Book for community managers

Suzanne O Minassian  March 17 2009 04:03:17 PM

I met Patrick O'Keefe, the author of Managing Online Forums, today.  He gave me a run down of what is in his book. While I haven't read the book yet, it does look interesting and useful in general for community managers, not just forum owners. He wrote the book based on personal experience with forums, blogs, and other communities he's managed or participated in; however, the strategies apply to the other media types being shared - i.e. groups, chat rooms, etc.

I asked him to tell me what he does to create successful communities. Patrick said it is about creating the right environment. For example, in his martial arts forum, he strives to create a healthy, welcoming environment created through policies and consistent enforcement of those policies.  If he removes someone's comment, he tells them why it's been removed and sends them a notification.  What else does he do?

• He keeps track of members who have broken the rules over time.  
• Violations are taken care of as they happen, given that most posts get looked at by a moderator.
• There are groups of moderators, and other levels of staff who welcome people into the environment.  
• To keep people coming back, he discusses promoting people and keeping communities interesting.

He agrees that you can't just launch and leave a site - it takes patience and effort to build a successful community.

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