Announcements, bulletins, and community updates

[JoelR]

There are two different kinds of announcements: 

- Transactional announcements: these are the announcements for routine, maintenance, regular updates.  Usually only the superusers and staff will care about this level of announcement, because it's operational and maintained the status quo.  

- Transformative announcements: these are the announcements where you've hit a major milestone, you're launching a new initiative, or the community / company has accomplished something big.  This is something that even casual users might pause and read, because it changes the nature of the community.  

These two types of transactions are very different from each other in the scope and size. How do we present or prioritize them differently to our community, or do you treat them with the same level of significance? 

[Shortie]

I have always treated every announcement I make as having the same level of significance and never thought of it this way before. 

I can see why many would look at if differently and as different levels though and that is interesting. 

[Destiny]

It is very easy to look at both of these types of transactions and confuse them as being all the same when they do have their differences.

I admit, I do categorize all these as being the same level of significance and I have seen many doing the same. 

 

[JoelR]

I think most admins fall into that trap, the follow through and execution and impact is much more nuanced to the different types of members.  

 

[Nomad]

The only announcements I make public are transformative announcements. I usually post a topic on my community informing users about the recent developments in the community. Sometimes, I also use webmaster forums to publish my transformative announcements.