I'm really unsure of what the right approach for me is, and would like to hear opinions of people.
Last month, I created http://ForPune.com, a website for questions and answers about Pune. It is catching on quite nicely, and has garnered 161 questions in just over a month, and most of the questions have good answers. A nice community of regulars and irregulars is building around it. I, as the founder-cum-moderator-cum-administrator, and the other early active members of the community will end up defining the character of the community – by subtly or explicitly encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors, and by making some people feel welcome and some people feel unwelcome. For example, questions that seem like thinly veiled attempts at self-promotion quickly get voted down by the community. And that's a good thing. However, consider the following sequence of events on this question. Regular user @drbhooshan does not believe in homeopathy and left a sarcastic answer. I have also in the past made no secret of the fact that I don't believe in homeopathy. So I tweeted that I found the answer funny. But @sroy_sroy (in a DM) and @kshashi called me on it. To quote @kshashi:You cannot create a community by discouraging a genuine participant. http://bit.ly/8XpKAu
This is an important and valid point. Irrespective of what I and drbhooshan think of homeopathy, the question was a valid and genuine question, and there were valid and genuine answers that were useful to the original question. In that mix, drbhooshan's answer was not the correct answer, and deserved to be voted down, instead of voted up. Truly, a community is not created by discouraging a genuine participant. I repented. (Although the system does not allow me to undo my +ve vote, since a certain amount of time has already passed.)
But now, I'm wondering. As a moderator/admin I have a greater responsibility towards making people feel welcome. But for that should I be really hiding my personal opinions? On the one hand, I can argue that the community deserves to see the real me, not a carefully crafted, all-welcoming, well-rounded, PR-approved persona. On the other hand, if the real me is a misanthropic jerk, then a community will never really get formed. So where do I draw the line? How do I separate my moderator/admin duties (which should be impartial and based on published site guidelines) and my personal opinions (which should have the same weightage as any other user). Since everyone knows I'm the moderator/admin, can I really ever be 'any other user'? Any suggestions? Experiences? (Note: This post is not intended to be a pro-homeopathy vs anti-homeopathy discussion, so please keep that aspect out of your comments, as it will unnecessarily distract from the main issue I'm trying to bring out. Thanks.)
Stop worrying about what response you should offer and start wondering about what “kind of” community you would like to be encourage to be created. There is no one universally appropriate “right kind of community” so there are no universally true answers to the question you pose.
Community character is defined by their participants and one participant influences it more than the others – its the founder. If you want the community to have an attitude – make sure you push in some. If you want to the community to provide a warm and fuzzy feeling, be the nice one.
But to go back to @kshashi’s comments – whatever you do you (and as do other community members through their participation) it will discourage some genuine participants (for all possible values of genuine).
So just take a chill pill (does homeopathy offer one?), and just be natural (for any reasonable value of natural) – the community will find a way 🙂
This would be a great place to acknowledge your contribution to the community. But I get bored of stating the obvious.
I will go so far as to say that self-censorship is not only justified, it may be essential. Communities are largely defined by who they let in and who they keep out and even if this is relaxed once a community is going the early character of the members sets the tone for a while to come. You can see this online in say Facebook or LinkedIn vs MySpace. Facebook restricted membership to people with .edu addresses, even if this was removed later the effect of this decision is still apparent in the demographics there. Same for LinkedIn which, in its early years, was an invite-only community. MySpace was anything goes and this shows in the pages over there. Not that MySpace doesn’t have a community but its tone is distinctly different. From observing online BBS and fora I can also say that even seemingly minor decisions about moderation can make noticeable changes to the kind of community that happens.
Interesting question. However, let’s put this in perspective:
moderator is NOT the only person influencing community demographics. if moderator is being the most vocal of the community, to the extent that moderator’s opinions start affecting community demographics, unilaterally, I for one won’t want to join such a community ;-).
I think so far as you’re being generally non-authoritative, and your opinions don’t come across as flagstones of community beliefs, you should get away with your opinions.
Many a times, it’s not WHAT is said, but HOW it is said, also …
regards,
asuph
It is nice to see discussion whipped up by my casual and lighthearted comment. It was made with a certain sense of humor to highlight vanity of professionals particularly doctors !! ( all pathies included). I do not see any negative meaning in my first comment ( all doctors are best) at all !
some thoughts-
1. moderator should not vote and be just what it says on the tin. If their is a tie up of votes for a prize then may be moderator should cast the deciding vote like speaker in loksabha.
2. some online test for judging sense of humour as essential and unique human characteristic should be promoted ! any takers?