In the interest of full disclosure, I am a founder, moderator and participant in several online "communities", some dating back to the 1980's.

Really.

To further the "full disclosure" a bit, my consulting career is based entirely in the rather esoteric realm of "Helping companies utilize interactive communications to improve business performance"

Part of my consulting services includes the creation, operation and analysis of online communities (like this one) in a wide range of industries.

Over the last 20+ years of participation in online communities that have grown, thrived and sustained a vibrant membership, as well as communities that never quite got off the ground, and a few that rather spectacularly self-destructed, I've learned about the nature of these online communities.

First of all, the ETS forum is entering a phase that is common to online communities. At about 1,000 users, with a typical "active" base of 5%-10%, the number of moderation incidents begins to increase. By 1,500 users, moderation incidents - for example a thread that decays into personal attacks - are more frequent, but they come only after a "ramp-up" of several messages. Invariably, these moderation incidents are triggered by two or three members getting into a spat over some political, religious or ethical matter that is in some roundabout way related to the purpose of the forum.

I've seen communities related to vermiculture (worm farming) inexplicably explode into a debate over Israel and all the complex and interesting issues of the mideast. I've seen communities willfully destroyed by anonymous "pranksters" (www.fordyce.org comes immediately to mind).

At this point, the ETS forum is entering what we call the "make or break" period.

Symptoms include:

- Long time members expressing, in public, a level of dissatisfaction with moderation decisions
- A steady increase of moderation incidents
- Over-Crowding of topical areas (too many posts in topical areas that are too broad for all the membership)
- Topical "Drift"
- New members being directed to "search the archives" for answers to "Frequently Asked Questions"

There are - typically - 2 paths that the online community takes from this point. In 74% of the cases, the path taken is to "clamp down" on the moderation - a more vigilant and aggressive approach to messages, with the most extreme cases ending up with a "community" that has all messages "approved" before posting. The viability of this is wholly dependent on the level of funding and staffing for moderation, as without a large number of moderators to monitor and approve/disapprove of messages, the message flow quickly dwindles. A case of a successful and heavily moderated community is found at Kitchenaid.com, which has a large staff of moderators. A small minority of sites can afford to take this approach and the rest soon see a rapid dissolution of interest in the community.

For example, Lego.com community moderation was extensive, understaffed and ultimately, led to a virtual demise of their online community. It was replaced by Lugnet, the Lego Users Group, an independent site.

As far as the other 26% of the communities that continue on as a useful and valuable resource, they have a number of survival methods that seem to work.

At this point, with no request whatsoever from ETS, I'll pull my consultant hat on a bit and offer up to ETS some free services.

If the ETS site is to go from about 1452 members to 2,000 or more, with a minimal of pain and suffering, we (as in the royal we, my company), would give the following recommendations.

TOPICAL EXPANSION
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A review of the content of the three forums shows that there is considerable "drift" between the two primary subject areas - The Survival Forum and Around The Campfire. Drift is the tendency for long time users of the site to habitually post off-topic messages without regard to the nominal purpose of the particular sub-division of the overall forum.

Drift rates of 15% or more are not good. The recommended solution to drift is topical expansion.

A short analysis of posted topics over a period of 24 hours reveals that ETS is suffering from 25-30% drift.

For example, the "Around the Campfire" section, ostensibly "A place for Chit Chat about life or subjects of interest other than Survival or Emergency Preparedness" there are usually about 8 currently active discussions. Of the 8, about 4 are "chit chat", one is a discussion of the forum itself, and the remainder are actually equipment discussions. If we don't count the discussion of the forum as "Chit Chat" (and for a variety of reasons we should not) that's almost 50% drift. Not good.

The main forum fares better, with a drift rate under 20%, but that increases occasionally.

A deeper analysis of the subject matter of the posts reveals the overall content trend.

There are distinct "pools" of topics.

Equipment - Reviews, questions, announcements and so forth related to carried gear, kits, tools and so forth. What's the best FAK, who makes a good button compass, sleeping bags and so forth. Guns, too, are discussed in this pool.

Short-Term Planning - Discussion of "what if" and "how can" situations ranging from wilderness survival to camping trips, with an general emphasis on preparedness for (relatively) short-term incidents (96 Hours or less).

Long-Term Survival - Perhaps an area where ETS is least comfortable, as this borders on violating the basic statement that this is not a "Survivalist" site. Unlike survivalist sites,the tone and topics of the ETS site are generally positive, inclusive and decidedly non-confrontational. This is still a "hot" area for the ETS forum and has led to a few moderation incidents.

Community Chat - Currently, the "Around the Campfire" section, these are the stories of wives and husbands proud or perplexed by preparedness activities, news articles, again, back to the general chit-chat.

Finally, the smallest, but highly visible pool is the "Administrative" pool - the "Pinned" announcements that are at the head of the "Survival Forum" section.

RECOMMENDATION #1: Expand the number of topics on the site.
REASON: Topical drift and post volume is better managed with a slightly broader range of topical areas.
Topical Areas recomended are:

a. Survival Planning
b. Equipment
c. Long Term Preparedness
d. Around the Campfire
e. Show us your kits (Post lists and pix of PSK, LTK EDC and so forth)
e. Marketplace (see #4 below)

RECOMMENDATION #2: Increase the number of moderators, if possible, assigning one moderator per topical group.
REASON: Increased volume of posts requires increased monitoring to prevent sudden "outbursts" that can infect the entire community. Moderators are "inoculations" for an increasingly complex creature.

RECOMMENDATION #3: Investigate the creation of a "Wiki" FAQ for use by registered members. A Wiki is a group-edited site or section of a site. Anyone can add an article, and anyone can edit an article. This would be a great place for members to build and manage an FAQ for all those questions that seem to come up all the time. Wiki software is free. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download

RECOMMENDATION #4: Institute a "Marketplace" section of the community, where community members and commercial interests can post, for a fee, advertisements that are SPECIFICALLY in an "ads-only" section of the community site. This seems counter-intuitive, as the trend seems to be embedding advertising in the content of web sites, and the line between advertising and editorial is ever-more blurry. However, we have found that in order to maintain both the credibility and viability of an independent community, it is a best practice to clearly segregate advertising from community content. Further, by instituting a "forum" for advertisers, there is an implicit understanding that an advertisement posted will be subject to the possibility of a very public community response to the ad. In my own experience in posting about the "Magfire" products, and being subject to both an instant response in terms of sales and also in terms of replies to my post that not only mentioned competing products but also suggested that my products were equivalent to these other products was both challenging as a vendor and valuable as a marketing opportunity. I know that I would gladly pay $20 per post in a "Marketplace" section of ETS, knowing full well that it might open me up to a world of competition.

Of course, this is just an "off the cuff" analysis and recommendation, however, it is given in good faith in the hopes that the ETS site becomes better and stronger over time.

I'd be willing to donate time toward any effort needed to make these enhancements, or to futher discuss the matter with Doug and Chris as needed.


Martin T. Focazio
President
Center Hill Services
www.centerhillservices.com

Of the many forums I belong to, there seems to be two schools of thought about handling the ever present, and ever problematic "religion and politics" type issues. Some forums have a Religion and Politics area, enter at your own risk. Others unequivocably ban religious and political discussions, and make no excuses about it.

On a side note, most forums have "on topic" and "off topic" sections. Topics always seem to find their way into the other section.

Interesting... I agree with most of your comments. A FAQ would be nice and a good Wiki can be a good tool for managing one. More moderators, and for that matter more resources of all kinds, would be nice (although they don't grow on trees).

I'm not so sure about adding new sections. Personally I read ETS via the "View recent messages" links, so the addition of new sections wouldn't affect me unless those links because section-specific. I am not sure if topic drift within a section even matters, provided everything is relevant to the site as a whole. I guess I don't see how more topics is part of the solution - I don't even see what problem they address.

I can see value in a commercial section, for traders, especially if it raises some revenue for ETS.

I think the Wiki/FAQ is a good idea. It would also be useful to hold things that aren't discussed often, but are good to know. Long term planning is also a good topic, which Doug has already state he was going to consider.

ETS has historically been "wilderness" survival, not urban. "Wilderness" provides a setting in which YOU are pretty much in control, the urban situation puts you into an environment where legal issues are a concern along with the fact that most people aren't afraid of other people, as much as an alligator would be afraid of a person.

Things might start to drift into what is considered taboo subjects like self-defense, weapons, lock picking, hot-wiring vehicles, abandoning the elderly/disabled, fortifying your residence, and others.

I'm not trying to be TEOTWAWKI, but there are some real life questions that may have be thought about in an urban environment, since things could, locally, deteriorate really fast. The TEOTWAWKI line is getting a little more blurry. These "hot" topics could cause problems.

Ultimately, it is up to Doug as to the content and format of the Forums. I for one, like the current format and believe for the most part, we as forum members have been respectful of other points of view and find the occasional ?spar? to be interesting and sometimes humorous <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />.

Personally, I use the ?past 7 days? feature and read/scan almost all of the posts. If that feature is maintained, whether or not additional forums are added matters little to me. If that feature were to be eliminated, I would urge keeping the number of forums to the bare minimum.

For whatever it is worth - just my 2 cents.

Pete

All I can say is... I agree totally!!!

Troy

The FAQ area would be great. FWIW, I agree with the rest, too. Thank you Martin.

Dave

I especially like Recomendaton #1 along with Recomendation #2 to reduce the drift.

I also like the FAQ idea.

Ditto, pete. This place is freeform, few rules. Just like keeping you butt alive.