The Role Of A Contributor

One of the most wonderful things in the world is to be part of a lively, useful internet community. Good message boards (and their close cousins newsgroups and email lists) are a great way to build such a community. In fact, a message board is a good idea on just about any web site as long as it is properly controlled, defined and moderated.

Good message boards require people who are willing to post messages to the board. In fact, an empty message board is of no use to anyone as it performs no purpose at all. 

There are many people who have to work together, usually unconsciously, in order to make a message board actually work and produce the effect of a community. The moderator must do his job or the board will degenerate into a mess of spam and off-topic junk. Lurkers (people who simply read the board without contributing) are not really very useful to the board, but they can sometimes be coaxed into contributing.

However, everything is moot without contributors. These are the people who actually make a board worth visiting. Good, intelligent contributors who makes posts which have something to do with the subject at hand are rare, and a board with more than a couple of them is worth it's weight in gold.

So what does a contributor do, anyway? Well, he or she posts messages to the board. Simply put, that's what they do. Anyone can post, but not everyone posts well.

Good contributors understand the topic of a message board and make sure that their posts are in line with that topic. In fact, excellent contributors not only understand the topic, they are fully in tune with the purpose and theme of the board. 

One of the jobs of a contributor is to make the board enjoyable to everyone who reads the messages. Good contributors never flame anyone, no matter what the temptation, and the best contributors go out of their way to show respect for other contributors, the moderator and anyone who might be reading the messages.

Message boards have a life of their own, like any other community of living, intelligent beings. Virtually all vibrant boards have one or two very dominant contributors (who are occasionally moderators) who area very respected and who more or less control everything. These people are very prolific, very knowledgeable and extremely respected.

Good contributors have the following characteristics:

• They are very prolific
• They respect other contributors to the board
• They are polite and never flame anyone
• They do not put up with other people misusing the message board
• They support the moderator and the goals of the message board
• They do not spam the board with advertisements

Bad contributors, on the other hand, do the opposite.

Smart moderators support good contributors, as they understand that this is what makes a board not only survive but prosper. In fact, if a message board can get even one good contributor, it will soon have a large following of other contributors and readers. 

I have seen many message boards fail when one of the star contributors left the scene. Even more interestingly, I've seen boards go on vacation (become idle) at the exact same time as one of the power contributors went on vacation. When he returned, the board came back to life.

The point of all of this is if you want to be part of a web community, then find a message board which matches your interests. Then go ahead and contribute your experiences, opinions, knowledge and data. You may gain a following, and you may find others beginning to look to your for guidance. And that is a great way to spend your time on the internet.

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