Hi all,
I hope you have had a great week.
I've spent the last couple of days with other Community Managers from around Australia and the world. It's been fascinating hearing about some of the trends in online communities. And it's been particularly valuable to exchange ideas about how to ensure more vibrant communities and tackle some of the common challenges.
One common theme at the conference is something that has been discussed in mainstream media a lot this week - how to "stop the trolls". Of course, what constitutes trolling is very much a matter of opinion.
The general consensus at this week's conference was that trolling on online forums is attention seeking behaviour and is dangerous because it can drive other people away or discourage them from participating. The Community Manager of The Huffington Post (a site which receives an astonishing 5-10 comments every second) says they have a simple philosophy - if a comment makes the site less enjoyable for others, then it is not approved for publication.
Here at the MYOB Community Forum we like to trust our members and we don't moderate or approve comments before they are published. But we do need all our users to abide by the forum's rules of participation at all times to ensure a healthy, safe and inclusive community for all. If you ever see anything on the forum that you don't feel is appropriate, please alert us by clicking on the Options menu inside the message box and selecting the "Report Inappropriate Content" option.
Meanwhile, it was another busy week on the forum, with 300 new members and 700 posts. Our top contributors were MummaMia, David_Cree, Mike_James, JenPerram and Tazinx. David_Cree and JenPerram also had multiple posts marked as Accepted Solutions. Thank you to all those community members who assisted others on the forum this week.
One more thing I learned from this week's conference was that people love kittens. Communities need more kittens and less trolls. So I thought I'd sign off for the week by giving the people what they want...
Love your work,
Jason Hill
Community Manager
