#Community Management

[askagamedev]

Is there a "wrong/right" way to boycott a game (besides obivious attacks and death threats?

I can't find the tweet nor recall the specifics, but it was about an not related developer talking about how the fanbase should be better in how to boycott or else it would damage the franchise long-term wise in ways nobody wins. Even if what the fanbase was angry about is valid.

The answer to your question entirely depends on what your goal actually is. A boycott isn't a goal by itself, it is a means to an end - usually the players are mad about something and the boycott (or whatever else - review bomb, harassment, doxxing, death threats, etc.) is an attempt at applying pressure to make the developer do something else (among other things like venting a bunch of hurt feelings).

If an angry player wants to vent hurt feelings, then the usual anonymous retaliation methods - review bombing, harassment, threats to quit, petitions, calls for boycott, etc. - are what they usually settle on. These forms of feedback have the lowest overall chances of actually enacting any change and they are the most adversarial of the options, but they are also the way that feels the strongest, like the fan is "fighting back".

If the angry player actually wants to provide feedback, they can do so in a reasonable manner on any officially monitored channel - usually reddit, twitter, official forums, etc. Being honest about what you dislike and why you dislike it is usually enough. If there's enough feedback from enough people, the devs will actually take it into consideration and do it. It's worth noting that this is also the method that takes a really long time to show results. Devs usually don't post responses immediately, and we're [usually working two patches in the future].

Often, the best thing a player can actually do is to find a different game to play. We live in a time where there are so many good games being released that finding a new and interesting game to play should not be difficult. There is often little more than mindset tying a player to a particular game or franchise. Emotional engagement with the players is good for us because it keeps players interested, but the players don't really get that much out of it. I don't think it's super healthy to make a game or franchise a significant part of my identity, so I think it's best to put a little emotional distance between myself and any given franchise. I can enjoy them when they're good, but I can go do something else when things take a turn for the worse. I think more people would do better to take a similar approach.

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[blubberquark]

Worse than Trolls: Engagement Optimisers, Tourists, Socialisers, and Enablers

As I previously explained, most online content moderation falls under I-know-it-when-I-see-it. There is very little else to say. People know spam when they see it, and I don't need to define what spam is. Spammers know they are spamming, and are unable and thankfully unwilling to argue your moderation decisions.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are ever so slightly corrosive behaviours than can destabilise an online community in the long term, often without the perpetrators knowing it, or at least without bad faith, without ill intent.

Engagement Optimisers

Users naturally optimise engagement by responding to feedback. When posting memes and cat pictures is rewarded, users post more cat pictures. When posting memes is rewarded, users post more memes.

If your users start to do this on purpose, you might have a problem. For example, somebody might notice that clickbait titles lead to more click-through in forum threads. The people who give their threads vague and mysterious titles get more replies. The people who add a call to action to their OP get more replies: Please share your opinions in the comments below. The people who ask broad, open-ended and opinion-based questions are more likely to get more replies: What programming language should I learn?

If somebody says something contentious or inflammatory by accident, that's fine. You morally can't fault them for sincerely held beliefs or misconceptions, or for soliciting a broader base of opinion. Only when done on purpose, and systematically, it becomes dangerous.

You may end up with a situation where power users learn to play the game and play it better and better, at least better than most users. This can give the people who learned to game the system outsized influence, even when there is no algorithm or karma or no way to spend the karma, because they gain more mindshare and notoriety.

You may also experience a systemic change, because many or most users catch on, and start modifying their behaviour and post different content in order to get noticed.

Still there is the possibility that your users, through group dynamics nobody is consciously exploiting, reward and promote mostly cat pictures and stupid puns, even though no individual user comes to your forum for stupid puns and cat pictures.

Early on in the history of Reddit, this was recognised as a major problem. You could farm upvotes by posting something like "DAE eat chocolate ice cream?", "Upvote if you're going to vote for Ron Paul", or "Linux sucks! There are no good text editors!"

Reddit tried to curb this, somewhat unsuccessfully at first, then more successfully, but in the long run, they lost the battle against their own user base and entropy itself.

Compare this with YouTube, where a call to action is not just allowed, but encouraged by YouTube itself. It's regularly part of the latest set of official tips for creators to grow their audiences. YouTubers thus say "What are your opinions on this topic? Let me know in the comments below!" or "Please like and subscribe".

Tourists

Tourists come in to make drive-by comments in flame war threads. Tourists google a question, find your forum, post a single question, and leave forever when they get the right answer. Tourists come in from Reddit. Tourists don't play the game. Tourists don't read the forum. Tourists don't read the FAQ.

You can't really punish people for coming to your site or channel and making their first comment. I mean, you can, but then they will definitely not come back.

Churn is bad. Tourists are churn personified. If most content comes from tourists, then your community culture is defined by tourists. You lose the ability to shape the culture of your site. It's easy to deter tourists, but it's hard to do so without also deterring people who would otherwise have become proper contributors or community members.

If somebody joins your web site, doesn't read the rules, doesn't read the FAQ, creates more work for the moderators, and is a minor annoyance to the established users without ever rising to the level of a serious rule violation, it's easy for that person to say "We all have to start somewhere" or "You'll never attract new people if you keep enforcing the rules like that."

If you have rules about cross-posting or proper spelling and punctuation, you have to be firm. You cannot retreat every time somebody who hasn't read the rules asks "Why are you so mean to me?"

On the other hand, I remember multiple times when I hopped in an IRC to ask a question like "Is this a known bug? Should I wait for the next release?" or "Does anybody want to collaborate on a game jam next month? Is anybody considering joining Ludum Dare?" only to be told "We don't accept bug reports in here. Bug reports need to be entered into bugzilla in the proper format." or "Please post job postings in the jobs channel only!"

Socialisers

Socialisers talk about off-topic stuff only. They hang out in the off-topic board or channel, and they tell everybody about their youngest child, their morning commute, or the story of how they met their spouse. Socialisers rarely engage with the actual main topic of the community, but everybody knows them, because they post a lot of off-topic content.

As long as socialisers know that the forum is about, and know their stuff, it's fine. The guy whose youngest son just got into middle school and who met his wife when they both reached for the last bottle of herbal shampoo at the supermarket isn't really disrupting your anime forum as long as he watches anime. If he could comment about the different animation studios that worked on Sailor Moon, but chooses not to, he's fine. The problem with socialisers only becomes noticeable when they attract socialisers who do not know or care anything about the on-topic content. If that happens, your forum is no longer a forum where some Haskell programmers post their lunch, it's a forum to post pictures of your lunch.

Enablers

Enablers are one step worse than socialisers. They don't just don't contribute on-topic content, they make the discussion actively worse. If you have a rule such as "do no post a maths homework question" or "do not answer personal questions" or "do not ask other people to answer your question in a DM", the enabler will happily comply anyway. "It's no skin off my back" he says, as he answers the homework question. "It's no skin off my back" he says, as he paraphrases the FAQ again. The enabler will make a good-faith effort to answer bad-faith questions, and he will enable people who just can't be bothered to read the FAQ and follow the rules.

Now there may be multiple reasons why you're not allowed to answer personal questions, ranging from OPSEC about pet names and the colour of your car to professionalism, and depending on those, this may be a big deal or not. When it comes to homework or answering in a DM, the reasoning should be straightforward.

The worst kind of enabling is probably taking abuse in stride, and continuing the conversation. If somebody starts insulting the other people in the conversation, the least you could do is disengage. If somebody calls people names because they can't solve his problem, you should not enable him and try to help him, too.

The most subtle kind of enabling behaviour is a response to Cunningham-style trolling. When somebody posts "Linux sucks, there are no good text editors", then the last thing you should do is reward this kind of behaviour. When somebody posts "I can't solve this in Python, I guess C++ is just a better language. I think I should go back and use C++", then you should say "Good riddance, and may the gods have mercy on the C++ forum."

The most common kind of enabling is when people ask a question and can't be bothered to Google it first, and somebody copies the question into Google it and pastes the answer. The long-term consequence of such behaviour is not only a degraded quality of the conversation, but a forum culture where people regularly Google answers (or worse, ask ChatGPT) and paste the result without checking.

Maybe in the future, something like "I asked ChatGPT this, is this true" or "Copilot wrote this code, can you help debug it" will become more common, and humouring these kinds of people will become the most common toxic enabling behaviour.

Drama Magnets/Troll Feeders

Finally, there is a kind of person who enables trolls and harassers by being thin-skinned, very easy to make fun of, and by boosting every insult. There is a certain kind of person who will just endlessly complain about being wronged in small ways, and will take offence to small perceived slights. This allows a malicious actor to get out much more in terms of reactions than he puts in. If a troll can poke somebody once, and get dozens of "Ow ow" and "he poked me" and "woe is me, I have been poked" out of a target, that will only motivate him.

If somebody freely volunteers his weak spots, things he is self-conscious about, ways to rile him up in the form of a profile, carrd, or bio, then trolls will have it even easier.

So What?

Over time, too many enablers, tourists, or drama magnets may or may not ruin your online community. Over time, engagement optimisers can slowly but steadily ruin your community. Socialisers may not notice or care either way.

A code of conduct may protect your community against bad actors, but it can't protect your forum culture from clueless actors. It's incredibly hard to create a good set of punitive rules against this. As a moderator, it's emotionally difficult to enforce rules against this. You don't want to kick people while they are down, and you don't want to punish them for making popular content, even if it's just pictures of kittens and pictures of their lunch.

The only way you can achieve anything is by educating your users, and hoping they give a damn about forum culture.

[devenrue]

If you've ever wondered what a community manager does & if hiring one would help you, this is the episode for you! Josh Simons, a familiar face in the ttrpg space, was awesome enough to take some time to talk about his job, advice on communicating within the ttrpg space, & loads more. https://devenrue.com/pages/qnqpodcast

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[thehoamanager]

041 - Slipping in big words into work conversations. l've actually heard customers say boondoggle twice in the last month or so.

[infotrabajo]

¡Explora el mundo del Community Manager! 🌐 Descubre funciones clave y un práctico calendario 2024 en nuestro último artículo.

[sylvyspritii]

An actual blogpost: Community management and social media for creative freelancers with mental health struggles

(Keep in mind that this post is slightly unorganised, in a way, this is a partial vent post, do not judge too harshly, thank you) Honestly, i want to do a bit of a longer blog type of post for once, i want to talk about my feelings, and about community management as a creative person online with mental health problems, and how difficult it really is to run a public community (for example a Discord), and how like, to be honest, sometimes, it's better if you choose not to do it, not every creative person online has to be a "personality", not all of us are entertainers, we create, that doesn't automatically mean we are good at online public social/community manegement stuff I think i realised too late about myself that i am not fit for a "community manager" type of role, i am a music composer (and artist) first and foremost, stuff like handling fights between random people joining your Discord server, or being hyper-aware of all kinds of drama, is not in my skillset at all, and i think a lot of other people are falling in this kind of trap where they feel like they "have to" have a big "personality" presence online and have to have a public Discord server I've chosen to kind of retreat from most social media a little bit, and i scaled down my public social presence accordingly, for example, i used to have a Twitter account with 2000 followers (i consider that a lot for a freelancer composer), and i deleted it because i felt like me putting out random thoughts on an account with a name that is supossed to have professional connotations was uniffiting, especially because it's so hard to delete everything on Twitter; your likes, all your replies, who you follow, everything is visible, even if it's 10 years ago, there is no privacy, and you need to be on your guard in order to preserve your safety and your reputation The thing is; social media encourages us to like, post a lot, and sometimes about stuff that honestly, is better said to friends than to your fans, and that's why i think it's really important to keep a lot of your thoughts and your opinions in private to your friends only, instead of on random Twitter tweets and on public Discord servers Now, imagine owning a public Discord server as someone who is trying to build up a serious professional reputation for freelance creative work and is suffering from a lot of mental health problems and, sometimes, emotional moments? It's a recipe for disaster, at least from my experience, your fans are not your friends, and managing and moderating a public Discord server and worrying about social media stuff is just, not for everyone, honestly, some of us (like me) just want to create, we want to make music, we want to draw, that's what we're good at, not all of us are "internet personalities", and honestly, that's okay I used to want to be like Toby Fox and ZUN, i have changed my mind a long time ago, i never want to become like them, they are revered, they are worshipped, people have such unrealistically high expectations of them, that everything they post online is analysed to an absurd degree, Toby Fox had to delete many of his old posts online to protect his privacy, and even those are all archived, nothing is sacred for people who are obsessed with you And people, THAT is why you should be careful, if you want to build a serious career out of your creative passion, then keep in mind that everything you tweet now, everything you post in public Disc0rd servers now, can be used against you in the future, you need to think about your reputation, and about your mental health, and take steps to ensure that you future-proof so that people cannot use your tweets / posts from when you are at your most vulnerable, or tweets / posts of opinions from 10 years ago that you have changed your mind on long ago already, and use them against you

(Sorry i had to screenshot that last part because Tumblr kept giving an error when i tried to post it normally) Sorry that this post is a little unorganised, i actually have a lot more to say about this stuff, but i'm just going to keep it like this for now Let me know what you think please

[fatimosso18]

¡Hola! Soy Fátima

Acá podés encontrar todas las redes sociales para las cuales realicé tareas de community management, diseño, creación de contenido y resolución de problemas.

Desde 2020 hasta el diía de hoy manejo las redes de CONEXIONHR:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/conexionhr/ https://www.instagram.com/conexionhr/ https://twitter.com/CoNexionHR https://www.facebook.com/conexionhrconsultora/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyRxrINBs-SHUL9uGbxac8A

Y también me he encargado de las cuentas de los siguientes equipos de fútbol amateur: -Águilas (2019 - 2023) -Cremonas FC (2023 - Actualidad) -Club Social y Deportivo Acuariano (2024 - Actualidad)

---- Hello! I am Fátima. Here you can find all the social network accounts for which I have performed community management, design, content creation and problem solving tasks. Since 2020 I manage the CONEXIONHR networks: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube (links above).

Also I have been in charge of the accounts of the following amateur football teams: -Águilas (2019 - 2023) -Cremonas FC (2023 - Present) -Club Social y Deportivo Acuariano (2024 - Present)

[blog-mycmmag]

[yod-studio]

🗒 [#InstantQuote]

Focus sur la #communication par notre CEO & CM, Bryan Chauchis.

✍ Qu'en pensez-vous ?

YoDFamily ⚡

[askagamedev]

Any thoughts on the "Fix Team Fortress 2" movement? Is there anything their fans can do differently to try and get some change to happen?

Valve is pretty notorious for being an industry unicorn doing their own thing. They're a privately held company, meaning they have no shareholders to answer to besides their own founders. They make money hand over fist because they own a major distribution platform that maintains a plurality of customers on PC, meaning that angry player feedback has significantly less effect on their bottom line. Valve is also notorious for allowing their developers to work on whatever they want to work on. In aggregate, these factors combine into a company whose devs can basically do whatever they want, without needing to be beholden to any external pressures to do this or that.

Many gamers mythologize this kind of "perfect game development environment" where the devs aren't beholden to shareholders or publishers or politics or whatever else. Well, this can also be a double-edged sword monkey's paw kind of situation as well. Such an environment also makes the devs not beholden to the players of their games either. They can choose whether they want to listen or not, and the TF2 players can choose to take their business elsewhere. The unfortunate truth is that Steam will continue to pay Valve's bills for the foreseeable future, which gives them license to ignore the TF2 players for as long as they want. Unless the players can somehow persuade enough of Valve's developers (and the right developers too - a character artist certainly isn't going to write bot detection code) to drop whatever they've chosen to work on and switch over to fixing TF2, it's probably not going to happen unless something major changes.

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[blubberquark]

Community Moderation: Some Things Are Easy

In an online community like a forum, a Discord server, a wiki, an open-source project, a multi-player game with in-game chat, sooner or later you run into problems of moderation. Solutions that worked with 50 users don't work with 150 users, or 50 active users every hour.

However, if you are just starting out, you don't need to think about this too hard. You don't need to flesh out your code of conduct, because 98% of the things you want to moderate/delete/admonish are self-evidently actionable. 98% of the time, your users will unanimously back decisions to kick/ban/delete based on hunches or ad-hoc justifications.

This is because 98% of incidents in your online community are not divisive, not in grey areas, not vague. They are spam, scams, insults and harassment, illegal content, and hacking attempts. Focusing on edge cases and rules everybody can agree on is not as important as getting some moderators you can trust to remove the occasional drive-by commenter that posts about fake watches, off-brand sunglasses, or models from that well-known freelance pornography marketplace.

Sometimes there is the odd troll who is clearly just testing the waters and trying to step right to the line and say "I'm not touching you", or "I didn't call you names, this is actually a compliment in French". Even so, if it's just a small space, there is no bigger philosophical implication to just banning people who are being annoying and disruptive if they are deliberately annoying and disruptive, and don't contribute anything positive to the discussion.

98% of moderation is spam, scams, drive-by harassment, and hacking. Don't misunderstand me. I know the last 2% can take a lot more than 2% of the work. Rules about off-site harassment and doxxing can have edge cases, and dedicated trolls can try to circumvent your community's moderation. Once a community has reached a certain size, you may need to deal with an argument between two co-workers who meet in-game, and you will have to decide how this relates to your rules about doxxing and off-site behaviour.

If your community is large enough, you might have to become less lenient about scams and spam and ban more things that border on get-rich-quick schemes, excessive self-promotion, or calls to recruit a personal army for a twitter flame war. It will become harder to just talk it out with community members, and to just ban outsiders who come in and start an argument. You need to develop a policy.

Even then, the first 98% of moderation is easy. It's still just deleting spam, scams, kicking out bots and obvious trolls. It's just that, as the community grows, the remaining 2% cause more and more people to weigh in and argue about the grey areas. You can still shoot from the hip 98% if the time.

I could easily fall into a trap and list a couple of statements that should not be controversial, but are controversial. These will usually make people argue about whether the statement was controversial, or whether it was a complete "non-troversy". But obviously I won't list it, because that is exactly the kind of thing that starts a flame war between people who mostly agree with each other.

Even when it comes to fuzzier topics, such as "where does doxxing and off-site harassment start" or "when does a get-rich-quick scheme become a scam" or "where is the border between spam, excessive self-promotion, and off-topic posting", you get agreement between 98% of your users 98% of the time. The problem is just that the remaining 2% are usually really invested in their own self-promotion, or they are true believers in whatever divisive statement.

Even then, it's often more fruitful for the moderators to quickly tell everybody involved to cool off and take a walk away from the computer. Quick, decisive common-sense moderation trumps explicit rules, unless you are running twitter.

[automaticsollution]

Mapping Out Success: Community Growth Strategies And Management Techniques

Building and managing a thriving community is no small feat, but it's one of the most rewarding endeavors for any brand or organization. Whether you're nurturing a digital space for your customers, followers, or a niche interest group, successful community growth hinges on creating value, fostering engagement, and maintaining long-term relationships. In this article, we'll explore proven strategies and effective management techniques to help you map out your own path to sustained community success.

Understanding Community Growth

Before diving into strategies, it's essential to define what we mean by "community growth." Community growth is more than just expanding the number of people in your group. It's about cultivating an engaged, loyal, and interactive audience. Community growth focuses on increasing not only membership but also the quality of participation, the strength of connections, and the depth of engagement.

A healthy community thrives on meaningful conversations, shared interests, and mutual support. When managed well, communities can become powerful assets, helping businesses with everything from customer feedback to brand advocacy. Now, let’s look at the key strategies to accelerate your community's growth and create a thriving environment.

#1 Define Clear Purpose and Values

Successful communities start with a clear sense of purpose. What is your community all about? What value does it offer to its members? The more specific you are about the community’s mission and values, the easier it will be to attract the right members and keep them engaged. For example, a fitness community might focus on health tips, workouts, and mutual motivation. A tech startup community might center around sharing resources, troubleshooting, and innovation.

#2 Leverage Social Media and Content Marketing

In today’s digital-first world, social media platforms are the heartbeat of most communities. Whether it’s Facebook Groups, Reddit, or niche-specific platforms, social media offers the opportunity to engage with potential members where they already spend their time.

Using content marketing strategies like blogs, videos, and infographics can also help spread your message and attract new members. High-quality, valuable content will not only drive engagement within your existing community but also attract people who resonate with your message.

#3Foster Engagement Through Interactive Experiences

Growth isn’t just about increasing the number of members—it’s about creating experiences that foster interaction. A community that actively participates and engages will grow organically through word of mouth, recommendations, and shares.

Consider running regular challenges, quizzes, live webinars, or events to keep members engaged. These activities encourage people to interact with each other and with the content, which builds a sense of belonging. Additionally, member-driven discussions or crowdsourced content like polls or Q&A sessions can give your community a voice in the direction of your platform.

#4 Create an Inclusive and Welcoming Environment

One of the key elements of successful community growth is ensuring that new members feel welcomed and valued from the moment they join. An inclusive, positive atmosphere is crucial for retaining members and encouraging them to actively participate.

Design your onboarding process so that new members can quickly understand your community's values, goals, and how they can contribute. A welcome message, a dedicated “introduce yourself” thread, or even a mentorship program for new members can help newcomers feel like part of the community from day one.

Additionally, set the tone for the culture you want to foster. Zero tolerance for negativity, toxic behavior, or spamming helps maintain a healthy and productive environment. When members feel safe and respected, they are more likely to contribute meaningfully.

#5 Use Data to Optimize and Scale

Community growth is not something that happens passively; it requires continuous monitoring, tweaking, and optimization. One of the best ways to manage your community’s growth is by using analytics tools to track participation, social media engagement, and member satisfaction.

For example, tracking metrics like active members, post frequency, and the number of likes/comments per post can give you a clear picture of how engaged your members are. By analyzing this data, you can identify what works well and what needs improvement. If certain content types or topics generate more interaction, you can double down on those areas to encourage further growth.

You can also use surveys or polls to collect feedback directly from your community. This not only shows that you value their opinions but also provides insights on how to keep the momentum going.

You can also watch: How To Auto Comment On YouTube Using Socinator

Conclusion

Successfully growing and managing a community requires intentional planning, engagement, and constant optimization. By focusing on clear purpose, consistent engagement, inclusivity, and data-driven strategies, you can create a vibrant community that thrives over time. Remember, community growth is not just about numbers; it’s about creating a space where people feel heard, valued, and motivated to participate.

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