At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last week I attended the session “Community Building: Good, Bad, and Ugly.” More than anything else, it reminded me of the “Building Community” session hosted by Laura Scott of pingVision that I attended a year ago at the OSCMS 2007 conference in Sunnyvale last April. I went to Laura’s session with no expectations (there was nothing else in that time slot I wanted to attend) and was really pleased to find the discussion relevant with tangible, actionable ideas I understood and could use. I’ve been meaning to post my notes from that session for a year and now I’m finally motived. So, here they are!

In addition to these notes, video of the OSCMS session is available. I am the second person to Laura’s right.

If people have more to add and express interest in the comments, I’ll turn this page into a wiki.

What makes a community?

• People
• Conversations
• Volunteers
• Long, deep threads
• Recognition for contributors
• Guidelines
• Identity
• Diversity
• Relevance
• Passion
• Maintenance (by the site owners)
• Courteousness
• Shared actions
• Moderation
• Structure
• Q&A, support forums

Why do people go to a community site?

• Sense of community/belonging
• Content
• Shared bond
• Help
• Diversion
• Friends
• Ego
• Achieve common tasks
• Belonging

How do you build this technically?

• Don’t over-moderate most passionate users. Allow non-destructive flamewars.
• Rewards for participation (increased authority/recognition).
• Greet newcomers.
• Meet in person.
• Offer a short-term benefit to joining.
• Ask: What value am I providing?
• “Heroin content” &mdash: what people will come back for.
• Continuous activity
• Relate people based on their attributes.
• “Curation.” Identify important past content to bring in new users and bring them up to speed.
• Offer feeds on interesting topics.
• Mentors for new users.
• New member orientation.
• Women’s Only group: less intimidating.
• Feedback loop: survey users to see how things are going.
• Aging membership: cull inactive users.
• Archive content; related to curating.
• Long shelf-life for content. Keep it available as the long tail. SEO.
• Provide leadership positions, but term limits can be important.
• Transparency in moderation, leadership, and selection of leaders.
• Manage/leverage hierarchy.
• Limit # of posts per day per person per topic: make people censor themselves into relevancy.
• Keep software up to date.