photo credit: quinn.anya

On one of the communities that I run that offers free technical support, we had a member join and post a question in need of some assistance. In the post, they included some short hand for a vulgarity, so I removed the post, as per our normal procedure. They also had a signature violation of sorts. So, I dropped the member a note explaining both.

I noted that their post was also in bright red. This is not a violation and it’s fine if a member wants to use that color. But, it made the post harder to read. So, in the message, I thought I’d include a helpful suggestion that would allow the member to be more likely to receive help from others. I said:

photo credit: gotosira

For part two in my series on building community around your blog, I want to talk about community decentralized – or community that is built on websites that you do not own or control. In the first part, we discussed community that you have by default upon launching your blog.

This relates directly to what Chris Brogan wrote about outposts. In short, Chris spoke about building community through his “outposts” that he maintains at sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more. Sites that he doesn’t control. The idea is to offer value at thess sites, but the end game is to bring people back to the home base. In this case, his blog. This is a great way to look at it.

photo credit: Liz Grace

Pretty much every active, moderately read blog is a community. Most large blogs are large communities. In fact, forget the word blog, look at online publications in general. If they have traction, they have community. Even if they don’t have strong community features, a community manager or any of those things.

Don’t get too hung up on verbiage. Community isn’t a choice. The choice is how you engage and that is the focus of a three part series that I am beginning with this post, focused on building community around your blog and based on my recent talk at WordCamp Raleigh. Online community is dynamic. Your readers, subscribers and supporters are your community. That’s the same for any publication.

photo credit: eleanor.black

Recently, fastcars started a thread on CommunityAdmins.com asking why you should have rules (I call them guidelines) on your community at all, as fastcars feels that they are “meant to be broken.” fastcars felt that it wasn’t worth the time to have them and that guidelines intimidate members, making them feel scrutinized and giving them the impression that you have an “I’m the owner and you do as I say” attitude. Communities can “fail,” fastcars says, because the owners are too heavy handed.

Instead, fastcars suggests, you could let members decide what is and isn’t allowed and could provide a general short and simple rule. fastcars’ example is “All posts must remain within the realms of human decency.”

photo credit: Philippe Put

The other day, I received this really nasty e-mail in my inbox. In it, the sender said all sorts of mean, nasty things about me and about people who manage online communities in general. “I have to say right off the bat that I don’t like you,” the e-mail began.

This person is, as far as I know, a total stranger. I don’t have any record or recollection of talking with someone with the e-mail address used, nor does the username part of the e-mail address ring any bells. The person signed only a first name to end the e-mail. By “her” own admission, she has only “followed [me] somewhat and read excerpts from [my] book and reviews on Amazon.com.”

photo credit: lovelihood

Recently, I had a conversation with a member who has, more than once or twice, made sarcastic replies to obvious spammers. He is a veteran member, so I expected more. After pointing this out to him a couple of times, and seeing it happen again, I decided that a more serious chat was necessary and that’s what inspired this post.

If at all possible, legitimate members shouldn’t reply to spam. Instead, they should ignore it or report it to a member of staff. Replying to spam has two negative effects.

photo credit: kin0be

About a week ago, I found out that ScubaBoard, a highly popular and well established scuba diving community, had been sued for libel in Federal court. ScubaBoard is run by Pete Murray, an acquaintance of mine that I have known for at least a few years. Pete has been supportive of me and my endeavors, including his offering of advance praise for my book. So, for me, this is unfortunate news and I am supportive of Pete.

In order to properly cover this story here at ManagingCommunities.com, I decided to turn to my friend Jonathan Bailey for a guest post and a legally minded take on the issue. Jonathan runs CopyByte, a copyright consulting firm and authors Plagiarism Today, an incredibly useful site dealing with content theft, plagiarism and related subjects.

photo credit: asubtleglance

This is part 3, the final part, in my Alex inspired series on temporary bans, lifting them early and related topics. I’m going to close it out by talking about how to respond to members who want to be unbanned.

Keeping in mind that I only issue permanent bans, the messages that I get from banned members, I’d throw into two categories: those I will respond to – and those I won’t. Once I ban someone, they are no longer an active member of my community. On the contrary, they have forced us to designate them as someone who has done harm to the community. For that reason, I am no longer as available to them as I might be to a regular member.

photo credit: me and the sysop

When I called out to you for topics to write about, Alex asked me to touch on “the liberation of banned users before the appointed time.” If they have an appointed time, it has to be a temporary ban. I’m not a huge fan of those, but I already got that out of my system.

First and foremost, thank you for asking, Alex. I would suggest that you are using temporary bans for a reason: you want to be able to ban people for a fixed period without banning them forever. So, the ban was given for a reason, but will expire. In order to ensure that the temporary bans have meaning, you probably want to allow most of them to last for the expected period.

photo credit: Dawn Endico

I’m just not a temporary ban kind of guy. I was reminded of this while pondering the question asked by Alex (which I will be answering soon!). I’ve never utilized them, never wanted to and likely never will, unless I start running a community for someone else or something like that.

I understand the reasoning. It’s a “cooling off period” is one of the bigger ones. I’m sure they’re effective for those that use them and like them. There’s nothing wrong with them. This isn’t a right or wrong issue; just a preference.