photo credit: Nikolai O.

A couple of days ago, on Twitter and Facebook, I remarked that “if I wasn’t a professional, I’d start “forum users from hell” and share the messages I get from some people.” In response, I received messages from 7 people supporting the idea (as well as two additional people liking the message on Facebook).

When I said it, it wasn’t necessarily a legitimate site idea I was considering, but when people responded as they did, I began to think about it. As I did, I thought I’d share my thought process here, in order to get feedback from you – people managing communities (veterans and new people alike) and those thinking about doing so. After you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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photo credit: StewBl@ck

I work very hard to not make a mistake when it comes to managing my communities. Attention to detail is extremely important to me and I lead by example. Because of that effort, and that care, I limit mistakes a great deal. But, I do make them.

Today, I want to share a noteworthy mistake that I made on one of my communities and what I did to rectify it.

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photo credit: corinnamakris

This is the third and final part in my series on building community around your blog. In part one, we discussed the community you have by default and, in part two, we touched on community building outside of your own site. Finally, we’re going to bring it home and discuss the growth of community on your own website, your own domain and your own hosting.

As powerful as it can be to grow community outside of your site, growing community on your own site, in an area where you have full control, can help you to unlock the power of community.

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photo credit: alamez

I was talking to someone responsible for a Ning site tied to a major label rapper and this Ning site is basically just stealing articles from other sites. He did it to one of my articles, so I filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice and had Ning pull it down.

The subsequent conversation was weird and disappointing. It was clear that the person didn’t have even a cursory grasp of online content creation or copyright. In defense of his actions, he pointed out other sites that did the same thing. The sites that he pointed out, however, didn’t exactly do what he said. They did it sometimes, but sometimes they didn’t, not 100% of the time like him. And they included source links.

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photo credit:
Stéphane Moussie

As I write this post, I’m listening to “The Ghost of Christopher Wallace” by Jay Electronica featuring Diddy. It was made available as a free download recently and I really like it.

The song features two verses from Electronica and lots of ad-libs from Diddy, which I love. The second half of the song is all ad-libs. But, in between the first and second Electronica verses, Diddy raps, “your reign on the top was short like leprechauns, as I crush so-called willies, thugs and rapper-dons.” This line comes from “Kick in the Door” by The Notorious B.I.G.

Though it’s not what Biggie meant, what I’m thinking about right now is how destructive it can be, for anyone managing a community, to get wrapped up in their reign on the top.

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photo credit: Philippe Put

The other day, I received this really nasty e-mail in my inbox. In it, the sender said all sorts of mean, nasty things about me and about people who manage online communities in general. “I have to say right off the bat that I don’t like you,” the e-mail began.

This person is, as far as I know, a total stranger. I don’t have any record or recollection of talking with someone with the e-mail address used, nor does the username part of the e-mail address ring any bells. The person signed only a first name to end the e-mail. By “her” own admission, she has only “followed [me] somewhat and read excerpts from [my] book and reviews on Amazon.com.”

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photo credit: kin0be

About a week ago, I found out that ScubaBoard, a highly popular and well established scuba diving community, had been sued for libel in Federal court. ScubaBoard is run by Pete Murray, an acquaintance of mine that I have known for at least a few years. Pete has been supportive of me and my endeavors, including his offering of advance praise for my book. So, for me, this is unfortunate news and I am supportive of Pete.

In order to properly cover this story here at ManagingCommunities.com, I decided to turn to my friend Jonathan Bailey for a guest post and a legally minded take on the issue. Jonathan runs CopyByte, a copyright consulting firm and authors Plagiarism Today, an incredibly useful site dealing with content theft, plagiarism and related subjects.

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photo credit: asubtleglance

This is part 3, the final part, in my Alex inspired series on temporary bans, lifting them early and related topics. I’m going to close it out by talking about how to respond to members who want to be unbanned.

Keeping in mind that I only issue permanent bans, the messages that I get from banned members, I’d throw into two categories: those I will respond to – and those I won’t. Once I ban someone, they are no longer an active member of my community. On the contrary, they have forced us to designate them as someone who has done harm to the community. For that reason, I am no longer as available to them as I might be to a regular member.

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photo credit: me and the sysop

When I called out to you for topics to write about, Alex asked me to touch on “the liberation of banned users before the appointed time.” If they have an appointed time, it has to be a temporary ban. I’m not a huge fan of those, but I already got that out of my system.

First and foremost, thank you for asking, Alex. I would suggest that you are using temporary bans for a reason: you want to be able to ban people for a fixed period without banning them forever. So, the ban was given for a reason, but will expire. In order to ensure that the temporary bans have meaning, you probably want to allow most of them to last for the expected period.

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photo credit: Dawn Endico

I’m just not a temporary ban kind of guy. I was reminded of this while pondering the question asked by Alex (which I will be answering soon!). I’ve never utilized them, never wanted to and likely never will, unless I start running a community for someone else or something like that.

I understand the reasoning. It’s a “cooling off period” is one of the bigger ones. I’m sure they’re effective for those that use them and like them. There’s nothing wrong with them. This isn’t a right or wrong issue; just a preference.

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