Conflicts in communities

One of the most important challenges of community management

Every community manager at some point in their career would’ve had to deal with conflicts in their community. If you’re managing an online community, you can multiply that possibility by 2 and if you’re in the gaming industry, make that 4!

Over the past couple of years, internet penetration has increased and more and more people come online every day. This also means more voices and opinions about things.

Conflict refers to some form of friction, disagreement, or discord arising within a group when the beliefs or actions of one or more members of the group are either resisted by or unacceptable to one or more members of another group

Conflicts are all over the internet. We see them on a regular basis(and sometimes participate in them). If today was my first day on the internet & I’m asked to draw/depict it in the form of a picture, this one below would aptly describe it.

Starting your day on Twitter with conflicts between DeMonitisation haters and supporters to ending it with Donald Trump haters and supporters. On social media, you have the option of ignoring it or getting some popcorn & staying glued to the comments section. However, if this happens in your community, you can’t ignore it! Part of your job as a community manager is to oil the parts of community well so that there’s no friction and everything works smoothly.

Identifying conflicts

This is most often the toughest part. If one of your community member posts something offensive and someone gets back at him- you know there’s a problem. Simple, right?

If only things were black and white. Unfortunately, conflicts could be a due to a number of reasons and what makes it tough is that some of these cannot be identified easily. Socious has written about spotting in online communities.

While it’s fairly easier in a small community, larger communities might be difficult. A good approach might be to analyse the available data(depending on your community platform) to keep a check on the activity of members. If you notice someone who’s been an active member for a long time but there was a sudden drop in his/her activity, it’s a good idea to reach out to them asking if everything is alright. While this might not unearth a conflict every time, it’s a really good practice to connect with community members and ask them how they’re doing.

What is the most common cause of conflicts in online communities?

While there are a lot of reasons for conflicts, these might be the most important ones.

• Difference of opinion
• Entitlement(Old guard/New guard)
• Miscommunication(due to cultural/linguistic differences)
• Lack of structure & transparency
• Lack of diversity & inclusion
• Personal reasons(job/money problems/the kids/etc)

Dealing with conflicts

• Empathy

This is the most important trait of a community manager. Be empathetic and try to understand your community members.

• Transparency
  Most of the organizational level conflicts arise due to lack of transparency in the functioning. Transparency helps in enhancing collaboration among community members. You’ll be able to work better when you understand things better.

• Motivation & Support
  Ensure that the community is motivated. Always keep thinking and iterating on what is the value generated by the community and what do community members gain, being a part of it. Support them when needed.

• Be Neutral & Unbiased
  The recent political debate is a great example. No matter how opinionated you are, when you’re the community manager or face of the company, you should keep your preferences aside & be unbiased while taking a decision.

Unbiased doesn’t mean that you have to hate everyone equally

• Define a structure
  This plays a key role in conflict resolution. Most people have a love/hate relationship with structures. But having structure and proper guidelines means more accountability. This reduces chances of conflicts.

If you’ve dealt with conflicts in your community, I’d love to hear more about it.