Community Signal

Lee Felsenstein's work in tech and social organizing led to the creation of the Community Memory project, the first publicly available social media system and public computerized bulletin board system. Mr. Felsenstein was also a founding member of the Homebrew Computer Club, and he helped develop the personal computer.

So, what was the first publicly accessible computerized bulletin board like? Mr. Felsenstein was less concerned with metrics around volume and recalls more specifically the diversity of interactions that happened through Community Memory. "We found somebody who did some typewriter graphics on it, [using] the teletype to laboriously draw a picture of a sailboat. That was not anticipated. We found all manner of people asking questions and giving answers to questions." (Go to 7:07 in the discussion to hear more.)

Mr. Felsentein also describes in great detail how he helped onboard people to Community Memory. Psychedelic posters, a cardboard box covering, and a person that stood near the terminal at all times who served as a promoter, tech support, and a bodyguard all helped people walking by Community Memory in its first home, a record store, use a virtual bulletin board for the first time.

There are many takeaways from this episode of Community Signal, but let's start with one –– Community Memory's approach to onboarding and tech education helped many take their first steps with computers and with virtual message boards. How can we carry this example forward, when for a lot of us, access to the internet comes by way of our mobile devises. Mr. Felsenstein is thinking about this and other community builders should, too.

Mr. Felsenstein and Patrick also discuss:

• The Free Speech Movement of the '60s
• The origin and story of Community Memory
• Lee's involvement with The WELL

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community.

How would people react to a computer popping up in their record store in 1973? (5:25): "I thought we would have to [physically] defend the [Community Memory] machine. How dare you bring a computer into our record store? I like to say that we opened the door to cyberspace and determined that it was hospitable territory. Of course, it took more to open the door than just a greeting." –@lfelsenstein

Who were the Community Memory early adopters? (6:27): "We saw a much broader diversity of uses [on Community Memory] than we had anticipated. We thought that there would be three categories: Jobs, cars, and housing. The first thing that happened, as far as I can tell, is that the traffic from the musicians' paper bulletin board moved over to the machine. … The musicians were making their living from this and so they were very quick to recognize a better technology for what they needed." –@lfelsenstein

The first question seeded on Community Memory (8:05): "We seeded the [Community Memory] system with a question, 'Where could you get good bagels in the Bay area?' … We got three answers; two of which were the expected lists of places where you could get bagels. The third was the kicker. That one said, if you call the following phone number and ask for the following name, an ex-bagel maker will teach you how to make bagels. This was validation of the concept of a learning exchange." –@lfelsenstein

The tragedy of the commons (13:53): "Those who talk about the tragedy of the commons are blowing hot air, as far as I'm concerned, because they're talking about a commons without regulation. Well, that's a tragedy waiting to happen. Then they say any concept of commons is therefore illegitimate because it will obviously turn into a tragedy and fail. Well, no, the commons in which you do not have regulation will [fail]. We've seen a lot of this happen on online applications." –@lfelsenstein

Moderation as a practice (19:32): "Having no gatekeepers [in a digital space] is a bad idea. We pretty much are all seeing what that results in. You have to work out how to involve the consent of the user in the gatekeeping process. You can't just say, 'Here is the gatekeeper.'" –@lfelsenstein

Facebook and the papyrus scroll method (34:11): "I think Facebook is a regression. I have to keep tearing myself away from it because it's designed and built to feed the addiction of novelty. We need a lot more than novelty in organizing human society or software advancement." –@lfelsenstein

Lee Felsenstein has been both a witness and active participant in numerous historically significant moments for social justice and technology. In addition to his work on Community Memory, he was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computer Club, designed the first mass-produced portable computer, the Osborne 1, as well as numerous other examples of pioneering computing technology, and advising in the creation of The WELL, one of the most popular examples of an early online community.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Lee Felsenstein's website
• Lee Felsenstein's Patreon
• Lee Felsenstein on Wikipedia
• Community Memory
• Community Memory overviews and promotional material
• Resource One: Technology for the People newsletter
• Artists and Hackers: Community Memory and the Computing Counterculture
• Community Memory: Precedents in Social Media and Movements
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy
• The Homebrew Computer Club
• The WELL
• Deschooling Society, by Ivan Illich
• Free Speech Movement Archive
• Gail Ann Williams on Community Signal
• Howard Rheingold on Community Signal
• The Virtual Community, by Howard Rheingold
• Big Sky Telegraph

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

The Zombies game mode within the popular Call of Duty video game franchise has created a massive community of fans and players who not only play and connect with the developers, but with each other as they try to discover every aspect of each piece of content released for the game.

In two versions of the game, they are even able to create their own content that can be played and shared online with other players. This ability to co-create and remix is the focus of this episode, as it leads to the game being more valuable to all parties, from the game publisher that owns the franchise to the player who plays alone.

But you don't need to be a fan of Call of Duty: Zombies or even video games in general to take community learnings from this conversation.

MrRoflWaffles is a YouTuber and streamer that has grown his channel to over 1.7 million subscribers and 400 million views. His audience comes to his channel to partake in all things Call of Duty: Zombies –– whether it's the latest news from Activision or deep dives on Easter eggs. In talking with Patrick, MrRoflWaffles explains how mod tools, which allow you to create new content for the game, and Easter eggs keep Zombies fresh, interesting, and challenging to both expert players and folks that are new to the game.

He also shares his "hungry player theory" –– a theory that even as game studios release more content for their games, players are always hungry for more. And while it's not possible for game studios to constantly release new content, mod tools put the power of game creation directly in the hands of the community.

What tools and tailored experiences can you offer to your community members?

MrRoflWaffles and Patrick discuss:

• Extending the play life of your game and your community by giving your members tools to create
• The importance of communicating through game dev challenges
• How mod tools can alleviate pressure from game studios and developers

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community.

How mod tools have created an endless Zombies experience (10:52): "I'm very close with a number of developers that have made [Zombies] maps or contributed to making maps over the years. Some of the things they have been able to create are so unbelievably unique. It means that a player today can think they know the bounds of what's possible in Zombies and then they can dip into the customs community a bit and their minds will be totally blown because it doesn't even feel like [Call of Duty] anymore." –@MrRoflWaffles

A game with custom content never gets stale (16:33): "As a [content] creator, [the mods community] fills a gap in a really powerful way that just makes my life easier because things are more dynamic and more fresh. They don't get so stale so quickly with [the ability to create] customs." –@MrRoflWaffles

Custom content provides breathing room for game studios and a creative outlet for community members (19:32): "Games take a long time to develop and updates take time to develop. The devs cannot keep pace with the appetite of the people playing the games these days. They just cannot do it. Having an extra pool of [custom content] to dip into at any time is incredible from a creator perspective and from a fan perspective, too." –@MrRoflWaffles

Custom maps provide an experience for every level of Zombie player (26:17): "Treyarch is making [the official Call of Duty: Zombies] maps for everyone. Whereas the custom map maker, they can decide [to] target the top 1% of players, the most hardcore Easter egg experience possible, and then deliver, [which means] that community is spoken to and has the experience they want. Or, they could make them with no Easter eggs if they see fit. Then the more casual fans can jump in as well." –@MrRoflWaffles

"Hungry player theory" and gamers' needs for more content (30:13): "[Explaining the hungry player theory]: I think people just get hungrier and hungrier and each new map satisfies them less and less and less. Even though in the exact moment of its release, it's great, you end up with something that then just makes people want more and more and more and more and it spirals out of control a little bit." –@MrRoflWaffles

Open communication is imperative for any community (36:11): "[As a game developer], making sure that you stay involved in the conversation and bring the community with you as you fix [bugs and problems], and you're honest about things when they don't go so well is, in my opinion, a really big asset for any team that is trying to make a game or build any kind of community with any kind of product." –@MrRoflWaffles

MrRoflWaffles, Milo, is a YouTuber and streamer based out of London, UK. He started his current YouTube channel in 2009, while in secondary school, and today has over 1.7 million subscribers and over 400 million lifetime views. MrRoflWaffles is very interested in the wider workings of the creator economy, game development, digital culture, and the intersection of all of the above.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• MrRoflWaffles on Twitter
• MrRoflWaffles on YouTube
• MrRoflWaffles YouTube playlist explaining the Zombies storyline
• Treyarch, the creators of the Zombies game mode
• NoahJ456 on YouTube
• This Zombies Mode Was Designed to Fail…

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

In addition to practicing community management as a profession, many of the listeners, guests, and even members of the team behind Community Signal, manage communities part-time. These might be communities that align with our personal passions or hobbies or communities that exist specifically to help ourselves and others grow. That is exactly the mission of Muslamic Makers. Co-founded by Arfah Farooq, who joins us for this episode, Muslamic Makers is a community of Muslim changemakers who work in the tech industry.

This April marks the fifth birthday of Muslamic Makers and Arfah discusses how the community has grown during that time and how she sees it growing into the future. Muslamic Makers takes pride in offering thoughtful programming that is largely free to its community, and Arfah shares how she and her team are thoughtfully working to keep it that way. Tech companies want access to diverse communities when it comes to hiring and in exchange for sponsorship opportunities, the Muslamic Makers community offers them just that. Arfah also discusses the importance of documenting the processes that keep the community running, so that the community can continue running, whether she's managing the day-to-day or not. It's always refreshing to hear that the practices that keep our "professional" communities healthy and well-managed are the same practices that we should try applying to our own personal communities, too.

Arfah and Patrick also discuss:

• Keeping a community independent, self-sustaining, and affordable to its members
• Adapting and enforcing your community's Code of Conduct as you grow
• How the pandemic has helped the Muslamic Makers community grow beyond its roots in London

This episode is the first that we've released since the devastating shooting that left eight people in Atlanta dead, including six Asian women. Their names were Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, and Xiaojie Tan. The other two people who were killed were Delaina Ashley Yaun and Paul Andre Michels. One man, Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, was seriously injured. As a team, we've reflected on how our work in communities matters when it comes to stopping hate. As Patrick says in this episode, "when we educate ourselves about what anti-Asian hatred looks like and we take action against it, we are part of the solution."

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community.

Growing Muslamic Makers into a self-sustaining community: "Where I think self-sustainability [for Muslamic Makers] comes from is sponsorships with tech companies because tech companies want access to diverse talent. They want to advertise to a diverse pool." –@Arf_22

Our communities are bigger than our individual selves: "[When asking for money to sustain a community], speak from the heart, and let people know your intentions are right and you are just thinking about this community existing beyond yourself. [Muslamic Makers] is part of my legacy, but at the same time, especially in Islam as well, it's the whole thing of, if I die tomorrow, this thing is going to carry on. It's going to keep bringing goodness in the world." –@Arf_22

How the pandemic helped the Muslamic Makers community grow beyond London: "Because we the founders were in London … [Muslamic Makers was] very London-centric. … The beauty of actually being forced online [because of the pandemic], in a sense, has meant that all our events are online, which has meant that we've had people dialing in from the other side of the world. That global community has definitely grown a lot." –@Arf_22

Arfah Farooq is a lifelong community builder, from shaping the regeneration of East London after the 2012 Olympics to building resilience in young people as a youth trustee for a charity.

She accidentally co-founded a startup called Discoverables after an initial Design Council grant in 2012. This catapulted her into technology, which led her to co-found Muslamic Makers, a community for Muslims who upscale and pioneer tech in 2016. Arfah is a 2017 fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and has been awarded a prestigious fellowship exploring Muslim women in technology in the USA, UAE, and Pakistan, where she vlogged her travels and brought back her expertise to help businesses.

For her day job, Arfah works in government where she managed an internal community of 1,500-plus product and delivery managers across the UK government and now leads the No.10 Innovation Fellowship program. She is also an Angel investor in startups as part of the Aida Ventures Angels program to invest in underrepresented talent.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Arfah Farooq's website
• Arfah on Twitter
• Discoverables
• Muslamic Makers
• No.10 Innovation Fellowship program
• Aida Ventures Angels program
• Celebrating five years of Muslamic Makers
• Creative Mornings
• Muslamic Makers 2016-2021 Impact Report
• Faisa Mohamed, co-founder of Somalis in Tech, joined us on Community Signal

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

The field of community management is buzzing. We have more tools available to us than ever before and an abundance of communities and resources to connect us with fellow professionals who know our work and want to share knowledge. But what goes into creating inclusive, diverse, and truly open and welcoming spaces for community professionals? Who is given a platform to share knowledge?

In this conversation with Faisa Mohamed, co-founder of Somalis in Tech, we broach this topic and how Faisa and her team approached launching Somali Women in Tech. On paper, the approach may sound simple –– Faisa made sure that that the Somalis in Tech team was onboard with the mission and purpose of Somali Women in Tech. "If you ask the other team members what Somali Women in Tech is, including the male members who are not in this group, they're going to know exactly what it is and can tell you exactly what it is because they are fully aware of it." (Head to 25:06 to pick up at this part of the conversation.) But in practice, we've seen that's not a priority for all communities. In the case of Somali Women in Tech, Faisa provides an example of how building community with diversity, equity, and inclusion as important values from day one leads to more successful communities, both from an internal and external perspective.

So –– how are you creating space and opportunity for others in the community industry? To what standards do you hold the communities that you build and that you're part of? We're always interested in hearing from you, so if there's something you've tried or learned from recently, let us know.

Faisa and Patrick also discuss:

• Reading between the lines of community job descriptions
• Gatekeeping in the community management industry
• Being "intentional" in inclusion efforts

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community.

How inclusive and open are communities for community pros? (14:36): "With each [community professional] group and clique, you're going to hear more buzzwords, and you're going to hear more excluding language. People are going to plug into resources and share resources more privately as you become more within communities. [But that's] just not how I came to be in this profession. I came into this profession through exposure to communities, people wanting to help you and that natural curiosity." –@faisatweets

When your story isn't told (22:48): "As a woman of many intersections, being a Black Muslim, child of immigrants, eldest daughter … navigating communities with these intersections, you often see the gaps of which your experience has not been acknowledged or thought about. Actually, this has been something I've faced mostly in women communities. Communities with the focus for women have often been one type of narrative. I feel, too many times, my story has not been told." –@faisatweets

Getting internal stakeholders on the same page about building diverse communities (25:06): "I often find projects with an aim of inclusivity or diversity are personal or side projects that don't get a lot of visibility. I can't be the only one championing this. It has to be the entire team. If you ask the other team members, what Somali Women in Tech is, including the male members who are not in this group, they're going to know exactly what it is and can tell you exactly what it is because they are fully aware of it." –@faisatweets

Community is not a cure-all (39:40): "During the Black Lives Matter protests … I'm really paraphrasing here but [a prominent white man in the community industry] effectively said community is going to be the solution to discrimination such as racism. I actually just responded to him and said, 'It's also the thing that's currently perpetuating it.' It's part of the problem, because community [is] effectively groups. The most extreme example is the KKK meets up every week. That's a community. There are absolutely extreme right-wing versions of communities that exist. Just because we don't acknowledge them or may not see them in our everyday lives, they are still communities. We have to understand the power that community has –– good or bad." –@faisatweets

Faisa Mohamed (she/her) is a community consultant, builder, nurturer, and manager with an interest in product. Faisa previously worked at Bumble and Peanut and is now a contractor at Facebook working on their developer community program, Developer Circles. Faisa is also the co-founder of Somalis in Tech, a community organization increasing the visibility and representation of Somali talent in the tech industry.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Faisa Mohamed on LinkedIn
• Faisa on Twitter
• Somalis in Tech
• Facebook Developer Circles
• Marjorie Anderson of Community by Association

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

What would happen if you woke up tomorrow and couldn't share any news articles on Facebook? How would that impact the communities that you manage or the way you share information with family and friends? What if this ban included information provided by emergency services agencies for things like natural disasters, wildfires, and domestic violence? This situation is not a hypothetical one for Australian users of Facebook. Just last week, after Facebook failed to make an agreement to pay Australian news organizations for linking to their content, the company issued a ban that prevents sharing Australian or international news content on the platform.

In this episode, Patrick talks to Dr. Jennifer Beckett, a lecturer in media and communications at the University of Melbourne, about the immediate ramifications that this has had and what it might mean for communities on Facebook moving forward.

Dr. Beckett's work also has a focus in the mental health of digital workers, given the prevalence of moderation-related work, no matter what the job title. As our field expands, Dr. Beckett points to the need for visibility and protection for the people who do this work.

Dr. Beckett and Patrick discuss:

• The well-being of content moderators and what some organizations are doing to protect their well-being
• The legal environment for community builders in Australia
• The need for better communication about the "toxicity" of communities

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community.

Facebook has issued a broad ban of news and essential information for its Australian users (4:53): "Facebook has used a really broad definition of what news is. They've blocked our Bureau of Meteorology, several emergency services, [and] Queensland Fire & Safety. … That's problematic because there's actually floods happening in Queensland at the moment. They're using the platform to get really vital and immediate emergency information out. The domestic violence government support pages, they've all gone down. It's really, really problematic." –@JenniferBeckett

How Facebook's ban of news in Australia may encourage misinformation and disinformation (6:42): "[This ban is] going to allow for a lot of non-news organizations to spread a lot of disinformation and misinformation because there'll be nothing to curb that misinformation or disinformation in a community. If I'm running a community and somebody starts spouting QAnon conspiracy theories in my group, I've actually got no ability to now post fact-based, fact-checked news articles that debunk those conspiracy theories." –@JenniferBeckett

Healthy communities can still be toxic to others (11:38): "The thing that makes [groups like the Proud Boys] so dangerous is, internally, they're super healthy. They're not toxic to their own members. They're toxic to everyone else." –@JenniferBeckett

Moderation isn't about perfection (24:23): "Moderation is an effort that requires a lot of care, thought, and time. Even when you do your best, you're not perfection." –@patrickokeefe

When your job responsibilities undermine your personal identity (42:05): "Have you ever had to moderate content [or leave up content] that goes against your sense of self-identity and safety? I'm thinking about people of color and First Nations people, anybody in a minority group who's doing this job, who suddenly has to remain professional while people are actually questioning their right to exist in many cases. Living in this constant state of cognitive dissonance can actually have physical ramifications, as well." –@JenniferBeckett

Dr. Jennifer Beckett is a lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She researches online governance and the mental health of digital workers and teaches a Masters level subject in community management. Before heading back to academia, she worked as an online and social media producer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Dr. Jennifer Beckett on Twitter
• Dr. Beckett's University of Melbourne profile
• The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
• Facebook will block Australian users and publishers from sharing news links in response to new bill (via The Verge)
• The Betoota Advocate, a satirical site that was blocked as part of Facebook's ban on news
• Venessa Paech on Community Signal
• Australian Community Managers
• Community Signal Episode About Section 230
• A Community Management Perspective on the Violentacrez/Reddit Troll Story, an article about Reddit's past, by Patrick
• Australia's Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Act
• Sarah Roberts, UCLA
• Arlie Russell Hochschild
• Quiip launches industry-first resilience training in response to overwork and burnout
• Dr. Beckett acknowledges that her research is done on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

What are the topics of discussion that you would expect to come across in a weather community? Storms, climate change, and forecast accuracy are part of the conversation.

As a community strategist at Weather Underground, Michelle Schlachta also encountered stories of people that experienced traumatic weather-related events and sought the community out for education and healing. Those are connections and healing that you can't build through Google results or a weather forecast app. Patrick and Michelle discuss how Weather Underground provided a platform for weather experts through its blogging community and how new members with questions and less expertise about weather were welcomed into the community.

In addition to sharing her experiences at Weather Underground, Splunk, and YouTube –– Michelle discusses something that a lot of us can probably relate to right now –– the isolation of working from home during the pandemic. There are no quick solutions for that but she does offer a reminder that "we're all going through it together." If you'd like to share how you're coping with the isolation of the pandemic, please leave us a comment or write to us.

Michelle and Patrick discuss:

• How veteran members help enforce community guidelines and conversation norms
• Communicating change to our communities
• Sensitivity around dramatic weather events that can lead to the loss of life

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community.

The Weather Underground community offers an opportunity to heal through education (8:45): "If you've had a traumatic weather-based event happen in your life, maybe learning as much as you possibly can about weather or that particular storm that you witnessed and experienced, it might make you feel like you have more of a sense of control over it and over healing from that traumatic event." –Michelle Schlachta

Community results over Google results (16:21): "New users [joined Weather Underground] because they wanted to learn from experts. They wanted to learn information they couldn't really learn by Googling and searching on the internet. They wanted to have and observe conversation about weather so that they can learn, too, and who better are you going to learn from but an expert? We had all the top weather expert conversationalists on our site." –Michelle Schlachta

Dealing with climate science denial (17:33): "[When it came to climate change denial at Weather Underground], some of the developers and meteorologists came together to figure out how do we set the stage for other people? Therefore, we could point to that information on the company stance so that when people were trolling or we weren't sure if they were trolling, we could be like, 'Look, this is what we think climate change is and climate denial. You know what side we're on. Depending on which side you're on, you're either welcome or not.'" –Michelle Schlachta

Communicating change to communities (21:54): "Part of my job was helping the community understand that the people [at YouTube], behind building these products they were using, really did care about [them], they did care what they wanted, and they did want to give them what they wanted while still fulfilling business needs. That's a pretty delicate, difficult balance." –Michelle Schlachta

Michelle Schlachta is the community content manager for Splunk, and has previously worked in community at IBM, Weather Underground, The Weather Company, and Google, YouTube, and CNET.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Michelle Schlachta on LinkedIn
• Splunk
• Weather Underground
• The YouTube Partner Program
• How Content ID works on YouTube
• An Update On Our View Counts
• Why You Need to Find a Work Crew
• The Splunk blog

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

If you have ever used Google to look up a restaurant you wanted to eat at or to research before visiting someplace new to you, you've probably depended on information contributed by a Local Guide. Traci Cappiello is the program manager at Google that makes sure those Local Guides feel engaged and empowered to provide helpful information to the world.

With 100 million people who have contributed through the Local Guides initiative, Traci and her 12 member team focus on the one-to-many interactions that happen on Local Guides Connect, the dedicated community space for those contributors. That includes creating online and in-person experiences that reward, uplift, and encourage the Local Guides. Traci shares the team's approach to this work and some of the checks and balances in place to make sure that all of the content shared by Local Guides is trustworthy and accurate.

Traci and Patrick discuss:

• How the Local Guides met the challenge of sharing accessibility information on Google
• The tools and teammates that support the Local Guide community
• What's the difference between a Local Guide and just someone posting reviews on Google?

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsors: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community and Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community.

What's the difference between a Local Guide and someone who writes Google reviews? (8:31): "Anyone can be a [Google] Local Guide. You don't have to jump through any hoops. You literally just go to g.co/localguides and sign up for it. If you are already a Google Maps contributor, it will say, 'Hey, do you want to join the Local Guides Program?' The difference between a Local Guide designation on a review and a non-local guide is simply that this person has taken the step to say, 'Hey, I want to be a part of this. I want to be a part of something different.'" –@JumpingTraci

The biggest obstacle to contributing as a Local Guide (14:50): "People don't realize they're violating our policies until they've already violated. Oftentimes, there'll be folks who aren't really malicious. There's a small handful of people that can be malicious, at times at least, … but I really think that for the most part it's just [a] knowledge [gap]." –@JumpingTraci

Tailoring content to Google's community and needs (32:22): "We encourage people to share original content that is tailored for the platform itself. There's nothing wrong with excerpting. If you've already created a guide to 10 top places to go to in New York City; feel free to paste it over. If the crux of your posts or the intention is to just promote yourself, we're not here for that." –@JumpingTraci

Traci Cappiello joined Google in 2012, working on what is now Local Guides, a program for the passionate Google Maps contributors helping the world to find the places worth discovering. Over the years, Traci has gone from managing hyperlocal activities to managing social channels with over one million followers to now focusing on designing delightful community experiences for her fellow Local Guides.

Traci's current focus is engaging, connecting, and empowering this nearly 100 million strong community. She manages the community forum, Local Guides Connect, as well as leading community support operations and Connect Live, the team's annual event for top community members.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Sponsor: Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community
• Traci Cappiello on LinkedIn
• Traci on Twitter
• Local Guides Connect
• Traci's call to Local Guides to help share accessibility information on Google
• Meet the Guiding Stars of the Local Guides community
• Khoros and contractors from Grazitti help power the Local Guides community
• Connect Live

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

If you were building a community product, how would you start? Who would you choose as your first hire? What efforts would you make to ensure that the product is inclusive, safe, and well-moderated?

In this episode of Community Signal, we're joined by Danielle Maveal to do a deep-dive on audio-first platforms and specifically, Clubhouse. While every platform and community has moderation issues to work through, Clubhouse has made headlines and Twitter rounds for the lax moderation that has brought anti-Semitism, misogyny, and misinformation to the "stage" on the app. In this discussion, Danielle and Patrick discuss how other audio-first platforms have approached trust and safety and what steps they would take to scale the teams, communities, and norms that power them. And while they acknowledge that not every conversation or connection that happens on the platform is bad, they offer a reminder that we can all do something to hold platforms accountable.

The members and the content that we allow on our platforms dictate the culture that permeates in our communities. If there's one thing that Clubhouse proves, it's that there is still room for platforms that are built with safety and inclusivity in mind from day one.

Danielle and Patrick discuss:

• The current landscape of audio-first communities
• How they would scale a team and membership base of a community product
• Why community guidelines, enforcement, and tools matter from day one

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsors: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community and Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community.

Community governance influences the culture of our communities (8:05): "I haven't heard about anyone being removed from [Clubhouse]. I'm sure there have been some, but there's no transparency. When is someone banned, or when are they muted? What if they are a repeat offender? What happens then? There's no discussion of that happening publicly so [Clubhouse] feels like a brand new territory for these scammers to go and chat." –@daniellexo

Not all audio-first platforms are terrible (14:55): "[At Clubhouse], I didn't see a key community or trust and safety hire very early on to set the norms. I'm on two other audio apps with absolutely no problems. [Space and Quilt]. They're smaller, they're growing at a smaller rate, but they have key community hires there. The social norms that are being developed are just completely different." –@daniellexo

How do we make people care about trust and safety issues? (17:29): "I'll have a conversation with someone who is a very reasonable person, and we'll talk about Clubhouse, and all the issues that have been raised. Then I'll see them ask for an invite. My mind is blown. We are not learning from lessons of the past. How do we make people care?" –@daniellexo

The value that Clubhouse members bring to the stage (24:35): "[Clubhouse] creators who are now put into these moderator and facilitator roles; they're going to make the founders and investors rich. [Clubhouse] invites are positioned like a gift, but really [users are] creating the experiences that draw in hundreds of listeners, thousands in some cases, and they get absolutely nothing for it." –@daniellexo

Scaling your moderation efforts with your community is a must (34:30): "Being able to shut down a bad thing while it's happening [on an audio-first platform] is important and if you can't do that, maybe it's a clue that you shouldn't be doing this. … Taking care of a call two days later is not going to be a workable solution to stopping bad things." –@patrickokeefe

Building a community for the long haul, not for short term vitality (38:00): "One thing I would focus on is really keeping the testing pool super small. Trusted people only, no invites, or very few and I would know who's coming in the door. I wouldn't be allowing more people in the door until I was ready to be responsive to live reports, so that I can come out very strongly against bad behavior." –@patrickokeefe

Danielle Maveal has 15 years of experience launching, growing, and supporting brand and marketplace communities. She was on the founding team at Etsy and BarkBox and since has worked at Airbnb and Lyft. She's now moving from building community teams and programs to building community products.

• Sponsor: Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community
• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Clubhouse
• Clubhouse on Twitter
• Danielle Maveal's website and Substack, Community Feelings
• Exclusive Social Media App 'Clubhouse' Had an Anti-Semitic Meltdown Over Yom Kippur, by Yair Rosenburg
• Jewish "Control" of the Federal Reserve: A Classic Antisemitic Myth, via ADL
• "You become hostage to their worldview": The murky world of moderation on Clubhouse, a playground for the elite, via Vanity Fair
• Kia Richards, product compliance manager at Square, on Clubhouse's disinformation problem
• Taylor Lorenz, journalist at the New York Times, documents Clubhouse's moderation issues
• Other audio-first platforms referenced in this show include Airtime, Space, and Quilt
• Heather Merrick, director of customer support at Airtime, on Community Signal
• Tracy Chou, CEO at Block Party
• Wesley Faulkner on Community Signal
• Ustream

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

There are many different categories of diversity and, as community practitioners, continuously learning about them and questioning our assumptions will only help us build more inclusive communities. In this episode of Community Signal, we're joined by Wesley Faulkner, a DevRel advocate at Daily, who also advocates for neurodiversity.

Wesley and Patrick discuss several ways in which we can build for inclusivity within our products, communities, and teams, all through the lens of specific real-world situations. For example, if we approached writing job descriptions with inclusivity, would terms like "rock star" and "extrovert" still make their way into job descriptions? How can career tracks that account for the different skills and ambitions of the community managers on our teams create more inclusive games, communities, and more? As Wesley says in this conversation, "constraints makes things better. Some people think that if you do accessibility, that you're restricting the creativity of the medium, but … when you make [things accessible from] the beginning, it actually can make things better for everyone."

Take the example that Wesley shares about sidewalks. When sidewalks were redesigned to include ramps for people that use wheelchairs, this also made it "easier for people who are running and jogging on the sidewalk, people who had strollers, [and] for little kids so they would trip less." How can designing your community with inclusion in mind aid your community members and colleagues?

Patrick and Wesley discuss:

• Designing for neurodiverse communities
• Coaching your community members to be positive contributors
• Managing community managers with different skills and ambitions

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsors: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community and Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community.

Designing your community with accessibility for neurodivergent members in mind (08:27): "In terms of tools [to accommodate neurodivergent people], one easy trick I learned is that if you can navigate the community just with your keyboard, you're hitting a good 80% to 90% of … use cases in terms of accessibility." –@wesley83

Accessible communities make for more inclusive communities (12:16): "Constraints make things better. Some people think that if you do accessibility, that you're restricting the creativity of the medium, but constraints actually can make things so much more elegant. When you make [things accessible from] the beginning, it actually can make things better for everyone." –@wesley83

Make the implicit of your community explicit (21:09): "Is this person helping the community or hurting the community? If they're hurting the community, can you define what it is that they are doing that hurts the community? [Is it] written into the community guidelines?" –@wesley83

Codifying what it means to be a positive community contributor (24:02): "Moderation is education. You're telling people how to be the best member they can be in the community. If you're going to do that, then you have to codify what that is." –@patrickokeefe

Wesley Faulkner is a developer advocate for Daily, a 1-click video chat API. He's previously spent time in developer advocacy or community at IBM, Atlassian, and LiveWorld. Wesley is also the co-host of the Community Pulse podcast, and an advocate for neurodiversity.

• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Sponsor: Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community
• Wesley Faulkner on Twitter
• Daily
• Community Pulse podcast
• Wesley on his journey through DevRel
• Neurodiversity as defined by Merriam-Webster
• Cyberpunk 2077 sequences may cause seizures (via Polygon)
• Americans with Disabilities Act
• Cindy Au's tweets about one stereotype and unfortunate job requirement in the community industry
• The Other Diversity: Neurodiversity (via Maggie McGary)
• Wesley recommends Brené Brown and the Different Minds podcast
• Special thanks to Carrie Melissa Jones and Maggie McGary for their input on this episode

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.

This episode marks 5 years of Community Signal! If you tune in, you'll hear Patrick share a thank you for the incredible guests and collaborators that have helped get us here, in addition to the sponsors and Patreon supporters that have generously supported this work. We're proud to share the stories and learnings of our peers in the community industry and Patrick, Karn, and myself look forward to speaking to more of you! If you ever have feedback on the show or want to suggest a guest, we'd love to hear from you. Please drop us a line, even if it's just to let us know that you're listening.

Around this time last year, the burgeoning online community behind the American Society of Safety Professionals was beginning to discuss COVID-19. As the pandemic made its way across the globe, Ashleigh Brookshaw, the manager of community engagement at the ASSP, adapted to make sure that the community was positioned as a core part of the society's online experience.

In this discussion, Ashleigh talks us through the launch of ASSP's online community and how leaders within the ASSP were vital to its construction and launch. By leveraging the experience and insight of the safety professionals that were already members of the society, Ashleigh was able to ensure that the community was easy to use and navigate from a technical perspective and also seeded with content and voices that would welcome a diverse membership. This is a common thread throughout the interview – the ASSP empowers its leaders and community members to lead much of the programming, discussion, and community moderation. Ashleigh shares the insights and UX considerations that she has implemented to power this community.

Patrick and Ashleigh also discuss:

• How the ASSP is thinking about the future of the safety profession and why DEI is important to that vision
• Managing a community of safety experts during a pandemic
• The code of conduct and motivations that encourage community members to keep conversations professional

If you enjoy our show, please know that it's only possible with the generous support of our sponsors: Vanilla, a one-stop shop for online community and Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community.

COVID-19 has demonstrated the use-case for the ASSP community (4:15): "As you take a look at the maturation rate of community, that first year, year and a half, two years, is in my opinion, very, very critical in order to build the user adoption and behaviors that you want to see for long-term sustained engagement. The good thing about COVID-19, and I always like to try to pull the positive little nuggets where I can, is that our organization has really stepped up in terms of integrating online community more holistically and strategically at the front end, to service our members." -Ashleigh Brookshaw

Community segmentation drives the ASSP user experience (18:47): "People sometimes want [online community] segmentation in a way that won't actually work well. They will segment themselves off into a corner and then wonder why no one sees what they post. … 'I posted this [with segmentation that allows me to reach] seven people out of a 7,000 member org, why didn't I get any replies? Why doesn't anyone care about me?'" –@patrickokeefe

But segmentation can sometimes be harmful (22:53): "People sometimes want segmentation in a way that won't actually work well for the wider organization. They will segment themselves off into a corner and then wonder why no one sees what they post. … Then they wonder, they complain, 'I posted this [with segmentation that allows me to reach] seven people out of a 7,000 member org, why didn't I get any replies? Why doesn't anyone care about me?'" –@patrickokeefe

Empowering community-led moderation (35:00): "ASSP, as an organization, has a professional code of conduct. If a member is not acting in accordance with the mission and the vision of [a] particular group and [not] helping [to] advance the society as a whole, there's going to be [an] ethics review by [the] professional code of conduct committee." -Ashleigh Brookshaw

Ashleigh Brookshaw is an accomplished community strategist, who has worked with both internal and external audiences for a variety of organizations including nonprofits like Chicago Gateway Green, Fortune 500 companies like Allstate Insurance, and professional associations like the American Society of Safety Professionals. She is also the chief innovation officer of C2M Digital, a consulting services firm headquartered in historic downtown Oak Park, IL.

• Sponsor: Localist, plan, promote, and measure events for your community
• Sponsor: Vanilla, a one-stop-shop for online community
• Ashleigh Brookshaw on LinkedIn
• American Society of Safety Professionals
• It's my (Carol's) three year anniversary with Community Signal!
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (1911)
• Triangle: Remembering The Fire
• The Higher Logic Super Forum
• ASSP's Common Interest Groups
• ASSP's Professional Code of Conduct

• View transcript on our website

If you have any thoughts on this episode that you'd like to share, please leave me a comment, send me an email or a tweet. If you enjoy the show, we would be so grateful if you spread the word and supported Community Signal on Patreon.