SXSW2009 - From Flickr and Beyond - Lessons in Community Management

Flickr is a team of 42 people
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:31:59 PM
MetaFilter is run by 4 people
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:33:16 PM
13 hours of video added to Youtube every minute
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:35:06 PM
Etsy has 2 million members and 200,000 are active creators of "things"
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:36:03 PM
All-star lineup of panelists from Flickr, Current TV, MetaFilter, Etsy and YouTube today. Should be a good one.
by AdamSchwabe at 3/15/2009 8:37:42 PM
Champ t0 panelists: what changes have you seen in your community mgt skills?
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:37:49 PM
What changes have you seen in your communities from birth to the mature communities you have now?
by remarkk at 3/15/2009 8:38:04 PM
As sites become larger you move from a single owner/direction to having to get used to being managed by a number of people...
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:38:32 PM
West: first 5 years of MeFi just careened down the moderation path
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:38:41 PM
Gets hard to keep an eye on all community aspects as a site gets larger.... intro community policing, more mod help, etc.
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:39:01 PM
West: recently had to add flagging. Community policing. "Hey this breaks the guidelines"
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:39:22 PM
Interesting: West is a librarian by day. Great day job for someone who has to sort/manage information. Many of my IA colleagues have information design/librarian background as well.
by AdamSchwabe at 3/15/2009 8:39:47 PM
West: can now flag as offensive in addition to simply flagging language, bad links, etc
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:40:07 PM
Community norms develop and evolve over time as community gets larger... what is and is not acceptable changes - eg. "offensive language"
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:40:12 PM
West: current system can't scale
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:40:27 PM
Challenges with scale and keeping up on growth
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:40:33 PM
As your get larger it is harder to see trends and their impacts
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:40:46 PM
Shaffer: harder to see trends as you grow
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:41:00 PM
Schaffer: had to get smarter. Segment user base. Different networks. People using the site (youtube) in vastly different ways.
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:41:49 PM
[Schaffer was at Powazek's Wisdom of the Crowds panel earlier where he semi-seriously said that he could use some help managing commenters –A]
by AdamSchwabe at 3/15/2009 8:42:18 PM
Stinchcomb: been at etsy since the start. Wonderign how to stay in touch with users and having a dialogue while growing. People become a lot less forgiving as a community gets larger.
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:43:05 PM
Company needs to remain transparent as the site/company grows... need to explain growth and remember community is king
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:43:33 PM
Stinchcomb: internal culture and communication is really imporant. Remember that the community is king.
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:43:36 PM
Interesting that community management panel seems to be primarily focused on moderating content
by fabusina via twitter at 3/15/2009 8:44:08 PM
Anima: was originally very producer oriented. What they started to notice as the site grew (current.tv) was that users started sending comments and suggestions. There was an unanswered desire to participate in the site
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:44:38 PM
Users will find interesting ways to interact. Even without a facility, users will input new content, links, bits and pieces through comments and other existing tools. Challenging to keep on top of all this and understand how people want to participate.
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:45:40 PM
Anima: the producers, who were the first people in the door felt pushed aside as the much larger audience of consumers came in
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:45:46 PM
Need to know all your participants and balance who gets attention, especially as you evolve
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:46:06 PM
Anima: at first CurrentTV was very producer-centric. Started to notice that more people started to comment and advise on editorial eleements, more than just uploading video. People could support story submission. Huge conflict for Producer community who felt pushed aside by this larger community submitting links and story ideas. Need to balance both sides of the community. Need to give them both love. Now opening up to entertainment.
by remarkk at 3/15/2009 8:46:17 PM
Anima: as current.tv opens up to entertainment news the people who were involved originally feel pushed aside. Need to give love to all
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:46:33 PM
Talking about handling censorship in communities
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:46:56 PM
Champ to panelists: what do we do when we're accused of sensorship
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:47:06 PM
Panelists showing names they have been called
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:47:42 PM
Stinchcomb wins with the best name: cuntola
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:47:57 PM
Matt from Etsy was once called Cuntola. Nice.. lol
by AdamSchwabe at 3/15/2009 8:48:02 PM
Champ: What do we do to handle when people accuse us of censorship? We thought about this. Champ is now known as TinyFascist. West known as Stasi. Schaffer as Interesting Critter. Stinchcomb as Cuntola. Anima as Fascist.
by remarkk at 3/15/2009 8:48:41 PM
Schaffer: Some content you can't host as a usergen site.
by AdamSchwabe at 3/15/2009 8:48:50 PM
Schaffer reflecting the YouTube community well by completely derailing the conversation :)
by AdamSchwabe at 3/15/2009 8:51:10 PM
Community management requires a delicate balance of legality, user experience. Also:cute hedgehog/cat videos on YouTube. :) #sxsw
by melle via twitter at 3/15/2009 8:51:21 PM
Challenging to not be hostile with diverse content...
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:51:25 PM
Counter-discovery
by Andre at 3/15/2009 8:51:52 PM
Schaffer: youtube is a platform for speech. His role is to accommodate as much diverse content as they can safely do. There are 3 factors that affect what you can host: legal issues (some content is unlawful, ie selling nazi memoribillia on ebay), user experience issues (finding porn when you're not looking for it), being socially responsible (even if it's just to your advertisers)
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:52:14 PM
Anima: people get very pushy if you take down their content. If you're going to post something that steps on other people's ability to enjoy the site they might have to take action.
by flashlight at 3/15/2009 8:53:37 PM
summarizing: as your community grows larger, people get angrier and accuse you of being a turncoat, censoring facist... #SXSWi
by uxmatthew via twitter at 3/15/2009 8:53:46 PM
3 content challenges in community mgt: 1. lawfulness of content, 2. user experience (preserve ecosystem) & 3. social responsibility #sxsw
by NicoledeB via twitter at 3/15/2009 8:53:57 PM