Liveblogging the Building Strong Online Communities from SXSWi
Panelists:
Ken Fisher, Ars Technica
Alexis Ohanian, Reddit
Drew Curtis, Fark
Erin Kotecki Vest, BlogHer
Panel will look at deliberate acts that foster online community.
Erin: BlogHer is the largest online women's blogging network. Started as conference.
Drew: added comments to Fark in 2000. I'm not a fan of online communities, would rather be out in real life. Very organic.
Alexis: started Reddit out of college in 2005. Too much to read, not enough time. Big bump from Paul Graham of Y Combinator. Got a big initial burst of smart contributors.
Ken: put up comments in 1998 to outsource tech support. Tried to create a place where people could find answers with a high signal to noise ratio. Usenet was the place in mid 1990s, but got overrun by trolls.
How do you balance your own vision of your community with your community's vision? Every admin has to make calls on TOS, direction, etc. Two aspects: Philosophy and Practical - how do you enable communications with members.
Fark: problem, number of voices. Have to take feedback with a grain of salt. Is the feedback representative. For example, 20 people on site hate when Fark links to Sports By Brooks. Have to balance complaints with the activity on the links. 20 complaints versus hundreds of participation posts.... can't fall for the tyranny of well organized minorities.
Reddit: started growing out verticals to meet demand, e.g. programming reddit. But then they decided to let folks create their own.
BlogHer: similar approach. You can create your own blog.
How on Reddit to users contact you?
Reddit: I was doing all the feedback email until a month ago, but I stopped. It doesn't scale. We now use twitter search to find out when people are talking about us, but most communication has been through email.
Ars Technica: Twitter gives insight to folks who are not as active in community. Public forum is good because it allows users to respond to other users questions.
How does the community influence / police itself and how did you get there?
BlogHer: we have strict community guidelines. We want women to come here and feel they are not going to be attacked. Civil discourse. It's no very well self policed - if you are coming to comment, you need to behave.
Fark: rule, don't be an asshole. Implemented Nark function - let the community nark each other. Folks try to game it, nark out rival cliques. Every time you add a tool, people will abuse it. Narking a comment throws the comment into a moderator queue. Stuff out of context can look awful, but sometimes in thread it can be sarcasm. Occasionally we lock people out. Because of the lifetime of service, they've had to adjust severity of various discipline stuff.
Reddit: Put out a wiki to create Reddit etiquette page. Don't link jack. Don't hawk snake oil. It was cool, but at some point each reddit creator got moderation priviliges. Each Reddit has own rules. We let go.
When you run into problem bits of content, what do you do with them? Remove them? Shame them?
BlogHer: We delete the comments, and the offender is emailed. We had Michelle Obama blogging during the election, and we weren't going to let that nastiness happen in there.
Fark: We delete comments, bu tit can be undone.
Reddit: Same here.
Ars Technica: we don't delete or modify unless it's spam. It can be perceived as censorship.
Fark: our system is designed to find the troublemakers early. There are more than 5K people banned from Fark.
Reddit: what about multiple IP addresses.
Fark: we have a system.
Ars: we created a system of law: a list of cardinal and compulsory rules. It's striking to new members. We try and give the impression that we are not capricious. While we do ban lots of users, we will try and rehabilitate them. We have increasing time-outs leading to a perma ban.
Fark: i don't like it when folks try and lawyer you with your own TOS. We end up telling them they're assholes and booting them.
Fark: We are not built like a government. It's a house party, but it's my house. And it's my rules.
What are some of the big mistakes you've seen communities make?
BlogHer: they tell rather than ask. They don't let the community know when change is coming. They don't involve the community in on decisions.
Fark: Admins who troll their own users. You don't want to listen to your community too much. Most online community members are really anal. IF you redesign the site, they are going to freak out. Discount this initial freak out. Our response to freaked out users is "you'll get over it." You have to discount a certain amount of bitchiness.
Reddit: you mentioned the tyranny of the minority. But there is a silent majority - the vast majority of Reddit users is not logged in. You have to reach out to this majority, because they won't tell you how they feel. But you have to trust your gut and make the call.
Ars: we love surveys. We always share the results with our surveys. Also, we started with just three forums. We're now up to 26 forums. We added them as needed. A big mistake I see is to open up lots of different topics. It makes your community look like a ghost town. Spread too thin. Important to start small. Also, when you are managing an online community, you need a thick skin. It gets personal. I've had people attack my family. Don't let your ego get in there, don't get personal. If you get vindictive, it sends a negative message to the audience, and it can be a big time waste.
Audience Questions:
What do you look for in a community manager?
BlogHer: Level headed and calm. Someone who can be neutral. Somehow who can multi task.
How do conferences and offline stuff complement online community?
Coontent at conference is what people want.
Reddit and Ars are part of Conde - have you had experiences with old media influence?
Reddit, nobody tells us what to do. There are lots of conspiracy theories on the site, but it's been all church and state.
Ars: we produce content that is critical of our overlords. It's encouraged. When were independent, everyone remembers that our TOS were happy and peaceful, but the minute Conde Nast bought Ars, everyone immediately saw stuff as changing, even though it didn't.
Advice on how to attract people and keep their engagement?
Fark: I don't worry about competition. Cross polination works great. Can't help you on how to stand out though.
Reddit: Have a niche and passion will show. It will attract people.
Do you allow anonymous posts?
Fark: no, it's horseshit. If you can't say something without your name, go to hell.
Fisher: barrier of registration improves signal to noise ratio.
Plans to go to the next level?
Blogher: new features.
Fark: try not to screw it up.
My question: Thoughts on moderating for quality? Like removing a post just because it sucks?
Fark: we do it.
Reddit: we use the up down arrow tools to let the community bury the bad.
Blogher: there's no harm in letting crap stuff stay up.
