This page includes updates to the material--both facts and
opinions--contained in the book, links to other Web
sites carrying information about or supplemental to the book, and musings by the author (me) regarding the subject of the
book. In this section you'll be
able to find at least some of the changes that happen to sites, software and
business models described in the book Hosting Web communities. In case
you've arrived here from Cliff Figallo's home page,
there is a companion site dedicated to supporting the book at John Wiley & Sons, the
book's publisher. That site includes links to sites included in the book. Things change. Change is
good. (Now just try to keep up with them.)
The Cyberculture editor
of Amazon.Com interviewed
me about community-building on the Net. Technology writer and
WELL-veteran Mary Eisenhart interviewed
me in Salon Magazine about my work and why I continue to do it in spite
of the often harsh social conditions that virtual community breeds. SmartBooks featured my
book as its Book
of the Week on November 8. If you'd rather not buy
the book through Amazon, you can find it here
on Barnes & Noble's site. Tolerance is a choice that each of us makes
countless times in our lives. We each seek a comfort zone in the environments
where we find outselves at home, in the office, in school and online. How
much discomfort can we (or are we willing to) handle at any given time? Are
we willing to trade some comfort for excitement or entertainment or education?
I often describe online
discussion communities as being like passengers and crew on a submarine. The
quarters are cramped. You're almost certain to run into all of the other
passengers regularly, whether you get along with them or not. You're all sharing
the same facilities and some of you are liable to be competing for the
limited resource of attention from the rest of the population. Some people
adapt well to these conditions. Many, though, are not accustomed to such
sharing. Everyone must exercise extra tolerance in order to avoid the kinds
of conflict that spill over onto everyone else, for it's also difficult to
ignore, in confined spaces, the nastiness that boils to the surface between
two people who don't like each other. Tolerance is a quality
that must be modeled by the Community Manager and everyone whose role somehow
represents the host of the community. Modeling tolerance happens whenever an
angry remark is answered with a non-angry response. A sense of humor and
perspective is invaluable for defusing escalating emotions. It's helpful to
be able to remind verbal combatants in a virtual community that they can
simply log off and put their attention into something else rather than
subject themselves to high blood pressure and stress over questions that
cannot be resolved online. Tolerance must be
actively practiced by the Community Manager and hosts because they are often
the targets of the worst of criticism. They are often expected to deliver
perfect service in an imperfect technical world, and their judgements
regarding social problems in the community are expected to have the wisdom of
Solomon combined with a God-like infallibility. To deliver less is to be
incompetent and, predictably, a "fascist." It may take years for a
Community Manager to grow a thick enough skin and a wry enough sense of humor
to fend off the almost daily dose of vitriol that is the product of smart,
opinionated people given access to a public forum. Indeed, hosting is one of
those "character-building" roles that one volunteers for in life.
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