On a LinkedIn discussion about community management, a great comment was made about the importance of understanding foreign cultures when moderating international communities, such as those around football tournaments.
Very true. But I would expand it. As a good community manager, and especially as someone with a moderation role, you must think regional. Very regional.
When I was at school, I had a headmaster that was very proud of his Liverpool roots. One day, when talking to us about linguistics and on one of his lengthy preambles, he mentioned a 'jiggerrabbit'.
Being a class of Devonshire teenagers, we stared at him blankly.
A 'jigger' is Liverpool slang for 'alleyway'. A 'jigger-rabbit' is slang, therefore, for a cat.
It's a great word, and a great example of how a word can simply not exist outside of a very tight radius on a map.
Now if I saw 'jigger-rabbit' in certain contexts, as a moderator who has been to Liverpool maybe two, three times in my life, I may well have thought it to be an insult.
Imagine seeing the phrase 'black jigger-rabbit'. How does that sound to you? It means 'black cat', of course, but if you didn't know the meaning, you could jump to entirely the wrong conclusion.
A good community manager gets to know their community inside out - and let's not forget that communities themselves have their own little cultures and phrases too - and that includes letting yourself pick up on these nuances.
It's impossible to learn every slang phrase across the world, of course, but you can pick things up, you can check unfamiliar words that don't sit right.
The brilliant Urban Dictionary is one to add to your toolkit, as is www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk.
As a community manager, you need to develop a keen eye for these dialectical delights, otherwise they could turn around and bite you on the Queen Mum.
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