Growing Successful Communities

[#1]

Hi!

We are just getting ready to launch our new community and we are starting to put together our community terms & conditions/ member guidelines/house rules etc. I'm looking for some really fun, light hearted ideas that would still be appropriate for a business oriented community. Any feedback or community examples would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[#2]

Great question!

I'm interested in hearing more from the community here as well, but I had to throw my hat in the ring for my favorite guideline of all time from Flickr:

Don’t be creepy.
You know the guy. Don't be that guy.

The whole list is a good read and good example of knowing your audience and knowing how to talk to them http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

Any other fun ones to share?

[#3]

Something along the lines of:

Don't feed the trolls.

Or

Stop and think whether feeding the trolls is in anyone's best interest.

Perhaps?

[#4]

Well, what sort of rules are you thinking about having? Just the generic things? I think that if you show us some of the rules that you want, that we would be able to make them "fun." haha

[#5]

Thanks all for your responses!

Scott, the Flikr attitude is exactly what I'm looking for!

We want to have a one page article with 5-10 points to cover. These guidelines will be different from our Terms of Service (I'm thinking a link with our T/S and privacy T/S and saying something to the effect of our forums are governed by our T/S). The points I really want to cover in our guidelines is: privacy, no solicitations/advertisements, be respectful aka don't be a tool and using common sense.

I'm pretty new to the community idea and I want to be sure that we don't miss anything, so in addition to my original question, if anyone has anything they wished they would have included in their guidelines or had to add after the fact that would be great too!

Thanks again for all your feedback!

[#6]

angelad,

I think we are pretty serious in our community, but not overbearing.  Still - I wouldn't call us "fun", so I admire the direction you are headed.  I would suggest reserving rights for the moderation team - or else you may wind up with users "lawyering" as to whether their activity was in / out of the written rules if they get modded. 

What would you think of some illustrative pictures?   When I just read the "don't feed the trolls" one above, I imagined a scene with tourists and bears gone awry.  Maybe you could find something with a troll lurking under a bridge?  Anyway, maybe a few humorous illustrations posted in would be a neat hook and add levity.  I don't think I've seen that done anywhere before.   Imagine the rules written as a blog post with embeded pics.

Maybe when you are done, you could share your completed rules?  I really like your concept of fun.

Mark

[#7]

Something I wished I'd added earlier was a blurb about

-The forum is not a legal venue.  Don't post or solicit litigatory activity.

-You are responsible for your own actions, even if a superuser or employee recommends it.

-We have the right, at our sole discretion, to limit your access to our forum and to remove material posted by you that, in our sole judgment, does not comply with our policies or that we otherwise deem to be inappropriate for our forum.

[#8]

When I developed our Community Guidelines, I cruised around several other successful communities and looked at what they were doing, started melding them altogether, and then personalizing them for our Community & company.  They're probably due for a review since they're kinda long and could use some of the lighthearted seasoning.   But you're welcome to take a look at them, if that's helpful: http://forum.rightnow.com/rightnowuser/board/message?board.id=ForumSuggestions&thread.id=208.

Good luck!

[#9]

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I love the idea of having a visuals attached to some of the guidelines.

I completely agree about mentioning something about banning solicitations.

Also thank you for your examples. I'm trying to search a wide variety of communities: support, entertainment, news, networking etc...to find a variety of guidelines.

Now the challenge of finding the right language and guidelines to fit our new community begins!

I will be sure to update you with our progress. Thanks again for all the input!

[#10]

I springboarded from Scott's new posting "WSJ Article: The Fans Know Best" and went out to read the actual WSJ article. I found Ford's syncmyride.com community guidelines to be really helpful. I think they are clear, easy to read and user friendly.

Just in case anyone else is looking for some great examples!