really comes down to.