Latest on Scope merger
What do you want from our new online community?
Back in October we announced that Netbuddy was joining Scope to create a new online community. We’ve spent the last few months talking to Netbuddy and Scope followers about what they’d like to see in the new community.
We’ve done this through an online survey, emails, phone calls, Skype and face to face interviews. Here are the common things people told us they wanted from the new online community:
Shared experiences
People spoke about the desire to connect with people in a similar situation, in a variety of different and changing ways. Some people came to the sites looking for emotional support, for others it was about getting practical advice – but the common need was to find people “like them”. We want the new community to help people make these connections.
The ability to help others
It’s not all about receiving support – people also had a strong and
genuine desire to help others through their contributions online. We
want to make it easy for people to ask for and give help by letting
people discover areas of expertise, find people who need support and
enable people to acknowledge when content has been useful.
Immediacy and timeliness
With sites like Twitter and Facebook, immediacy has become the norm. The
people we spoke to expected immediate responses when they posted
online so an online community can’t just run 9am – 5pm, only on
weekdays! People expect their posts to be sent out immediately and be
notified if anyone responds straight away. We will need to make sure
people can access advice from the community whatever the time or the
day.
Ownership
People felt strongly about the need to belong to the community. This
might mean that staff will occasionally need to take a step back, and
give people in the community more control over how it’s run and how it
develops. Doing this research and involving people from the community in
the process is the first way we’re doing this, and we will involve the
community in anyway we can as we progress.
Netbuddy followers told us how much they valued the site
champions and experts, so we hope to continue these roles and grow the
number of champions supporting people to use the community.
A safe and trusted space
Whilst people wanted ownership and immediacy, they also wanted to be
able to use the community to suit their personal situation. This might
mean discussing sensitive personal issues, not suitable for sites like
Facebook, without fear of abuse or prejudice. We’ll work closely with the community, champions, experts, and staff
to make the community as safe, welcoming and friendly as possible.
Thank you
Thank you to everyone who has taken part in the research so far. We’ve learnt so much over the last few months and we will continue going through all the feedback as we build the new community. We’ll be posting more updates here and we’ll share any opportunities to get involved.
Our focus for the coming months will be on building and moving across the forums from Scope and Netbuddy onto the new online community. If you are a forum user – we will be in touch. Later in the year we plan to start moving the tips and events content into the new community. Again, we'll keep you posted.
We'd like to say a big thank you to Sam Mentor and Ant Mace for conducting the research with us and providing their fantastic insight and expertise.
If you have any questions, please comment below or you can contact me by emailing [email protected]
