By now you’re hopefully acquainted with all of your neighbours, have a selection of jaunty cloth masks, and have been eating banana bread to your heart’s content. You might even be helping other people to do those things. If so, hopefully the last column helped.
Previously, we looked at starting up and leading community groups. There were guidelines for getting your head into the right space and getting the group up and running as painlessly as possible.
This time around we’ll dig more into handling things once the group is ticking along, hopefully growing, and probably evolving. Let’s start with the fun stuff: rules!
Last time I talked about the need for rules before the group gets going. However, group content needs rules just like people do. Until the group gets going, though, you likely won’t have enough content or communication trends to get a really granular idea of what rules the group needs relative to what gets posted.
What kind of content/conversation is allowed/encouraged? How do you handle “off-topic” tangents? How are different topics delineated? How can people search content? How are you providing resources for frequently asked questions?
Expect that many people, especially new members, won’t make much effort to find information themselves. Even if they’re required to read rules, guidelines, and how-tos before they join. Even if you explicitly tell them to search for a question before posting (with where and how to search). It’s a cardinal rule of the internet.
Preventing communication channels from becoming endlessly clogged with the same inquiries will help keep conversation fresh and flowing, retain membership and train better community members.
To do that work, you’ll need moderators. Ideally, you’ll have moderators ready to go before you desperately need them. Assuming you ever want to be able to eat, sleep, or otherwise have a life again.
You could make an open call for volunteers. Which can work, but is about as efficient as posting a job ad online. Good chance you’ll get A LOT of responses, and most of them won’t be remotely qualified, experienced or actually want to do the necessary work.
Choose poorly and you’ll have wasted training and ramp-up time, will still need good moderators, and you’ll have the stress of having to fire the ones that aren’t working out. No one needs that.
Perhaps starting with people you know is a better idea. But just because you like someone and think they’re nice or smart or whatever still doesn’t mean they have the necessary skills, organization, or temperament. And if you thought firing some stranger was stressful, try firing a friend.
Managing communities requires particular skills and personality types. You want people who can communicate clearly to a wide audience. Who won’t take any crap, but who group members will still appreciate and respect.
If moderators are liked, that’s cool, but a moderator whose main motivation is to be liked is going to be an abject failure. They’ll end up terrible at their job and hated by plenty of the community.
Additionally, those seeking popularity, social status and/or insider information are also unlikely to be great at moderation. It really is about what you can do for the community, not how cool you want others to think you are.
Good moderators are going to have to be okay with missing out on interesting conversations (which they may have relevant input on) because there’s other work to be done. They need to keep cool and have a thick skin while dealing with misbehaving miscreants who hurl invective and try to derail discourse.
Ideally you want people who already have some experience, since over time they can help train up new people who lack experience. Different types of experience result in different skills, too. Corporate vs. recreational. Social platforms vs. forums. Topical vs. generally community-oriented.
You might have your eye on some community members who are active and engaged and good resources in discussions. Seems like a good start, and they may have potential as admins. But they may just be interesting, knowledgeable and outgoing people.
They may shine as group members, but not be suited to the somewhat disengaged and power-shifted role of moderation. They may just not want the job. Let’s face it, moderation can be a thankless, draining, unpaid time suck. Building the community was your dream, not theirs.
Administrators also need to know the community in a comprehensive and catalogued way. Not personally, but moderators will need a centralized and easily accessible and updateable resource to keep track of group activities.
For new admins, who is the existing moderation team? When are they usually available? Who are newer members who might need someone to keep an eye on them or lend a hand?
Being able to track who’s being punished, repeat troublemakers, interpersonal squabbles, or those who try to post spam, scams, or misinformation can help prevent or excise that behaviour. A moderator forum, database, even a collaborative spreadsheet can help record this kind of information.
Stepping back, though, after a while have a look at yourself and the community. Over time it will change. Don’t get too attached to the idea of the group, particularly the original idea that catalyzed you to take on this project. Because that group probably doesn’t exist anymore.
As any group grows, ages and changes, it evolves or devolves. There are inflection points in the membership, management and culture. Same as in any company.
At 500 or 10,000 members, or 10 years after it was started, the group will be a different beast from what it was. It may no longer be your beast. You may no longer be the best person to manage it. You may no longer want to manage it. That’s fine.
At the very least you need to take the pulse at regular intervals. What’s working and what isn’t? (And who?) Is the platform designed for a group of that size and the ways the membership uses it? Do the rules still maintain order? Are the moderators still effective? Are the group’s direction and culture healthy? Do you still enjoy engaging with and being part of the group?
Because as soon as there’s actually a group to consider, it’s not really about you anymore. The bigger the group gets and the more time that passes, the more true that becomes. If what the community wants is no longer what you want, either you need to implement an iron-willed dictatorship – which is not a community – or hand it over to others.
If you’re very lucky, change can be managed with a minimum of chaos, splinter factions, politicking and/or competition.
Of course, depending on why the group formed, its raison d’etre may just cease to exist. Once this pandemic passes, there will be a lot of topical Facebook groups and whatnot collecting dust. Which is also fine. Like human relationships, not all groups or communities are meant to be life-long.
In the meantime, though, stay safe. Stay home. Wash your hands.
M-Theory is an opinion column by Melanie Baker. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Communitech. Melle can be reached on Twitter @melle or by email at me@melle.ca.
