LIBR 246 Week 9

• What are some of the challenges in starting an online community?

There are many challenges when starting an online community, so there must be an exceptional plan and management in place before beginning.  Each of the articles in class mentions purpose as being key to any online community.  Uniqueness, motivation, fun, experience, safety, openness, and passion are all important to beginning an online community...but without a true purpose and goal, an online community is sure to fizzle out and fail.  Finding a purpose that will hold a community’s attention, encourage participation, and maintain appropriate activity can be a challenge.

Another difficulty in a community that I had not thought of until reading the article How Two Experts Build Strong Web Communities is the ownership some community members may feel after much passion and participation.  Moderators of a community must be careful in how they handle this kind of passion and still maintain control over how the community interacts and the comments that are allowed.  It is a fine line and feelings must be spared.  Ultimately it comes down to the moderator defining their role and making their presence known to all... especially those that may want to overstep their bounds in the community.

Finally, I think the most challenging aspect of beginning an online community is finding an excellent, dedicated, and balanced moderator.  Too strict means a community looses fun and personality...too lose and chaos, respect, and appropriateness can lose out.  As the article Online Comments Need Moderation, Not “Real Names” states, “If you opened a public cafe or a bar in the downtown of a city, failed to staff it, and left it untended for months on end, would you be surprised if it ended up as a rat-infested hellhole?”  I couldn’t put it any better myself.  A skilled and well-practiced moderator is vital when beginning an online community, and could mean it’s doom if the moderator fails.

Hogan, R. (2010). "How two Experts Build Strong Web Communities." Associations Now.
Rosenberg, S. (2010). "Online Comments Need Moderation, Not "Real Names." Salon.com.