from Amber Naslund, Director of Community for Radian6:

Our Responsibility To Our Communities

Communities – online and off – are ecosystems of their own, too. They’re not built. They grow, and they have to be collectively nurtured in order to survive. They don’t just exist without tending, and the people that make that happen are NOT the “community managers”. They are the community members themselves.

If you are a member of a community, and if you are asking for and expecting the benefits of that acceptance, you have a responsibility to contribute to the community in a constructive manner.  It is your responsibility to ensure that you build instead of tear down. It is your responsibility to steward the health and future of that community as one of its inhabitants.