Patrick

Thanks so much for picking up the book and sharing your thoughts. It means a lot to me. I really appreciate it and I am glad that you liked the book. I’m sorry that it didn’t reach the depth that you had hoped for, but I would be happy to speak with you and help however I can, to fill in those gaps.

Regarding the questions you posed, I actually did try to answer all or most of them in the book, but maybe I didn’t do it in a way that resonated with you. I apologize for that. Please allow me to answer them here, as well.

What steps should you take to grow a community out of little or nothing?

This is really a very general question and there are different answers. But, primarily what I would say is that we all start at 0 and then we get 1 and then we get 2 and then we get 3. And so on. Communities grow 1 by 1 and we all have to start somewhere.

It starts with you and your group of people – contact friends, family, coworkers, etc. that have an interest in what your community is about and ask them to come and participate. Only contact people you feel comfortable contacting. It doesn’t matter if it’s you, your friend and his brother – activity is activity and makes your community more attractive. Whatever you have, love it. If you have 3 members, love them. If you have 300 members, love them. That’s how you encourage growth.

All of my communities started at 0. I founded them all. You have to get it started and be committed.

What is the right balance between seeding a community with (staff) posts and waiting for the wider community to create some content?

There isn’t one. I think it’s best to go with what you are comfortable with. At the end of the day, if people want to post (staff, or otherwise), let them post. Sure, you don’t want your staff having 100 posts out of 100 posts, if you can help it, but some activity is nearly always better than no activity (the exception being when it’s bad activity or poor quality).

What is the right moment to close out a discussion?

I’m not big on thread closure. I really will only close a thread if I feel it has gone on forever and has gone round and round in circles. But, that is exceedingly limited. For the most part, we try to leave threads open. It’s important not to close threads for violations of our guidelines, rude comments, etc. Those should be removed and the person who made the post should be contacted. Closing threads for those sorts of things sends the wrong message and leaves violations in public, where they can continue to do damage.

What are the critical factors that make a community successful? Does it work very well for a particular group of users? How should your approach be different inside a sports based community in comparison to being inside a tech based community?

This is a very general question and there are a lot of roads you can take. It’s like asking, “What makes a business successful?” or “What makes a friendship successful?” It’s a lot of stuff. So, speaking generally, hard work and commitment are what I am all about. I took this from Sean “Diddy” Combs, but I like to say that I am a marathon runner and not a sprinter. That’s just who I am.

User groups are different, though, certainly and some subjects are more conducive to online community than others. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t viable. A community about a specific disease may have less of an audience than a community on baseball, but that doesn’t mean the people who participate in the former community, don’t find it incredibly rewarding. You should know what your goals are and every decision you make should be in line with them.

Can any topic be central to a community? Where do you do draw the lines of being in scope and being off topic?

If this question is asking what I think it is, the answers are no and it depends.

All communities have different goals and allow different things. It’s important to know what your community is about – who you are and who you want to be – and make sure that your decisions are in line with that. It’s hard to give a specific answer without a specific circumstance. But, for example, on my communities, we try to maintain a work and family friendly community where we can, within the subject. So, if you link to a video that is laced with expletives, it’ll be removed. Not because there is anything wrong with cursing, necessarily, but because that’s just not consistent with what our community is.

I hope that these answers provide you with some of the information that you are after and I’m sorry that it could not be gleaned from the book. Please feel free to e-mail me at patrick@ifroggy.com if there is any other information that I can provide. I appreciate your time.

Thanks again!

Patrick