How does Zhihu operate its community?

How does Zhihu operate its community ? How does Zhihu establish and maintain a community cultural atmosphere? How do large-scale communities govern rules? Below, this article will answer these questions for you.

1. The principles of professionalism, seriousness and friendliness

Atmosphere sounds like a particularly abstract word. It is easy to feel, but in actual work, what kind of content should be used to define and measure "atmosphere"?

If you use Zhihu frequently, you should be very familiar with the three words: professional, serious, and friendly. We encourage content that is professional, serious, friendly, responsible, and respectful of diversity. At the same time, we are also firmly opposed to spamming, low-intelligence, false rumors, and discriminatory content.

But are these atmospheres?

Going a little further, there is a basic understanding that information is power , that is, when you are able to obtain certain information, get closer to certain information, and when you are able to make your information gain greater attention and focus, you will gain some rights to a certain extent.

The reason why every UGC (user-generated content) community can stand out is that it can provide its users with a new path to information rights.

My personal understanding of why Zhihu became Zhihu is:

Since our inception, we have provided Internet users with a brand new set of rules and a power path that is different from other platforms.

In other words, on Zhihu, professional, serious and friendly sharing can bring recognition and influence to such users.

The atmosphere we have been guarding is actually this rule. The reason why we call it atmosphere is because more people identify with it and form a consensus on these rules.

Rules are not slogans, nor are they a solid execution. Rather, they are product design, operational activities, algorithm strategies, and even a starting point for the entire company’s resource investment.

The setting of each rule is actually a choice, and behind every choice there will be corresponding sacrifices and gains.

It seems that these rules are a framework or setting for users and content in the community, but in fact, what everyone can feel more is that because of the existence of these rules, everyone has higher requirements for the content they share.

Once the rule of "professionalism is more important and will be more encouraged" is set, it is necessary to clearly realize that the growth rate and creation frequency of professional creators are not that high.

We should be aware of this.

For two years, the joking phrase "Go to Zhihu and share your newly made story with the world" has been with us. Why are we the only ones who have received such a slogan, such a joke?

For Zhihu, especially in the past year or so, we have seen some phenomena:

After a day or two of development, many hot news and hot events will have a very surprising truth and ending.

Confused, we traced back these hot events and found that the root of the problem appeared in the first article, which was probably a fabricated story:

The author always says things that are not entirely true, which triggers certain emotions in people and then becomes a hot topic for discussion. It didn’t take long to discover that this wasn’t true.

Because we chose to be serious, chose to hope that Zhihu is a real question-and-answer community, and hoped that the content above is trustworthy, we blocked "Pirate King Luffy".

Note: On the online question-and-answer community “Zhihu”, a user named “Pirate King Luffy” suddenly became popular. This "Pirate King Luffy" has answered a total of 244 questions from netizens in the Zhihu community. He spoke from his own experience under various questions and narrated his life story (fictional) vividly. But the identity of each answer is different.

On March 3, 2017, Zhihu's official account "Zhihu Little Butler" published a column announcement, banning several accounts with fake identities, including "Pirate King Luffy".

Only if we choose to be serious and trustworthy, every user who chooses to come to Zhihu will also default to some of the rules when using Zhihu and become a trustworthy content producer and sharer.

With such a receipt, we must bear the consequences for the disappointment brought to everyone by such bad cases and make many improvements for this purpose.

Therefore, after the "Pirate King Luffy" incident, we did a lot of work on product operations, including algorithms.

Frankly speaking, the process of resolving this matter was not easy and cost a lot. But this matter is also worth it, once again let us realize:

Since you have chosen to be professional, serious and friendly, you should make corresponding investments for it.

Last week, there was a conflict between two groups of fans on Zhihu. Based on this dispute, we saw a lot of interactive behaviors, including questions and answers.

If we only look at the regular traffic, interaction and other data, this is a very positive thing. However, because attacking each other is not encouraged on Zhihu, we have closed some related questions, banned many accounts, and deleted many answers.

At that time, some content received more than 3,000 reports a day, but it did not mean that the content would be dealt with. The content that was dealt with must be unfriendly and mutually offensive behavior within the current regulations, and it was a problem of provoking conflict, even if it would lose corresponding traffic.

It sounds a bit like sentiment. We don’t want data, we want friendliness, but we don’t think this is sentiment, but solid value.

And we will continue to do a lot of work for these values, so that professional, serious and friendly content will be encouraged, and behaviors that disrupt the order and atmosphere of community discussions will be stopped and terminated in a timely manner.

2. On the premise of adhering to principles, maintain the community atmosphere from three aspects

In order to increase the discussion volume and number of users on Zhihu, we will now maintain the atmosphere from three aspects, adhering to the principles of professionalism, seriousness, and friendliness: community norms, algorithm capabilities, and product mechanisms.

1. Community Standards

From the perspective of community norms, most users feel that unless they do something illegal, they will not be noticed.

But in fact, a series of behaviors of users on Zhihu have been integrated into our work of recommendation, content circulation, content identification and user identification.

In the past 2018, we re-determined and defined all the behaviors and content that are encouraged, discouraged, and prohibited in the community, forming a Zhihu content value manual of more than 20,000 words.

For example, we have clearly defined the characteristics of low-quality content in the health field and what standards are violated to be considered low-quality content. We need to mark it out and inform users that they need to read this content with caution.

Let me give you an example: the content has no reliable source

For example, regarding breakthroughs in the health industry, if the research conclusions about whether a food is harmful or beneficial are not found in the official website database of an authoritative journal organization, or there is an existing scientific consensus, or the existing mainstream scientific research and consensus cannot support that the food is harmful or beneficial, it will be marked as low-quality content, and intentionally inflammatory information will also be marked as low-quality content, with a front-end prompt.

This feature is very common, that is, the kind of information forwarded in family groups saying "Eating more mung beans can cure cancer, don't eat black wolfberry, it's bad for your health" and so on.

That is to say, if we cannot clearly find such a source in core journals or reliable research and sources, we will mark it accordingly.

2. Algorithm capabilities

After doing a lot of standard definition and identification, there is still further work to be done, which is how to identify the set standards? For this purpose, we have configured corresponding recognition capabilities.

This is actually a challenge for us, but fortunately we now have algorithms and strategy tools. By introducing AI for human-machine collaboration, the processing of negative content has now reached a coverage rate of 95%, and the content corresponds to three main aspects: violations of laws and regulations, advertising diversion information, and unfriendly content.

On this basis, we have also achieved algorithm identification and coverage in many details. There is an item here called photo recognition, which is one of my favorite algorithms.

For example, there are often many discussions about "yoga" on the site, such as "What are the benefits of doing yoga for the body? What are the precautions when practicing yoga? What are the key points of practice?"

We think it is very reasonable if such answers are accompanied by relevant pictures to tell everyone how to practice. But if it’s just a very provocative photo, we would think it’s irrelevant to the question.

The algorithm for photo exposure is used to recognize visual images. After we have these recognition capabilities, we have also incorporated it into our product system.

3. Product Mechanism

After acquiring the recognition capability, we launched the salt value system. Based on the various recognition capabilities just mentioned and user behaviors, we formed 124 factors, which were finally implemented into five dimensions.

According to the community rules and consensus on public discussion order, positive and negative judgments and weighted calculations are made, so that each Zhihu user will ultimately have his or her own unique Zhihu salt value.

This salt value will increase or decrease based on the dynamic changes in behavior and will be faithfully recorded in the salt value growth column in the community.

Why was the salt value system introduced?

In the earliest days, Zhihu had a very small number of users, and everyone's attention and behavior towards each other were enough to form word-of-mouth awareness of the Zhihu community atmosphere.

But now Zhihu is too big. We have so many users, content, and behaviors. When a new user comes in and starts using the community and sharing, how does he know what kind of community Zhihu is?

Therefore, we need a tour guide to tell Zhihu users what Zhihu is like and what kind of behaviors and sharing it cares about. We have turned the tour guide goal into a product that includes five dimensions that everyone cares about:

① Basic credit

If you tell everyone who you are and what you do for a living, other users will be able to perceive you more realistically, so your basic credit score will be higher. If you are often banned due to unfriendly behavior such as swearing, your personal credit will be slightly reduced.

②Content creation

On Zhihu, creation is the most direct business card for every user. It will directly tell everyone in the community (except yourself) your professional thinking, so content creation will also be a very important dimension. This has nothing to do with your identity, status, or beauty in real life.

③ Friendly interaction

④ Comply with conventions and regulations

⑤ Community building

There are many users in the Zhihu community who may not create a lot of content, but do other things that are meaningful to the community. We believe that he also has a very critical contribution to the community, which will also be a high-scoring thing, and he deserves a higher salt value.

Our salt value system will be connected with all the recommendation system weight systems and corresponding rights and interests systems in the current community.

Recently, the Membership Business Department launched a new product called "Yanxuan Membership". Users who have gained high salt values ​​due to their creations, contributions, and friendliness in the community will receive one year of "Yanxuan Membership" for free. This is a basic application of salt value.

The above is part of the work in maintaining the community atmosphere. After listening to it, you may say:

• How come you guys are so arrogant, so self-righteous, and so bird's-eye view?
• Zhihu has so many topics, fields, professional users, behaviors, and discussion scenarios. How do you decide what is professional content?
• Who are you to decide what is low quality content? Do you have any operations graduates from medical school?
• I am just expressing my opinion freely. I think the content is very stupid and the author is very ignorant. Why do you think I am unfriendly?
• Why do you hinder my free expression?
• The stories I made up are very interesting and many people like to read them. Why do you think this disrupts community order?

We are indeed not qualified. Someone once asked me a question: "What do you think is the relationship between your platform and users?"

I said, "We always treat users like our first love, but users sometimes treat us like property management, and often feel that the property management is not doing a good job. But we would rather become the property management committee and work with everyone to formulate the rules and fight for our rights."

3. Good development of content

Zhihu is a UGC (user-generated content) community. We are well aware that it is the discussions and sharing of users that create the most core value, and it is the interactions between users that define the core experience of other users when using Zhihu. The content is created by users, every question asked initiates a discussion, and every answer is a response to a real question.

We rarely hear users say, "I use Zhihu because its like button is so beautiful and I want to press it every day." However, everyone will see an article shared on Zhihu and think that what the person said is so right that they want to give it a like.

Therefore, the content is written by users, and the approval is also given by users. We just create such connection opportunities and scenarios.

Zhihu's screening or judgment of content ultimately depends on every user's vote of approval or disapproval, and the judgment is made based on the attitudes of all participating users . Therefore, it must be made clear that users play a very important role in the entire community atmosphere.

In addition, as our community evolves, we have been working hard to amplify the influence of professionalism, seriousness, and friendliness.

In the process of circulation of several core contents on Zhihu, what everyone may see in the end is probably only the content, but in fact, it is a cycle from the initial creation to content screening and then to content consumption.

So, what did we do in this process?

Taking content creation as the starting point, most of the time, users' most clear feeling about Zhihu is that there are many creators, many people answering questions, and many people writing articles. Among them, the most core scenario is question and answer, which is a discussion scenario.

Asking questions is just the beginning of a discussion, it is to set an agenda for everyone. Therefore, we can judge whether an issue can get a lot of attention, which is a very core part.

Regarding asking questions, we have very clear principles: strictly adhere to truthfulness, objectivity, conciseness and clarity. We have always had a saying that goes, first ask if, then ask why. If you don't confirm it, there is no need to ask why.

Examples:

Some time ago, there was a discussion about how to view the fact that Starbucks concealed the fact that its products contained carcinogens from consumers for eight years?

When you see this, do you find it shocking? My God, they have carcinogens and they’re hiding it from us. I drink several cups a day.

Everyone would like to answer this question and provide a perspective on where the integrity of the company lies. How should consumers’ rights be protected and how should we identify these carcinogens, right?

But in fact, this information is not accurate. Therefore, this question will be closed in our community.

After the content is created, the community will screen the content. Which content is important, interesting and worth recommending? This work actually also depends on our users. We have two core definitions and concepts, called " ranking algorithm " and " professional weight ".

When a question is asked, there are often many answers. Sorting is a very good way to filter information, and the ones at the front will be seen by more people.

So how do you sort it? Simply put, the ranking comes from the approval and disapproval votes of each user .

So, agreement is not praise, but recognition; it does not mean I think what you said is good, but I think you are right.

Every user's approval or disapproval vote will affect the final ranking of the answer under the entire question. But it doesn't mean that whoever has more votes in favor and fewer votes against will be ranked higher.

When talking about parenting, mothers will have a lot to say, while those who have never given birth and do not work or research in related fields may not have much to say, because they have no judgment on this and are not as confident.

Therefore, behind the votes is actually an algorithm of professional weight, which is calculated in a single field. It is derived from our professional, serious and friendly rules. It is also based on the only way to increase the weight in the user's field, that is, the user continues to create high-quality works in this field, and their judgment will be more meaningful.

In addition, we have developed some more explicit functions, such as professional recognition , which is the vote of approval from professional users behind the scenes. We can mark the content with explicit badges and logos to help other users who see the content easily identify it.

Next, I would like to share with you a more obvious feature in content screening: having reasons to object .

This is a feature we opened to high-salt value users last year. After you click on "objection", you can tell us the reason for your objection.

For example, if the content does not answer the question, it will be automatically folded; if the reason for opposition is incitement, we will intervene more proactively in the relevant content.

As Zhihu has developed, our user base has become more and more diverse, and everyone shares in the hope that the gains they receive will also become more diverse. Therefore, we will make standardized updates based on the needs of users' team members.

In addition to allowing users to gain recognition and influence, we will allow everyone to gain monetary benefits, but the premise is:

On the one hand, it must not conflict with the pleasure brought by the existing sharing itself, and on the other hand, it must ensure that the content remains as professional and credible as ever.

That’s all for my sharing today. Thank you everyone.

Related reading:

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2. Zhihu promotion and operation: How to become a Zhihu celebrity with millions of likes?

3. How to use Zhihu promotion to efficiently attract targeted users?

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5. Zhihu: Douyin and Kuaishou cannot represent all short videos

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7. Understand the 4 principles of Zhihu community operation in one article!

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9. Zhihu Promotion and Operation | Zhihu under siege!

Author: Li Shanshan

Source: Noteman