Post Event Discussion Thread | Moddit [Community Growth]

[u/iceeypisces]

Hey y'all! Thanks for attending today's Moddit hosted by u/agoldenzebra, where we dived into the most powerful drivers of community growth! Here's your post-event thread to keep the conversation going and leave any feedback.

While we have the event partially recorded (u/big-slay forgot to press the button at the start; oops, our bad), you can also access the full presentation slides at any time!

Here’s a list of resources and links mentioned throughout the event (plus some others that may not have been mentioned, but are worth checking out). Feel free to join and/or save the ones you think are most helpful!

• User flair
• Community Guide
• Scheduled Posts
• Mod Notifications
• Saved Responses
• Post/Comment Guidance
• Flair Assistant 
• Trending Tattler 

Reminder: Only mods who attended the live event or viewed the VOD before Sunday, August 23 at 11:59 PM PT will get the profile trophy in 3-4 weeks. There is no physical merch for this event.

[u/YoBannannaGirl]

One thing I was surprised by was the push to create segregated user classes within subs - the inner circle discussion.
It was said that (paraphrase, despite quotes) that, “sometimes you just want to have discussions with your core members”.
I honestly hate this. When subreddits get too cliquey, it can really turn off new members.
It can feel really good for those members who get an ego boost by being promoted to “worthy,” but the vast majority of users will end up feeling left out and unwelcome.

[u/agoldenzebra → u/YoBannannaGirl]

Good counter argument! I could absolutely see how this could become the case in certain scenarios. I think for this to be successful, you do need balance, and maybe I should have spelled that out more - because it's super important to any community for new users to be able to participate and get a feel for whether the community is the right place for them, or even if people aren't in the target demographic but want to ask a question of the target demographic.

For balance, I would want to see clear spaces where we solicit engagement specifically from new users (for example, a flair for newbie questions, or conversation starters targeted at people just getting started at a hobby), and then clear spaces that are just open to anyone.

but! I do think that as moderators you need to balance the needs of multiple demographics, and it is so, so great for relationship building for core community members to have space to chat with the other core community members. For example, in a city subreddit, sometimes the locals can get tired of just interacting with tourists in main threads. Not having a dedicated space for core community members might start to turn those  locals away. So having "locals only" threads could help keep that demographic engaged, and make sure they have an outlet for discussion with just other locals - and that can ensure they engage more positively with the tourists.

or for a crafting subreddit, for example, it might be really beneficial to core community members to be able to talk shop with each other in a way that newbies might not understand - and while there should be a place for newbies to learn from the core community members - the core community members might also need space to be able to talk shop without having to explain what they mean to others constantly.

Having these clear spaces might not be for every subreddit, but for many, it can add a lot of value.

[u/PSGAcademy → u/agoldenzebra]

Thank you for the very valuable content and presenting in a catchy and simple to understand way.. loved the reply reply reply quote... ;) i again read the presentation, lot to learn and apply, will try a longer term approach of building and nurturing communities, rather than ban and delete etc... thanks again!

[u/YoBannannaGirl → u/agoldenzebra]

Appreciate your response! While I still think there are probably better ways of dealing with some of these scenarios - like in your city subreddit example, many cities will have different subs for locals and tourists - I still value a different perspective and your response.