The Human Factor: Moderators in a Creative Online Community

One of my favorite pastimes on the Internet is to visit creativecommunities in LiveJournal or Dreamwidth to look at the creative work peopleproduce when the only reward for their creativity is the feedback of othermembers of their community.

In these communities, fans produce picture collages that depictimportant themes in their favorite movies or television shows, song lists thatrepresent the mood of a difficult fictional relationship, video tributes totheir favorite moments, poems, icons, analysis, Podcasts, short stories, andeven novel-length fiction, all released one entry at a time. It’s a staggeringamount of, often, high-quality work.

In the 10 to 20 different communities I visit frequently, one thing isconsistent. Regardless of how well the online community has been defined, membersof closely moderated communities submit more work, and get more feedback thanmembers of communities with no active moderator.

The Moderator’s role

In online communities, many people think of moderators as the enforcerswho work to keep spammers out, give penalties to community members who get outof hand, or determine when a conversation has strayed from the purpose of thecommunity. It’s a necessary role, one that helps create a welcoming place forpeople to interact with one another.

The best moderators, though, also realize that online communities needmembers to contribute frequently in order to thrive. In a community devoted toshowcasing creative content, that requirement can be a liability, because ofthe amount of time it takes to develop the content. Although some members maybe able to produce a lot of content frequently and naturally, many others willneed time to think about what to produce and the right medium to use.

That’s where the moderator fits in. A good moderator can set parametersaround issues that might get in the way of developing content, and set thestage for the creative expression of the community, without setting such strictrules that they dampen the enthusiasm or creativity of the group.  Here are two techniques that seem to generatethe most response:

Themes and prompts

In one successful community, a team of moderators holds a survey everymonth with the entire community, giving the members a couple of days to submitpossible themes for members to write about in the following month. The moderatorsthen develop the themes into prompts writers can use to develop their content. Atthe beginning of any given week, the moderators post a new prompt, and membershave a week to respond with creative work.

Many community members never post creative content, but members whodon’t post their own work tend to offer feedback generously. When offeringfeedback on a particular story, they will often incorporate comments on how theauthor chose to use the prompt of the week.

Although this particular community gears towards creative writing, it’seasy to imagine the strategy working in another context, such as an organizationalor department blog. The team could brainstorm on the theme of the month andpost responses to specific questions based on their personal experiences on aparticular topic. With part of the process already completed, the resultingblog entries could develop more quickly.

Contests

Another creative community I frequent opens for new content only twice ayear, during which time the community hosts a contest for the best creativecontent. The moderators set up a number of different categories for differentlength stories, as well as submission guidelines for other creative media. Membersthen sign up to contribute their content on a particular day during the run of thecontest. After the contest starts, at least one contributor will provide creativecontent every day for a month, when the contest closes. At the close of thecontest, readers and viewers complete a poll to select the work they found mostcompelling.

In this case, the guidelines create the promise of frequent submissionsfor the audience and quick and abundant feedback for the content providers. Contentproviders also have the opportunity to stand apart from their peers if themembers select their work as the best in the category. The result is asuccessful community.

If you’re a Moderator

The guidelines youset as a moderator can serve as a template, freeing members of the community tothink about the topic at hand, instead of the specifics of how to talk aboutit. If an online community is part of your learning strategy, providing astrong moderator presence is one way to help the community thrive.