Patrick O'Keefe's Blog

President Trump made a pretty direct threat to online communities today. Twitter “SHADOW BANNING” prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2018 Shadow banning (or global ignore), which is not an “illegal practice,” is when you allow someone […]

I recently found my way over to white supremacist Twitter because I saw a retweet of a story about one of the white supremacists complaining that they were banned from GoFundMe. He kept whining and calling for a boycott, and urging “right wing people” and “Trump supporters” to join him. He tagged GoFundMe. Here’s how […]

My immediate reaction to Facebook’s “community” announcements: Great. I like Facebook. Words are cool, but as we sit here today, group admins have an exceptionally poor toolset, provided by the world’s 8th most valuable company. When I say that Facebook Group admins don’t have the tools of forum admins in 2000, I’m not being hyperbolic. […]

With community member accounts, a confirmed email address is a wonderful thing to have. Yes, you can use it for notifications and to contact the member. But just as important, it’s an account security issue. If the member ever has trouble accessing their account, confirmed contact information might be the only way for you to […]

An elementary school in Saskatoon, Canada has a green bench next to their playground. They call it the buddy bench. If you can’t find a friend or a group to join, or you’re feeling lonely, you can just sit on the bench. At which point, other kids will see you, and you’ll be talking to […]

Genius, the popular service best known for its community-sourced explanations of song lyrics, launched in October of 2009. They are powered by user-generated content (UGC), where anyone can simply highlight a passage of text and add an annotation. They have raised at least $56.9 million in funding. It took them 6 and a half years […]

Why do so many online community professionals choose to leave the profession behind? Is there something about the role that makes burnout more common? An acquaintance of mine was pondering this recently. He wasn’t talking about people who are leaving for greener pastures – he was talking about those who have had enough. Here’s what […]

When a new member enters your community, what should they do first? What will encourage them to contribute and help them feel more comfortable in doing so? Online community onboarding efforts vary. Frankly, a lot of new members are effectively thrown right into the community. Some communities might go a bit deeper. Perhaps they make […]

I am wary of people who talk about building online communities, social apps, and related services, in an “addictive” or “habit-forming” way, as if these are respectable goals. Speaking for my own personal responsibility, I am not comfortable with it. If you do a Google search and read about addiction, terms related to it and […]

Call deflection is very often used to prove the ROI of community efforts, especially those tied to support. The idea is that, when someone receives an answer to their question in the community, instead of calling you on the phone, you save money because it costs you less to provide that answer. This could also […]