photo credit: onnola

I co-host the Copyright 2.0 Show every Wednesday with Jonathan Bailey and we talk a lot about how you enforce copyright on the web, to ensure that creator or owner rights are respected.

What happens, in many of these cases, is that people are taken offline or removed from a certain situation, but they return to commit the same offenses under a different name.

One of the more recent stories that triggered this type of situation was the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) domain seizures where one of the websites that used a domain name that was seized came back online by changing to a new domain name.

photo credit:
julesjulesjules m

Have you managed an online community for three or more years? Does it have 50,000 or more posts? Do you have guidelines of substance that you fairly and evenly apply to contributions?

If the answer to all of those questions is yes, there is a fair chance that someone has lobbed the word “Draconian” in your direction, in reply to a contribution being edited or removed.

I have to be honest. Until recently, I did not fully understand the definition of this word. I had always thought that it meant that they thought I was being unfair or too strict.

It turns out: I was right. Just not to the extent I had thought.

photo credit: Wyscan

More than 5 years ago, rel=”nofollow” was introduced by Google as a way to limit the impact of blog comment spam on their index (and the indexes of other search engines that agreed to support the initiative). And (seemingly) every meaningful blog platform or software bundle jumped on board, making it a standard feature for their users.

Essentially, if you add rel=”nofollow” within the HTML <a> tag for a given link, you are telling search engines not to give that website credit for the link and for it not to affect that page’s ranking in the given search engine’s index. It can be a little more complicated than that, but that is a basic explanation.

photo credit:
US Embassy New Zealand

In the United States, today is Thanksgiving, a holiday where, among other things, we give thanks for the great people, things and opportunities that we have in our lives. In line with that, I’d like to share a few things that I am thankful for on my communities. This isn’t an all-inclusive list by any means, just a few things that came to mind.

Attention to Detail from My Staff

When you are on my staff, I want you to be detail oriented. I want you to care about getting a situation right and to be willing to put in the time to make sure that all situations are handled appropriately.

From how you remove content, to how you document it, to how you speak to members and participate in public. Details matter and while perfection may be unattainable, that does not mean that you give up the pursuit.

photo credit: mararie

Chances are that your community has guidelines of some sort and you do your best to read all or a selection (depending on the size of your community) of the posts that are made on your site. The guidelines need to be respected and any post that you are aware of, that fails to do so, receives the appropriate attention from you.

But, even so, sometimes you miss things. It’s only natural and the bigger your community gets, generally speaking, the more likely it is to happen. And, if a member sees a post that has a violation, you probably don’t want them to respond to it and bring more attention to it.

photo credit: the_girl

During the “Building an Irresistible Private Member Community” panel at BlogWorld Expo, I mentioned that one of the biggest challenges that I face, when managing an online community, isn’t spam or some form of hit and run vandalism, but when a veteran member, that you expect better from, does something completely inappropriate.

Those are some of the most personally challenging, stressful situations that I encounter. When someone who has contributed a bunch to your community is veering off the path and you have to correct it. It’s never fun, but that’s why you’re the community manager. Not to have fun, but to do the hard things.

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of appearing on David Garland’s awesome web video show for entrepreneurs, The Rise To The Top. We chatted about my background, the power of online community and how to pick a niche and be successful. We also talked about how I built my brand and how I market my sites without a marketing budget.

I thought I would share it here as we definitely talked about some subjects related to this website. You can watch the video below and he also has an audio only version available on his website. A big thank you to David for having me.

photo credit: dichohecho

Banning gets a bad rap. Yes, I just said that.

Most people have never seriously managed a structured online community (e.g. forums) and so, most people don’t understand the importance of banning to a well moderated online community. Any type of control exerted by anyone in authority is often criticized unfairly by the general public, many of whom are not aware of the context or the responsibility of the position that one is placed in.

Some people will criticize banning, talk about how it is ineffective (“they can just come back”), talk about how you should find another way. I always shake my head (privately) when someone says “I manage a community and I’ve never banned anyone!” Really? No disrespect, but are you sure that you’re managing a structured online community? Or is it a free-for-all? Or is it just you on there?

On Twitter, you have what is called a verified account. In Twitter’s words, a verified account is among the solutions that they are beta testing “so users can trust that the accounts they follow are legitimate.”

Furthermore, when Twitter users visit a verified account, they “know that tweets coming from well known personalities, organizations, government agencies, and others on Twitter are the real thing!”

photo credit: Nikolai O.

A couple of days ago, on Twitter and Facebook, I remarked that “if I wasn’t a professional, I’d start “forum users from hell” and share the messages I get from some people.” In response, I received messages from 7 people supporting the idea (as well as two additional people liking the message on Facebook).

When I said it, it wasn’t necessarily a legitimate site idea I was considering, but when people responded as they did, I began to think about it. As I did, I thought I’d share my thought process here, in order to get feedback from you – people managing communities (veterans and new people alike) and those thinking about doing so. After you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.