Good community netiquette dictates that you participate with, not market to each community, and that’s no quick or easy task. Learn a little about the membership. If half the membership is outside your own market, you will approach your conversations far differently than if there’s only a few members from outside your market. Most of us know that in the typical online community, it’s not kosher to post blatant marketing materials. But when confronted by other more nuanced issues, such as how to introduce ourselves (or our company) to a community, or how to react to someone calling

Krafft notes that since the membership of the security team is seen as prestigious, ‘some people write lengthy emails explaining why they should be picked’. (6) Formalised membership processes, such as a vetting team (the New Maintainer Committee or NMC) and the requirement of sponsorship by an existing developer, encouraged preferential attachment to gatekeepers, as measured by key-signings. It is arguable, for example, This is the third and last part of our treatment of a landmark book on the governance of online ‘tribes’. Book: Cyberchiefs .

I am surprised that there are any “specific TOPICAL goals” — since I would have expected rather an “open forum” (perhaps limited by more/less standardized rules of netiquette). There has been a lot written recently about online community managers, and it’s something I stress for many clients who find their […] Some thoughts on what it takes to be a community manager | Tanya McGinnity October 27th, 2008 8:53 am […] post on ‘The 4 Tenets of the Community Manager’