Extra Credits is a web show that takes a “deeper look at games; how they are made, what they mean and how we can make them better,” according to Penny Arcade, where the show is distributed. In their latest episode, shared with me by my friend Jonathan Bailey, number 11 of their seventh season, they tackle community management. I will embed the episode at the bottom of this article.

There are a couple of things I want to discuss, but before I do that, I want to praise the clip. I enjoyed it and I’m glad to see community management’s continued push into the mainstream. Gaming has always been among the industries that have most readily adopted this profession, so it only makes sense that a gaming focused show would dedicate an episode to the subject.

photo credit: *_*

When KarateForums.com hit 500,000 posts, one of the things that we did to celebrate was to conduct a series of interviews with the most influential members in the history of the community. They were taken from various eras. It included members who have been with us for more than 10 years, for 5 years, for 2 years – all different time spans. Some members are still active, some come and go, some left a while ago.

In all, it was 26 different members and these 26 are members who have contributed a lot. They are the ideal members. People who are kind and post great content. They are the members we can never have enough of.

One of the questions that we asked them was: after you found the community, why did you stay? For community managers, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the answers they provided, as it provides an understanding of why people continue to come back and contribute to a community. I am going to include the answers in full, without editing them and identify some of the common themes. Any emphasis is mine.

KarateForums.com hit 500,000 posts yesterday. When I started the community, 12 years, 5 months and 3 days ago, I had no idea how proud of it I would become.

When I sit back and take a breath and think about where it’s been, plenty of memories flash by. Happy moments, challenging moments. But more than anything else, it’s the people who have made a difference. Not all the people, just the great ones. Most people are a blur, but the great ones stand out.

The number is awesome, but the number isn’t the thing. The thing is the culture and then the numbers fill that in. I’ve never been all that bothered with numbers, but I suspect I cared more about them when I started managing communities nearly 14 years ago. The thrill of watching the numbers. Posts per day, unique visitors, active members, new members, bounce rate, whatever it is. As I’ve matured, that has changed. Numbers are still cool and useful, but they aren’t what community is about.

New community managers fall in love with numbers. Veterans fall in love with people.

photo credit: stevendepolo

Last month, California enacted Senate Bill 568 (California Business & Professions Code Section 22581), which is aimed at protecting teenagers online.

According to BBC News, it works by forcing websites to remove content posted by minors who live in the state, when so requested. However, if that content is reposted by others, those posts do not have to be removed. Furthermore, the data does not have to be removed from the website’s servers – only from public view. This law will take effect on January 1, 2015.

It was authored by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and signed into law by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr.

“You choose a thankless job, you can’t be upset when nobody thanks you,” Ron Swanson tells Leslie Knope on the season 6 premiere episode of Parks and Recreation.

Knope is a councilwoman in the fictional city of Pawnee, Indiana. A vocal segment of the city’s population is fickle, bringing petty, unimportant problems to Knope, who then fixes them with the passion of someone who enjoys her job. When Swanson says the quote above, Knope is discussing how she is disappointed with the town. Seemingly, no one appreciates what she says. In fact, there is a group trying to recall her from office.

Pointing out that some people do appreciate her, Swanson mentions April Ludgate, who works for Knope in the Parks department. Ludgate nominated Knope for an award, but Knope says that April does that all the time, anyway, as a joke.

photo credit: maltman23

The End of Kindness: weev and the Cult of the Angry Young Man is a must read by Greg Sandoval over at The Verge. For anyone, really. It is the duty of responsible people to not accept this type of behavior, if they see it, and to discourage anyone they are associated with from engaging in it.

Most community management veterans are probably aware of Kathy Sierra’s story, but it’ll be new for many of you. It’s frightening, but these frightening acts are carried out all the time. Even if it is hard to read about them, it is important to do so.

I believe that well moderated online communities may be the last bastion of hope for people who seek to engage with others online, but to not be subjected to scary, malicious threats. Don’t get me wrong, those threats do come even in those communities, but it is how they are handled that makes the difference. It’s a culture thing. It’s the understanding that it isn’t accepted or encouraged.

photo credit: Jamison_Judd

Back in 2002, I wrote an article for SitePoint about buying a good domain name. In the article, I advocated for buying domain names without hyphens (so KarateForums.com instead of Karate-Forums.com), if at all possible. I said that it would work with search engines and it would also work with people who were spreading your site through word of mouth. It was easier to remember and easier to say.

I didn’t have the track record and deep experience that I have now. In other words, even though I had more experience than most (a few years) and good instincts, I was 17 years old at the time and not as self-confident as I am now.

photo credit: SurfaceWarriors

I was talking to Jennifer Sable Lopez, Director of Community at Moz, yesterday and I was reminded of a trend of articles that I’ve noticed, about community management. Essentially, they could all be titled:

I’m a Marketer, Who Has Never Worked as a Community Manager: Here is What a Community Manager Is and Does

Because that’s what they are. I’ll see an article talking about what a community manager is and what they should do and I’ll read it and will feel like most of it is poor advice or an inaccurate representation of the role. Then I’ll look at who wrote it and I’ll pull up their LinkedIn profile and, sure enough, they’ve almost never worked in community and they are usually a marketer of some kind. In motivation, if not in job title.

photo credit: Tim Dobson

When I think of “social media,” I think of two things, primarily: community and marketing. Yes, it can and does touch other areas. But, for the most part, when it comes to who “owns” it (who takes responsibility for it), it should be community and marketing.

This is why it makes sense that a Director of Community and a Director of Marketing both share authority over social. The two roles can complement each other well. Ideally, I like to see community operate equally (from an organization standpoint) to marketing, not underneath it. It may not seem like much, but it’s all about setting the tone. While community benefits marketing, it does not serve marketing. When it is done best, anyway.

photo credit: dno1967b

Glenn Pegden shared an interesting link with the e-mint community recently. It was a blog post on the Open Rights Group website by Jim Killock, focusing on efforts in the United Kingdom to launch an ISP-based network filter that allows parental controls to be enabled, which block certain types of websites.

They allege that, according to ISP sources, the system may function like this: a customer will be required to denote whether they want a parental filter set to on. Those sources indicate that it will be on by default. Then they are allowed to select specific types of content that they would like to block. All of which would be on by default.