Electronic communication (Taming the Forum Tiger)
This post has a gem in the middle, sage advice for any who use electronic communication (myself included)
I don’t recommend banning all devs from posting, because the community interaction has many benefits. It can help keep the community happy, it has obvious PR benefits if done well, and it can make your developers feel like celebrities, which is an important perk of the job. But developers need training before they can be expected to post well. Have your community moderator run a course for all employees, veteran and newbie alike. Teach them the basics, and lay out ground rules. Among other things, it should include all of these rules of thumb:
- Never post while angry
- Never post when distracted
- Never post when a user dares you to respond to them
- Never post while drunk
- Never post when you don’t have all the facts
- If you have nothing insightful to say, don’t post at all – it’s better to be silent. (The only person who should post just to calm things down is the forum mod… not the developers directly.)
- If in doubt, mark the thread and wait 24 hours before responding. Odds are you’ll have a completely different response.
- Remember that your words will be taken out of context and posted on other forums, fansite news boards, and repeated in game chat. Act like you’re representing the company at all times.
- Make sure each post stands alone and tells a complete story, rather than being part of a thread’s conversation. (When your post gets copied to some guild forum, people will misunderstand what you said if you left out crucial details that seemed obvious to you at the time.)
Producers need to enforce these rules by removing developer’s posting privileges if they post poorly. Posts by devs are candy that feed the “forum game” players. It makes users feel special and loved, which makes devs feel useful and loved. But when developers get caught up in playing the forum game themselves, they aren’t representing your company well. Don’t let them become an embarrassment.
Discussion forums. Email. Wise advice for most any electronic form (and probably all non-electronic kinds too).
