1 Excellent Points!

Great post Laura! You raise some excellent points. I especially like the idea of mentoring your contributors and treating them like co-workers.

In a community-driven site, the top contributors are going to have a lot of influence in the direction the community takes. Creating an open line of communication with them, through which you nuture the relationship with them is an important step in ensuring that direction is a positive one.

posted at 11:32 am on March 24, 2009 by Tim Kadlec

2 The Puppet Master Effect

I think this is a great article, but one should avoid the puppet master effect. Remember that people are usually part of an internet community voluntarily and have their own motivations. If you all of a sudden start bossing them around or giving them to much feedback or input, they will resent you. Nobody wants to be part of your own personal game.

I think communities are so common now that even saying things like, “select other members to be your friends!” will usually turn people off. Oh you mean like Facebook, Digg, MySpace, Friendster, blah, blah… The last thing people need is more ‘friends”.

posted at 05:46 pm on March 24, 2009 by Matt C

3 The Right Stuff

Forums of all kinds benefit from experienced facilitation, indeed! Wikipedia had tried to design this in to the system, but I have questions… i.e: ‘does social media have an HR problem?’

This topic relates directly to “Designing the Democratic, “by Jamie Owen: http://boxesandarrows.com/view/designing-the

posted at 05:47 pm on March 24, 2009 by uxdesign com

4 More right stuff....

Also regarding “effective incentives” see too [url=“http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html”]http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html[/url]

posted at 07:00 pm on March 24, 2009 by uxdesign com

5 Untitled

Great piece, Laura. You’ve used JPG for examples throughout the article and for good reason. From where I sit it still stands out as a stellar example of how important it is for those in “in charge” of an on-line community to remain intimately connected with their constituents. The support from the community in the days following early January 2009 showed all of us that the interaction of day-to-day staff with the community had built a powerful relationship.

When I look back on any successful new venture, I usually cite some unique combination of vision and the people in the trenches that made it happen.

Rinse & Repeat.

Regards,

MikeV

posted at 11:29 pm on March 24, 2009 by Michael Van der Tol

6 Great article

As a developer and co-founder of a site that is only now beginning to incubate a community this advice is thought provoking and helpful. We look forward to letting go of the reins a bit (scary as that might be) and allowing our users to help us shape the direction of the site and its content. We’re just learning the delicate balance between being “in charge” and loosening up.

posted at 12:16 pm on March 26, 2009 by Zachary Abresch

7 Untitled

Great article. These points should be considered very early in the community concept.

Two points that came to my mind:
I think it’s important for community members to have space. There will always be people who don’t get along with each other, but as long as they are not forced into the same room, the problem doesn’t grow big. That is a reason why in my opinion “groups” created by members are better than “boards” in many cases (not in all).

And when talking about motivation, one thing to consider is how to be attractive for the people you want to have in your community. On the other hand it can also mean to think about how to be unattractive for people whom you don’t necessarily to be part of the community.

posted at 02:38 pm on March 29, 2009 by Leo Coel

8 Untitled

Excellent article. I have never tried myself to develop a community site, but I can imagine what it takes to be able to run a successful social networking site. From the users perspective, as a member of some community sites, I can say that the personal feeling of sharing, the feeling of belonging to and participating in something that really has value represents the most important driving force.

posted at 07:36 am on March 31, 2009 by Olga Rezo

9 The other side

When it comes to coaching a community the article really sums up the most important points. But since today we have so many community sites, we are also facing a sort of social network fatigue – each time you have to sign up for new services, enter your data anew, and create yet another login/password combination.

posted at 07:56 am on March 31, 2009 by Mark Shui

10 Thanks for the advice

Also, I love JPG magazine now. Great article by the way.

posted at 12:23 pm on April 1, 2009 by conficker a