Do Your Community’s User Guidelines Only Protect People You Like?
Here’s a good test as to whether the guidelines on your community have any meaning: do they apply to people your community doesn’t like, just like they apply to your members?
Many communities have guidelines that speak to respect. No personal attacks, no name calling, no disrespectful comments, etc. But, I find that sometimes, this guideline is actually limited only to people who are a member of the community.
For example, I can’t call a member of your community stupid. But, I can call a celebrity or politician stupid. Or there is someone that most of your community really doesn’t like. Maybe they are a racist or intolerant in some way. And it is OK for your community to bash them to no end, to say whatever they want about that person or group.
What about guidelines dealing with personal or private information like home addresses, cell phone numbers, itineraries, etc.? I don’t allow those to be posted on my communities, as a general rule. Do only certain groups deserve that protection?
Do your guidelines, especially those that deal with the quality of discourse of how your members treat people on your community, really have meaning if they only apply to friends and those who have joined your site? I’m not saying they do or don’t. But, on my communities, I try hard to ensure that no disrespectful comments means no disrespectful comments, no matter who you are talking about.
Sometimes, this puts me in the position of protecting people who I don’t like or even who I regard as terrible, awful human beings, doing bad things. But, my belief is that we should be able to discuss any topic (that is appropriate for our community) in a productive, reasonable way. If I don’t allow members to say disrespectful or inflammatory things about other members, I don’t want them saying them about other people, either. This isn’t always easy to do, but if you want easy, don’t be a community manager.
You can dislike what someone does, you can criticize their actions, you can disagree with them – without calling them names, without inflammatory language, without personal attacks. That is the level of discourse I aim for.
Two reasons. 1. I believe that everyone is human. Whether my friend, a pop star, a politician – we’re all human. I have acquaintances that some might consider “celebrities.” I assure you, they are human. I would not treat them any different than I would treat you. They deserve no more and no less. 2. If you allow that mob mentality to creep in, if you allow people to believe it is OK to lower the level of discourse in certain cases, that can influence your community and hurt the level of discourse across the entire community.
I want to avoid that. No matter how much I don’t like you or what you do, I will do what I can to ensure that my members do not cross the line between spirited disagreement and personal attack.
What a fantastic post, Patrick, well put!
A very good point too. I’ve used online communities for 15 years now, and in my fair share of experience as a member of said communities most – if not almost all – of the communities rules were geared to those who were disliked.
A member who is unpopular due to their political beliefs, I’ve found, will often be pummelled into the ground at first chance with the rules. Whereas a popular member who insults or directs abusive bait towards the unpopular member.. would more often get ignored by the rules, or even encouraged.
It’s a dangerous slippery slope. It’s understandable why people, and some community managers, would believe this behaviour is OK.
But it suppresses freedom of speech. Suppression of freedom of speech leads to suppression of creativity, and suppression of creativity leads to less activity and less content.
If the community is being shaped in a way where everybody feels they have to like the same things, hate the same things, avoid saying the same certain things, not allowing to disagree with the popular members.. what kind of discussions are you going to get?
I believe in such and such.
I agree.
Yeah me too.
Yeah…
So..
um.
Last post 3 months ago.
So like you, I protect all my members. Even the unpopular ones. I’m always fair, even with the unpopular ones and I never censor – not even the unpopular ones (except in extreme circumstances, if something is particularly vindictively nasty).
Infact I don’t know about you, but I’ve often found having an unpopular member or two can be good for the community. Especially when it comes to serious discussions and debates, certainly the ‘bad guy’ in my community often attracts the most replies on his forum posts – and the chat room is never boring while he’s around. Because he creates content and provokes discussion, people just *have* to reply to him they can’t let it be.
Have you ever found this? What’s your opinion on unpopular members and the value they can often have on communities?
Thanks for another great blog Patrick!
Thank you for the great comment and kind words, Tommy. Glad that you enjoyed the post.
“A member who is unpopular due to their political beliefs, I’ve found, will often be pummelled into the ground at first chance with the rules. Whereas a popular member who insults or directs abusive bait towards the unpopular member.. would more often get ignored by the rules, or even encouraged.”
This is an interesting observation. It is something I’ve seen, too. It can be harder to enforce respect based guidelines in those cases.
As far as popular and unpopular members, I just try really hard to treat everyone similarly. Of course, veteran members might get slightly more leeway, but not when it comes to actual violations. If it is inflammatory, it is inflammatory – it doesn’t matter who posted it.
I don’t like to have controversy or unpopular people for the sake of traffic, etc. If it happens, it happens, but it isn’t something I seek.
Thanks again,
Patrick
Coming across a post I did today, this blog post was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve got a member who is deeply religious and she said she would find names such as ‘Jesus’ and ‘Mary Mother of God’ etc highly offensive and asked if I would ban them for her.
This was my reply:
http://s1.postimage.org/e2ldkzpbh/religion.png
I do try to please my members all the time but sometimes.. you just have to say no. I can’t ban people based on someone else’s personal beliefs, do you agree with this?
Hey Tommy,
Thanks for the question. What I would say is that, if that is the way you want to handle it, then it is one good way to go about it. It’s not the only way and it might differ by the type of community.
I might have responded with direct relation to the person’s suggestion. To compare “Jesus” or “Mother of God” to “Capitalist, “Communist,” “Goddess,” etc. isn’t really an apples to apples comparison and I think that it could anger the person who made the suggestion in some cases, unnecessarily. It would certainly be reasonable to conclude that you could prevent the username “Mother of God,” while also allowing “Capitalist.” It wouldn’t be hypocritical or inappropriate.
As far as how I might handle it, I try to be sensitive. We don’t allow political or religious discussion or overt images of those things. If someone wants a cross or Star of David as an avatar, that’s alright. If they want to quote some scripture in their signature, that’s alright. But, anything more and I take a hard look at it. Jesus is a name people have. So, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. “Mother of God” is a little suggestive, though, and perhaps a bit inflammatory.I’d have to ponder that and might not be as accepting of it. It’s a case by case basis sort of thing, though.
Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Patrick
Thanks for the reply Patrick I appreciate that, I see I still have a lot to learn. Re-reading, you are right. I’m unreligious myself so perhaps I should have stepped back a little and thought about it from their perspective more.
I shall go have a little ponder and re-think.
Thank you for your advice, Patrick you truly are a gem.
My pleasure, Tommy. No worries. Like I said, you handled it fine. But, rarely in this field is there only one way. :)
Patrick