Moderation + Email in Local Community Online
Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo has some very interesting learnings about Freecycle (a local community service Jeremy uses) and how to manage the growth of a real world local community online : "I think there are many lessons in Freecycle for those trying to build services used by "normal people" in local communities. The first is simplicity. A mailing list is the simplest thing that could possibly work. No web site that hosts photos of offered goods, no bidding process, etc. It's simply email."
"Moderation is also important. That is, giving someone the flexibility and control necessary to exercise their own judgment and enforcing rules and customs that can't be baked into the software. In this case it comes in the form of a group moderator who can edit, revise, approve, or reject messages crossing the list. The result is that there's no spam, self-promotion, or commercial interests devaluing the list." Jessica was just saying the same thing.
"Moderation is also important. That is, giving someone the flexibility and control necessary to exercise their own judgment and enforcing rules and customs that can't be baked into the software. In this case it comes in the form of a group moderator who can edit, revise, approve, or reject messages crossing the list. The result is that there's no spam, self-promotion, or commercial interests devaluing the list." Jessica was just saying the same thing.
posted by redbarren at 2:29 PM
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