are these reviews helpful to you?

Last week, I read an interesting piece on Consumerist that ends with the question “how do you determine the worth of online reviews?”. As the person charged with growing, managing and improving the user reviews on our sites, I read the blog entry, but especially the comments, with great interest.

I am an avid reviewer on Yelp, mostly of restaurants — I write reviews, and I use reviews to help me choose new places to go. When reading reviews of anything, I look for general trends and don’t put much stock into individual reviews. If one person says they had a horrible experience but everyone else says it’s pretty good, I won’t let the one person deter me. But figuring out what is a trend and what is a quirk is somewhat of an art.

This is mostly what the commenters had to say as well. I thought that DANB had a very concise list of things to look at. To paraphrase:

1) Common themes over a period of time

2) Number and tone of reviews

3) Date Clumping (how spread out the reviews are, shills are usually clumped together)

4) Reputation of Reviewer

5) Consult more than one site

I will be thinking of all of these points as I set about to improve our user reviews experience this year — both to encourage people to leave more reviews, and to encourage people to come to our sites to read the reviews.

What do you look for when writing and reading user reviews?

loss and grieving in communities

I say it in nearly every presentation I make on communities — online community is ultimately about people forming relationships with each other. It doesn’t matter if you are a technology community, a knitting community, a cancer support community, a product reviews community, or a large social network like Facebook. It is people and their growing and changing relationships to each other that drive your community forward.

Community members come and go… new people join and other people stop posting for a while. This is normal, and most people don’t really pay attention or make a big deal about it.

But when community members pass away, it deeply affects the community. Each community reacts differently, but there are a few things in common, and a few reminders and best practices for community managers.

1. Understand the pain and sorrow that your community members feel. Even if you didn’t know the person well, chances are good that at least some in your community did. Losing an online friend is just as painful, and in some ways more painful, than losing someone you knew in person. This is a large community event, and you should give it the proper care, space, and sensitivity it deserves.

2. Show your support by participating and supporting your community, but let the majority of the effort come from your community. You should support your community in whatever they want to do to memorialize or remember the person (within reason), but don’t take over. As I said, this is a community event and although you are part of your community, you are just one part of your community.

3. Create a memorial space. How you do this (and where you do this) will largely depend on the organization of your community. One community that I belong to has a dedicated Memorial forum for discussion threads about community members who have passed away. It’s not used often, but it was created because we needed a place for that discussion and it didn’t fit into any existing forum. If you have a space for general or off-topic discussion, that would be a good place for it. Work with your community members and leaders to find the best way to create this space. This dedicated space is necessary to channel everyone’s emotions and remembrances in one place. Think of it as the online version of a wake or funeral.

4. Don’t delete the person’s profile or contributions. In an online community, your profile and contributions are your identity. Deleting someone’s profile is like deleting their existence. It’s ok to edit a profile to indicate that the user has passed away, to remove the ability for people to send private messages to the user, etc. It would be a good idea to include a link to the memorial space. But don’t just delete it. You will hurt and anger the community members who were close to or appreciated that person.

Although I have dealt with this situation in the past, as you may have guessed, this entry was prompted by a recent real-life event. My good friend, former colleague, and former roommate John Wampler passed away on December 21st from cancer. John and I were also members of an online community, and it has been interesting to me to watch how the community reacted. As I mentioned earlier, we created a memorial space within our Memorial forum, and people posted photos, told stories, and posted words of kindness for his widow, who is also a part of our community. Many people who had never met him in person had strong words and memories to share about what John meant to them.

We may be more close-knit than your community, but the general reactions will be the same if it happens in your community.

improving social networks

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to improve social networking sites.

Most human relationships, and networks of relationships, are really complex. The problem with (most, if not all) social networking sites is that they don’t take this into account when designing their product. They over simplify things, and it is to our detriment as a user.

For one thing, why do most social networks only have one level of relationship? You are either my friend or you are not. And there is no ground in the middle. It’s an all or nothing system. As my friend, you get access to everything. If you aren’t my friend, you get access to nothing. There are some exceptions (Facebook also adds options for regional or organizational networks into the mix, and Live Journal lets you set up custom group filters within your friends list), but mostly it’s a binary system.

But real-world relationships aren’t like that. You meet someone at a bar, or through a friend — and they aren’t a stranger anymore, but they probably aren’t your friend yet. But online, when you meet someone through a friend, you have to add them as your friend to keep track of them within your network. So what happens is that we end up with a huge list of friends that aren’t really our friends at all. And that dilutes the usefulness of the social network, because now you are keeping track of a whole bunch of people you don’t really know.

I propose a multi-tiered system that each user can specify themselves. Have as many degrees of friendship as you want, and let each degree have as much or little access as you want them to. The “friend” system was fine when social networking was just for fun — but a lot of us actually manage our social circles and lives on these sites, and that requires finer shade control.

Another thing is that I have a lot of different groups of friends, and I don’t necessarily want them all to see the same things about me. Not that I hide who I am, but it can lead to interesting dilemmas. Say, I want to leave work early on a Friday afternoon to go to happy hour with a friend. Well, I can’t really plan the outing, or mention that I am going to do that (or did to that), or post the photos from it, on my Facebook page because several people I work with and my boss are all my Facebook friends. (Note to my boss: this is just an example!)

There are some things that are entirely appropriate for one group of friends, and entirely inappropriate for another. So why can’t I have different profiles to go with my different groups of friends? Why can’t I group all my work friends and let them see one profile, all my drinking buddies in another, all my sorority sisters in another, and so on?

If online (or online & mobile, or just mobile) social networks are really going to help us manage (or simply replace) our real world relationships, they have to be as complex as our relationships are.

the troll whisperer

Earlier in the year, Cory Doctorow had a great piece on Information Week called “How to Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community”.

Trolls are a sad fact of life, but I think that Cory’s advice and techniques for dealing with them are spot on. Learning to separate the people who are truly there to make trouble from the people who just don’t know any better can take a lot of time and experience. And, as Cory pointed out, some of it is just an innate sense.

I try to be good, and get better, at this. But I don’t always get it right. I try to assume good will whenever possible — I assume that they didn’t mean any harm by breaking the rules, calling someone a name, or making an obnoxious 50 line signature with lots of blinking images. So I will gently correct them, and invite further conversation about the issue. About 80% of the time, I get an apology, the problem is fixed, and everything is fine. Those who are there just to make trouble will make themselves known awfully fast and very obviously.

How do you deal with trolls in your communities?

the rules of brand utopia

Last March, while at the Community 2.0 conference, I attended a session on the rules of brand utopia. It focused on how to create brands, and branded communities, that can become cult-like. The session was one of the best of the conference, and of interest and importance to me because of my marketing background and focus on brand-oriented communities.1. Know What You Care About

What does your brand really care about? There is no right answer, but you should pick something. Is it quality? Luxury? Simplicity? What does your brand stand for? Pick something, and make sure that comes through in everything you do. It should be clear to your customers what you are about.2. Do Something Worth Talking About

Just starting another social network, or another community, is not worth talking about. I am really tired of hearing people say that they are building “MySpace (or Facebook), but for [fill in the blank]“. Do something unique, out of the box, fresh, interesting. Something that will be exciting to your users.

3. Be Authentic

Fanatical, passionate people build the best communities. If you aren’t into the topic, find someone who is. For example, I really know nothing (or care nothing) about NASCAR racing. And sure, i can use my knowledge of tools and best practicies to build a decent NASCAR community. But I am not knowledgeable, let alone fanatical. Someone who is has a much better grasp on that world — those fans, that sport, that community — will build a better community (from the fan’s perspective) than I could build.

4. Let The Community Create You

Let the community choose your next feature. Moderate the discussion. Test the next big thing. Help you create your marketing strategy. Be your ultimate focus group.

5. Cool People Make Cool Things

Users are more likely to gravitate to companies with personalities involved. These are the people of your brand — your community managers, your writers, your product managers, your executives. Personalities attract other personalities, and all those cool people will make cool things.

6. Integrate, Don’t Infiltrate

If there is an existing community for your brand or product, work with them… don’t try to overtake them. Your fans are your fans, no matter if they are on your site or someone else’s.

7. Change The World

Use your community to do good, too. Donate some revenue to a good cause. Unite the community to make a difference in something.

8. Less Housekeeping, More Exploration

Focus less on giving people a bunch of pages to update constantly. Or making them start a search for something. Use related content, recommendations, and other things to help users find content they need and want, but didn’t know to look for.

How are you implementing these on your sites? What can we do better?

you’ve ruined everything

A while ago, Jason Scott posted a fascinating essay about the different types of people found in online communities, and the cycle of birth, life, and death. I’m sure that some or all of these groups will sound familiar to you…

Very Communicative Person — These are the people who contribute to lots of conversations. They aren’t always the experts, but they have high post counts and keep the community going. As Jason pointed out, without at least a few of these people, your community will look dead.

Flighty Tourist — This is the person that stumbled into the community and started posting without taking the time to get to know the culture or norms of the community. Sometimes, although less these days, your community is the first one this person has been on and they really are just ignorant of good nettiquite. Others start out as really annoying but eventually settle down and settle in. I loved Jason’s metaphor that this person is good the way it’s good to get the flu sometimes. These people do tend to make the community more tight knit. But too many all at once, and all the regular people leave.

Tiresome Contrarian — This person is also usually referred to as a “troll”. These are people who argue for the sake of arguing, hurl personal insults at others, and generally try to be as disruptive as possible. I’ve only seen one TC who never actually veered to troll territory. He loves to argue a point absolutely to death, and I really think his strategy is just to wear everyone down until we all agree with him. On the one hand, this type of person is not as damaging to the community, because he’s not as blatant or offensive. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter if you die quickly or slowly suffocate — at the end, you’re still dead.

Power-Imbued Elite — This is a very real and dangerous person. Everyone who is a public figure in your communities — especially those of you in charge of your communities — pay attention to this. Don’t be power tripping. Don’t let your moderators, especially user moderators, be power tripping. This often takes a lot of patience and education, especially in user mods. I’ve seen it happen — someone gets elevated to moderator, they get drunk with their new powers and go crazy, and they drive everyone away. Just because you have authority doesn’t mean you wield it all the time. As a community manager, I’m a PIE that works undercover as a VCP.

House Organ Grinder — This person is the workhorse of your community. They are very involved, but not necessarily very communicative. They are the ones that organize events, maintain FAQs, and generally do a lot of nitty gritty to make the community a better place.

Jason went on to describe some types of watershed community events, and how they can strengthen or kill a community. I’ll let you read that for yourself, though. I want to stay focused on these types of people.

What other groups of people do you have in your communities? Are they good or bad for your communities, and how do you recognize & reward them, or minimize their impact?

why gardening?

Wait! Come back! If you’re looking for a discussion on online community and social networking, you’re in the right place. I promise, this is not really about plants and dirt. (Besides, my apartment building doesn’t have a lawn or a garden, and I have a pretty black thumb. Seriously, I killed a cactus once.)

So, why is this blog named “Community Gardening” if it’s not really about a garden? Well, it is. Let me explain.

The inspiration for this blog name, and my philosophy about community management, comes from my friend Howard Rheingold (author of The Virtual Community, Smart Mobs, and The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online), who said “Communities don’t just happen automatically when you provide conversation tools: under the right conditions, online communities grow. They are gardened.”

In my years of community management, I have found this to be true. Sure, if you threw some random seeds into a patch of dirt and leave it alone, something might grow there. It might even look okay. Or it could be a horrible mess. If you don’t take care of your patch of dirt, eventually the weeds will kill anything that did grow there. Your patch of dirt would have been a lot better off if you took the time to plan your garden (what to plant, what plants go well next to each other) and tend to it, making sure it got enough water and sun, and a good weeding. You would have a better, more sustainable garden. And communities are the same way.

How are you gardening your communities? Drop a note in the comments and share.