Online Community Suggestion

[LeeH]

Hi FQ Members,

We are moving our 2nd site www.ems-ce.com to the FQ servers after being totally satisfied with the support/reliability/community at FQ. We should have moved a year ago but…..

OK, to the point. We have a site that users login to. When they are logged in they can read articles and take exams. We have over 10,000 registered users and at any given time have 10-25 members online at once.

What we are trying to do is create a way of interaction between members and looking for ideas.

What we have thought of so far:

1. Rating/Review script like at Amazon for our articles
2. Who’s online script
3. Some way of tying our articles to our forum
4. Instant Messaging for online users

Does anyone have any other ideas to create a community?

Where would we go to look for scripts | programmers with this type of experience?

TIA,

Lee

[Tatu]

If there is any one to ask about building and maintaining a community it's Mastermind Deb. I believe I remember her posting something about reading books about creating online communities a year or two ago... you might want to do a search on Amazon.

Sorry I couldn't be more of assistance to ya...

-Tatu

[Deb]

AOTA (all of the above) is usually the best answer ;)

1. Rating/Review script like at Amazon for our articles

Excellent idea that also gives you a way to see what your visitors think.

2. Who’s online script

It's nice to know you're not alone on a web site...

3. Some way of tying our articles to our forum

My favorite of all.... I've seen a few sites where they do this and simply leave a link around the article saying "Discuss this Article" which links to the forum that would best fit the discussion. Simple and Effective.

4. Instant Messaging for online users

The users tend to like this... I personally find it a bad idea. It's nice for users to be able to tap each other on the shoulder from time to time but it also can lead to "secrets" which can damage a community and/or valuable conversation that is kept from the community as a whole. Even in our own forums I struggled with the idea of leaving Private Messaging on as an option. If I had my way, it would be turned off...but this is a Community and others have a say as well ;) Many people appreciate the Private Message Feature and for that reason, it remains on :)

Tatu has been too kind though... I enjoy online communities...it was a very special online community that saved my life in the past and I have been participating and operating online communities for egads.... more years than I realized lol. Communication drives people and when the conversation is good it keeps them coming back for more...it's like a drug (right all? *grin*).

The book I had recommended a while back was Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471282936/qid=1003349283/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/102-6976613-3198563) It's a good book that may enhance some of the ideas you already have. For example, your idea to allow them to review articles...this book may also suggest allowing others to rate those reviews (like amazon now does) as well as giving special rewards to those who review often and in a honest way (like epinions.com does).

As far as simplicity I think your forums would accomplish a lot for you with little to no coding. A forum specifically for Reviews, another for Article Discussions etc... Forums such as vBulletin come pre-built with "who's online", "private messages", and even "calendars". This would give you something you could implement painlessly and a base for which you can decide what's working and what isn't before you go wild into coding something spectacular for a feature your users may not enjoy.

I don't think it takes an expert to build a community but it does take someone who is willing to be a part of that community. Just be sure you are there with (not above!) your visitors and all should go fine.

Deb
- Tossing my dime in with the rest

[sheila]

There is a great book about building database-backed websites, called:
Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
by Phillip Greenspun.

A key component of this book is a thread about building and operating online communities. I bought the dead-tree version of the book (which has fabulous photographs, which my 4-year-old loves), and you can find it through Amazon if you like, but the entire book is also online here:
http://www.arsdigita.com/books/panda/

Greenspun talks about the software, the webserver, the types of services one can make available to site visitor's and so on. He's a little bit heavy on pushing his own favorite software solutions, IMO, but he gives lots of good advice that will apply to any site, and also makes suggestions about pitfalls to avoid.

Definitely worth a look, if you are trying to grow an online community. One of his major points, is to plan well at the beginning and try to make scalable solutions (which he describes in detail), instead of just slapping the whole thing together, and then as the community grows, you find that you can't keep up with it.

His software and scripts are also all available for free. But, even if you don't want to use them (they are written in Tcl and the more recent ones I think are in Java and he uses the AOLserver instead of Apache), it would give you a very good idea of what types of scripts you might want to look for, and what features you would require.

Websites that he administrates:

http://www.arsdigita.com
http://photo.net
http://greenspun.com/

Just to give you an idea of the types of sites he runs. (Trivia: He is also author of Bill Gate's Personal Wealth Clock (http://www.webho.com/WealthClock) .)

Caution: You can spend entirely too much time at his websites.

He also has a book online called Building an Online Community (http://www.arsdigita.com/books/building-community/) , which is also a good source of information.

Good Luck!

[JWM]

Here's another good one:

http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/

These guys are a little wacked, but I mostly liked their book:

http://www.cluetrain.com/


jim

(who hasn't been at it as long as Deb, but I did put in 4 years as an About.com guide)

[LeeH]

This is EXACTLY why I moved our other site to FQ!

Thanks to everyone that replied. You have given me a lot of information to review.

I also appreciate you taking the time out of your day to write such detailed answers.

Lee