new messages - aka why you might not see your message post to the group right away

[rachel young]

Hi folks,

This is mostly for new members or those who are posting for the first time, but also for some existing members who may not see their messages post to the group immediately.

The list gets a fair amount of spam, so the list is moderated. That means that messages from e-mail addresses that aren't already approved get sent to the moderation queue for someone to look at and decide if it is spam or not or if we think something is a bit off with a message. There is a small number of moderators who volunteer to moderate this list, and we all run our own spaces and other businesses and/or projects. We do our best to get to the messages as soon as we can, but when you see several messages come through at the same time it's probably because one of us went in and cleared out the moderation queue. Sometimes it's a day or two (or three - eek!) before one of us goes in to do that.

So what are we looking for? 

1. Obvious spam

None of us need to see any more spam messages about watches, car insurance, or that little blue pill that rhymes with Niagara (even if I type it I fear it will attract more spam), so we delete and ban those automatically.

2. Real messages from new people

These are awesome, and we allow them to go through and when we know the messages are from a real coworking person, we are sure to click on the little icon that allows future messages to automatically be posted, without being caught in the moderation queue again. Sometimes someone can game the system and pretend to post as a real coworking person and post spam after that, but we can catch and ban those pretty quickly. However, and this is where those who have already posted before should take note, sometimes an existing member who has posted here several times before also gets caught in the moderation queue. It happened to me just the other day, and I'm one of the moderators! I don't know why that happened. I'm using the same e-mail address I always have and haven't changed anything else about my mail set up, so maybe google detected the message about the freelance industry report as spam by the way the message was structured, two links within a very short message, etc. So, even existing members may get caught in the moderation queue.

3. Real messages from new people marketing their space to us

This one is a bit tricky, but it's usually something along the lines of "We're a new coworking space in xxxxxxx with this amenity and that benefit, and we'd love to have you sign up for a membership. Book your first day at xxxxx!" Sometimes they attach really awesome looking photos and it's a great marketing pitch. The problem is that the majority of the people here on the list own or manage a coworking space, but the message reads like an invitation to join the space, which is unlikely when we already have our own. We're colleagues, not a target market, so chat with us instead of marketing to us. So when I see one of these messages, I don't allow it to go through. Instead, I send a friendly message to only that person explaining what the list is for and not for, and to encourage them to reconsider what they are posting to match the audience. By all means they should introduce themselves by name, announce their space, and share their website link, but also tell us what is unique about their space, why they decided to start a coworking space, who some of their awesome founding members are and what they do. And then of course ask questions, ask for help, bounce ideas off of us, and help others. And also, when they do post again, they'll still be in the moderation queue, so it might take a day or two for one of us to get to your message, but once we do we can enable their to new message directly. This is all meant to be very supportive guidance, and most people take it as such and post again with an awesome introduction.

4. Other miscellaneous

Then there are other odd messages here and there, like a message from someone at a new coworking space asking if this is the right place to post messages, duplicate messages, messages asking if the first one got through (especially if the first one is still in the moderation queue), and requests to unsubscribe, etc. Those are all addressed  directly depending on the message.

If anyone has any questions about the moderation process or why we do what we do, please ask.

r.

____________________
rachel young
rac...@camaraderie.ca

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[Alex Hillman]

Thanks for this, Rachel, and for your dedicated help moderating the group to keep it sane and valuable.

We should probably put a link to this post somewhere on the welcome page of the group since it comes up once in a while, so I'll do that today. 

-Alex

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[Alex Hillman]

As promised, a link to this thread is now on the home page of this group: http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en

-Alex

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