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?
Recent Comments