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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you, Karn, for your friendship, support, and all of your work over the years.

-Patrick

Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · 1d

When I had the idea for Community Signal, Karn was the first person that came to mind to have as a producer. Karn is a true creative partner in the program, and someone I trust to guide the direction of the show. He's worked on every single episode we've released.

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · 1d

Today marks 10 years since Karn Broad started working on Community Signal as the show's producer. I've actually worked with Karn for roughly 14 years in total, going back to a previous show that I hosted.

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 28

“... As @hrheingold.bsky.social put it once, it was where the tool makers meet the tool users. In addition to being a place where people can converse, it was also a kind of birthplace of a sort of online gift economy.”

- @johncoate.bsky.social

When Your First Day as an Online Community Manager is Your First Day at a Computer

As community professionals, the array of platforms, reading material, conferences, and thought leaders available to us only continues to grow. And if you've read or written a job description for a com...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 28

“The WELL [online community founded in 1985], because of its open nature/desire to experiment, opened up chunks of the operating system for programmers to actually play with and make little utilities for the people as a way of practicing. There was this maker culture going on at the same time. ...

“The WELL, because of its open nature and desire to experiment, opened up chunks of the operating system for programmers to actually play with and make little utilities for the people as a way of practicing. There was this maker culture going on at the same time. As Howard Rheingold put it once, it was where the tool makers meet the tool users. In addition to being a place where people can converse, it was also a kind of birthplace of a sort of online gift economy.” -John Coate, Former Marketing Director and Conference Manager, The WELL

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 25

“99% of the smartest people in the world don’t work for us. Ideas can come from anywhere. It’s about leveraging those ideas, but it’s also about building those relationships with people. … I’ve had three community members come in and get hired as LEGO designers.”

LEGO Ideas and the Building Blocks of a Successful Crowdsourcing Community

Every company has the challenge of managing how to respond to customer feedback. But what if you're managing a crowdsourcing community and actively asking people for their ideas and feedback? How do y...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 25

LEGO Ideas is a platform, provided by the company, where anyone can submit an idea that gets turned into an official LEGO set. With plenty of creative talent in-house, why do it? Tim Courtney, from 2020:

“99% of the smartest people in the world don’t work for us. Ideas can come from anywhere. It’s about leveraging those ideas, but it’s also about building those relationships with people. … I’ve had three community members come in and get hired as LEGO designers.” –Tim Courtney, Former Experience Manager, LEGO Ideas

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 21

“... That hurts a little bit more than just dealing with bots. ... These are people interacting with other people, and there was a human element there. The researchers are real people. I’m a real person. This happened between real people, and it wasn’t just AI.” -Logan MacGregor

University of Zurich Researchers Conducted an AI Persuasion Experiment on Members of This Online Community, Without Consent

In March, the volunteer moderators of the Change My View subreddit learned that researchers at the University of Zurich had been covertly conducting an experiment on their community members. By inject...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 21

“... What I think is so insidious about AI is it’s caused people to behave in ways that I don’t know we would have, without the stupid thinking machines. Because it’s a toxic influence. Unlike the bots that are invading us daily, that we’re constantly shutting down. …

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 21

“One thing that’s really special about Change My View is that it’s a human space; it’s a decidedly human space. … The University of Zurich is a decidedly human space. ...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 21

When researchers at the University of Zurich conducted psychological experiments on the Change My View community without consent, it was one human space taking advantage of another human space, which made it even worse, according to Logan MacGregor, a volunteer moderator in the community.

“One thing that’s really special about Change My View is that it’s a human space; it’s a decidedly human space. … The University of Zurich is a decidedly human space. What I think is so insidious about AI is it’s caused people to behave in ways that I don’t know we would have ... because it’s a toxic influence. Unlike the bots that are invading us daily, that we’re constantly shutting down. … That hurts a little bit more than just dealing with bots, because this wasn’t just bots. These are people interacting with other people, and there was a human element there.” -Logan MacGregor, Moderator (Volunteer), r/changemyview

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 20

“A lot of [ILTA's] material has the word attorney, which doesn’t exist in the UK. We have solicitors and barristers. … There are little tweaks ... that we’ve had to do in order to localize what we’re providing to [the UK] region. … It’s a big deal to people.” –Mercedes Oppon-Kusi

Bridging Continents and Countries in a Professional Association Community

Do you manage an international community? How do you thoughtfully foster community across different continents, languages, and norms? Mercedes Oppon-Kusi, the community manager for Europe for the Inte...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 20

When you are expanding your online community into a new country, you should examine the verbiage you are currently using. Locally-minded adjustments can help members feel more at home. Here's an example:

“A lot of [ILTA's] material has the word attorney, which doesn’t exist in the UK. We have solicitors and barristers. … There are little tweaks around the material and our language that we’ve had to do in order to localize what we’re providing to [the UK] region. … It’s a big deal to people.” –Mercedes Oppon-Kusi, Former Community Manager, International Legal Technology Association

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 19

“... My theory is if you have a good community site that is easy and people like to use, people are going to be more willing to create a meaningful membership in that community.” -Matt Nevill

From Engineer to Community Manager to Engineer to Community Manager

As we've shared on many episodes of Community Signal, community professionals come from numerous career paths, educational backgrounds, and areas of interest. In this conversation, Patrick talks with ...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 19

“... Not only that, but if they just visit your community, they can poke around and read the content without feeling like they’re trapped into [creating an account]. Some people don’t want to do that. ...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 19

“I think part of providing a good experience is less hurdles to jump over. If you have an open community, then people can find [your] content because it’s indexed by external search engines. ...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 18

“... An [org hosting an] online community may decide to close their community altogether deciding that the risk is not worth the benefit. Who really loses when we threaten the opportunities to build meaningful communities that can have a positive impact on people’s lives?”

– @scottmoore.bsky.social

Threats to Section 230 Threaten the Very Existence of Our Communities

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a frequent topic of conversation on Community Signal. As Patrick puts it, if you're a community professional in the United States, "this is the law tha...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 18

“Without the protection of Section 230, a well-meaning person or organization may lose their right to maintain a clean well-lighted space for civil discussion and capitulate to every demand regardless of its merit. ...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 15

“... We kind of dispute that because some of the comments are [you] pretending to be a trauma counselor and maybe that could actually cause some harm. … I don’t think they thought enough about community impact until after the community screamed ‘ouch.'” -Logan MacGregor

University of Zurich Researchers Conducted an AI Persuasion Experiment on Members of This Online Community, Without Consent

In March, the volunteer moderators of the Change My View subreddit learned that researchers at the University of Zurich had been covertly conducting an experiment on their community members. By inject...

www.communitysignal.com

Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 15

“So much of what [the researchers] did to try to prevent harm was to say ‘comments like this happen all the time online, we don’t think that it’s going to cause individual trauma.’ ...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 15

Even though the internet is full of bad comments, that doesn't mean that one more won't cause harm. After researchers conducted a psychological experiment on an online community without consent, they seemed to think that, since their comments were like any others, there was not a risk of harm.

“So much of what [the researchers] did to try to prevent harm was to say ‘comments like this happen all the time online, we don’t think that it’s going to cause individual trauma.’ We kind of dispute that because some of the comments are [you] pretending to be a trauma counselor and maybe that could actually cause some harm. … I don’t think they thought enough about community impact until after the community screamed ‘ouch.'” -Logan MacGregor, Moderator (Volunteer), r/changemyview

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 14

“... Because if you don’t have a satisfactory job, in my opinion, if you’re not happy working, that’s the time to question your job. But if you can have a job that you’re satisfied with and have the impact you want, it doesn’t matter where they put you.” -Craig Dalrymple

How Gaming Community Knowledge Translates to Other Industries

On Community Signal, we talk to community professionals across all industries, from gaming, to healthcare, to photography, and more. And while our respective communities might convene over different t...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 14

“I’ve always tried to think like a chameleon. Whenever you go into a company, they’re going to put you where they think you belong. … This is just another version of that question of where does the community person belong? For me, it’s can you have a satisfactory job? ...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 13

“When one community person – a volunteer, a host, a person in this line of work – stands up for their community, they stand up for all communities.”

- @patrickokeefe.bsky.social

www.communitysignal.com/university-o...

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Community Signal @communitysignal.bsky.social · Aug 11

“... It really got me thinking that maybe we are not having the right conversations with people within the organization. … If staff doesn’t know what community is, then how do we really know that our members know how to utilize it and what it is?”

- @marjorieayyeee.bsky.social

When You Ask a Room Full of Senior Staff What Community Is

In January, Project Management Institute community engagement specialist Marjorie Anderson delivered a presentation to a room full of senior staff. She asked them a question: "Can anyone tell me what ...

www.communitysignal.com