I Love MangoLassi - What Can I Do?

[Minion Queen]

As community members we all want to see our community succeed and grow. As the community grows the more value is has for all of us – the network effect in action! As community members, you may wonder how you can make a difference, what can you do to support the community. Well, I have put together a little guide for you.

• Post: It's that easy. Nothing helps the community more than you just coming here and getting involved. Whether it is asking a question, answering a question, starting a discussion, sharing the news, participating in a discussion; your activity promotes the community. It adds to the conversation, it increases activity and it gives everyone else more to ask, answer, discuss, etc. Surprisingly, asking questions is one of the most important aspects and the one that most people are the most shy about. Don't be shy, ask away. Everyone is here to help.

• Avatars: Head over to Gravatar.com and get your avatar set up. Seems like a simple step, but those avatars make the site look complete, improve user interactions, make people naturally more friendly and amiable because it makes people seem more “real” and makes it far easier to remember who is who. A small thing, but a valuable one.

• Tags: Thoughtful tagging of your topics does far more than people realize for the community. Tags are how topics and groups are handled and identified in MangoLassi. Add the “Windows” tag and your thread is part of the “Windows Group.” The tags are very important because they determine the contents of the RSS feeds, are sometimes the only view of the site that people have and they show people how much activity that there is on a given topic. Moderators attempt to add tags whenever possible and to clean them up as much as possible, but if everyone participated in tagging their own posts the tags would be more complete and accurate.

• Original Content: If you have ever wanted to write guides, reviews, scripts or how tos… go for it. That content is highly valuable and creates great reasons for more people to visit the community and get to know all of us. It's also a great way to set yourself apart and make a name for yourself. It's the kind of content that you can reference on a resume!

• Share: Whether it is linking to discussions or articles, Tweeting, posting to Facebook, LinkedIn or whatever the more that you show people on the outside that you are in the community, the more that they will learn about it and come check it out. Whether it brings in people directly, just increases mind share or improves the chance search engine recommendations, sharing helps a lot.

• Invite Your Friends!: Hard to beat this one. Know anyone that works in IT? Any students looking to find a place to network and learn? People who might have questions to ask? Vendors looking for a place to talk to potential customers? Open source projects needing a way to engage people? Other IT Pros looking to network, bounce ideas or see what people are talking about? Tell them about MangoLassi, invite them to come take a look.

• Get Involved Locally: Local or regional Mango Meetups are a great way to create buzz, create content, get people excited and introduce them to the community.

• MangoCon: Of course, coming out to the big MangoCon event is going to be an awesome way to engage each other in person, strengthen relationships.