This humble blog is my way of learning how communications & marketing (AKA community building) works in the cryptospace. I’d like to thank the wonderful community mods that took the time out of their modding to answer my dumb questions. I'd like to step back and recap what I've learned so far.

Each one of these professionals exemplify the best of community management by:

Responsive- In general, responding to aquery within the hour is pretty good. Instantly is idea, but I’d say four hours is an acceptable response time. 24 hours if it is a tricky issue. Hey, most of these folks aren’t paid for their work, and I appreciate that they have lives and other stuff going on outside of modding.

The Guarda Guardian Samiul was right there, responding to the Guarda Telegram channel, eager to go and his fellow mods are pretty quick, too.

Showed human characteristics- I stir the pot with the NPC (non-playable character) meme but in a loving way. Community management is kind of a drudgery of responding to basic questions about the product/community might make you favor the copypasta responses.

By far the most interesting conversation I've had so far was with with Viking_one on the (almost 10k strong!) Constellation community. He and just about everyone in the community have an earnest excitement, a sense of humor and an in-depth knowledge about the #DAG crypto platform.

Shilling appropriately- Community building is the future of marketing. I can’t hate on anyone building the community that is tied to a product- it may be their livelihood (or at least a side hustle). These folks demonstrated the soft sell of engaging with a potential customer, answering questions and/or providing tech support. In the case of these guys, the sell wasnt aggressive. Nothing turns me off more than “sync to your Metamask and then we can talk.” Big Nope.

Ramiro Romani is building his thousand member NeoNetwork to empower internet users with privacy and security. With our gradual realization that our tech overlords do not serve us and our data is sold the the highest bidder and we are moving toward increasing restrictions on online activities, it is apparent that we need to hit the "you're fired" button and build our own. He and his associated orgs are building a pay-for-play suite of privacy and security solutions, many of which are DIY. Above Agency is his pending web services platform and he is wisely building a community before launching the biz.  #Takebackourtech!

Enforces community guidelines- A slippery slope. Ban someone for posting porn. Yes. For being a jerk? Eh. For cussing? Fuck that! I appreciate the War on Spammers includes booting those without a profile picture and for shitposting unrelated links and obvious SPAM. Banning someone for discussing an alt-coin in a BTC Maximalist chat is a little harsh. Isn’t the point of a community to debate topics in general? But, I get it. But, if I hear about Cardano one more frickin’ time...

Natasha of the Schumann Resonance community doesn't have to bounce many trolls from the chats. Her community of 2,000+ spiritually aware folks are, by nature, a harmonious bunch. Perhaps the best way to create a harmonious online community is to base it around the right principles, like Natasha has done so well.

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With these shining examples out of the way, I’d like to share the evil manifestations of the mod world. These faux pas stem from laziness and poor professionalism. Instead of idle hatred, I encourage you to publicly shame these crimes against community. Community enforcement of best practices is the only way for communities and the modders to grow into an exemplary force of cryptocapitalism!

Overuse of one-way copypasta- I’ve probably already did a keyword search on the chat in hopes of finding a previous message chain that addresses my issue. I know. Some don’t do this. But, a proper copypasta will include a followup. Example: “here is a link to a helpful blog post. Let me know if this works for you.”

I won't name and shame... for now.

“Has your issue been satisfactorily resolved?” 4x- If you keep asking me this, I’m going to find another product or service staffed by actual humans. Instead be more specific, showing that you’ve read my question or at least grasp the concept of the issue I’m having.

This may be the result of an overzealous community honcho, not attuned to the subtlety of online communication.

“Here is a link to the FAQ”- I’ve seen the FAQ. I’d rather read the FAQ than interact with an NPC. I’m bugging you because I think I have a unique issue. Use this opportunity to further engage with me and demonstrate what a great community mod you are! This generates sales!

Language!- I understand some mods may not have a firm grasp of the English language. Hell, I don’t! Have you read this blog? I don’t expect perfect spelling but some semblance of professional communication is a requirement. It is reassuring if communications are clear. That makes it more likely that the mod understands the issue and we are communicating properly. It is quite okay to have a properly spelled and punctuated copypasta document for common sentences and statements to choose from. If you go off script and the language degrades, I understand.

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Please let me know if I missed the mark on anything. I enjoy healthy criticism and would muchly appreciate you sharing this post with your fellows. Also, it would help me greatly if you would tell me about the communities you engage with, good or bad. Fodder for future posts and free publicity for your network!