Building Communities with Software
joelonsoftware.com
joelonsoftware.com
So posting rules is just a way to insult the majority of the law-abiding citizens and it doesn't deter the morons who think their own poo smells delicious and nothing they post could possibly be against the rules.
Here's a link to posted forum guidelines dated 2006:
http://www.ericsink.com/entries/BOS_Guidelines.html
No registration necessary in '03:
But requiring registration does NOT improve the quality of the conversation or the average quality of the participants.
Sifting through archive.org, even in late '07, users didn't have to register but were being gently nudged into creating accounts as anonymous posts would most likely be deleted.
In 2009, you'll now find that you can no longer post/reply unless you register:
This community works best when people use their real names. Please register for a free account.
What changed?
I'd really love to hear an updated take on this topic from Joel himself.
Any differences in creating or nurturing an online community now compared to 6 years ago?
Any new challenges?
Aside from Joel and Clay Shirky (http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html) does anyone have any other must read links on this type of thing?
I run a travel blog hosting site as a hobby, and that quote has always rung true for me (I built the social aspects of the site largely from that article and the Clay Shirkey one linked elsewhere in this thread.) I delete maybe a dozen blog entries by hand each day, most of which are obvious spam, but some of which are certainly borderline cases that could possibly just be somebody not knowing better. Regardless, in 4 years of running the site, I've never received a single complaint from a user about a deleted post.
People know when they're behaving badly, regardless of whether there are rules in place to tell them so.
Hear. Hear.
The principle of no meanness that pg mentions so often is one great way to start. The software defaults suggested in the submitted article have testable effects on user behavior: I'm curious what tests of software defaults other HN readers have tried in forums that you administer. Do you enjoy reading a forum better, for instance, when you follow Joel's suggestion of making the reply button out of view for anyone who doesn't read down to the bottom of a thread?
It was based on a critique of modern American religion (albeit from a religious perspective) and talked about the need for what the author calls "triangulation" in social settings.
http://gatheringinlight.com/2009/03/02/the-ironic-gesture-of...
Regardless of the religious content in the article, I thought it interesting to note the similarity of concepts from an anthropological perspective.
One could speculate that the virtualization of many of our relationships has the potential to fill similar needs that the religious seek to fill in worship.