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The two most challenging parts of having on online presence are keeping your content fresh, and driving traffic to your website. By including community-driven aspects to your website, you can more easily fulfill both of these needs.
Ideally, your site's administrator(s) would seed (create) new content every few days or so, then allow the community to grow (expand) it with comments, questions and discussions. Email alerts of the ever-increasing level of user contribution will keep the interested parties coming back for more.
Sometimes, this User Generated Content (UGC) constitutes only a portion of a website. For example, on Eyetube.net the majority of content is prepared by editors, but numerous comments about the surgical videos are submitted by regular visitors to the site.
Of course, any amount of third-party content or commentary — no matter how small — needs to be moderated. Moderators can be notified in real-time of contributions from the community, and take any action that may be required.
However, the benefits do outweigh the risks. Getting visitors involved in your site makes them feel important, and makes your site feel like more than just a resource. Soon, your users will be inviting their friends and collegues to join in.
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