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https://github.com/lee-dohm/community-manager

Thoughts and writings on community management
https://github.com/lee-dohm/community-manager

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Thoughts and writings on community management

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README 

        
# Community Management and Moderation



This repository contains my thoughts, lessons, guidelines and learnings around community management and moderation.



## Rules of Thumb



* Not everything deserves a response

* Of the things that do merit a response, virtually none of them need a response **right now**



## Articles



### General Communication



* [Conversational Aikido](conversational-aikido.md) - Directing the flow of conversation

* [When not to respond](when-not-to-respond.md) - Extinction

* [Up with which I shall not put](taking-care.md) - Taking care of yourself while you take care of the community

* [Being humble and gracious](being-humble-and-gracious.md) - How to be a good host

* [Open Source](open-source-support.md) - How it is different from normal customer support

* [The X/Y Problem](the-x-y-problem.md) - How to get at the real problem underneath it all

* [Setting Expectations](setting-expectations.md) - Communicating the difference between desires, hopes, plans and facts

* [Voting System Flaws](voting-system-flaws.md) - Why Atom doesn't have an Issue or PR voting system



### Moderation



* [The Ministry of Truth](the-ministry-of-truth.md) - When to edit or delete posts or lock threads

* [Taking Out the Trash](taking-out-the-trash.md) - When to warn and ban people

* [Why Not to Talk About Why](why-not-to-talk-about-why.md)



### Destructive Behavior



* [Terminology](terminology.md)



#### Examples



* [Overwatch Griefer](https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20758687468?page=4#post-72)



### Mental Health



* [A fellow open source mantainer's experience with burnout](open-source-and-burnout.md)



## Other Reading



### General



* [Intent vs. Impact](https://www.edbatista.com/2019/05/intent-vs-impact-when-communication-goes-awry.html) — An article describing the difference between the intent behind a message and the impact of a message ... and how to be aware of the two when crafting it

* [A community isn't a garden, it's a bar](https://powazek.com/posts/3571) — An article making a good case for the standard community metaphor being more like a bar than a garden

* [Complicated politics of moderation](https://twitter.com/SA__moment/status/1587588321777451008) — Twitter thread about the slow decline of the Something Awful forums, presaging Gamergate

* [Harassing for Contact](https://twitter.com/skyladawn/status/1556666202822524928) — Twitter thread describing someone harassing a woman with the intention of establishing personal contact, including a fabulous strategy for responding (with permission to use as a template for others :sparkling_heart:)

* [The Asshole Filter](https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html) — Great article describing the specific mechanism behind which not enforcing rules or boundaries makes them meaningless

* [Nazi Bar example of Paradox of Tolerance](./images/ThatSabineGirl_2022-Jan-27.jpg)

* [I’m the TikTok Couch Guy. Here’s What It Was Like Being Investigated on the Internet.](https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/tiktok-couch-guy-internet-sleuths.html)

* [Design Principles to Combat Technology-Mediated Abuse](https://www.ibm.com/policy/five-technology-design-principles-to-combat-domestic/)

* [The case for removing abuse-enabling language from the Ruby mailing list](https://twitter.com/JakeHerrington/status/1443286841533374469) — by [Jacob Herrington](https://twitter.com/JakeHerrington)

* [Why racist/sexist/ableist jokes aren't acceptable](https://twitter.com/keystonelemur/status/1443280163203125248) — by [Brandon Weaver](https://twitter.com/keystonelemur)

* [Why "assume good intent" harms inclusion](https://twitter.com/tiffani/status/1368643215914508288) — by [Tiffani Ashley Bell](https://twitter.com/tiffani)

* [How many Pepe the Frog emoji is too many?](https://twitter.com/gamesbymanuel/status/1421454592605306885) — A Twitter thread

* [Woman in infosec is harassed for posting selfie in bikini on Twitter](https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvwgb/cybersecurity-workers-flood-twitter-with-bikini-pics-to-protest-harassment)

* [Tolerance is not a moral precept](https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376)

* [I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/dan-mccomas-reddit-product-svp-and-imzy-founder-interview.html)

* [Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/instagram-has-massive-harassment-problem/572890/)

* [Women Making Science Videos on YouTube Face Hostile Comments](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/science/youtube-science-women.html)

* [25% of a group is what is required to cause a shift in a social norm](https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/research-finds-tipping-point-large-scale-social-change) — to me, this means that allowing destructive activities to grow to that point is when a community can be lost to anarchy

* [Wikipedia article on tactics used by fringe or pseudoscience advocates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_cannot_claim_the_earth_is_not_flat)

* [The Petrie Number](http://blog.ian.gent/2013/10/the-petrie-multiplier-why-attack-on.html) - how minorities experience exponentially more discrimination even when the prevalence of prejudice is fixed across a population

* [We Don't Do That Here](http://thagomizer.com/blog/2017/09/29/we-don-t-do-that-here.html)

* [How "Good Intent" Undermines Diversity and Inclusion](https://thebias.com/2017/09/26/how-good-intent-undermines-diversity-and-inclusion/)

* [Being rude to your child's doctor could lead to worse care](http://news.ufl.edu/articles/2017/01/being-rude-to-your-childs-doctor-could-lead-to-worse-care.php) - Rudeness has real costs

* [The Benjamin Franklin Effect](https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/20/the-benjamin-franklin-effect-mcraney/)

* [Reddit post about propaganda](https://np.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/5ntjh2/all_this_fake_news/dceozzo/) - The quote from Sartre applies directly to trolls

* [The Neuroscience and Psychology of Open Source](https://speakerdeck.com/elizabethn/the-neuroscience-and-psychology-of-open-source) by @elizabethn

* [Bartle Taxonomy of Player Types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types) - While it is specifically about people who play online games, a lot can be gleaned from the categorization of motivations approaching open-source projects

* [The Secret Rules of the Internet](https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/13/11387934/internet-moderator-history-youtube-facebook-reddit-censorship-free-speech) - How moderation works at the large content companies: Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc

* [Maintainer's Guide to Staying Positive](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/maintainers-guide-to-staying-positive) - Don't let the trolls get you down! Use this reference to avoid open-source burnout and keep doing what you love: writing code!

* [How to be a human being in the comments: a refresher](https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/01/engadget-commenting-policy/) - From https://www.engadget.com - A very detailed and human description of how to not be a jerk in the comments

* [Utopia Inc](https://aeon.co/essays/like-start-ups-most-intentional-communities-fail-why) - Article about how communes are similar to startups ... and, in my opinion, open source projects



### Open Source



* [Trip report by creator of Fossil to the first GitHub Open Source Advisory Council meeting](https://fossil-scm.org/forum/forumpost/536ce98d85)

    * [Fossil](https://fossil-scm.org/fossil/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki) is a simple, high-reliability, distributed software configuration management system designed to be a self-contained source control server including bug-tracking, wiki, forum, and technotes, among many other features.



### Videos



* [Politeness or clarity?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYzt71o2IvQ) - From [Fun, Fun, Function](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q)



### Books



* [Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-based Social Design](https://www.amazon.com/Building-Successful-Online-Communities-Evidence-Based/dp/0262016575)

* [Haters: Harassment, Abuse and Violence Online](https://www.amazon.com/Haters-Harassment-Abuse-Violence-Online/dp/1612347665/)

* [The Internet of Garbage](https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Garbage-Sarah-Jeong-ebook/dp/B011JAV030/)

* [The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy](https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Girls-Guide-Privacy-Practical-ebook/dp/B013HA1V4S/)

* [Crash Override](https://www.amazon.com/Crash-Override-Gamergate-Destroyed-Against-ebook/dp/B01N4JZ9I2/)



### Lee Dohm



* My [Studies in Community series](./studies-in-community), originally on the GitHub Support Community

* [Conversational Aikido - The Presentation](https://speakerdeck.com/leedohm/conversational-aikido-1) - My thoughts after being the Atom message board moderator for a little over a year (see the [Conversational Aikido article](conversational-aikido.md) for the latest version of the core concept)



### Jeff Atwood and Discourse



* [Understanding Discourse Trust Levels](https://blog.discourse.org/2018/06/understanding-discourse-trust-levels/)

* [Suspension, Ban or Hellban?](https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/) - these were Jeff Atwood's thoughts when he was working on [Stack Overflow](http://stackoverflow.com), he backed off of these ideas when building Discourse

* [The "Just In Time" Theory of User Behavior](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-just-in-time-theory/) - why Discourse shows little yellow popups when posting things

* [Your Community Door](https://blog.codinghorror.com/your-community-door/) - why user-to-user blocking is harmful for smaller communities and the "zero tolerance" idea

* [What If We Could Weaponize Empathy?](https://blog.codinghorror.com/what-if-we-could-weaponize-empathy/)

* [Because Reading is Fundamental](https://blog.codinghorror.com/because-reading-is-fundamental-2/) - be careful what you incentivize

* [What is Trolling?](https://blog.codinghorror.com/what-is-trolling/) - thoughts on the nature of trolls

* [The Hugging Will Continue Until Morale Improves](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-hugging-will-continue-until-morale-improves/) - codes of conduct and the objections to them

* [They Have to be Monsters](https://blog.codinghorror.com/they-have-to-be-monsters/) - why empathy seems lacking in online communication



## Copyright



All material in this project is copyright © 2016-2022 by [Lee Dohm](http://www.lee-dohm.com). All Rights Reserved.