Virtual Communities: Community Member Taxonomy
- Benjamin Lam
- Nov 5, 2021
- 6 min read
The main benefit of online communities is that people from all over the world can join and interact with other community members. But despite many people joining virtual communities, each person falls under a certain type of user based on their interaction with other community members, or even the lack of interaction. Depending on the group and what the topic of the group is, these roles can change depending on how the user feels and if they want to engage with other community members. Through some digging around I found that most people fall under a certain type of user.
The Lurker:
This type of user is fairly common, especially amongst larger virtual communities. Seems ironic but this type of use is designated as such because they do not interact very much with the other members of the group. As per its name, The Lurker is a user who is in the group, reads messages that members post, like content like videos or images that other members share, but that is really it. This type of user is very common in larger virtual communities because there are other members who share to the group so they don't feel the need to interact with the rest of the community. It is not that The Lurker doesn't want to interact, but the main reason that they are in the group is to see what other members are sharing to the group. If someone was to engage The Lurker by sending them a message, more often than not The Lurker would interact with them since they are being engaged directly.
I think that if a person is not directly associated with the group then they're usually a lurker. For myself, many of the virtual communities that I am a part of, I am usually a lurker unless I am directly associated with the group. As a lurker I join these virtual communities because I am interested in the content that other members are sharing. Basically I use these groups for entertainment when I am scrolling through my feed.
The Social Butterfly:
I guess we could call this the everyday type user in virtual communities. This user does a little bit of everything to be active in the community. Sometimes they share content to the group but most of the time they can be found interacting with other members within the comment section of certain posts or engaging with other members directly. This type of user is known as the Social Butterfly because they are able to move to many different topics and conversations within the group and interact with other members. The Social Butterflies are also the members who truly know what how the group is like. That being said, they are great members to ask for feedback or review on how the group is functioning overall and how it could improve.
The Social Butterfly is probably the most active type of user amongst others. They have a direct interest in the community, so they are the ones who enjoy directly engaging with other members and making conversation with them. When there are more Social Butterflies amongst the group, the more active it is. I definitely know for myself that if I have a higher interest in a group or if I find that the content that someone posts is worth my time, I engage in conversation with other group members. Interacting with other group members can be great, especially when the group meets in person. It definitely is kind of strange but being active in a group, then meeting in-person makes you everyone's best friend because they know you by your screen name and can have a pretty good idea of your personality based on you interact within the group.
The Troll:
By far I think that everyone who is a part of a large virtual community knows what kind of users The Troll are. The Troll also known as trouble makers of the group are users who intentionally go after other users with the intentions of being annoying and trying to get a reaction out of other users. They don't really provide any benefit to the group and are really just mess with community members. I think a sub-classification of this is The Spammer, a user who fills up comments with the same message or just multiple messages to the point where it makes any kind of interaction amongst other group members very difficult. Any type of interaction that keeps other members from being able to communicate is the Spammer.
Being in so many groups, there are definitely a lot of Trolls and Spammers. If the group is large enough, more often than not they'll disappear in the crowd and people will ignore them. Given the context and the size of the group, it is important to have diligent group moderators to enforce the rules of the group and if they see fit, they can ban them from the group. Again these users do this to bait another user into interacting just to get some kind of reaction out of them.
The Elitist:
The Elitist is the type of user that has been in the group for a long time and depending on the group, knows more about the subject of the group. Usually interactions with the Elitist can go in one of two directions. The first is the Elitist is welcoming to newer member of the group and acts as the group's encyclopedia of knowledge that new members can go to ask for help. The other direction is where the Elitist sees themselves in a higher position amongst the group because they have seniority and know more. If a new member asks a question that is deemed easy, the Elitist is known for going for the throat and telling them that their question is easy and they should be able to solve for themselves. Even through text messages, it can be easy to tell who the Elitist is based on the language they use and how they speak to other members.
Speaking from experience, I've definitely gone in both directions as an Elitist. Usually if I see a post or a question that is very easy to look up, I find it very annoying that the person would ask a group instead of just googling it. At some point I think that basic information is common knowledge and people should be able to look it up and help themselves. Now I usually keep that to myself and I either give them an answer or I don't even both interacting with that post.
The Content Creator:
As per the name, the Content Creator are the members of the group who create or share content that the rest of the group can interact with. They don't always post a lot of to the group, but when they do it usually creates a stir amongst the online group. The content that they share can be really in-depth text based post that gives the community member something to discuss and share their thoughts about. Other times it can be images or videos that they either created or found and want to share with the rest of the group. These type of community members are vital to keeping the community active.
In the virtual communities that I frequent, specifically the Nerf modification ones, it is a real treat when someone posts photos and a writeup about a new blaster design that they have completed. These type of posts are some of the best because they it is a creator bringing something new into the hobby that gives people something to talk about. Our community is very open about sharing designs with one another, so when a creator posts their design that they have been working on, it means that other members will also be able to get their hands on the design and either buy it or build it for themselves. The Content Creator type members are the ones that keeps the community members talking and keeps people excited about our hobby.
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