Supporting an online community manager in times of trolling
May 3, 2021
Story
I’ve been online since the early 1990s, and have been a part of online communities from the start, via USENET newsgroups and AOL groups. But it's only been in the last 12 months that I have been a target for online harassment and trolling. It's such a jarring experience! Until this happened to me, I thought I would be ready to handle such a situation. But you really just don't know until you experience it - and I know so many of the World Pulse community has experienced it as well.
I like to use any experience as a learning experience, and if I can help others, I like to write about it. I have been working on this blog for a long while, and am finally ready to publish it: How to support your online community manager in times of trolling. The blog was inspired by both the helpful and not-so-helpful things people said to me while I was dealing with this myself. I'm hoping to incorporate these lessons into a class I'm teaching later this summer for Gratz College. And I'm hoping it will make me a better manager of staff working online in the future.
My sympathies to any of you who have experienced this yourself.