“You watch those nature documentaries on the cable? You see the one about lions? Look at this lion. He’s the king of the jungle, huge mane out to here. He’s laying down under a tree, in the middle of Africa. He’s so big, he’s so hot. He doesn’t want to move.

“Now the little lion cubs, they start messing with him. Biting his tail, biting his ears. He doesn’t do anything. The lioness, she starts messing with him. Coming over, making trouble. Still: nothing. Now the other animals, they notice this. And they start to move in. The jackals; hyenas.

“They’re barking at him, laughing at him. They nip his toes, and eat the food that’s in his domain. They do this, and they get closer and closer, and bolder and bolder. ‘Til one day, that lion gets up and tears the s*** out of everybody. Runs like the wind, eats everything in his path. ‘Cause every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals who he is.”

photo credit:
Simon Blackley

Over at KarateForums.com, we have a simple post reporting system. As a logged in member, you click a button on a post and you can include an explanation of why you feel the post may be inappropriate.

We encourage members to report a post whenever they suspect one may need attention from a staff member. We don’t want them to feel like they should only report a post if they feel 100% sure it is a violation. We want them to report anything that seems fishy and allow us to make the determination. There is no repercussion for filing a report that doesn’t lead to action.

As we’ve built up a substantial collection of report data over several years, I thought it would be interesting to see what words pop up in reports most frequently, as that is an indicator of the things they report the most and that data can be used to improve.

photo credit: tompagenet

Moderators moderate in the way that the community manager guides them to. Typically this is through policies (community guidelines), staff manuals (moderator guidelines) and documentation of member violations. Even when a well-meaning moderator makes a mistake, they make that mistake because they believe it is what the community manager wanted. It’s all part of being a team. Great moderators move as a unit.

In the course of handling these duties, they will encounter criticism and be a first point of contact for it because they are in direct contact with members. They are the ones telling a member why they can’t do something.

I believe that one of the really good functions that a community manager can serve, in relation to their moderators, is being the recipient of any serious criticism that a member has for how a moderator is operating. I mean, moderators can answer questions and moderators can explain some things, but when it comes to serious criticism of a decision (or worse), I want to deal with that.

Extra Credits is a web show that takes a “deeper look at games; how they are made, what they mean and how we can make them better,” according to Penny Arcade, where the show is distributed. In their latest episode, shared with me by my friend Jonathan Bailey, number 11 of their seventh season, they tackle community management. I will embed the episode at the bottom of this article.

There are a couple of things I want to discuss, but before I do that, I want to praise the clip. I enjoyed it and I’m glad to see community management’s continued push into the mainstream. Gaming has always been among the industries that have most readily adopted this profession, so it only makes sense that a gaming focused show would dedicate an episode to the subject.

KarateForums.com is currently celebrating due to the community reaching the 500,000 posts milestone. Yesterday, as part of that celebration, I presented a long term member with a physical award.

The idea for it was planted back in June, when Heidi (ninjanurse on the community) marked 10 years as a member of my staff. I have been managing forums for more than 13 years and I have never had a staff member that experienced that type of longevity. It is very impressive. As such, I decided that we would honor her again when we hit 500,000 posts.

photo credit: jurvetson

There is no getting around the fact that when you moderate an online community, you will tell people what they cannot do on the community. People try to sugar coat this, but there’s no point in that. A community where anyone can do anything is a community without aspiration.

But you can also take these moments and use them as an opportunity to help the member to use your community better. This might be best achieved through the use of contact templates, which are private messages that staff members send to a member, explaining why a post has been removed.

photo credit: gurms

Community management is about the small things and, at times, that can make you feel like people don’t notice. Then there are those moments that remind you that they do. I received a funny comment from a viewer of my web show, Soda Tasting, that did so.

With the show, I have created a community that is very respectful and I work hard to exemplify that. In the comments of the show on YouTube (and elsewhere), I work hard to treat everyone with respect, regardless of how serious they appear to be or what they call themselves. I kick out anyone who doesn’t at least pretend to do so.

photo credit:
ellasportfolio

BBC Radio’s Zane Lowe conducted a fascinating interview with Jay-Z over the weekend and I think there is a lot to learn from it (I’ll embed the three parts released so far below). One of those lessons has to do with egos.

Jay-Z discussed how a falling out with music producer Timbaland led to a divide between the two and how it was driven by Timbaland’s ego. Timbaland apologized and the two reconciled and collaborated on Jay-Z’s new album, “Magna Carta Holy Grail.” This led to the following question: what’s your attitude towards the egos of others and how you relate to it?

I tell people to listen to their customers and their community. You should. But what I’ll never tell people is to do whatever their community tells them to do or, worse yet, orders them to do. This is especially true for creative professionals: musicians, singers, actors, directors, writers and performers of all kinds.

I was reminded of this today as I was reading comments on the Facebook page of Robyn. Recently, she collaborated with comedy rap trio The Lonely Island for “Go Kindergarten.” The group, which I’m a big fan of, just released the music video for this song, which also features hilarious cameos from Sean “Diddy” Combs and Paul Rudd. I’ll include an embed of it in the bottom of this article. Fair warning: it is for mature audiences only.

photo credit:
permanently scatterbrained

I always laugh when I see someone say that Sean “Diddy” Combs isn’t “relevant.” Whatever that means. As if time has passed him by and no one cares what he does.

I laugh at the irony because the self-important people that make these remarks are always vastly less “relevant” than Combs. Far less people have paid for anything they’ve done and far less people care about what they do now.

Combs is a master of long term relevance. Bad Boy Records, the music label he founded 20 years ago, is still around and is still producing hit music. Seemingly every other similarly sized, hip-hop focused label from 20 years ago is gone. That’s the way of the world. Success is generally fleeting.