Why Community Is as Critical as Content

Extracted 06JAN2012 from http://multi-local.posterous.com/why-community-is-as-critical-as-content

the community generates content too, and that your community can build on the strength of the ideas and the links that the users come there to share...

Matt Thompson of Project Argo wrote an excellent post for Poynter earlier this year in which he identified five key aspects of online commenting environments: authentication, reputation/scoring, moderation, policies, and threading....

If you look at the five aspects identified above, you can break them down into two key categories: policy and technology. But we were thinking too narrowly in terms of technology. The idea that making better content easier to find and interact with might lead to better overall content is fine. But that environment doesn’t optimize for a space in which users want to talk to each other. This is the reason why communities like Reddit, Slashdot, and Metafilter have become successful...

It’s time to think of your commenters as your co-publishers. After all, by having a commenting function on your website, you’re giving your users a platform that isn’t unlike the social web. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t take responsibility for what gets published there. You should want to. The community that organizes around your site is powerful and valuable, but only if you recognize it as such and offer to be a part of it and help it grow.