For the people who don't know, I am the owner of this community.


For the people who don't know, I am the owner of this community. You can usually tell because it says "Owner" right next to my name up there. When I set this community up I set it up in a way to prevent spammers and other people from just using it as a link dumping ground to boost their view numbers. I set it up to where each and every profile has to be approved for membership.

This means I (and presumably the moderators) go through each and every Profile requesting access looking for a number of things:

1- Are you a living breathing person?
2- Are you a motorcycle rider?
3- Do you just share the same content to every motorcycle related group you can get access to?
4- Do you have a love affair with the Share button? In other words, do you only rehare other's content?
5- If yes to any of the above, do you respond to comments on your posts or create an introductory comment to your share?

These things, and I'll admit, hunches, are what I look for when previewing each and every Profile here and by these rules, I'd say about 2/3 of the requests for access I see get denied.

I take many factors into account:

1- Do you have a profile picture or just a blue ghost? (Blue Ghosts are just denied. I don't even look further. If you can't put something in the Profile picture then you're obviously not social media savvy)

2- Is your profile filled out? Does it say you're a bike rider or does it just say where you live, what you do and what sex you are?

3- Do you post motorcycle related content?

Etc. Just look at the About Community section to the right.

One of my biggest pet peeves on social media, though, is people who post content without explaining WHY they're posting that content. To me that means you're not interested in a discussion nor do you have an opinion, you're just posting because, why not. Or maybe you're posting to drive views to your blog/website/albums/etc. That's fine. I don't care if you want to create a webpage or a blog or whatnot, but sharing a link to that content still needs to be predicated by an introduction to why people should go take a look.

This is a Community, after all. Not a bulletin board at some church or in some dormitory. We're all here to share our common ground, to talk about the love of motorcycle riding. And I think, for the most part, we've been pretty good about it.

However, as the community gets bigger, I'm starting to see more and more people who seem to be link-dumping. They're just tossing content into this Community and hoping it sticks. 

Since we have been a small intimate community I've been pretty lax about moderating this behavior and when I finally called one guy out for link-dumping I he told me he didn't see a "rule" against it anywhere.

Fair enough.

So, here's your rule: Content that is shared to this community needs some sort of introduction. I don't care if it's a picture, a video, a blog post or a share of something you shared elsewhere, it needs an intro as to why you're sharing it here.

This intro can be something simple: here's a few pictures from my ride yesterday to something much more dramatic. It can be: aw, dude, check out this wreck on this video or I wrote a blog post about tire pressure, check it out

To be honest, I don't care what it says, as long as it says something.

There are hundreds of motorcycle communities on Google+. We may not have the most members, but I do think we have the most interactions with each other (in general). I'd like to keep it that way.

Like I said before, this is your community, your bike night in a parking lot somewhere. We're all here to talk motorcycle riding. But if all you're doing is handing out flyers and not participating in discussion, I'm going to ask you to leave.

I'm going to pin this to the top for a while so everyone has a chance to read it. Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Here are example of what I'm referring to. These are actual Profiles who requested entrance into this community:

Posting the same content repeatedly to get views:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112975928991069528017/posts

Post content without introduction as to what/why he's posting:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ThomasBoese/posts

Nothing in his profile about being a motorcycle rider:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/118112062182069893101/about

Nothing at all - No Posts, no Profile, no Nothing:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112505969438444764635/about

Comments

Ride The Cloud said…
Does this mean I'm not going to see anymore links to biker dating sites - damn!
Jason ON said…
Not in this community, I hope. ;)
Paul Rey said…
I'm with you! And more power to you. :-)
I like riding and this suits me.
I hope my posts have been ok.
Mario RJ Corbin said…
I'll be perfectly honest, I own a blog and an academic website and usually post to my profile. In fact, anyone reviewing my link will see exactly that, so it is no surprise. However, what I am unclear about is whether or not when I post on MY OWN personal page does it show up on everyone else's who has decided to add me to a group? If the latter, I do apologize in advance. I am not always up to date on Google + and how it always works as I feel it can be a quagmire at times. That being said, I am indeed a biker, a father and an academic who does like to share not only my own ride outs but those of people whom I have had the pleasure of meeting from around the world. So let me know if I am one of those annoyances, and how, if possible, I can somehow ensure that whatever I post to my personal page doesn't get thrown onto other people's pages as well.
Jason ON said…
No, Mario R.J. Corbin,  you have to post to the Community to fall under this rule. Each of us has the option to select how much activity in this community we see in our home streams and that may be what you're talking about when you see this community's content on your profile.

Scroll down on this page and you'll see some of the stuff I'm talking about. 

The first time I called someone out was a guy who would just post a picture of him and his bike. Over and over and over again. When I asked him to explain the context of the images he threw a fit. But, like I said, I'm seeing more and more of that behavior and I wanted to nip it in the bud before it got out of control.
Mario RJ Corbin said…
Ok, thanks for the clarification. I understand where you are coming from.
Anthony Evenden said…
I must admit I'm more lurker than poster. I will like posts that take my fancy and will also share if I think my friends will like it. I do enjoy reading what people are up to and I will post if I ever do something exciting. Thank you for this community.
John Myers said…
Jason, thank you for your explanation, I have wondered what ON meant, clear rules are good.
Easy to follow, good rules with a passionate owner = good group.  This motogroup is different from others I have found based on it's shared content.   I like.
Sash Walker said…
Jason ON​ has a last name that is difficult to spell and pronounce, so he uses ON as a sort of nickname. Plus, he's probably hiding from Big Brother or the Pinko Commies. . .
Rob Thijssen said…
I think everything stated in the 'rules' above is just common sense and community netiquete. I followed some of the banter mentioned where an op threw a hissy when the mod asked (very nicely) for better quality posts and was suprised that some people seem to think the right to free speech doesn't extend to people who want to say stfu!
Phillip Taber said…
I do love dirt biking, the older I get, the faster I want to go. This place seems cool to share stuff with. How could anyone from the boat be bad?
Jason ON said…
The boat, Phillip Taber​?
Phillip Taber said…
Steamboat Springs, home of tight woods, trees lots of rocks. Best part is not many pedal monkey's.
Sash Walker said…
Ha! That's funny! I bought a shirt in Steamboat and I wore it so often that I wore it out. I had people ask if I was from The Boat all the time. 😊 Even I got that Jason ON​!
+Sash Walker must be like mine then... starts with a J and has half the alphabet in it... sigh sometimes it just easier to say Wheelbarra
Sash Walker said…
Oh, no I don't think so EXPERIMENTAL GHOST. It was a gray Tshirt I bought in a little shop in town that actually said, "Steamboat Springs". I just couldn't believe how many people asked me if I was from The Boat.
Phillip Taber said…
And don't forget for a small mtn town we got 2 breweries and 3 dispensary's...

Popular posts from this blog

So, I asked Andrew Tamm, who filled my Stream with a hundred (sarcasm there) animated gifs and cat pictures to...

I'm shutting down Google+ for the night and quite possibly for the weekend.