Community Moderators Please Do Not Despair

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Dear Community Moderators,

I fully understand that the announcement yesterday came as a shock to some community moderators of unofficial Local Guides communities (both recognized ones and the ones with aspirations). However, please, remember why you started your unofficial Local Guides community in the first place.

Why regional communities are still relevant.

  1. A regional community to connect with local fellow guides;
  2. A place to discuss regional topics;
  3. A platform to educate people in your region about specific mapping tasks and rules;
  4. A means to join forces and have an identity when doing regional meetups;
  5. A collaborative with an identity that has partnerships. For example when dealing with official organizations such as tourist boards, transport organizations, and sponsors for regional meet-ups, etc;

If the above reasons were driving you to invest time and efforts into your regional #LocalGuides community motivating yourself to invest your time, then you have not wasted your time and should continue your efforts. It is still an important and valuable contribution to the global Local Guides community and supporting the official Local Guides Program.

If on the other hand, your motivation was to score brownies with the Local Guides Team or work for some exclusive goodies, then, by all means, drop your community and let another motivated regional Local Guide take over.

Canarias Logo Template (Color).png
Canarias Logo Template (Color).png2500×375 62.1 KB

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POWERED BY US

:wink:

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@JeroenM This is may come to be a rude shock to you but none of us are after brownie points I guarantee you right now, Like myself and the rest of those Moderators in that Community have been working hard.

But first in relation to your list of 5 points of reason:

Topic 1. Many of members of one’s community don’t event post comment attend of nothing.

Topic 4. How do you identify a profile with no photo or has an avatar that’s the same as someone else’s?

In my experience as a Moderator and also a member of 33 Communities across the globe, There’s a lot of Local Guides that need help and don’t know how to introduce someone when they join and confidence also lacks and too afraid to come to Connect and face us, seniors. There’s a lot I could talk about but I tell you what there are loads of local guides out there need my help and thus is how I come to discover this, We all are all feeling very sade,

Kind regards @DavidTito

@JuanCh @ShafiulB

@JeroenM wrote:

Dear Community Moderators,

I fully understand that the announcement yesterday came as a shock to some community moderators of unofficial Local Guides communities (both recognized ones and the ones with aspirations). However, please, remember why you started your unofficial Local Guides community in the first place.

Why regional communities are still relevant.

  1. A regional community to connect with local fellow guides;
  2. A place to discuss regional topics;
  3. A platform to educate people in your region about specific mapping tasks and rules;
  4. A means to join forces and have an identity when doing regional meetups;
  5. A collaborative with an identity that has partnerships. For example when dealing with official organizations such as tourist boards, transport organizations, and sponsors for regional meet-ups, etc;

If the above reasons were driving you to invest time and efforts into your regional #LocalGuides community motivating yourself to invest your time, then you have not wasted your time and should continue your efforts. It is still an important and valuable contribution to the global Local Guides community and supporting the official Local Guides Program.

If on the other hand, your motivation was to score brownies with the Local Guides Team or work for some exclusive goodies, then, by all means, drop your community and let another motivated regional Local Guide take over.

Canarias Logo Template (Color).png
Canarias Logo Template (Color).png2500×375 62.1 KB

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@DavidTito

The point I was trying to make, is that whilst the Local Guides Team (after an audit) has decided to drop the support to community moderators, this should not affect our efforts and motivation to continue our work. I myself, volunteer as a co-moderator of a now no longer supported community, so I am fully aware of the challenges of the job and the hard work it involves. Where did I say that community moderators do not work hard and deserve gratitude?

Running online communities with the occasional face to face Meet-Ups is indeed difficult. Having issues with #1 of my lists of why our communities are still important, means that we need to work on member engagement. There are marketing books written about this and we do not need te Local Guides Team to learn about how to run a community. There are plenty of sources available for tips and success stories how to run a successful community.

From your response regards #4 on my list, I get the impression you misunderstood. Your local guides communities have a name, image → identity. They are like unofficial Associations for Local Guides. So when doing important work in your region as an ambassador of your community, you do not speak as a single person, but you represent the Association (identity). When you have a strong community, regional stakeholders will want to talk to you (including potential sponsors for your meet-ups).

Joining forces, more can be achieved and energy is more focused (efficient). This means that now the central support from Google cease to exist, we need to organize ourselves as Community Moderators and share our insights in how to successfully run our communities and exchange content (resources). This bottom-up approach I have been advocating since I started the Academy. The Moderators community of @ShafiulB is another example of self-organizing. Like industries can set their own standards and organize themselves without the help of a government.

My post above was intended as a pep talk. When falling in despair, you lose energy and might drown in (down) emotions and give up. I did not say: don’t be sad about the decision. What I said, is don’t stop the important work we do. The majority of supported Community Moderators AND those moderators that were still building their communities in the hope to gain support, should all still have the same reasons to continue their work. All I said, holding up a mirror, is that in case one invested his/her efforts for the wrong reasons, that there is no need to continue.

If you think about it, this means that you @DavidTito , as a sincere Community Moderator should therefore not feel this comment was directed at you. Explain to me which aspects of what I wrote, made you come to this conclusion?

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@JeroenM No, I don’t think that this was directed straight at me all, this is just me pursuing the other side to this change that’s taking place, for me personally don’t have a problem but this particular topic I had To ask and pose opposite questions. 1 is yes there is available information to follow and I’m not trying to push the differ and understand the marketing book approach. But I have a question of my own, Why do owners make nominate other people to moderators when their page is set to open to anyone worldwide and not to ask to join because what happens when you have a few thousand people in your community that you don’t know and cant control because have left the door open you think why did I do that for and why does this have this setting in first place. Me, on the other hand, I approach every single person who asks to join and I get a lot of idiots but I have a uniform community and now other community owners are seeing me do this and they’re making me a moderator for there communities without asking and I’m moderating in 5 countries now. I think marketing book should be reopened because I guaranty you wouldn’t see any of my hypothesis in there

@JeroenM wrote:

@DavidTito

The point I was trying to make, is that whilst the Local Guides Team (after an audit) has decided to drop the support to community moderators, this should not affect our efforts and motivation to continue our work. I myself, volunteer as a co-moderator of a now no longer supported community, so I am fully aware of the challenges of the job and the hard work it involves. Where did I say that community moderators do not work hard and deserve gratitude?

Running online communities with the occasional face to face Meet-Ups is indeed difficult. Having issues with #1 of my lists of why our communities are still important, means that we need to work on member engagement. There are marketing books written about this and we do not need te Local Guides Team to learn about how to run a community. There are plenty of sources available for tips and success stories how to run a successful community.

From your response regards #4 on my list, I get the impression you misunderstood. Your local guides communities have a name, image → identity. They are like unofficial Associations for Local Guides. So when doing important work in your region as an ambassador of your community, you do not speak as a single person, but you represent the Association (identity). When you have a strong community, regional stakeholders will want to talk to you (including potential sponsors for your meet-ups).

Joining forces, more can be achieved and energy is more focused (efficient). This means that now the central support from Google cease to exist, we need to organize ourselves as Community Moderators and share our insights in how to successfully run our communities and exchange content (resources). This bottom-up approach I have been advocating since I started the Academy. The Moderators community of @ShafiulB is another example of self-organizing. Like industries can set their own standards and organize themselves without the help of a government.

My post above was intended as a pep talk. When falling in despair, you lose energy and might drown in (down) emotions and give up. I did not say: don’t be sad about the decision. What I said, is don’t stop the important work we do. The majority of supported Community Moderators AND those moderators that were still building their communities in the hope to gain support, should all still have the same reasons to continue their work. All I said, holding up a mirror, is that in case one invested his/her efforts for the wrong reasons, that there is no need to continue.

If you think about it, this means that you @DavidTito , as a sincere Community Moderator should therefore not feel this comment was directed at you. Explain to me which aspects of what I wrote, made you come to this conclusion?

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@DavidTito

Please share your marketing insights and expertise on Connect. Those specific to marketing unofficial Local Guides Communities. I am interested.

@DavidTito wrote:

…I get a lot of idiots…

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@JeroenM ok do you have any baseline data I could look at?

@JeroenM wrote:

@DavidTito

Please share your marketing insights and expertise on Connect. Those specific to marketing unofficial Local Guides Communities. I am interested.

@DavidTito wrote:

…I get a lot of idiots…

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@DavidTito

I am not sure I follow and understand what you mean with baseline data in this context.

@DavidTito wrote:

@JeroenM ok do you have any baseline data I could look at?

What I asked, is for you to write a separate post on Connect where you share your tips and insights how to successfully run/ market an unofficial LG community. I would think those come from you, as the experienced expert on this matter.

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