I knew I hadn't posted an entry here for a while; but, I completely lost track of how long it had been (shame on me). In fairness, the team and I have been pretty busy.

In August, two days after my last entry, other members of my team and I headed on a whirlwind tour to meet with two of the groups who support our moderation and enforcement activities. For those of you who do not know, we have a 24/7 operation supported by people in the Philippines, India and all over the United States. In September, the folks located in the U.S. came to Dulles. All these meetings were a way to introduce the new Moderation, Enforcement, Safety and Help (MESH) team, what we do, how we do it, and to tap the wisdom of the crowd about ways to do what we do better.

It would be hard for anyone who read, heard or watched the news during the past year to remain unaware that AOL's business strategy changed. One thing that has not changed, despite some user's comments to the contrary, is the importance of Community. It has always been and will remain core to AOL's business. Our Communities are an important part of the new strategy. Toward that end, the MESH team has three main areas of responsibility:

* Member Experience in our community spaces

* Enforcement of Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, Product Guidelines and Community Standards

* Communication with our community members about all of the above

While carrying on the day-to-day operations, we've spent considerable time this past quarter analyzing what we do and how we do it in the context of changing business strategies. Mostly, we've focused on how to make improvements. Your e-mail, instant messages, message board posts and comments in our blogs made you part of the process, too.

Curious about the first items on our to-do list? Check out just some of the things we identified and have begun to work on already:

* Smarter moderation and enforcement tools to help us move more quickly through your "Report This" or "Notify AOL" notifications. These will have more efficient features for cross-referencing and actioning "bad players" on our network

* Easy to understand community standards that lay out our policies related to community violations and the related penalties

* New training for our teams

* Clear channels for user feedback and escalations

* Frequent and ongoing communication with users

* Developing closer communication channels and relationships with product owners to whom we raise your requests for features.

This entry is the first in a series (and I hope, an ongoing discussion with you all) about all of this.