photo credit: ahisgett

Recently, I watched a couple of people argue about what the community manager role should encompass. One was more of a marketing guy and the other had a more community oriented background. Their viewpoints aren’t important, as much as how they chose to express them.

I happened to be subscribed to this particular discussion and as they want back and forth, I noted that both of them were being a bit in your face and disrespectful. Though I agreed with one more than the other, I found myself thinking less of both of them, surprised by the words that they chose.

I am a big fan of “Saturday Night Live” and, as I thought about it, I realized that the cast of SNL has a lot in common with the members of an online community.

The show is now on it’s 38th season and, according to Wikipedia, the program has had a total of 132 cast members. If you look through the list of cast members, you’ll notice a lot of names that you know, but also many that you don’t.

The changes that occur with the SNL mirror the changes that your online community experiences with membership.

Two years ago, I answered a question on Quora, “Is the time for forums over?” I’m sure I answered “are forums dead?” type questions like that before.

Here we are, two years later, and what I said then is exactly as true now. I’ve been asked this type of question many, many times and I always give a similar answer. Two years from now, I expect my answer will still be as true as it is now.

I’ve tackled this topic seriously numerous times here at ManagingCommunities.com, talking about how forums evolve and why this question isn’t helpful to your efforts. I’ve talked about platform death and said that there isn’t enough time in the day for me to tell you that forums are not dead.

I’ve also had fun with it, posting an obituary for forums on April Fools’ Day and launching areforumsdead.com. That last link, though certainly facetious, is also helpful. Keep refreshing. You never know. If forums do die, the page will say yes.

“Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we’ll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A dark knight.”

This statement concludes “The Dark Knight,” the 2008 Batman movie directed by Christopher Nolan. It is uttered by Commissioner James Gordon, portrayed by actor Gary Oldman. I watched the film last night and, as I often do with things that I see and hear, pondered how it might apply to community managers.

When Gordon makes that statement, he’s speaking to his son, who Batman had just saved from Two-Face, the evil alter ego of Harvey Dent, the former district attorney who the public views as Gotham’s “white knight.” After the younger Gordon is saved, Batman and Gordon briefly discuss the fall of Dent and how it means that the Joker – the film’s primary villain – has won because he corrupted and made evil the seemingly incorruptible Dent.

photo credit: vastateparksstaff

I tend not to look at other online communities as my competitors. I mean, in one sense, they are. We are all competing for someone’s time (community or not). But, in another sense, it doesn’t really matter. Online communities are very different from one another. They are all like their own countries, with their own culture. Different people gravitate toward different ones.

If I looked at other online communities as my competitors, then I help them every day. I helped them when I wrote my book. I help them when I speak at a conference or when I write a blog post here where I offer advice that they can take and use against me. But, I don’t look at it like that. I don’t feel that I am harming myself by being as honest and open as I am about this profession. Though, if you told me that I was, you wouldn’t be the first person to do so.

Last week, The Oatmeal (also known as Matthew Inman) released a new comic, “Some thoughts and musings about making things for the web.” It is, in a word, tremendous. It’ll speak to everyone who creates stuff for the web, especially stuff that has been consumed by a reasonably sized audience.

There are a lot of great observations in it, about the ups and downs of being in this position. You should give the full thing a read. I loved it, shared it with my brother and we laughed like crazy as he read through it. But, toward the end of the comic, there is a section about comments and how some content creators enable comments on everything that they do.

“We need to add comments to EVERY page on our website to create community because … community!,” says one character.

The more that I read Adrian Chen’s story about Violentacrez, who the writer labeled  “the biggest troll on the web,” the more angry I became.

Not anger in the sense of uncontrolled emotion, but anger as someone who has managed online communities for a long time and helped, in whatever small way, to establish this field as a profession. Most of that anger was not directed at the troll, but at Reddit. If you prefer, you can substitute disappointment for anger – they both work.

Let me be clear. Michael Brutsch, the troll in question, disgusts me. I don’t have any compassion for him. I would have fired him myself if he worked for me. His actions are deplorable, his explanations are ridiculous. He is responsible for his actions.

This story is not an attack on anonymity because he wasn’t anonymous. The moment he told other Reddit members who he was, that anonymity vanished. He trusted people who turned on him and gave him up. Chen just put the pieces together – the pieces that Brutsch shared with others.

La da da da… hey hey hey… goodbye.

Social media monitoring. There are so many people who say they do it and there are many vendors that say they offer it. The secret? Many of them don’t.

As I put my thoughts together, Jay-Z’s “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” was speaking to me. The fact is, I know some of these people. Or they know me. Saying what I am about to say isn’t politically correct. This might offend my political connects.

I received an email from someone at a “social media monitoring” company with some pretty big organizations listed among their clients. It doesn’t matter who they are because they aren’t the only one. But, the emails we exchanged help illustrate the problem.

photo credit: Funky Tee

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the quality of the comments left on the things I share online.

There are a lot of different things I am involved in. There is this blog, Bad Boy Blog and my forums. There are the responses to things I share on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, including comments on my writing, both on my accounts and on accounts dedicated to my projects. I co-host the SitePoint Podcast and the Copyright 2.0 Show and I am one half of Patrick and Sean. And there is more.

Comments are open, so I get comments, which is great. I appreciate comments. When no one cares enough to comment or share your stuff, that is when you should be most worried.

I’ve had a copy of “Thank You and You’re Welcome”, a small, spiral bound book, on my shelf since it was released back in 2008. It was authored by Kanye West with J. Sakiya Sandifer. Recently, I had reason to pull it back out and I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the “Kanye-isms,” as the book’s description on Amazon.com calls them, apply really well to community management.

For example, the title of the book. A “Thank You and You’re Welcome” moment is when both parties involved in a transaction give and gain. West refers to his early work with rapper Common and how working with an established artist improved his credibility. At the same time, Kanye produced hits for Common that helped him reach new audiences. Both sides gave, both sides benefited.