Chapter 30 Exercises
Exercise 1: Subreddit Architecture Audit (Individual, 60–90 minutes)
Choose a fan community subreddit you are familiar with (it can be the same fandom as previous exercises, or a new one). Conduct a systematic audit of the subreddit's architecture and governance.
Audit checklist: - How many subscribers does the subreddit have? How many are typically active (visible in sidebar or stats)? - What are the posted rules? How many rules are there? How specific are they? - Who are the moderators? How many? Is there any public information about the moderation team? - What is pinned? What does this reveal about current community priorities? - What is the community's wiki (if any)? What does it contain? - What types of posts receive the most upvotes? What types receive the fewest? - Does the community appear to have brigading protections (posting restrictions, required account age, etc.)?
Deliverable: 500–750 word audit report, organized around the above checklist, plus a 200-word assessment: Is this subreddit well-governed? What one governance improvement would you prioritize?
Exercise 2: Run the Community Analytics Script (Technical, 90 minutes)
Install the required Python libraries (pip install pandas matplotlib numpy scipy) and run community_analytics.py from the chapter's code/ directory.
Tasks: 1. Run the script and review all four generated figures 2. Identify which channel is the most over-performing and which is the most under-performing in the simulated data 3. Identify the month with the lowest 30-day retention rate 4. Find three surge events in the membership growth chart and identify what event triggered each
Deliverable: 400–600 word analysis of what the visualizations reveal about the simulated Filipino ARMY server's governance challenges. What would Mireille prioritize based on this data?
Extension (optional): Modify the MAJOR_EVENTS dictionary in the script to replace the BTS events with events from a different fandom (MCU, Supernatural, or one of your own choosing). Describe how the growth pattern changes.
Exercise 3: Run the Discord Activity Model (Technical, 60–90 minutes)
Install the required Python libraries (pip install numpy pandas matplotlib) and run discord_activity_model.py from the chapter's code/ directory.
Tasks: 1. Review the four-panel comparison figure. Which server state shows the highest moderation strain? 2. Review the timezone distribution figure. What governance coverage gap does the stacked area chart reveal? 3. Read the governance report printed to the console. Which of the seven recommendations do you consider most urgent?
Deliverable: 300–500 word response to the three questions, plus one additional governance recommendation of your own that is not in the printed report.
Exercise 4: The "Library vs. Living Room" Framework (Analytical, 60 minutes)
This exercise extends KingdomKeeper_7's "Reddit is the library, Discord is the living room" metaphor.
Part 1: Identify two specific fan community governance challenges that arise specifically from Reddit's "library" architecture (persistence, public searchability, asynchronous threaded format). For each challenge, explain why it arises from the architecture and how a community might address it.
Part 2: Identify two specific fan community governance challenges that arise specifically from Discord's "living room" architecture (ephemerality, real-time format, role hierarchy). For each, explain why it arises and how a community might address it.
Part 3: Propose a third metaphor for a platform not yet discussed in the chapter. What fan platform does your metaphor describe? What does the metaphor reveal about that platform's governance characteristics?
Deliverable: 600–800 word response to all three parts.
Exercise 5: Discord Server Design (Creative/Applied, 2–3 hours)
Design a Discord server for a fan community of your choice (at least 5,000 expected members). Your design should include:
Channel architecture: List at minimum 10 channels. For each: - Channel name (with # prefix) - Purpose - Posting permissions (who can post, who can only read) - Bot integrations (if any)
Role hierarchy: List at minimum 5 roles. For each: - Role name - How a member earns this role - What permissions this role grants - What channels this role can access that lower roles cannot
Bot infrastructure: Name at minimum 3 bots you would use and describe what each does for your community.
New member onboarding flow: Describe, step by step, what happens from the moment a new member joins to the moment they are fully oriented to the server.
Crisis protocol: Describe what your server does in the first hour of a major crisis event (cast replacement, content controversy, author behavior, etc.)
Deliverable: Complete server design document, 600–1000 words.
Exercise 6: Moderator Burnout Case Analysis (Small Group, 60–90 minutes)
In groups of three or four, read the following scenario:
A major fandom subreddit (r/ExampleFandom, 120,000 members) has a moderation team of five people. The primary moderator — who has been with the community since its founding eight years ago — has just posted that they are stepping down due to burnout. The second-most-experienced moderator, who has been with the team for three years, says they will follow if responsibilities are not redistributed. The subreddit has no written succession plan and no documented governance procedures. r/ExampleFandom generates approximately $180,000 per year in advertising revenue for Reddit.
Discussion questions (discuss in group, then write individual response):
- What governance structures should the community have had in place to prevent this crisis?
- What should the remaining moderators do in the immediate term (first 72 hours)?
- What obligations, if any, does Reddit have to the community given that its moderation labor generates advertising revenue for the platform?
- If you were designing a fair system for moderator compensation in this scenario, what would it look like? Who would pay, and how much?
Individual deliverable: 500-word response to the four questions.
Exercise 7: Infrastructure Stack Design (Individual or Pair, 2–3 hours)
Design a complete multi-platform infrastructure stack for a fan community of your choice, following KingdomKeeper_7's model.
Requirements: - At least four platforms in the stack - A clear purpose for each platform (what function it serves that others do not) - An estimate of the weekly governance labor required for each platform - A prioritized list: if you had to cut one platform due to governance capacity limits, which would you cut first? Last? - A dependency analysis: which platform failures would be most damaging to the stack?
Deliverable: 600–800 word infrastructure stack plan with a visual diagram (can be hand-drawn or created digitally).