A Forum Moderator’s Guide to Life: Gossip is Poison

Earlier we talked about how Leadership is Influence, Working Out of a Job and Shaping Leadership Influence. An often overlooked poison to a community of any sort is gossip. Rumor mongering and slander among, particularly group bloggers or forum leadership, can destroy a site.

Nipping Gossip in the Bud

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” — Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

Gossip among leadership will kill an organization like a slow poison. Whether you administer a healthy community, or are simply a moderator, beware!

Take this situation, for example. Jack is an Admin of a major forum. He has six Moderators under him, among which are Bill and Kelly. During the course of a day, Kelly says something publicly that Jack feels needs to be addressed, so he sends Kelly an email that explains his position, and asks her to be careful in what she says. That evening, Kelly is chatting to Bill over instant messenger and starts talking about how Jack sent the email to her. She says that Jack has no idea what he’s talking about and that he’s got ill feelings toward her. Kelly’s pretty persuasive, and Bill has never known her to lie, so he thinks that what she says must be true. Later, in talking to another moderator, he mentions the scenario, and adds that Jack has it in for Kelly…

In this situation, gossip has effectively set at least two community moderators in direct opposition to the leadership of the forum, and has effectively driven a wedge between people who are supposed to be members of a cohesive team. Precedent says that in this situation, Kelly should have kept her mouth shut and worked out any disagreements directly with Jack, but instead she has begun a slow-spreading poison that will ultimately hurt the community.

• 
• Stumble it!

About the Author: Aaron Brazell is the lead editor of Technosailor.com and a social media expert. His passion is to see companies and individuals use the internet and web technologies wisely and effectively to promote their brands and companies. He is Business Development Manager for Lijit and he worked as Director of Technology at b5media from 2005-2008 and is currently an independent consultant.