Over the last few weeks, feels like more and more I’ve been getting these unfriendly responses for commenting and contributing to the conversation within a blog or community.
It’s not like I was being nasty. It was me adding to the conversation and me giving constructive feedback. (I was telling an author that I thought her post was confusing.) Yet, I got comments that made it sound like they didn’t care or I wasn’t welcome. It made me not want to participate in their communities.
During my time as a community manager, my experience has been that one of your biggest responsibilities is to listen. Even when you get feedback or comments that you may not agree with, just shut up and listen.
Some how something caused your user to have the perception which brought about the comment. Don’t you wanna know what got them there? That’s how you’re going to figure out how to make your product better.
If you’re not getting feedback, well you have an entirely different problem. You need to find and spend more time amongst your community. You need to make yourself A LOT more available so that people can reach you and tell you what they’re thinking.
Your users are the life blood of your community. You want to treat them like you’d treat guests in your house. Otherwise, like me, they’re going to make their way to the exits and not come back. One of the benefits of the Web 2.0 era we live in is that there are lots of places I could spend my time.
Oatmeal Stout - Justin Thorp's blog 
Nice post, Justin. Agreed that listening is paramount in our positions.
Josh, thanks for reading my blog!
When you stop listening you stop learning. That isn’t an option these days. My bet is that these guys haven’t met you yet, but that when they do they’ll change their tune.
Bob
Jobmatchbox.com