Online communities today are not terribly dissimilar from when I was writing my book from 2003-2007. Here's an example: Prior to AI and ML existing in their current sense, I wrote a section titled, "Automated Account Creation, Participation, and Scraping."
"Will a guideline stop them?," I wrote. "Maybe, maybe not. But, at least you'll have something to point to if and when you need to take a little action."
I included sample community guidelines with this policy: "Automated account creation, participation, and content scraping is not permitted."
And even at that time, we were thinking about automated moderation, trust, and safety tooling. I still feel now, as I did then.
"I'm for automation that works, helps you do your job better, and helps your community."
Managing Online Forums was released 18 years ago today.
Patrick O'Keefe