This is a liveblogging of the "lessons in community management" panel at sxsw.
Panelists:
Heather Champ, Flickr
Mario Anima, Current TV
Matthew Stinchcomb, Etsy
Jessamyn West, MetaFilter
Micah Schaffer, MetaFilter
Changes in community mgmt styles as you grew from small to big communities?
Jessamyn: Metafilter used to be all friends of founder. Nobody messed with the founder. Then the site started to grow. One person couldn't read anything.
Brought on additional moderator this year.
Then introduced user flagging (last couple of years), community policing. Fixing broken html. Broken guidelines. Now have an extra flagging option for "offensive." As community gets bigger, common norms become more challenging.
Micah: harder to perceive trends as we grew. Initially external events would have an effect on kinds of comments seen on site. Once you reach scale, it's tougher to see the signals / trends. You have to slice traffic and be proactive to reach the community. Sample different segments. It's no longer one monolithic user base. Different groups with different needs.
Matthew, Etsy: challenge, how to grow stay big but stay small. How can founders still be personally involved with users. People get less forgiving as site gets bigger. Also challenge of keeping the company transparent as new employees come on. Remember the communities drive everything.
Mario, Current.TV: Originally it was strictly video uploads. As we grew, there were more links in comments, site feedback - people started participating in different ways. Big shift was to allow different kinds of content submission, stories AND videos. Current.TV news.
Common misconception: online communities are like the government. How do you handle accusations of censorship? All admins get called crazy names.
Micah: YouTube is a platform for speech. Our role is to accomodate as much diverse opinion as is safe. Limitations: as a UGC site there are three restraintst: 1) legal. Constraints by things that are illegal. Example, eBay selling Nazi stuff, which is against the law in Germanny and France. 2) User Experience; you may enjoy bikinis. But it might be a negative user experience to find it when you don't want to. Some content is hostile to diversity. Internet is good for sex. But if you want to preserve diverse and interesting content, you need to find ways to allow counterdiscovery. 3) Brand, advertiser restraint. You need to pay the bills.
Mario: site cofounded by Al Gore. People are very sensitive to censorship. If you post stuff that hurts other people's ability to enjoy site. I have been called both a nazi and a communist on the same day. I try to coach on what an acceptable post would have been.
How do you stay sane and non-confrontational?
Matthew, Etsy: I believe everyone who uses Etsy believes in service. There are other sites that are sort of hateful. I meet up with local users. When you meet them face to face, you realize they are sane and normal, and you are appreciated. Don't let the haters get you down.
Mario: important to go back to happy place, positive feedback. We host chats for our users to discuss moderation.
Jessamyn, MetaFilter: Important to remember that there's a whole world out there, and nothing that happens on a site should get to you.
Heather: I had to step between George (girl who was at Flickr) and a member at a Christmas party once.
Micah: Don't assume everyone is a crackpot. This can be hard when the crackpots are loud. Look for signals with users, and be transparent. If you are transparent, it reduces the questions about what happened to the content. When I get down, I think about all the good things on the site. LIke all the Presidential candidates were responding to comments on the election videos. But it's hard when people are mean.
Heather: hardest thing to learn is when not to respond. People who are acting crazy, it's better to just sit back and let them prove themselves as crazy.
What one piece of advice would you give to someone who is thinking about starting a video, or is moderating an existing one?
Mario: helps if you are an insomniac. Understanding that there is more to this role than just removing content. Every piece of email gets a response. Multiple ways of feedback: twitter, hotline, multiple channels. How do you find people to replace you as an admin? It's a unique role, and each site has it's own philosophy.
Mathew: Focus on internal communications. Make sure each team knows what's going on. When you communicate with users, try and listen. Be honest, even if it's not what the user wants to hear.
Micah: Have an idea of what community you want build is. You need to be willing to adapt, in ways you wouldn't anticipate.
Matthew: People will use your sites in ways you don't expect.
Micah: no way to anticipate what users will do.
Jessamyn: We have goals for the company, and there are some things
that aren't happening now because of 1) we don't think it's good for
the community, but let's talk about it; 2) things people want, but
we're not going to do. We are straight up with users - that's not
going to happen. Our basic rule is "don't be a jerk."
