Jeska D's Community Thoughts

Jeska Dzwigalski's space for online community conversation, learnings, best practice.

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What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

Kurt Vonnegut

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How to Build an Awesome Online Community (and Why It's So Important)

When you start a blog, you will hear a lot about how to grow your audience. You will read about gaining readers and followers, and why SEO is important. All of those things are important for page views—but there is something I believe is far more rewarding and important for everything you do online: building your online community.

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‘It’s Yours’: A Short History of the Horde

How Ta-Nehisi Coates built the best comment section on the internet—and why it can’t last.

Building community takes time, commitment, consistency and a strong sense of reoccurring events. 

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It’s nobody’s fault but mine

Dick Costolo, CEO Twitter on Twitter's failure at controlling abuse on their platform. (source)

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Why I’ve found that online communities on media sites always seem doomed to fail

It is usually the staff who care most about that community that end up bearing the brunt of the abuse from it.

Very smart commentary from Martin Belam, explores forum/board communities and the people who love them.

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Ask Not For Whom The Bell Trolls; It Trolls for Thee.

This American Life podcast features trolling and Internet hatred as their topic this week. Great listening for Community-management minded folks.

Full episode --> http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/545/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps

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I promise I do more than Skype all day ;)

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In Honor of Community Manager Appreciation Day, 82 Amazing Community Pros

For those of you who don't know, today is international Community Manager Appreciation Day. That means we're celebrating the hard work of community builders around the world and the movements they'...

Love seeing a ton of my fave Community Manager peeps on this list and humbled by my own inclusion - Love you fellow Community Managers!

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Community Manager Salary Survey Results (2014)

Check out the latest data from our first community manager salary survey focused on the careers of community management.

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Einstein's advice to Marie Curie on dealing with trolls: "Don't read that hogwash"

"If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don’t read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated."

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Why Community Managers Are the New Brand Managers

Warby Parker co-founder Neil Blumenthal explains why, it’s the little things that make a brand great.

I would argue this has been true for some time, but companies who figure it out sooner will thrive.

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#CMGRHangout presents: Let's Talk Influencers (with images, tweets) · myCMGR

How do you find influencers in your community? When you do, how do you create an environment that allows them to feel important and proud to be a part of what you're building?

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Why Haters Hate: Kierkegaard Explains the Psychology of Bullying and Online Trolling in 1847

“All it amounts to is play-acting. But how invaluably interesting to have one’s knowledge of human psychology enriched in this way.” - Kierkegaard

Like so many other things, the Internet didn't invent trolling or bullying. Kierkegaard observed the nasty human traits in his journals back in 1847. Haters gonna hate.

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Must read. Danger of letting monsters pass as internet trolls.

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A Manifesto for Building Relationships in the Digital Era by @briansolis & @gapingvoid

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10 reasons people don't care about your content

Spewing blog posts, updates, and tweets without regard to your target audience or the channel you use will just waste your time and add to the online clutter.

Great stuff, @mhames with 10 reasons people don't care about your content creation.

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To defeat the troll we must understand the troll. Lesson one: never feed a troll.

Great article from a former Internet troll. Most Community Managers will already know this from painful first hand experience, but it's worth remembering this in the heat of a trolling:

You will never beat a troll. You will never change a troll’s mind. You may delude yourself into thinking that you proved them wrong, however, never in my years of dealing with trolls have I seen a troll lay down his or her arms and say, “You know what, you’re right. I was so wrong.”