Marie Connelly is not a guru - Latest Comments

Re: Yes, You Can Teach Community Management

Marie Connelly — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:53:53 -0000

Thanks so much for your comment, Hillary! I think you hit the nail on the head - every community is going to have its own specific challenges and goals, but there are definitely a lot of common themes and trends. I think having an opportunity to learn about what you might expect to encounter, and to have, as you say, a toolbox of strategies to handle those situations if/when they come up, is pretty important!

Re: Yes, You Can Teach Community Management

Hillary — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:11:57 -0000

Well said, Marie. I agree with your take. The certificate will be a great addition to a resume, but not necessary to get hired. What interests me most about life is the way overarching themes, personalities and strategies can be found across industry, category or community. For example, you could have a community filled with patients with a specific chronic disease or a community filled with tech enthusiasts (or a community of chefs!). While all three communities will have very diverse needs there are baseline personalities that will always emerge and having a handle on how a healthy community interacts and some best practices for managing emerging personalities is invaluable. Also, there are strategies for engagement that will have to be adapted for specific communities, but having a deep pocket of engagement strategies that work for communities in general is a kick off point for you to find out what works in your community.

Great post!

Re: (New) Community Manager Workspaces

Adi — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:07:50 -0000

Looks a bit like mine, except I have tonnes of books and research papers strewn about the place as well. I think community managers need be able to multitask though, that's for sure.

Re: What’s Your Definition of a Troll?

Marie Connelly — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:02:51 -0000

That's a really interesting point, Emily! I guess if sometimes disagreement or dissension are viewed as trolling by other members in the community, that can kind of restrict the types of conversations members are having, and may make certain things unnecessarily taboo. It's tough to find a balance.

I'm really sorry you've got such a stalker-ish troll on your own blog - it sounds like you've found a good way of dealing with him though!

Re: What’s Your Definition of a Troll?

Emily R. — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:27:52 -0000

Two perspectives:

On my personal/private blog, I have a troll. He's made about 15 comments in two years and I'm fairly sure it's only one person based on the style. His comments are anonymous (most people use their gmail/blogger logins or leave a first name), always insulting (typically concerning my religious beliefs) and almost never a good contribution to the conversation (i.e. mostly tangential nonsense). Now that I have identified his pattern, I always delete his comments as soon as I see them. I have also occasionally received comments that are anonymous and insulting, or some other combination of those three factors, but I leave those up and respond if a response is called for. I really don't like censoring comments but I've decided that if they fit those three attributes I don't feel remorse about deleting. That my troll has continued commenting despite my immediate censorship tells me that he's only commenting to get a rise out of me, not to be read. I had hoped my non-responsiveness had bored him away because he didn't leave any comments for several months, but I got another one recently so I guess he's still interested.

I joined the online forum 3FC, which is for weight-loss support. Their policy on trolls and spam as well as their standards for etiquette are posted in many places around the forum. When someone starts an inappropriate thread (I saw one recently on criticizing all women for their weight-loss efforts when they aren't similar to that man's approach - not in a constructive manner), that thread is quickly removed by moderators. When someone writes an overly negative or unsupportive comment, that person is called out by the other commenters and may be ejected from the site if identified as a troll. The result is very little to no trolling, but rather restricted speech in terms of feeling obligated to sound supportive even when offering invited criticism. Overall it is a very pleasant community to be a part of.

Re: What’s Your Definition of a Troll?

Chupieandjsmama — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:27:17 -0000

I was a member of the Baby Center Board "DWIL" (DM me if you want to know what the initials stand for). The trolls would come out in droves on that board. They would start up salacious, unbelievable posts and then run and hide when the board went crazy with support. If the post died down, they would pop back up again to stir the pot. Trolls love a good frenzy.
I also think that some of the comments on food allergy posts are made by trolls. You know the comments "You are all making this up. You just need to force your kid to eat peanuts" or the ever popular "Don't tell us what we can and can't feed our children. Mine will only eat peanut butter so I'll send it anyway and tell him to smear it on your kid". I'm sure that some of those are real, but my gut tells me that most of those are trolls who have nothing better to do with their lives.
I never thought about high jacking of the hashtag. That's a great point!
The most effective way to squash them is to not engage with them. Sometimes you don't know that they are trolls until after commenting, but once they've been discovered it's best to just leave them alone and not comment on their content. On the DWIL board they would actually call them out as Trolls and publicly shun them. I think that tactic only really works on that particular board. But it was very cathartic.