The Darkest Evil

I am working on a community of all my sites and I am working on the THL community and I wonder - should I review my community management practices? I mean, I want to make sure that the community respects the admins but I also want to make sure that the admins EARN respect through their actions and practices. I have decided to outline a couple of my core beliefs for a community to function and I hope to govern and live by them. Besides, I would not want to be like a certain admin.

You are human - You are human and just because you are admin at a forum does not mean you are infailable. You have your faults, just like every other human so don’t be completely pissed if someone decides to kindly point them out. Banning people just because they have a different vision or ideas doesn’t exactly earn you much respect. Remember that a community needs a leader - so if you want to run a forum, you should act like a leader. Don’t be afraid to admit to your mistakes and don’t be afraid to make amends for those mistakes. All people have done something a bit wrong and made mistakes. But that’s just the price of living. Don’t be afraid to say you are sorry and that you did something wrong.

Don’t be afraid to touch toxic topics - The entire essence of a forum is you are allowing a more open and interactive way for people to air their concerns about your website or your blog. This generally means that you are probably subject to some toxic topics if you tackle controversial issues often. But sometimes this is a good thing. If you are discussing the site or the forums, take people’s opinions seriously, but sometimes with a grain of salt. A bit of controversy can’t be all bad. In fact, if it sparks discussion and you come out making the appropriate changes, you have done very well.

Remember to value your members - They chose to come to your site for a reason. You should make 100% sure that respect is ingrained in your rules and remember to always try to parse the messages they give if they appear to be flames. Just like books that have deeper meanings, so do people and their posts. Maybe there is a hidden meaning that you are not seeing.

The Charter Grants Freedom of Speech, but I limit it - I have very strong beliefs in freedom of speech but I do not believe it to be an excuse to be an asshole. That’s why I have community guidelines. Because I know that it would cause havoc if people were flaming all around the board. Freedom of speech, as protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, extends into Government only. It may be applicable when you are talking to a RCMP officer or Parliamentarian but not on my forum.

Recruit the best staff possible - And who better than people already in the community, preferably well-versed on the rules and guidelines. These people are highly respected in your community and do the right thing. So it would make perfect sense to make them a moderator. Remember to set solid standards about who can be staff at your forum and who can’t. And remember to consider people who are already well-versed in the community for staff above newbies at all times.

Don’t be ban-crazy - Remember to excersize caution when you ban someone. Banning someone just because they have ideas that oppose yours is not exactly the best thing for your community. In fact, that will repel people from your community faster than Rosie O’Donnel live.

Tags: controversial_issues, controversy, earn_respect, Serious stuff, thl

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 8:07 pm and is filed under Serious stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.