Creating a comm

[vriddy]

The best way to meet other people/fans with the same interests is to join or create a comm. I saw someone conceptualise Dreamwidth comms as "Tumblr/Twitter tags" to help them think about when and what is okay to post in there. I think it's a good way to think about it! It's like a moderated tag (so make sure to read or think about the rules first!) to create a shared space for fans.

Technically, it's simple to create a comm, just a couple of buttons. Do fill in the interest fields so people can search for it and find it this way!

In practice, getting activity and creating a sense of community takes a little bit more thought and effort. I've been writing about what I discovered while creating my own comm in this series of posts: 'Creating a Dreamwidth community' Masterpost. You may find something helpful in there!

---

If this is way too long, I would say the TL;DR are the two following points:

1- Many people feel extremely shy about making new posts, so as the admin it helps a lot if you have reoccurring posts that encourage conversations. For example, a quick way for people to share recs, a reaction posts if the canon is on-going, a chatting post with a prompt about favourite characters or something easy to reply to. Don't wait for people to start posting just because the space exists.

2- In my experience, most people search for comms related to their interests at two moments: when they first join Dreamwidth, and when they develop a new interest. There are promo comms on Dreamwidth that are dedicated to promoting new comms. Inform people that your comm now exists! We want to know about it :) Topic-focused communities are a good place to do this as well, if it's allowed in the rules on their profile page. For example, I promoted bnha_fans on anime_manga. If your comm is for a specific game, i_love_games may be a nice place to mention it in addition to general comms like dw_community_promo, etc etc. Help us find you!

There are other tips I mentioned on the masterpost, but if you only can remember two, these two will be the most effective ones in my (short :D) experience!

Comments

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is a good post about launching a community. I hope more people will try it. When I'm researching Follow Friday posts, I see so many great communities that have been dormant for years.

Re: Thank you!

[vriddy]

Would be lovely if this encouraged more people to give it a shot! :) I don't think most communities are meant to last forever, but if they can give a few years of fun to the participants it's a pretty good success already!

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Would be lovely if this encouraged more people to give it a shot! :)

I hope so too.

>> I don't think most communities are meant to last forever, <<

True. I have no problem with people making a community for a one-time event, or a fandom that fades after its canon concludes.

What I find distressing is when I search for a topic, especially a fairly major one, and either there are no communities or no active ones. I see this a lot in my research assembling lists of active communities for follow_friday. Another aggravating thing is when the only surviving communities are specialized. Some are subtopics with no broad community. Others are locked into one mode (e.g. recs or reviews) with no discussion or socialization options. Part of that is because of how Dreamwidth evolved over time -- small avid groups and structured groups seemed to weather challenges well -- but it's limiting in ways that can undermine the ability to attract and retain new users.

Then I see people lamenting that there aren't communities for the things they want to discuss, which is sad. I point them to the posts about how to launch a community, which are nice to have.

One thing I think is important is to start with general topic communities, branch out if tons of people are interested, then if the audience shrinks, try to hold onto that general comm because it can serve more people than the subtopic comms. You might have enough people to hold that general one if you stick together, but not necessarily the subtopics if you split up. One example of general and subtopic communities is fandomcalendar (for all fannish events) and potterfests (for Harry Potter events).

>> but if they can give a few years of fun to the participants it's a pretty good success already! <<

Well reasoned.

[linky]

I really enjoy reading your "Creating a Comm" series of posts! While it's for a completely different platform, I ran a Discord for a few years so I always like to see the insights of other people who have created and have maintained/still maintain online spaces as someone who has done the same. :D

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

I've been working this since the 1990s. See "Sample Online Community Parameters" which is copied from a much earlier file; that one dates from 2009.

There are three basic aspects that apply to almost all online communities:

* Provide interesting content that attracts an audience.

* Encourage congenial participation and interaction.

* Discourage misbehavior that drives people away.

The details vary because the methodology of community differs across platforms. Some platforms aren't even set up to support communities, they're user-to-user, user-to-audience, or some other structure. Occasionally there are communities like fuckyou which are specifically for rants or other ballyhooing, and it's good to provide a space for people who like that sort of thins so they don't come into other spaces and bother people who dislike it.

I enjoy talking about how to run communities. I run allbingo and crowdfunding myself. I've also adopted a few others -- I'm a regular poster in followfriday too.

[vriddy]

Delighted you enjoy reading this post series, thank you!! Creating online communities and what's worked or not for them is always a fascinating topic :D