When a community stops being a community

There are so many times when people say that they want to be part of a community, but they aren’t willing to even pay a few dollars a month to be part of that community. I understand that every community is going to be different. I believe to a couple of communities online and the biggest value I get from these communities is feeling like I belong and are part of a group of people that share a common bond.

What bothers me is when a community goes from members only chat to subscriber chat and anyone can post questions/comments, and they can sometimes be frustrating. I know that we all try and help answer the questions and something the moderator needs to understand is that we will answer questions in a general way to let the person know that we know the answer will be coming up shortly.  What goes get frustrating is when we see a comment from a moderator saying, “Don’t answer questions in the chat”. Why can’t a member answer a question in a general way because that will help keep the community as a community. When you say that you are the only one that should be answering questions it shows that the community is breaking down and that is a major concern. If I am paying to be part of the community, I should have the right to answer questions unless there is a general rule posted that states “As a member you are not allowed to answer questions in the chat.” If this happens, I know I would leave that community because that is part of the joy that being part of the community gives me.

If a moderator is going to post such comments as, “Don’t answer questions in the community” they need to keep those comments available and not delete them later on because that doesn’t help either because members see what is going on and they are going to think about where their dollar is going. Saying something and then deleting what you have said doesn’t build a community, it starts to destroy a community.

As a community we cannot compare one stream with another stream because all of them are different, and they provide a different level of quality and service and value to the community they are serving. I know that I have put my money into a community that I enjoy being part of because of how things are monitored and controlled. The community might not have an open chat but that is part of what I enjoy.

An online community is built between the trust between the members of the community and the moderator. If the moderator starts to destroy the trust that is going to mean that the community is likely to fail moving forward.  It doesn’t matter who we all are but we need to ensure that we are their for either other and a community is such a key part of any who is involved in the chat.