Building an Online Community Part Three: Henry Kissinger Edition

One of the most important parts of being a community leader is diplomacy. This is true if you’re the President of the United States, or if you run a community website.  You’ll need to know how to intervene in fights, how to deal with “competitor” websites, how to defend yourself, how to moderate discussion, set boundaries, make rules, and most important, keep the place “loose” enough to make people not hate you and want to come back. You’ll notice that this article is really about running a discussion forum, which is the heart of most community sites.

I mentioned in part one that I am a member of the forums on SomethingAwful.com. As of the moment I am writing this article, that forum has:

• 104,370 users, with 2,688 logged in right this second.
• 2,240,902 threads, with 58,878,342 individual posts.
• Banned 10 users today, and 6,960 users banned total.

SA has some pretty strict rules. As a whole, the community respects these rules. Those who don’t get probated (banned for an arbitrary amount of time), or banned (they can’t log in until they re-register their account.) In the worst case scenario, a user can be perma-banned, which means that they are unwelcome to come back, and if they make a new user, that user will be perma-banned as well. Given that it costs $10 to make an account on the forums, it costs money to be an asshole there. (And yes, that means that they have made over one million dollars in registrations over the course of several years.)

If I had rules like that on my forum, the place would turn into a ghost town. Why? Because what makes SA so popular is the wide variety of content, the (relative) quality of the posts, and the overall sense of community that they have. Most forums can’t afford to run like that, so you need to be able to let things slide more.

I will admit that I am a bit of a control freak. I would prefer all of my users to post their posts in the appropriate forums. I would love it if people didn’t post non-Pine Barrens related photos in the photo gallery. I would really love it if discussions were always relevant and on-topic. I’d be thrilled if people didn’t post huge images in their posts that break the tables and make it so you have to scroll from side to side to see an image. It just doesn’t happen that way.  You need to either deal with these in stride (and not by banning or yelling at your users) or you need to not try to run a website.

On the other hand, if you have a user who is trolling your forums, being abusive to other members, and not really contributing anything to the site besides chaos, you need to take action. Give a warning or two, and then ban them. Be prepared to take abuse from that person through email, or field complaints by that persons friends (if he has any on your site). But the most important thing is to be firm and don’t back off your decision, unless you’re totally convinced that you did the wrong thing.

It’s this idea of moderation (both in attitude and in keeping an eye on discussions) that is so crucial to running a successful community.

Another important thing to discuss is having help. If your site is big enough, or if you have a busy life, you may find it helpful to have someone help you out. Typically these people are either admins or moderators. Admins have more control over the entire site, while moderators can typically just close/delete/move threads, edit posts, etc. I have read that it’s a good idea to only have one admin - yourself. Everyone else should be moderators, and if the site is really large, break moderators up so they only have specific forums to be responsible for. I generally agree with this principal. Certainly it makes it less risky for you, the site owner. If your other admin’s account gets hacked, you could be locked out of your forums. If you have a falling out with the other person, they could cause you a lot of problems. I’m very fortunate to have someone I trust very deeply as a co-admin, but my experience should be the exception, rather than the rule.

Finally, don’t be afraid to take a stand when you have to. I recently did a redesign of the website. In general, most people liked it, but a lot of people had problems, or complained about generally minor things. You could go crazy trying to make everyone happy, which is impossible to do. At the end of the day, this is still your website, and how it’s presented and run is a reflection of you. Don’t be afraid to not listen to everyone’s ideas, especially when it comes to very subjective things such as design. On the other hand, if your community is in agreement that something you did was a detriment to the community (a bad decision, or maybe you redesigned a menu and now it’s really confusing) swallow your ego and listen to their argument. Maybe what they’re saying makes sense. It’s always a give and a take.

It all boils down to this: Don’t act like a jerk. Be cool, treat your users well - but don’t let them walk all over you - and they’ll come back.