If “surfing the web” is a phrase befitting of its task, surely participants of social media are “scuba diving the web”.
On a grand coral reef, scuba divers commune with the fish while they enjoy the vast scenery and truly connect with a world more wondrous than their own. Scuba divers, however, can also devastate the coral reef and its community. They may steal, sabotage, destroy plant and animal life and frankly be real jerks. So how do you deal with these reef “trolls” before they permanently destroy what community the coral reef has to offer?
Different social media sites have attacked this common concern from different directions. No one way is right it seems, but like everything, there are successful ways to police the reef and other ways which may not be so effective.
Monitoring and Editing
Monitoring and editing content as the only way to maintain control on consumer generated properties creates serious problems. The biggest risk is discovered when site content grows beyond the monitoring capability of the team assigned to the task. With no backup system, offending items may remain posted for days while the team works to catch up. Should the editorial approach be taken, the limitation of a few people approving hundreds or thousands of posts will create a serious bottleneck in content flow and will inevitably stunt the property’s growth potential to just beyond the editorial approval schedule.
Terms of Use, Community Guidelines
The highly successful photo sharing community Flickr.com offers several policies and its “Terms of Use” is wisely separated from its “Community Guidelines“.
In their “Terms of Use“, Flickr focuses on the responsibilities of membership and the terms users must abide by. These include member conduct guidelines, copyright infringement policies, spam rules, etc. The infringement of these terms is made clear using legal jargon such as “by using the Flickr.com web site …you are agreeing to be bound…” There’s no doubt they’re serious.
In contrast, a much lighter handed approach is taken with Flickr’s Community Guidelines. This list reads more like the rules you’d see posted on the deck gate at the neighborhood swimming pool. One of the Do’s is “Play Nice” and one Don’t requests that you “don’t be creepy, you know the guy. Don’t be that guy.”
Anyone who doesn’t follow the simple and fair rules assigned by “The Flickreenos” is a big jerk anyway.
As they put it… “we don’t want these parameters to be a downer and we want everyone to have a good time. If you don’t feel that you can abide by our Community Guidelines as outlined above, maybe Flickr isn’t for you. Plainly speaking, if you don’t want to abide by our TOS and these Guidelines, don’t let the door hit you on your way out!”
This sets the right tone for community development. After all, people want to make communities, not get law degrees to use them. If you break any of Flickr’s rules, community guidelines or terms of use, you’re out.
User Generated Police
In combination with ownership moderation, community policing tools can go a long way in identifying uploaded content that may be deemed offensive. “Flag this content” and “report abuse” buttons are often seen on photo and video sites.
Digg.com, a site where all content is submitted and voted on by its membership, represents a great example of this principle and as an extension, users vote both on the appropriateness of the content and whether they agree with it or not. This creates a wonderful new type of conversation that can happen with many people speaking, agreeing and disagreeing over an extended timeline in a non-linear fashion.
No matter which method to deal with social delinquents you choose to employ, a radical trust approach towards your consumer will go a long way in encouraging them to trust you. While believing that most people are inherently good is required, building a CGM property with some measure of editorial control is also required. When identified and optimized, this consumer trust may be extended to other products and services in your offering.
Just like on the coral reefs, those web properties which ask all participants to work together in a community watch-like system in conjunction with official moderation, are the ones that maintain healthy, long term growth and sustainability.
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January 7th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
How to Deal with Social Delinquents in Social Media…
One of the biggest fears in Social Media is the “Social Delinquents”. These undesirable “Trolls” often upload obscene materials, off-topic subject matter, spam adverts and commit other rude behaviors in online communities. So how do you deal with …