Albert Pennyworth: With respect, Master Wayne, perhaps [the Joker] is a man you don’t fully understand, either.

A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never met anyone who traded with him.

One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.

Bruce Wayne: So why steal them?

photo credit: gr8dnes

A funny thing happened the other day. On one of my communities, member1 requested some help with an image, which member2 started to do (for free), but didn’t finish. Member1 made a post complaining about how the way member2 went about it was sneaky, used some profanity and was generally disrespectful.

I removed it and sent him a message explaining why I removed the post and why his comments toward member2 were inappropriate (basically a brief explanation of how free requests don’t make you entitled to anyone’s time and how you have to be patient).

photo credit: oatsy40

Last week, Conscious Life News posted an article titled, “I Was a Paid Internet Shill: How Shadowy Groups Manipulate Internet Opinion and Debate.” Joe Anzalone pointed me to someone who had copied and pasted the text of the post, which I Googled and found on a forum, with a post date in the spring of 2012. Here is a cache, since the post has now been removed.

If you don’t want to read it, I’ll summarize: the poster claims that he was hired by a company who specialized in “influencing people’s opinions” by participating in forums, chat rooms, social networks, etc. and further a particular viewpoint. The viewpoint he says he was hired to further was “to support Israel and counter anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic posters.” More or less, he was paid to manipulate opinion online.

“Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we’ll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A dark knight.”

This statement concludes “The Dark Knight,” the 2008 Batman movie directed by Christopher Nolan. It is uttered by Commissioner James Gordon, portrayed by actor Gary Oldman. I watched the film last night and, as I often do with things that I see and hear, pondered how it might apply to community managers.

When Gordon makes that statement, he’s speaking to his son, who Batman had just saved from Two-Face, the evil alter ego of Harvey Dent, the former district attorney who the public views as Gotham’s “white knight.” After the younger Gordon is saved, Batman and Gordon briefly discuss the fall of Dent and how it means that the Joker – the film’s primary villain – has won because he corrupted and made evil the seemingly incorruptible Dent.

For more than 6 years, I have wanted to start a web video show focused on reviewing soda. I love soda and I am passionate about it. This summer, I finally acted on those aspirations when I launched Soda Tasting.

There are new episodes released 5 days a week and views to my videos are rising, slowly but surely. More importantly, I am having a blast doing it. So much fun. I’m interested to see where it can go. I have already released 60 episodes.

I believe that my community management experience aides me greatly in growing the show. In turn, certain things that have happened have made me think of strategies that relate to community management.

photo credit: eliduke

Here’s a good test as to whether the guidelines on your community have any meaning: do they apply to people your community doesn’t like, just like they apply to your members?

Many communities have guidelines that speak to respect. No personal attacks, no name calling, no disrespectful comments, etc. But, I find that sometimes, this guideline is actually limited only to people who are a member of the community.

For example, I can’t call a member of your community stupid. But, I can call a celebrity or politician stupid. Or there is someone that most of your community really doesn’t like. Maybe they are a racist or intolerant in some way. And it is OK for your community to bash them to no end, to say whatever they want about that person or group.

photo credit: j / f / photos

We just had the presidential elections here in the United States. On my communities, we don’t allow generally political or religious discussions, so there really hasn’t been any talk about it.

Those who follow me online – on my forums, the websites I write for, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and elsewhere – will know that I almost never talk about politics or religion. That wasn’t what I always did. But, it was a conscious choice I made, several years ago.

I was thinking about that choice recently and am glad that I made it. I came to the realization that my job isn’t to divide people, but to unite them around specific topics and interests, like online community, martial arts, Photoshop, soda and more. To help them have fun, connect with passionate people and become better at what they do.

Strong communication skills are essential for a great community manager. And a subset of that skill is explanation. Your proficiency in explanation helps to determine how successful you are as a community manager and how effectively you spend your time.

If you can’t explain why you removed a post, you may confuse or anger a member or have to spend more time talking about the issue. If you can’t explain the new features that you are launching, adoption of those features will suffer. If you can’t explain the responsibilities of your staff members, they will not grasp their roles quickly and you will have to spend more time training them.

My friend Lee LeFever of Common Craft just released a new book, “The Art of Explanation: Making Your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand.” In it, he defines an explanation as:

The more that I read Adrian Chen’s story about Violentacrez, who the writer labeled  “the biggest troll on the web,” the more angry I became.

Not anger in the sense of uncontrolled emotion, but anger as someone who has managed online communities for a long time and helped, in whatever small way, to establish this field as a profession. Most of that anger was not directed at the troll, but at Reddit. If you prefer, you can substitute disappointment for anger – they both work.

Let me be clear. Michael Brutsch, the troll in question, disgusts me. I don’t have any compassion for him. I would have fired him myself if he worked for me. His actions are deplorable, his explanations are ridiculous. He is responsible for his actions.

This story is not an attack on anonymity because he wasn’t anonymous. The moment he told other Reddit members who he was, that anonymity vanished. He trusted people who turned on him and gave him up. Chen just put the pieces together – the pieces that Brutsch shared with others.

photo credit: jennypdx

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos paid a visit to the 37signals offices last week. Co-founder Jason Fried shared a nugget of insight from the conversations.

Bezos said that the people who are “right a lot” are those who are willing to re-evaluate and re-think their positions. He doesn’t see “consistency of thought” (Fried’s words) as a good trait. Instead, he values people who can continue to look at problems, even those considered to be solved, and see if they can be solved in a better, more efficient way. Those are the people who make a lot of the right calls, according to Bezos.

Meanwhile, what can cause people to be wrong a lot is when they are obsessed with details tied to only one perspective and on continuing and supporting that perspective.