A Facilitators responsibility in forums
It’s really important to get closure on communications and discussions when they are done out in the open.
- Someone emails a question
- A person phones you with a solution
What you have here is an unanswered email, as the answer was via the phone
But who cares, you know the answer, and on-one else can see that email
Forum
This scenario changes when the interaction is out in the open
- Someone posts a forum topic
- A person phones you with a solution
What you have here is an unanswered forum topic, as the answer was via the phone
A who cares approach is unwise
- others may be interested in an answer
- they may think these forums don’t work every time as there are lots of unanswered topics
- someone searching the forum in the future will see a topic without an answer when indeed an answer did result, but they weren’t physically there to be part of it.
My word of good practice is always answer that forum topic if an answer exists
- even if all members of the forum know the answer as it was discussed in a meeting, still document an answer, so future people will also be informed (and also to remind ourselves, as we are often forgetful)
The forum or community Facilitator can convey this recommended behaviour to members, but in the end it’s up to them to pick up the pieces or reinforce the correct behaviour
What if no-one answers the forum topic?
Well, so be it. But it’s also good practice if the Facilitator tries to source an answer for their member, or at least contact them individually to let them know they are not being ignored.
- this is more for new communities as people are finding their feet…and wouldn’t be practical for communities with large numbers
What about forum topics that are off-topic?
Thankfully in the forums we use we can move a forum topic (with its replies) to the correct forum
What about forum replies that are off-topic?
Now this is something we can’t do anything about.
Often our forum topics are long threads and people do their best to rename the subject line when the topic veers off a little, but sometimes a reply becomes so off topic that I would like to move it or rather make it into a new topic.
That is, I would like the ability to convert a reply into a topic
In a past post I wrote about this as the gardening aspects of a Facilitators role.
Distilling Conversations
Another gardening task is to take the cream of the conversations and reference them elsewhere, otherwise they just fall off the radar, and you have to rely on search. I posted about this as distilling conversations, which kind of reminds me of those review type blog posts. Some might think that structuring this information in a MSWord document or a wiki, may lose it’s value or become too narrow and focused, but I think it’s important that you include the forum URL’s, the raw conversations that led to this document.
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