I'm flattered, but I'm going to decline.
During my long time running that community, I built up a certain number of detractors and critics from applying the rules, and it'd be an unnecessary distraction as you build a new MLS community.
Feel free to send me a DM for any advice you might need, though - happy to give advice!
I may have left the mod team over there in December, but that's very kind of you to say!
/r/MLS grew much more rapidly than any of us anticipated, and we used a strong moderation approach over the years (which left newcomers a bit frustrated). I still think it was for the better, but when the community is still very small, it may not be as necessary.
I think the things to figure out early are:
- What sort of things do you want to be your regular content? News articles are a given - would match threads work on Imzy? What about something like Free Kick Friday, where newcomers can get help? General discussion threads? Highlights?
- What sort of things do you want to keep out? /r/MLS took a pretty early stance against memes, and low quality posts ("Here's a picture from my seat!") shook out quickly as well. We also generated a "dead horse" list of topics that the community had argued over too many times and we were going to consider off limits.
- What's the right level of banter? It's hard to build a friendly community around a subject that so naturally involves rivalries and talking smack to each other. So figuring out what would be over the line is not a bad thing to declare early.
But once again - it's still early days. Don't stress out about it before you need to!



MLSoccerLet's get this community active!Jun 20, 2016 at 9:36 AM