What should a help center of an online community contain besides on-topic and be nice policies?
Once you have a complete vision of the culture of the community, you may want to create two additional help center pages that describe a manifesto and core values of the group. These two articles define the cultural identity of your community. Having them is critical, but you can add them after the launch.
Specification of the community. The manifesto
Any product has a specification that describes its main parameters. For an online community it is its manifesto. The manifesto of a community is a document that describes the key unique features of the community in a compelling way. The best practice of writing a manifesto is to use it as a way to reveal the mission in detail (since it is your unique value proposition). At the same time, the manifesto still should be concise. If you see a need to share additional information, history of the problem, or any other important thoughts, create a separate post in the main area of the platform and link to it from the manifesto.
Community core values
Core values are the fundamental principles that underlie a community knowing which users will behave correctly in most cases, even without knowing anything about the rules.
Core values don’t have to be unique to your community. All online communities face similar challenges like trying to avoid insults, staying on topic and focused on achieving the mission and unite users. Core values typically highlight these aspirations.
This is a fragment of a draft of the book “Lessons Learned While Working On Stack Overflow”. Read the full book on kindle or the paperback version.