woopak_the_thrill
"REVIEWS Are About Its Writers and Founders Should be About Their Members !"
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A written critical evaluation and retrospective view in Communities on Lunch.
< read all 4 reviewsREVIEWS Are About Its Writers and Founders Should be About Their Members !
-
Apr 13, 2010
- by woopak_the_thrill
- posted in Community Founders on Lunch
Rating:
+4
Around February this year, I was invited to begin a new Lunch.com feature called “Communities”. While I wasn’t exactly sure what to make out of it at first, I gave it a shot. Then on launch day, the "To Believe Or Not to Believe The Hype” was launched along with several other communities. “Hype” is a community that mostly dealt with movies and it had a good list of members since most of them were made up of my existing online friends; most of whom I‘ve known between 2006-2007. Other communities were leaving the Hype community in the dust though, when it came to member counts; and this was fine. My little group was happy to have a spot where we can just discuss movies. I liked the feature so much that I began a 2nd community called AsianFlixFix.
Well, that was months ago and now Lunch.com has a flurry of communities that most of the time I was just amazed how many invites must be going in and out of Lunch’s internet highway. Now a few weeks ago, I had my first issue in running my community; this issue was that there was someone among the Hype membership who was trying to convince some newer hype members that they should move their reviews to their new community since they deal with this so-called genre. I have since already confronted this member (who I shall not name, but the Hype members know because they were approached with similar requests) and while he denied it, this was NOT the only incident since another founder have experienced the same thing and another member have verified this member’s actions. A can of worms has been opened.
Here is the lies the problem in the communities--some are taking it as competition. The idea of communities was to have a nurturing community to have members around those with similar interests. While I think this should not be a problem, but the issue of cross-posting reviews have been brought up by other founders. This would be a great idea but it also opens up a can of worms.
Problems with Cross-posting or linking reviews up can arise. A community loses its uniqueness. Who would like to see the same review over and over again? I go out of my way to find the most obscure title for things to make the community I am reviewing for unique. If this happens, then another founder can just either link the review to his community. Therefore the writer can lose his ‘exclusive’ community choice and the founder can become another ‘ghost’ community under a much stronger community.
Solution: The writer should have the choice whether or not he wants to cross-post his review or whether he wants to link the topic to another. It is the writer’s hard work and no one else’s.
Founders can also be called “Community Buddies” so that the founders can allow collaboration. Let’s say in HYPE, a review can link up to my friend Frank’s “Maniacs” community while being in “Hype” and vice versa. Now how do we solve the problem of losing “unique-ness” (there a word?); having the reviewer break up the review in two chapters; one part can discuss the publicity while another its ’scare factor’. Once you click on the Topic, both reviews will be visible for the reader, thus only one set of votes. Also, I am all for collaborative reviews and I think this can be real fun. Of course this would involve major maneuvering between two founders.
Founders can also be called “Community Buddies” so that the founders can allow collaboration. Let’s say in HYPE, a review can link up to my friend Frank’s “Maniacs” community while being in “Hype” and vice versa. Now how do we solve the problem of losing “unique-ness” (there a word?); having the reviewer break up the review in two chapters; one part can discuss the publicity while another its ’scare factor’. Once you click on the Topic, both reviews will be visible for the reader, thus only one set of votes. Also, I am all for collaborative reviews and I think this can be real fun. Of course this would involve major maneuvering between two founders.
But let’s be honest, this wouldn’t always work for all communities. Movies, yes. Food, yes. But things like political topics may be a little hard.
Founder Etiquette/Ethics- Now all these wouldn’t be an issue if the founders had guidelines right? Well, I go by some rules I have set for myself. A) I will not ask any member for any reviews to be moved to my community. If a member decides to help out a small community so be it, but as a founder I cannot undermine a fellow founder. B) I want my members to feel at home, I want them to interact with each other. C) Promote my friends’ communities within my own. D) I respect my fellow founders and contribute to their communities whenever I can.
I see communities as NOT my own but founded by a whole bunch of people. My members make my community--they have the ability to post whatever they want as long as it fits under the communities established tone and goal. The idea is to co-exist and support each other. Founders should have the same set of personal rules. This is supposed to be fun, but when fellow founders start stabbing each other in the back, then it becomes work and I do this to get away from my full time job.
Do not Overreach- Actually, I shouldn’t say anything about this, since my “To Believe Or Not to Believe The Hype” community is pretty broad and quite frankly a little unfocused. Well, if you’re not a member, then you may not understand. Members should know that I founded this community to reach out to movie lovers; if the ‘Hype” community had a goal it was to promote people, cinema and interactions. The HYPE community was about people’s tastes. Movie HYPE was about its members.
But back to the topic. When I was invited, I thought founders were supposed to be as focused as possible. Communities should be aimed at a single thing or person. Example: James Bond movies, Tolkien or Star Trek. I’ve seen broader SCI-FI or Comic Book communities. Now we have a problem; if I review a cartoon called “Clone Wars” which can fit under animation, sci-fi or “Star Wars” if there was a community. I review a video game for the PS3, should it go to the “Gaming Hub” or under “PS3 Games’? This is where the problems begin.
I have expressed my reservations about making communities “open season”. Lunch made the right decision since they don’t want to alienate anybody; but it can get chaotic and stressful for members. Now the site has to deal with different personalities and possible clashes. I don’t believe the site has the manpower to monitor the approvals of each community, to avoid possible ‘alike’ communities. But I do also believe that no one should be held back and everyone should be able to do what they want as long as they don't conflict Lunch's mission statement.
Solution: Self discipline and respect should be practiced among founders and members. Failing this, (I know human nature won’t allow self discipline) the site may have to make ‘COMMUNITY FOUNDER GUIDELINES’. Guidelines such as simple founder rules; do's and don'ts. I was told, don’t worry about members that come and go (this is true) but it is more about etiquette. Wow. I assume that most members aren’t getting paid to do this community thing, but imagine the things that would open up if they were getting paid? If a founder doesn’t follow those guidelines, then the community can be deleted (like maybe if he doesn't log in for months?). I know this is sad for an unpaid person to be alienated, but as human beings, we do need rules.
Also, this is also where 'collaborative communities' can work to everyone's advantage. No one will feel left out and everyone will have a chance to be heard. I still believe that communities can co-exist, and even similar communities can help each other rather than competing against one another. Founders should know NOT to compete and put members on the spot.
Also, this is also where 'collaborative communities' can work to everyone's advantage. No one will feel left out and everyone will have a chance to be heard. I still believe that communities can co-exist, and even similar communities can help each other rather than competing against one another. Founders should know NOT to compete and put members on the spot.
Honestly, I find the communities to be fun and yet a little taxing at times. In the end, I think it is how you treat your members and how you listen to what they have to say that would make a community successful. Founders should also learn to co-exist and I do linger around a very huge field for a community; there are a lot of other founders who wants to do movie communities it seems.
Reviews in Communities are about the members who write them.
Note: Please excuse if I got a little off topic and if I made some errors, I got a lot of phone calls while writing this.
Note: Please excuse if I got a little off topic and if I made some errors, I got a lot of phone calls while writing this.
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More Reviews in Communities on Lunc... reviews
Nice way of getting your thoughts out, it's too bad that once the review is in a community and won't apply to lunch as a whole for Badges or linking to lists.
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The communities are great, but cross-posting between communities would make the content better.
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How about creating another window whereby founders can add reviews from non-member & a link to other 'professional' sites?
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About the reviewer
William (woopak_the_thrill)
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Please "Like" Film and Movies and Keep the Economy strong....LOL!! My Interests: Movies, Anime, History, Martial … more
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About this topic
Reviews in Commununities on Lunch are written critical evaluation and retrospective view by Community Founders and their members.
As a Community Founder, you can shape the tone of the reviews in your community and help guide your members in writing reviews by providing review prompts. Founders can also choose reviews that are stellar examples of what their communities are about and feature them on their community homepage.
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As a Community Founder, you can shape the tone of the reviews in your community and help guide your members in writing reviews by providing review prompts. Founders can also choose reviews that are stellar examples of what their communities are about and feature them on their community homepage.
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Etiquette I hear you on that... it's annoying if someone comes and wants to lure one of your members and their reviews into their community. I think we need to determine what the proper etiquette is for that situation and i think that will define itself over time. i'm not sure it's fair to call that founder unethical when it might be that they doing in a way that isn't, say, the most polite manner. Since this is brand new... literally less than a month old... it will take a little time to figure out the proper etiquette. But we'll figure it out.
Cross posting reviews into different communities. This is something that we have spent A LOT of time thinking about and i'll just share some of my perspective for what ever it is worth. I want to give the community founders all the tools they need to build strong communities with great content. I believe the best content is created within a community format where people are comfortable to get creative and contribute because they are surrounded by others who they trust and they share their interests. This is what i'm always talking about when i say "context". The best reviews have a certain context whethere you even realize it or not. If i'm reviewing a steakhouse in a Vegan community that is a differnt content than if i'm reviewing it BBQ community. Each one of those contexts helps to shape the reviews and ultimately result in better contributions. This is why we built communities and this is why we are spending a lot of time and energy to help them flourish. Context is king.
Cross posting reviews has become a very hot topic so let me break it down pros and cons quickly as i see it.
pros:
1. it allows the author (contributor) to get more exposure their reviews and this is very exciting for the contributor
2. It reduces competition between the communities, because it will be easy for each community to have very similar, if not identical reviews in it.
3. It's hugely beneficial to a new community founder because it allows new community founders to jump start their community by internally marketing to existing contributors and asking them to cross post their reviews.
4. It allows the contributor to much wider exposure by allowing them to cross post reviews into any community that will have their reviews.
5. New community founders can create a community without doing any external marketing to attract new contributors from outside Lunch.
Cons:
1. Communities will lose context. If a review can live in mulitple communites then we will end up with zero context in those communities. If we lose context then we lose the BEST contributions.
2. Uniqueness of communities. If communities all have the same reviews without any context, then all the communites look the same and we'll be in a situation where we have to ask ourselves do we really even need communities.
3. Hurts older founders. Let's put this in perspective. We have a few hundred or so communities right now. I see a day in the not so distant future when we will have a few hundred thousand communities. If we make is simple to cross post your review into muliple communities, then it will encourage new founders to solicit that from contributors. That will result in spam.
4. Creates spam for contributors. Every new founder setting up a community on Lunch will just start spamming every contributor to join and move their reviews into this new community. That could result in massive amounts of spam. Sure people are being asked now to move their reviews when it's not even encouraged... could you imagine what it would be like with thousands of new communities being formed with each founder hitting up every contributor who has written a review they want? Ugh.
5. Discourages outward marketing and promotion of communities. Again some perspective. Right now our total membership is in the tens of thousands. We have the potential to be in the tens of millions. Some of the most successful founders in the future will create vibrant communities because they will be good at attracting people from outside of Lunch to join their community. This type of behavior should be encouraged and rewarded. Recruiting people from outside of Lunch takes more work than finding someone who is already on the site and that person's work should be rewarded. If he/she spends the energy to attract new people into their community, and those people create content, their reward should be that some founder cant come in later and easily duplicate all of their work by quickly cross posting reviews into their community. That's not fair IMO.
I personally believe that not allowing for cross posting is HUGELY beneficial to Lunch overall, the current founders, and to new founders who are good at marketing their community to new people and exposing new people to Lunch. So I have been against cross posting from the begginning. However when i hear founders like @woopak_the_thrill @Adrianna and @Sharrie (three early founders who are actually really benefiting the most in the long term from this) getting really upset about not being able to cross post... that's enough to get me thinking about it again. So for now... things will remain status quo, but i hear you guys... and we'll keep thinking about. I just want to give each community it's best chance to succeed in the long term and i'll do what ever i can to make that happen.
Having community founder guidelines or rules of etiquette will help alleviate some of the fears from 3, 4, and 5.
For 1 and 2, allowing the founders more control to personalize the communities with html code or colors and image formatting will help protect the unique individuality of each community. Also, the context of a community is controlled by the founders who are constantly asking reviewers for new content as well as placing new items as the featured topic to review. I really don't see a loss of context happening unless a community founder stops caring about their community.
Please don't think I was being snarky about that other founder, (he actually read this and liked it a lot) it's just that some other members have expressed that they are a little uncomfortable when they become approached with things like this. I feel really bad when they feel that they have to think about where they should post when they should just be enjoying the atmosphere in the site. I firmly believe that it is not about a founder and a community, it is all about the member's experience; in the long run, this would definitely benefit the site. I know you guys are working on it, and you guys know more about this kind of stuff than we would.
Me and Frank actually agree with your cons, when we really think about it. I do think that some things can be collaborated on certain topics--but not all. It may take too much work for two founders to coordinate everything too.
Well, I am happy that you paid us a visit (I hope Devora didn't think we were whiny LOL) I guess despite all the drama and some weird stuff, we are becoming a community by having disagreements LOL After all, families argue. ;-)
also, besides getting phone calls, I was eating the huge pot stickers from U-Lee ;-P
And I still need to try U-Lee!
@Scotman, if you wanna draft your own Bill of Rights for Founders, you're welcome to dish your two cents in this topic for Founders in Communities on Lunch! ;)
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For me, the beauty and attraction of Lunch was that I could find ANYTHING to review. I simply had to type in a topic, and if it wasn't on the site, I could add it as a data point. Now, topics are all tied up in communities. If your review doesn't belong in a community, it won't get noticed as much. Lunch has lost a lot of the freedom it provided users, or at least the freedom that attracted me to the site. Rather than having communities be interest groups that bring like-minded people together, communities are places to store and host your reviews, which I do not think is as valuable. I much would have preferred discussion type groups where we could have talked about reviews to write and what we liked about a topic rather than imprisoning our reviews in one community.
Because I am so disappointed with the communities, I refuse to make another.
Currently, I do not feel comfortable to write a review about communities nor do I have the time. I've fallen behind on review writing because of my thesis writing. Needless to say, I will not be generous and give communities a +4 or a +5. I will be on the lower end. I still want to reevaluate my feelings about this new feature and give it more time to hopefully grow and adapt to what users want it to be rather than the Lunch powers that be.
Rest assured, as hot a topic as cross-posting is for Lunchers, it is also a very hot topic for the behind-the-scenes Lunch team. Right now, we're sifting through all the feedback that we've been receiving (like all of yours in this comment thread!) and weighing out all possibilities and outcomes before we make any decisions. Your opinions do matter very much to us and we will see what we can do to improve Lunchers' user experiences. At this point, this feature has been out for less than a month, so we've got kinks to work out and a ton of new ideas to implement, so sit tight. Thanks again for the feedback!
@wrestleanimaniac Thanks for clarifying. I like the idea of communities or else I wouldn't belong in groups on other sites. I don't like the execution, though.
@devora Nods. I understand the purpose of communities, but I disagree with the intention/mission of them. If I wanted custom review sites for specific topics, I would go to other sites that offer that or even create my own website to feature something. I came to Lunch seeking a free forum where there were no boundaries. Now, I find myself boxed in my categories, aka communities. I'm just not digging them. I do look forward to what develops within upcoming months. I'm sitting back and giving Lunch time to develop and change the concept, which I do hope they take advantage of. :)
@jrjohnson Great news about the character limit! I didn't realize that was under way. I can't wait to give some shout-outs to other communities where content materials overlap! This should be a lot of fun. In regards to your suggestion about not posting anything in communities, herein lies the problem: "I believe the best content is created within a community format where people are comfortable to get creative and contribute because they are surrounded by others who they trust and they share their interests." This is the type of mindset us nonconformists will be fighting against. People will begin to assume that the best content is in a community and will thus overlook us "free agents." I don't write to only get my belief system reinforced by like minded individuals. I write to expand others' perceptions about topics they might not usually give a second glance to as well as get other people reacting to my own content, even if it is critical or negative. I know having a safe zone for new reviewers to get started in is important, and I respect and am very happy that we have such amazing communities and founders doing that. I just want more freedom in regards to contributor options in communities.
I say Reviews are about its writers because it is their creation, and founders should be committed to good members.
See, you're lucky that you don't have to deal with stuff like this right now, but I do sometimes because my communities' core members are pretty close.
In addition, there is the question of founders who have somewhat abandoned their community after a period of inactivity on the site without prior notice to members. Why set it up then? If there is just 1 or 2 members in the community, I can at least understand. But if there are 20+ members there, does that founder expect the community to self-run without even bother to log onto Lunch?
Deleting a community is a delicate issue. If Lunch chooses to exercise that, they must first outline what are the behaviors not allowed, i.e. rules. Otherwise, it's not fair to anyone who had contributed their time to set up something without getting paid for it!
I never said delete a community, but there has to be guidelines because we can all agree that different personalities always clash. Undesirable behavior such as being a troll, and such; but I think it'll never come to that since members see the disagreeable actions of a founder, and members can make a community fail. We are all guests in this site, so it is only right to have guidelines for founders, but no, members should not be banned.
As for the founders who had seemingly abandoned the site, maybe if a founder hasn't logged in for a period of time, maybe they need to contact him as to what happened? A founder needs to be defined. Again, I agree that deleting a community is a delicate issue, but what happens if it's inactive for a long time or if the founder doesn't treat his members well? takes things as too mcuh of a competition. Again, guidelines is the answer.
I can't have you thinking I'm "robbing" you your reviews! ;p