Part 6 - Attitude/Involvement

So now you have all the components in place: a good system, directed policy, and a traffic-building, interactive strategy. There's still the question of how you will interact with your community - what sort of relationship you as the host will establish with it. The success of an online community depends greatly on the attitude of the visitors toward the host. They need to know that you encourage the free exchange of ideas and information and that you respect the integrity of the forum. Here are some guidelines:

It's fine for you to participate in the community as an individual, but you should keep a light touch. Even though you're the host, online community is characterized by a spirit of equality, and you are just another peer. There are also times when you may feel it is necessary to participate in a more official capacity, for example as an arbitrator. Usually, this shouldn't be necessary - as I said earlier, a good community is self-governing. However, if you do take an official stance as host, be impartial despite personal feelings and try to work toward consensus rather than laying blame.

Don't be afraid of criticism directed against you as the hosting content provider. The way you respond to such criticism (with recriminations or respectful engagement) will greatly impact your image in the community. I have seen one example where a staff member of the site host personally attacked everyone addressing criticism against the site. Even though this responder didn't use an official title, the personal bitterness of his replies left little doubt about their origin. Sure enough, users called foul, making the host look really bad.