photo credit: MoreLife81

For those of us operating in the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides us with safe harbor from liability due to copyright infringing activities of our members on the communities that we manage. This is a great thing and to earn that privilege, you must adhere to certain standards.

One of the big ones is that when a purported copyright holder files a properly formatted DMCA notice with you, you must remove the material cited. Unfortunately, what some community managers do is hide behind this and claim ignorance until the moment that they are notified by the copyright holder. Even if they know no one should be distributing “Batman” or “Ghostbusters” or an obviously copyrighted work in their community.

photo credit: Tim Green aka atoach

Have you ever had a professional of some kind, who you were trying to set up an appointment with, just call you and tell you they are 15 minutes away, despite the fact that you never actually nailed down that appointment? Home appraisers, contractors, cable installers, real estate agents, plumbers, whatever. When they do it, isn’t that just the best?

No? It’s not the best? It’s highly inconvenient, annoying and off-putting?

I agree. And that’s why you need to be careful not to do in to your online community.

photo credit: vonderauvisuals

I recently asked you for challenges that you are facing on your community that I could help with. TommyT came up with a good one.

His community is growing and there is an influx of “new regulars.” For the first time since the community launched, these newer members are larger in number than the members who helped get it off the ground. They knew Tommy prior to launching this community and have a strong rapport with him. Unfortunately, there is a growing culture clash between these two groups.

The older members engage in more lighthearted, tongue in cheek banter, including taking good natured jabs at one another. However, the newer members don’t seem to appreciate the humor of the more established members and sometimes will take offense at something that was said. They appreciate the strict policies that Tommy has put in place and want him to be stricter on jokes that they feel are disrespectful or inappropriate.

photo credit: Caden Crawford

My friend Jared W. Smith recently sent me a link to and asked for my thoughts on an article on TechCrunch by Sarah Perez, “The Best Platform for Online Discussion Doesn’t Exist Yet.”

Ms. Perez laments the current state of online comments and discussion, saying that TechCrunch has been missing the “sense of community that blog comments once provided.” Hence their switch to Livefyre. “But there’s no system alive that can bring that [sense of community] back, because that era of the web is over. And it has been for a long, long time.”

Tired of short comments and noise, she wishes that more people would take the time to read an article and comment in long form. The proposed solution is some sort of system that tells you whose opinion’s carry more weight. Ms. Perez criticizes commenting systems for “competing on features” like crowdsourced anti-spam techniques because they don’t “really improve the nature of online discussion.”

photo credit: El Bibliomata

Recently, on an innocent thread on a community that I manage, two members got into it and exchanged comments that violated our User Guidelines as inflammatory.

Both made one post that violated our guidelines. Both posts were removed. Both members were contacted to make them aware of the violation, in an effort to limit the probability of it happening again.

That’s all pretty normal.

However, what was interesting is that each member reacted in a similar way. They didn’t like it. Which isn’t a big deal, but they turned that dislike into condescending remarks directed at a member of my staff.

photo credit: Johnny Jet

I don’t allow anyone to treat my staff members in a disrespectful manner. I will accept slightly more abuse when it is directed at me, then I will when it is directed at my staff. This is part of building a tight knit, loyal team.

But I think it is worthwhile to separate what it means to treat people with respect, as opposed to liking someone, agreeing with them or actually respecting them.

Those three things, you have no control over and it is important to remember that. People decide whether to like, agree or respect someone on their own. You can influence that, but it is not your choice. What you can ensure is that members treat your staff in a respectful way, especially when they are on your community.

photo credit: Dave Hosford

The law of the land varies by the land. What might work in one country won’t work in another. Some countries are more strict, some less so. It is useful to know the laws that govern community management in your country.

That doesn’t mean you will necessarily know the law backwards and forwards (that’s why we have lawyers, because it can be so complex), but a basic understanding of the protections you are provided under the law can go a long way to ensuring confidence in the decisions that you make for your community. In this post, I’d like to highlight two particular acts that community managers based in the United States should know about.

Recently, on e-mint, Caspar Aremi shared an interesting BBC News story about whether or not people should be off on Fridays.

What was interesting about it is that the first person quoted in the story is Steven Shattuck, who is a community manager for Slingshot SEO, a company in the U.S. where employees work from 8 AM to 6 PM, Monday through Thursday.

9 AM to 5 PM is considered by many to be a typical work day (I don’t know about a typical work day in the field of community management, but generally speaking). In other words, 8 hours. But they extend the work day by 2 hours and eliminate one day of the week. However, 2 extra hours for 4 days of the week equals 8 hours. They are working the same number of hours, technically speaking, as someone who works a 9 to 5 for 5 days a week (they save some time in that they don’t have to get ready for work on Friday or commute).

photo credit: briannaguest

As of yesterday, ManagingCommunities.com is 5 years old.

Over the last 5 years, the profession of online community management has grown in popularity in a very meaningful way. It certainly wasn’t as trendy 5 years ago when I started this blog, 10 years ago, when I started writing “Managing Online Forums,”  or 13 years ago when I started managing my own communities.

It’s been fun to watch and I’m grateful that my writing has been well received and that I have had the opportunity to help as many people as I have.

photo credit: Jan Seifert

Last January, Amazon.com-owned shoe retailer Zappos.com announced that they had been the “victim of a cyber attack by a criminal” who had potentially gained access to the contact information of their 24 million plus customers, in addition to the last four digits of their credit card number and their “cryptographically scrambled” password. The database with credit card data and payment information was not breached.

As one might expect, lawsuits followed. Zappos attempted to force these lawsuits to arbitration, citing a clause in their user agreement. But they ran into a big problem. A federal court ruled that their user agreement – in effect, their contract with users – was invalid. Not just a portion of it, but the whole thing.