By now you’ve probably received at least one invitation for Nextdoor or some community-centric Facebook group. Perhaps you’ve joined up to ensure that you and yours remain supplied with bread and masks front for the duration of the pandemic.
This is good, since generally, the wider we cast the community-based social safety net, the more likely we are to ensure everyone is safe and has toilet paper. Assuming, of course, that you use apps and/or social media. A few unfortunates might have to make actual phone calls.
Some of these groups, though only weeks old, have grown incredibly quickly. For example, the KW “caremongering” group on Facebook has over 8,000 members and counting.
When faced with this kind of massive and near-instant growth, group administration quickly becomes reactive rather than proactive. Well-meaning people scramble to answer questions, approve memberships, organize content and put out fires.
This is pretty common when founders and admins don’t do this kind of work professionally. Especially when the group is kicked off rapidly to address some specific event. Plus, this is just something the founders likely wanted to do on the side, not 24/7.
Many of the resulting issues are also pretty common, so we’ll take a look at those and ways of avoiding them. This will be part one of two regarding retaining your sanity while building and managing healthy communities. Global catastrophes optional.
So, you want to start up or refresh a community group. My first question: Why?
Hooboy, have people gotten mad at me in the past for asking that. They’re all revved up, they’ve introduced themselves and made their pitch, and they’ve asked for my involvement and/or amplification. Asking for justification of their motivations is very much not the desired response.
But truly, why do you want to do it? Pretty much everyone will say it’s because they want to help or because no one else is doing X or Y and there’s a need.
Except that they’re almost always wrong. However, when you point out that groups already exist that do what they say they want to do, strangely no one thanks you for this information and drops the idea of starting yet another new group.
They try to insist that theirs will be different. It’s almost like their driver is something else… (It’s kinda like how people with startup ideas seem to think there are never any competitors yet.)
Let’s face it, this type of person wants to be in charge. They want to be in the thick of it and build something cool that gets acknowledged and lauded and have other people want to become part of it as well. That’s cool, it’s human nature.
But “helping” because you want to be the boss of something is not an ideal motivation for spinning up a group like this. Especially if, as noted, there are already established groups focused on the same thing. I know, being a foot soldier is so much less sexy than being the CEO.
Now, maybe you want to be in charge of such a group because you do have particular skills or experience that existing groups don’t have. Maybe you really can bring something new and/or better to the endeavour. Or you actually are tackling it from a new angle. Then maybe there’s a point to you launching your own thing. Just don’t get blinded by your own ego or someone else’s.
Okay, so you’ve sorted the framework of the kind of group you want to build and have selected your chosen platform, etc. Before you launch it or start adding members or publicize it at all, you need rules. They’re not completely carved in stone and they will change over time as the group changes and grows. But you really, really need to start with rules.
How do people get added to the group? Do they have to agree to a code of conduct? What’s included in the code of conduct? Are postings going to have to be approved by moderators? How do you deal with bad behaviour? What topics are off-limits? What if members make complaints to the platform’s administration? How do you plan to organize content?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, but you’re going to need to think about and codify answers to this stuff. Life will be a whole lot less stressful if you do it at the beginning than if you have to slap it together a month in with 5,000 active members.
Scrambling to manage things at that point will just about guarantee inconsistent group administration and communication. It’ll give a poor first impression to new members and will certainly be noticed and judged by the existing ones. (Especially the ambitious types.)
It may seem dead obvious, but those rules also have to stick. Members need to be required to explicitly agree to the rules and code of conduct. Which, it goes without saying, have to be prominently and easily accessible to them so no one can claim they couldn’t be found or they hadn’t read them.
Very likely you don’t have to start from scratch. Check groups you already know about that are run well, or ask around. You can probably borrow and tweak as needed. Saving unnecessary work is smart administration.
If people misbehave, respond accordingly. What happens if people say or do X, Y, or Z? Perhaps for X it’s just a warning, for Y it’s a temporary suspension. But Z, well, that’s immediate expulsion and banning. From kids to canines, everyone needs clear, consistent, and enforced structure and rules to live by.
Trying to be “nice” instead of having rules will not make people like you, behave better, or make things more pleasant. It will make people think they can manipulate you or at least influence you. It will make people mad if they think you’re the slightest bit inconsistent (if it’s not in their favour).
It’s kinda like being the parent instead of being the friend. Someone’s gotta be in authority and sometimes that means doing administrative and disciplinarian work. And NOT getting to have the fun, social experiences, even if that’s kinda why you started the group.
Right, so that’s plenty to chew on for now, and will give you a pretty solid framework for examining your own motivations and getting started with a group.
Next time we’ll dig more into handling things once the group is up and running. Managing members, content, growth, and change with – if not an iron fist – then hopefully grace and efficiency.
Stay safe. Stay home. Wash your hands.
M-Theory is an opinion column by Melanie Baker. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Communitech. Melle can be reached on Twitter @melle or by email at me@melle.ca.
