I’m in the market for a lightweight tent.
Two distributors have their own communities.
One is filled with positive comments about their products. The other has a mixture of both good and bad remarks.
I emailed the former out of curiosity to find out why there were no negative posts.
Their honest answer (after a little probing) was simple; “if people post a criticism we contact them directly and remove the negative post.”
You can see why this sounds smart (at least at first). The upset member gets a direct connection and the company doesn’t have negative posts about their products.
The problem is a community filled with only positive posts doesn’t feel authentic. People need to see the good and the bad to make decisions.
Without negative posts and reviews, people trust positive posts less.
You can’t remove the negative comments without also removing the authenticity of the community.
p.s. check out this great community job description (and job).