Characteristics of awesome online communities

An online community run by the author.

I guess we should’ve seen this coming.

When Facebook made it easy for anyone to create their own interest group in 2010, they didn’t really provide people with any guidelines or information on how to actually be an effective group leader.

Facebook developers apparently sat around a table one day and said, “Hey, let’s let anyone setup a group for anything!”

“Sounds good! Should we have any rules or anything about how these groups function?”

“Nah, they’ll be ‘private’ groups, so we’ll let each person figure out what works for them. We’ll ignore the decades’ worth of experience and research demonstrating how to run online groups effectively and how to reduce harm to group members, because, you know, we’re Facebook developers. We know better.”

“Sounds great! Let me go and code that now…”

That, apparently, was the extent of the discussion.

I’m a big believer in the power of online community. But what the past 12 years of Facebook experiences have taught me is that a good online community needs good online community leadership and management. You can’t just setup a group online and say, “Here it is, have fun!”

A hands-off approach rarely works well in such communities. I think that with a few simple guidelines, you can become a good community administrator or leader and help your group become more engaged and active in the process.

Good online communities & groups have a common set of characteristics

Like many people, I am a Facebook user and I belong to a bunch of interest groups. Some are well-run, well-oiled machines. I don’t know if they people running them have had any direct experience or background in online group management, but they have the hang of it. There is little drama in these groups.

There is a common set of characteristics of a well-run online group:

• Clearly set expectations up-front. Your group should have a set of community guidelines or rules that all users can read before they join, and must agree to upon joining. Nobody can then claim, “I didn’t know there was a rule about that” with a straight face.
• If someone violates a rule, let them know privately. Keep the off-topic drama about how the group is run off of the group, since few groups are concerned with the psychology of online group management. You also reduce the risk of embarrassment of that user — especially since most users are unawares they broke a rule beforehand.
• Be specific in your communications with other users. If you’re letting someone know they broke a rule, tell them what they said that violated your policy, and what specific policy they violated. People generally prefer specific information when it can be used to help change future behavior.
• Communicate clearly & regularly with the group. Nobody likes absent leaders. If you’re not an active participant in the group, you probably should hand the reins off to someone more involved.
• Don’t play favorites. People generally have a sixth-sense about when someone is being given favorable treatment, where the rules don’t apply to one user the same as to others. You have to treat all users equally.
• Don’t whine about your responsibilities. Running an online group isn’t just for fun — it’s an actual responsibility. If you’re not up to it (and are just doing it for the title or ‘to help out’) and don’t want to do the actual things you need to do as a group leader, pass the leadership off to others. Or share it with others! A responsibility shared is a responsibility
• It’s not your fiefdom. Too many online groups are treated like personal fiefdoms of people or organizations, without realizing most people are there for a greater shared experience with the other community members. Be egalitarian and transparent as much as possible.
• Have an escalating set of punitive actions. If an administrator needs to discipline a user, they should escalate their actions accordingly. Start with a written warning. Then a second. Then a one-day suspension. Then a one-week suspension. One month. And finally, a permanent suspension may be warranted if they just don’t seem interested in following the community’s rules.

Bad online groups & communities also have a common set of characteristics

Just as there are commonalities to how a good online group is run, there are another set of characteristics that are common to groups with poor user experiences:

• Making up rules as you go along. Too many Facebook groups and other online communities have either a too-long list of rules (that nobody reads or cares about), or no rules whatsoever. In either case, the administrators just make up the rules as they go along.
  For instance, on one town group I belong to, I was told they don’t allow “political posts.” Whenever a contentious election is coming up, half the posts on the group are political, so this was just a ‘rule’ the administrator made-up and enforced sporadically at the administrators’ whims (e.g., when the politics was contrary to their political point of view).
• Not communicating with your users. If a user breaks one of your rules (which, hopefully, you’ve written down and shared with your users), you need to let them know. Suspending someone for a violation of something in your community without communicating clearly and directly with them is not only short-sighted, it’s cowardly. There’s little respect for cowardly leaders. Group leaders need to also be actively, publicly involved with their groups, posting regularly, on-topic, and in a positive manner.
• Using only one punitive action. If you only have a hammer, everything around you begins to look like a nail. But few online community tools are so basic where they don’t allow you to customize the punitive action based upon the user’s actual behavior. Using only one (usually the most) punitive action suggests an authoritarian ruler most users will be uncomfortable with in the long run.
• Allowing spam. Nothing says, “Group neglect” like the presence of spam in your group. In this day and age, there is zero reason any well-run online community should have a single spam post.
• Censorship that isn’t consistent with the group’s rules. If you don’t have rules, an administrator can censor anything within the group for any reason or no reason whatsoever. If the group has rules, however, there shouldn’t be any censorship in the group that isn’t directly related to the fair administration of those rules. If you have rules, but enforce them unequally, that’s just as bad too — users will catch on quick to such behaviors.
• Constant off-topic posts. Online groups generally are focused on a specific topic or set of topics. If administrators let people wander aimlessly off-topic over and over again, many users in the group become frustrated and less engaged in the group. Off-topic posts can include administrative issues themselves (hence the reason such issues are best resolved privately with individual users).

These are by no means a comprehensive set of characteristics of good and bad groups. But they can certainly help you get started, whether you’re a company or an individual, in setting up and managing your own online community well.

In case you were wondering why you might listen to my advice… I’m a psychologist who’s been creating and managing online communities of up to 1 million people now for over 30 years. I currently oversee a number of Facebook groups and MySupportForums.org, a free online self-help support community of over 500,000 people.