photo credit: anoldent

It has always been about community. It didn’t become about community with the popularization of the internet and social media. It’s easier to build community and it’s easier for everyone to have a voice, but that’s not the invention of community.

No, community has always been there. Community isn’t a choice. It was about community for television, for newspapers, for magazines, for the radio. It was about community for Coca-Cola, for Wal-Mart, for The Beatles, for Star Wars, for everyone. It was about community for any successful business or endeavor.

I recently came across the Apture Site Bar on my web travels, when I saw it pop up on a site I was reading. Simply put, it is a thin, floating top bar that appears when you scroll down below the fold.

It features the logo of the site that you’re on, links to share the page that you are viewing, on Twitter, Facebook and through e-mail (along with the current count of Twitter mentions and Facebook shares) and a search box that allows people to search from your site.

photo credit: eleanor.black

Recently, fastcars started a thread on CommunityAdmins.com asking why you should have rules (I call them guidelines) on your community at all, as fastcars feels that they are “meant to be broken.” fastcars felt that it wasn’t worth the time to have them and that guidelines intimidate members, making them feel scrutinized and giving them the impression that you have an “I’m the owner and you do as I say” attitude. Communities can “fail,” fastcars says, because the owners are too heavy handed.

Instead, fastcars suggests, you could let members decide what is and isn’t allowed and could provide a general short and simple rule. fastcars’ example is “All posts must remain within the realms of human decency.”

photo credit:
las (used to be meeza 1)…cranky today…

Earlier this month, we discussed floating defaults and floor CPMs and how can add more money to your bottom line. But, relying on them alone is relying on the practice of daisy chaining – or serving all ads that one ad network can serve and then defaulting to the next network, until they can’t serve any ads you want and default to the next one and so on, until you reach the end of the chain or the end of your networks.

This forces you to allow the ad networks to serve as many qualifying ads as they can before moving on to the next network. But, what if another network could have given you a better rate on that last impression?

photo credit: marcianneliese

I went back and forth on whether or not to hit publish on this because, well, I agree with Jason Falls and what he said on the whole “social media expert” thing. Those of us in this space probably have work to do, rather than talking about this issue, but I also put aside time to write about this space here, so why not.

Managing an online community – managing a structured community, not so much the whole social media listening thing – is something anyone can do. Just like anyone can be President. But, it’s not something that anyone should do, can do well or for a long period of time.

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.

photo credit: Etsy Ketsy

I talk a lot about appreciation. I believe in appreciation and the power of it and how important it can be to the growth and quality of a community.

There are different ways that I express appreciation for people within my communities, both public and private. But, I make appreciation part of my day to day efforts and, as such, it is programmed in me is part of the natural way that I manage my communities.

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.

photo credit: Ivan Walsh

“There is absolutely no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site.”

These were the words of Anthony Orcini, the principal of Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. They were included in an e-mail he sent to parents at the end of April, urging them to immediately ban their children from using any social network. Lou Young of WCBS has the story and a full copy of the letter. This comes care of my friend James Dasher.

I’m not wholly surprised by this e-mail, but was a little stunned by the wording of it. Personally, I don’t believe that this is the right course of action – not in general and not for all families. Certainly, parents have the right to block their children from using a social network and that may be the right choice for them. However, I question whether that choice should be made due to a forcibly written message by a school principal. I just hope parents don’t read this and make any rash decisions.

As previously announced, I will be speaking at WordCamp Raleigh in Raleigh, North Carolina. The event will be held from May 22 and 23 and I’ll be speaking at 9:30 AM on May 23. On May 22, I’ll be co-hosting a special, first ever live edition of the SitePoint Podcast, in person with prizes and special guests.

I will be leading a session on “Building Community Around Your WordPress Blog.” I see it as a strategy talk with some tools mixed it. We’ll talk about encouraging and stimulation community within the blog and outside of it. Tickets are available now.