"The Vocal Minority"

This phrase is heard pretty often when talking about community management, particularly when discussing forums. It's not untrue - statistically, active posters on forums are generally a small subset of the playerbase. They also tend to represent the powergamers and the social butterflies - not necessarily your average player. So calling them a "vocal minority" is fairly accurate.

It's also toxic as hell.

The phrase is generally used by producers and execs who don't want to take seriously the feedback the CM is presenting. It's condescending, dismissive, and ultimately potentially disastrous. It's one thing to look realistically at forum feedback as compared to login polls, in-game metrics, and other forms of feedback, but it's quite another when forums are the only form of feedback you have - which is, sadly, often the case.

As m'lord Calandryll put it at a recent AGC panel, your "vocal minority" is your canary in the coal mine - if you ignore it when something goes wrong, instead of that one bird dropping dead, it will be everyone.

My New Motto

Today, we take over the forums...