Since August 2018 I have run a social network site called Friend Camp for about fifty of my friends. I think Friend Camp is a really nice place, and my friends seem to agree that it has enriched our lives. If you choose to run a site like this, it means that people will now depend on you for something that’s important to them.

Running a small social network is like hosting a party. It requires social intelligence, empathy, and, yes, technical skills. You might wonder what aspect of hosting a party is technical. I mean technical in the sense of “requiring technique and skill.” Party hosts need all sorts of technical skills: managing RSVPs and calendars, planning and purchasing supplies, cooking and serving, wrangling a music play­list, etc. But as with hosting a party, technical skills aren’t enough. You need to have social skills, or have someone assisting you who does. For example, I need to maintain an understanding of everyone on the server. I have to remember what their individual needs are, which means that I need to be able to hold all of that information in my head. It’s not a task that everyone is suited to, but it’s critically important. Among other things, my duty is to read the local timeline and catch up on everyone’s posts. I need to take the temperature of the network and also provide social lubrication where necessary. (“Hey, you just mentioned you’re traveling to Montreal! So-and-so lives there—maybe you should message them and see if they want to meet up.”) Do not fool yourself into thinking that your job as an administrator is primarily technical. It’s social first and technical second.

From Run Your Own Social by Darius Kazemi (CC BY 4.0).

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