Technology: For Community Administrators

Awareness provides community administrators with the tools they need to:

Organize content

Create an unlimited number of categories, pull in RSS feeds, create link lists, etc. Categories can be hierarchical and nested to any depth, and can also be used for items such as "featured posts," and "question of the day."

Manage users

Segment users into different groups and assign them appropriate status (trusted, untrusted, suspended, etc.). A trusted user's content will get posted immediately to the community, but an untrusted user's content requires explicit approval first.

Assign permissions

Manage the relationship between users and content: which users can post to which category? Who can read what? Who can edit certain wikis? Who can comment on what content? Here are some examples:

• A category for executives only.
• An area only for members working on a special project (this can include a blend of employees, customers, and partners).
• A "from the experts" category that anyone can see or comment on, but only users with an "expert" status can post to.
• A "suggestion box" in which everyone can post but only select people can read.
• "Featured posts" that only certain users can write to but anyone can read.
• A wiki that only select users can edit, but anyone can read.

Moderate content

Content moderation comes in two forms:

• Manual moderation. Moderators explicitly review posts and take action (approve, reject, edit the post, notify the author, re-categorize the post, etc.)
• Automated moderation. Rules and filters look at content—including user contributions and RSS feeds—to identify "bad" content or "good" content. The rules can automatically flag the content for a moderator, reject the post, notify someone, replace words, etc.

Understand community activity. Reports and metrics provide insight into community participation.