Comments on: Support Community Moderators: Don’t Tell People to Search

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:24:40 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Martin. Great thoughts.

Patrick

By: Martin Reed

Martin Reed — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:06:09 +0000

I completely agree. I would add that if you are finding common questions often cropping up, you should consider being a little more proactive.

Let’s say people are always asking how they edit their profile. How about making a guide to this and placing a prominent link within the community? Let’s say people are always asking, ‘What camera is better, model X or model Y?’ – then you can create a discussion or answer this question and place it prominently within the community.

You are saving time, and satisfying a need all at the same time.

- Martin

By: Support Community Moderators: Don’t Tell People to Search …

Support Community Moderators: Don’t Tell People to Search … — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:06:20 +0000

[...] Url : http://www.managingcommunities.....to-searc... [...]

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:10:10 +0000

Thanks for sharing your method, Becki. That’s an interesting approach.

Patrick

By: Becki

Becki — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:35:09 +0000

I run a few support forums for gaming communities, and this is a subject that I have to address often to my moderators. Particularly the newer ones.

When a question is asked in a gaming community, it’s more than likely been asked 200 times already that week, or even that day. So, many people–even users– seem to be frustrated about it.

I simply instruct the moderators to not only link the post, but give a little map of instructions on how to find it again.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:45:24 +0000

Thanks for that, Jeremy. Great points. I think part of great support is emphasizing with those that you are helping.

Patrick

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:30:37 +0000

I completely agree! Of course, since the original comment was mine, I guess that makes sense. :)

I think that moderators sometimes forget that they understand their forum better than other people. What might be an obvious search for them, might have been really complicated for someone else. Not everyone understands forums, searches, posting, etc.

Taking time to help these people can create lasting members for your community!

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:57:04 +0000

Thank you very much for the comments, Ted and Tanner. Great thoughts.

By: Tanner Smith

Tanner Smith — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:51:28 +0000

I have seen this in a lot of forums and have always disliked it when members and moderators do it. I’ve always liked the fact to tell the answer not just point me to the answer way of life. Definitely a requirement for community forums with questions.

By: Ted S

Ted S — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:42:56 +0000

As usual good advice.

I think there’s a disconnect on many communities between what the staff/ active members want people to do and what the site actually facilities. Telling people to search for a topic in a mass of thousands of threads is unlikely to yield much result (either for the searcher or the person suggesting it). On the other hand finding truly useful ways to display existing content can help stop the question from coming back up in the same form.

For example, having not just stickies full of answers but links to common issues in a forum by forum setup using a wiki or q&a system helps push traffic politely.

By the same token finding ways to distinguish and promote the best posts in a thread gives members something to identify when they do search. If all posts are left the same questions get re answered not just because an answer can’t be found but because the newer member doesn’t know which answer to trust.