Many, many communities have an introductions forum, to allow new members to introduce themselves to the community. Generally speaking, they can talk about their personal background - where they’re from, what they’re interests are, what they are doing at the site and so on. I would say that most communities are even fine with them mentioning what they do for a living and linking to that site.

But, where a certain line can be crossed is when an introduction of a person becomes an introduction of a company or organization or a recruiting letter. That’s where it can get a little bit tasteless and can lead to violations of the community’s guidelines. When you are using an introductions forum, you want to always remember that you are introducing you, the person - not whoever you work for or whatever you do for a living. (There may be some exceptions, but if you’re new to a community, it’s always a good idea to check with the staff if you want to do something like that).

Here’s an example of a good, normal introduction I might make on a sports forum:

Hi,

My name is Patrick O’Keefe. I’m 23 and I live in Harbinger, NC. I own the iFroggy Network (http://www.ifroggy.com) and I have a personal blog at http://www.patrickokeefe.com.

I’m a big sports fan. Specifically, I’m a big fan of the New York Yankees and Miami Dolphins since birth. I listen to a lot of music (big Diddy/Bad Boy Entertainment fan). For TV, I watch The Simpsons, Family Guy, Prison Break, 24 and House. Into gaming, as well, when I have time.

Any questions, feel free. :)

Thanks,

Patrick

To be honest, someone doesn’t need to be that detailed to be OK with me. They can still mention their sites, like I did, but introducing yourself, however trivial it may seem, helps.

And now, here’s an example of what not to do:

Hey,

My name is Patrick and I run SportsForums.net (http://www.sportsforums.net). It’s a great sports community and we’re always looking for new people. We’d love to have you over there. So, please check it out! Also, we’re looking for moderators, so if you are interested in that, just PM me over at the site. My username is NoBrain.

Thanks!

Patrick

Would you like to take my first born, as well, while you’re at it?

Whether you are an individual or a corporation, if you are looking to tastefully integrate yourself into a community and derive real value from participation, it has to be about a person, an individual, a personality, a character - not a website, organization or company.

Is this worth sharing?

On my forums, it is our policy that we don’t edit member posts. When a post violates our User Guidelines, it is removed. Even if it is one line out of a long post. Once in a while, we do have a member who will ask, “why didn’t you just edit that post and leave it?” I can understand this question, certainly, and I always answer it, of course. Here are our reasons:

Sloppy Documentation

Editing posts makes for sloppy documentation of violations and actions taken. When you remove the post, you have the entire post as the member made it - forever. This includes the time stamp and the IP attached to it. It counts as irrefutable documentation in that this is the actual post, this is not the staff member quoting the post or saying that someone said this - this is the very post that violated the guidelines.

It’s also great to be able to search through posts that have been violations to search for sites that have spammed before, etc.

Harder Mistake Correction

Sometimes, posts do get removed that shouldn’t and those mistakes have to be corrected and I or we have to apologize for them. If you remove the post, it’s very easy to correct the mistake. But, if you edited the post, you have to hope that what was removed was documented very well - otherwise, it’s not going to be easy. Assuming your software doesn’t have some sort of “revert edit” feature that maintains forever.

This would also relate to a situation where you have one member violate your guidelines, supposedly, and then five replies that include that violation by quoting it. You have to edit all of them.

Staff Members Aren’t Proofreaders

If you can violate our guidelines and a staff member will fix it for you, would you care less about violating the guidelines? You may or may not, but at the end of the day, I don’t want my staffers to be looked at like proofreaders, who members expect to read their posts and make adjustments so that they are OK.

Recognizing the Value of Posts

At the same time, and in conclusion, while I see that removing posts is definitely the way to go - I recognize that it is frustrating to spend a lot of time on a post and have it removed for what might seem like a small reason. Because of this, it is included in our guidelines that we are glad to send any member a copy of a post that they made that has been removed, as long as it wasn’t so bad that we wouldn’t just rather them start over. That way, they can retrieve their work and adjust it and repost, rather than creating it from scratch again.

Is this worth sharing?

I just wanted to mention that the “Managing Online Forums” Example Forums have launched. What are they? Well, I had the idea to put up some forums that displayed just a few of the concepts that I discuss in the book, like a staff forums set up, various guidelines, a system of documentation for violations and more. Sometimes, it’s easier to consider something if you can see it in front of you. So, I hope that some find it useful. :)

Is this worth sharing?

This is something I’ve noticed before, but it just happened on one of my sites in the last day or so, so I thought I write a post about it. Basically, we had a member sign up and mention a major television manufacturer in a post, in relation to college sports and what he was going to watch it on. Now, the topics seemed decent enough as the brand was just a small mention in the overall topic, which was related to college sports.

The first time I see it, it seems OK. I mean, afterall, he mentions his TV (and the company who made it) once… that’s fine. But, then he does it again. The second time I see it, where he mentions the same brand (something like the second time in six posts), I make a note of it in the staff forums and decide just to keep an eye on it because it looks like he’s trying to throw this brand into posts. Then he did it again, right after that, with a link to the television manufacturer’s website, this time! Nice try. Enough is enough.

If the company wasn’t paying him (not necessarily to “spam forums” but to “market their product online” and “bring brand awareness”), he was doing it on his own account. Which I really don’t see being the case. I mean, yes, people do that, but the way he was mentioning them and interjecting them into otherwise OK topics, in a sort of covert way - it just doesn’t seem to me to be the type of thing that someone does on their own, to make the company look bad or to promote their products, like a devious spammer, on their own time.

I’m not really surprised by this practice - it’s just that I expect it from smaller companies or individuals who don’t realize what they are doing or don’t care. This company has nationwide television campaigns talking about their widescreens and all that goodness. But, nonetheless, some guy comes and spams my forums in a decidedly clever way, trying to trick us into thinking it’s not spam.

Is this worth sharing?