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sitting on the dock of the bay...
I retired from actively modding the No/Scans Daily comms this week. I took a hard look at what I want to achieve in the near future and keeping up that kind of commitment just wasn't in the cards. I'm staying on as a kind of reserve mod, though, because it's not that I wanted to be free, but more that I needed to focus on other things.
obligatory nuggets of mod wisdom:
What I learned from Scans Daily is that if you're going to be an effective ~leader, you have keep clear in your mind who and what the community is, where it's been, where it's going, and why it matters. If you're not invested, it will be very difficult to get others to invest. And casual users are great--they tend to make up most of your user base--but a healthy community needs a core group of passionate, invested people and casual users. One thing I did to keep that passion and clarity was to ask myself and my co-mods--all the time, seriously--how do you see the community now, and in a few years? What do you want to maintain and what do you want to change? A sense of purpose breeds excitement, possibility, and gets you energized--and let me tell you, communities like Scans Daily can be energy sinks like whoa.
I also learned that communities that rely on user-content (both posts and comments), don't need big personalities in leadership positions. They need lower case 'm' mods, who participate as members, get their work done quietly, and discipline quickly, decisively, fairly and consistently. The mods aren't the community. They shouldn't overshadow other members, intimidate them, influence their posting decisions (outside of rules and norms), and they sure as shit shouldn't be objects of ~adulation. I think too much overlap between big name posters and mods is unhealthy. A community needs formal and informal leaders. Most of what a mod does is hideously boring, and you need people who will buckle down and do that boring shit--tagging, noting, updating spreadsheets, writing announcements. Not necessarily fun people, loud people, or interesting people.
During my time as a Scans Daily mod the community was TOSed, hacked, trolled (and trolled and trolled), and hit with DMCA takedown notices. We migrated from InsaneJournal to Dreamwidth, built up a tag archive and posting FAQ, rewrote the rules--twice--developed resource lists, and made lots and lots of mistakes. (OMG). It's going to be nice to enjoy the fannish quiet life again, but damn, Scans Daily. <333
obligatory nuggets of mod wisdom:
What I learned from Scans Daily is that if you're going to be an effective ~leader, you have keep clear in your mind who and what the community is, where it's been, where it's going, and why it matters. If you're not invested, it will be very difficult to get others to invest. And casual users are great--they tend to make up most of your user base--but a healthy community needs a core group of passionate, invested people and casual users. One thing I did to keep that passion and clarity was to ask myself and my co-mods--all the time, seriously--how do you see the community now, and in a few years? What do you want to maintain and what do you want to change? A sense of purpose breeds excitement, possibility, and gets you energized--and let me tell you, communities like Scans Daily can be energy sinks like whoa.
I also learned that communities that rely on user-content (both posts and comments), don't need big personalities in leadership positions. They need lower case 'm' mods, who participate as members, get their work done quietly, and discipline quickly, decisively, fairly and consistently. The mods aren't the community. They shouldn't overshadow other members, intimidate them, influence their posting decisions (outside of rules and norms), and they sure as shit shouldn't be objects of ~adulation. I think too much overlap between big name posters and mods is unhealthy. A community needs formal and informal leaders. Most of what a mod does is hideously boring, and you need people who will buckle down and do that boring shit--tagging, noting, updating spreadsheets, writing announcements. Not necessarily fun people, loud people, or interesting people.
During my time as a Scans Daily mod the community was TOSed, hacked, trolled (and trolled and trolled), and hit with DMCA takedown notices. We migrated from InsaneJournal to Dreamwidth, built up a tag archive and posting FAQ, rewrote the rules--twice--developed resource lists, and made lots and lots of mistakes. (OMG). It's going to be nice to enjoy the fannish quiet life again, but damn, Scans Daily. <333