Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

What Makes a Community Successful (or Not)

flutterbychild asked:
"What do you feel makes a community more or less successful?"

In my experience, the following features tend to make a community more successful:
  • Revolving posts that invite members to discuss a topic of perennial interest, such as "What have you written this week?"

  • Posts that are on-topic, interesting, and spark lively original conversations

  • Concise chunks of immediately useful or entertaining material: photos, recipes, news, etc.

  • A profile that clearly describes the community's purpose, parameters, and netiquette

  • Members who generally treat each other with respect

  • Members experienced with the community's theme, who share their expertise generously

  • High signal-to-noise ratio

  • High reliability with few factual errors, which are soon corrected

  • Moderate to high activity level; 1-5 main posts per day is typical of many great communities

  • Moderated posting, if used to maintain civility and if promptly processed

  • Maintainers, and non-maintainer regulars, who promote a pleasant and worthwhile atmosphere

  • Links to other communities, personal LJs, or outside websites related to the theme

  • The more visibility and access, the better, unless the theme is drama-prone and needs privacy

  • Effective networking across other communities and personal LJs

  • A real sense of community bonding and shared culture

  • Cultural diversity; different viewpoints coexisting in harmony

    • </ul>
    Conversely, the following features tend to make a community less successful:
  • Posts that are off-topic, boring, me-too, or otherwise pointless

  • Lack of clear expectations or anything else resembling a plan

  • Riding the drama llama (unless that is the point of the community)

  • Members who argue about stuff they obviously don't know much about

  • Low signal-to-noise ratio

  • Low reliability with many factual errors

  • Little or no activity; if it isn't updated at least weekly then it's dead, Jim

  • Activity so high that people can't keep up with it, and therefore quit; 10+ main posts per day can cause this

  • Moderated posting, if not crucial or if allowed to lag

  • Friends-Only status and locked posts; this makes it harder for people to participate, or even see enough to get interested

  • Isolation with little outside contact

  • Homogenous culture maintained by intolerance of different ideas

    • </ul>
    Essentially, communities tend to thrive if they are well-conceived and someone(s) puts effort into their upkeep. They tend to die if they are poorly framed and nobody cares enough to keep them active, on-topic, and sane. It isn't necessary for a community to have all the features of success in order to succeed, or all the features of failure in order to fail. A good handful usually does the trick.

    Right now, I have three communities:

    cheap_cookin has 147 members. It features recipes, ingredients, and discussions for the frugal kitchen. I post a lot of my recipes there and periodically encourage other folks to pipe up. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they post spontaneously, which is encouraging.

    crowdfunding has 28 members. It's a gathering place for people to discuss cyberfunded creativity -- writing and art projects sponsored online, where audience and author/artist interact and cut out the middlemen. I make a point of posting something here about once a week. I also ask people to repost CFC projects and news there, when I spot relevant items elsewhere. We've had some good crosstalk.

    gore_challenge has 14 members. It's goal is to promote Al Gore's challenge to make America's energy 100% green in 10 years. I'm a wordsmith, so I'm helping by spreading the word. This community archives news about renewable energy, efficient technology, and related topics; plus it encourages discussions and posts about people's accomplishments in these areas. I try to post something at least once a day. This one is still mostly me talking, but it's growing gradually.
    Tags: blogging, community, how to, networking
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    • 4 comments
    bodhifox

    bodhifox

    August 14 2008, 05:50:55 UTC 12 years ago

    OK, what makes a RL community successful?
    fayanora

    fayanora

    August 14 2008, 12:43:20 UTC 12 years ago

    Riding the drama llama

    LOL!

    I have to disagree about 10+ posts daily being bad. Look at customers_suck and the like!
    talithakalago

    talithakalago

    August 14 2008, 23:35:33 UTC 12 years ago

    More exellent advice! Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

    *makes a mental note to post more*
    ysabetwordsmith

    *bow, flourish*

    ysabetwordsmith

    August 15 2008, 03:03:42 UTC 12 years ago

    Happy to be of service.

    This started with a good question. Those are always welcome.