Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with onlinecommunities

best practices for supporting online user communities?

mere — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:34:44 -0800

Does anyone have any information about best practices & strategies for online community support and community development? I'm in the final running for a Community Support job at a small niche social networking site, and I'm trying to do some research about the best way to manage the various tasks of the role.

The job involves managing the email support queue, handling issues with the forums & moderation thereof, development of help documentation, and general usability stuff.

I have experience with most aspects of this position, but I want to read up on any information I can find about managing user support & forum moderation of online communities.

The site has a very diverse group of about 125,000 active members--overall it's a friendly, helpful, close-knit (heh) community of users, but as you can imagine with a group that large, all sorts of issues come up.

There are lots of virtual communities on the internet (Hi, MetaFilter!) and there are people out there who work in community support. (Hi, MeFi staff!) Has anyone written about their experiences in type of work? I'm having a hard time finding information about it.

Has the window for starting new online communties passed?

peter_meta_kbd — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:35:39 -0800

Are new online communities still forming, or is that "window of opportunity" closed, now that a) so many online communities already exist ; b) it's easy for people to start their own blog/site, so they don't have the time or need for a new online community? If they are still forming, what are the critical ingredients for a new online community now? I'm an expat, and I've lived abroad in several different countries. One of the most common forms of information sharing in all these places for expats is yahoo groups - amazingly, many among the somewhat older crowd haven't switched as much to web communities like metafilter, mostly stick with yahoo groups. Early adopters have started having their own blogs and sites, etc. I have one site that I think could be a useful one for expats in the Philippines (where I now live) but find that so far there are not many who even get the picture of what an online web community is - most expats simply stick with yahoo groups and a few (heavily censored, we're talking absolutely absurdly censored to the point of missing half the picture) web forums.

So the question is has the window for creating new online communities passed? If not, what's necessary for a new one now?

Thanks.

How Best to Set Up a Furniture Rearrangement Question?

WCityMike — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:08:21 -0800

How can I best set up a question regarding furniture rearrangement (in terms of spatially rearranging things, with measurements) on the Internet, and is Ask Mefi the best source or are there other communities that would be better? Are there Flash tools that let you post furniture floorplans and let others come and rearrange things? Alternatively, for advice simply on arrangement of furniture, how much might a professional's advice be, and would an interior decorator be the profession to turn to? (Do they still call themselves interior decorators? It seems a '70s term.) I am going to be living in a small studio for a while to come now. It is a great landlord and a pleasant building. I have no use for a one-bedroom and also would prefer to reserve funds (funds that would then go for increased rent) for other quite important targets at the moment, not to mention I don't have people who could help me move at the moment.

The problem with the studio is space and outlets, however: I have only two outlets in the main living area, limiting where certain things can be placed (computer, TV/DVD/cable, etc.), and electricians have advised that new outlets can't be added without major renovation.

I think I've done the best for what I've got, but it does need fixing. And recently I realized I have two furniture-space crises coming down the pike: (i) I've been sleeping on a twin air mattress for a while. I plan to replace that with a "full" bed, but have no idea how that might be introduced to the space without seriously getting in the way. And (ii) my bookshelves are overflowing and another one needs to be added, but there's utterly nowhere to put it. (I had considered a futon, but I think that after a certain age, it says that something's a little weird about you if you're still on a futon. Or is that just an idea I picked up from "The Office"? Dunno.)

I'd like to turn to hiveminds for advice -- either Ask Mefi's hivemind or that of a "furniture rearrangement" community -- but I frankly don't know how to appropriately post the problem in a manner that people can give effective answers, given that it involves accurate measurement and rearrangement of things.

I already have all the measurements done, and have set up a little cardstock model with rearrangable furniture to try my own hand at moving things around. Is there a website -- probably something involving Flash -- where you can set up a sort of bird's-eye view of your apartment and then Joe Schmoe come in off the street and rearrange the things inside?

Alternatively, how much would it zing me, financially, to get a professional to walk in and say, "If you put this there, put this there, put this there, and replace this with this, your problems should be solved"? (I live in Chicago.)

Youtube Comments Don't Count

sonic meat machine — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:57:24 -0800

I am interested in finding a good, interesting online academic community—discussion boards, chat rooms, and the like. I am primarily interested in Literature and Philosophy. Do these places exist, or are internet fora pure lulz?

Encouragement and support for the young composer

grahamwell — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:15:00 -0800

Where to find encouragement and support for a young composer? My nephew is a talented musician and has taken to composing classical music ("in a period style"). He uses Sibelius among other tools and for this program there is something of an on-line community, but it is apparently hyper-critical and positively snarky. He's looking for something better.

Are there supportive communities out there which would offer help, useful critical input and encouragement for a young composer?

What is it that motivates you to "participate" in online communities?

ericb — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:34:30 -0800

What is it that motivates you to "participate" in online communities? Why do you share your thoughts, feelings, ideas and creativity with faceless others online? Is it the “give-and-take”; the barter or exchange of some sort of currency (money, favors, or a sense of “doing good for others”)? Is it the opportunity to share our thoughts, creativity with other? To collaborate; to connect?

Why do so many of us maintain online journals?

I think the concept of “reputonics” – which I first came across in Steven Weber's recent book – "The Success of Open Source” – points to a powerful motivating factor.

Steven Levy’s article in this week’s Newsweek magazine (" They Hacked Real Good, For Free ") profiles the "Graphing Calculator Story" (previously discussed here on MeFi). While not pertinent to online activity, the article touches on similar motivations - “a reminder that what drives our most original work is not always the almighty buck”

Let Me In!

bcwinters — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 13:53:26 -0800

Evaluating a "closed" online community: I really like the magazine Cook's Illustrated. Their website is private and requires an annual membership, above and beyond the magazine subscription. So, anyone know what the website is like? Is it worth the fee? And, as a more general question, are there any good sites that offer reviews/information/evaluations of sites that are locked away behind membership fees? I'm curious specifically about the quality of the forums and how well the articles from the magazine are reproduced online (full diagrams & sidebar notes, etc). I should add that I get the bound volumes rather than the bimonthly magazine, so I miss out on the occasional time-limited "freebie" visits to the site.

Reading on social structure of virtual communities?

Quartermass — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:41:14 -0800

I am interested in the social structure/stratification of virtual communities. Any good reads on this topic? [more inside] I was thinking about this in regards to Metafilter recently, and someone (can’t remember who) mentioned “Metafilter” celebrities, and this got me to thinking about the social aspects of MeFi. Has anyone written on this topic before (maybe not in regards to Metafilter specifically)? Is such a thing as social stratification even possible in a social space like Metafilter?

Is there any etiquette to hotlinking images from third parties?

PrinceValium — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 15:52:50 -0800

This comment got me thinking: is there a standard etiquette for displaying inline images from third-party servers on either private blogs or community sites like MeFi? Is it always appropriate, never appropriate, or only appropriate depending on the source and the server from which the image originates?

Online community software needed

moonbird — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:21:37 -0800

I'm toying with opening a site based upon the MeFi model for LGBT issues and community building. What software programs do MeFi and other online communities use to administer the system? I've really only installed MT and other simple programs before, so I'm looking for ease of install as well as ease of use... Thanks in advance!