A post from Calandryll on F13 about community managment with which I happen to agree. It reminds me another one written by Jessica Mulligan.

A few things I have learned though:

* polls are bad
* petitions are bad
* surveys are dangerous and are often bad (this is mostly because of poor survey design)
* the majority doesn’t always rule
* the forums represent more people than one might realize – although it is self-selected
* sometimes its not as much about feedback as it is helping people understand

The last point is actually the one that is most often overlooked and it’s a LOT of the reason updates to a game can go horribly wrong. Even if you know your community will resist a change, if you as the developer truly believe it is what is best for the game, then you have an obligation to explain the change to the community as early as possible and try to at the very least, help them understand the change even if they don’t immediately embrace it. Waiting until the last minute to explain something only delays “teh hate” and in most cases makes it worse.