Policies, Guidelines, and Trolls Oh My! – Online Communities 101 Session 3 Recap

Online Community policies and guidelines may not be among the most interesting topics, but they are important and required.

Creating a global portal for communication is no easy feat. Some accidentally stumble upon the secret formula, while others place to much time, effort, and money into something that was poorly planned. Before you can go about trying to find members, motivating them to engage with others, and complete your goals you need to identify what the purpose of your community is and lay down the law.

Creating Your Online Community Policy

Why yes this is a boring topic, but luckily for you most Community Manager jobs are hired on after the initial architecture has been raised, documentation is created, and then dissected by a legal team. If you were brought in also to act as a Community Architect this will be more important to learn; however, even if all of this is in place as your community grows and implements new tools so will your documentation.

When building your policy there are a few things you want to keep in mind: It should be designed to protect both your company and your members, set a foundation for how you expect communication to occur, and provide a reinsurance that your members’ privacy will be protected.

Five Simple Steps To Creating Policies and Guidelines

1. Start with a simple introductory message. Explain what the community is for and your expectation of the users.
2. Use plain language throughout. If you have to add legal information place it on a different page/document.
3. List how you are protecting your members privacy, and that you are not responsible for their actions. Online communities are usually public, and if they post something with their name attached to it there could be possible ramifications.
4. Don’t dictate social norms. Tell users what they can and can’t do within your community, but don’t tell them how they can do that. You don’t want to reduce their creativity, which in return will reduce their motivation to engage with others.
5. Make yourself available. If your members have issues with your community, other members, or there are content owners who find their work on your community you can reduce a snowball effect of negativity by making yourself easy to approach.

Prezi Presentation