Lionel Scaramal shares his feelings when watching community managers criticize other community managers. They are often the first ones to point out a problem in public.
I believe that the first skill of a good community manager is empathy. We do our best to understand our members, including the trolls. So I don’t understand why it is so hard to put ourselves in the shoes of another community manager.
We all make mistakes. And we all know how challenging our role can be. We have enough trolls to deal with – so we have to stop trolling the people who have the same job as we do. When we think we know the right way to manage a crisis, instead of making it about us, we should contact the community manager in private and give her support and/or pieces of advice. Besides being kinder and more respectful, it will also more positively represent our profession to those in and outside of it.