Life is good. Your community is enjoying bountiful and engaging discussions, you’re all growing as people and professionals, and there’s a tangible mutual respect that envelopes the entire community.  And then the trolls rear their ugly heads. 

If you can establish some momentum with getting new members in, make them comfortable and engaged with the community (i.e. onboarding them), you’re setting yourself up for success—but more than a few community managers underutilize or ignore this process. 

The reality is that if you’re a young community, it’s the community manager’s job to start most of the discussions—and it’s often a thankless and surprisingly tough one. 

Censorship is a hot topic among online communities. It is your responsibility to step in against behaviors like hate speech and discrimination. At the same time, passionate opinions and honest debate must be allowed to flourish—online communities are not autocracies. 

Gamification is the brilliant process of adding gaming elements to regular tasks, to encourage participation. It’s also a great example of frequency illusion: once you notice it for the first time, you’ll start seeing gamification everywhere – especially online. We touched on this topic in the past, but it can’t be underestimated.