Comments on: Using pseudonyms to encourage activity in online communities

By: Martha Jones

Martha Jones — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:36:20 +0000

Actually Paul, I believe most communities are started with good intentions-that is, helping like-minded people reach similar goals. However, some forum admins get distracted down the road and stop involving themselves in the forum activities; that is when the forum is done to death. A community cannot be run effectively without active participation from the admin as well as members. I do agree that you need to do some “pre-planning” before building a forum. Not only that, you would probably also want to have an “exit” strategy in place.

By: Martha Jones

Martha Jones — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:30:23 +0000

Pseudonyms are OK for me (hey, even I use pseudonyms a lot) but I have an issue with the “multiple account” thing. Personally, I would not like any member to have more than 1 account on a forum (I don’t think anyone needs more than 1 account unless the member is joining just to spam; besides it creates confusion as well) but till date, I have not found a forum software disallows more than one account per member. I believe it is simply not possible without doing some manual checks.

Thanks. Keep those helpful tips coming.

By: Daryl Wilkes

Daryl Wilkes — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:12:47 +0000

A great thread with some fantastic comment on both sides of the fence!
I am just starting up my Community & am still weighing up the idea of creating content uder a pseudonym……..I am leaning towards no at this time though!

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:08:17 +0000

It seems that using pseudonyms is not the problem, its the person building the community. You can a great person using pseudonyms to build his community or you could have a spammer life person using them. Either way time will tell which person is really trying to make a good community and which is just tring to cash in.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:09:02 +0000

Don’t forget that individuals that frequently comment on blogs are not always the best audience. These people can often be a vocal minority that do not reperesent what the average person is trying to extract from your writing.

By: raphael

raphael — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:38:41 +0000

I would also “fake” some discussions at the beginning to give my website a start. Is not unethical in my opinion, just a trick.

By: Stu

Stu — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:41:46 +0000

It’s interesting what you said about needing to remember what each of your pseudonyms is up to.

My mum always told me “you need a good memory if you’re going to lie all the time”

I think this applies perfectly to this situation.

By: Christopher Hill

Christopher Hill — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:11:01 +0000

To generate activity you can use pseudonyms and start the activity on your community. But is this ethical? Is it the right thing to do?

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:15:17 +0000

That probably works if you’re running a quite serious forum or a straight forward, very niched forum.

But if you’re starting up a generalized forum where the competition is much higher, you’ve got to set the initial tone, the mood, the atmosphere. You can’t do that with one person. Your forum needs that content already there for new people to read and get a whiff of the atmosphere and get an idea of your forum’s personality. You can’t build personality by one post by one person. You must have the personality already set in its foundations and then when new people come along they can build on that foundation as they please.

However, without personality the forum will be stale and new users won’t bother posting, and if they do, it’ll be very boring and won’t last very long.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:48:36 +0000

Multiple accounts is actually not necessary. If all conversations is from one ADMIN like people I’d actually be more likely to return. I always look for good information not quantity. Post good information from just one person and people will join!