How do you build a community that survives AI spam, social algorithms, and content scraping? Rosie Sherry, CEO and founder of Ministry of Testing, shares how she rebuilt her community on her own platform and stopped fighting AI slop.
AI is flooding feeds and forums with content nobody asked for. Real conversations between people who know each other are the one thing it can't fake.
Rosie has been building community for nearly 20 years. Ministry of Testing started as an online forum in 2007 and now has six figures in members, a team of seven, and around a million in revenue. She explains why she came back to lead it in 2023, why she chose to build her own platform, and how one small change wiped out almost all of their moderation work.
[Apologies for the poor audio quality from my mic in this recording.]
In this episode:
How to show you care in practice, by listening and treating your community as research
Why Rosie stepped out from behind the scenes and onto the stage as a community leader
How putting a paid layer on participation cut moderation to almost zero
Tthe content that AI can't fake, and how it helps members grow
How to start a community without a community tool
How to build a business model by borrowing what works from social platforms, like chapters, job listings, and ads
How tracking community behaviour by hand for months shaped a feature that now scales itself
Plus how Rosie matches members with jobs, and why in-person chapters and events still matter.
Key takeaway: Don't start with a tool. Start by showing up, having conversations, and building on ground you own, because social platforms will always serve their own agenda first.
Find Rosie and Ministry of Testing:
Ministry of Testing: https://www.ministryoftesting.com/p/rosie
Rosie's writing: https://rosie.land
Join the next live recording and ask your own questions: https://swarm.to/community
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Chapters:
00:00 How communities survive the AI age
03:16 Meet Rosie Sherry
07:21 Why listening is community research
08:19 Stepping up as a community leader
10:10 The scale and story of Ministry of Testing
12:37 How AI changed the community landscape
13:58 Turning community data into better tools
15:26 Why Rosie built her own platform
17:49 Where AI helps and where it doesn't
20:37 How a paid layer ended AI spam and moderation
22:36 Why human conversations can't be faked
25:24 How conversations help members grow
28:35 Advice for new community builders
30:32 Measuring impact you can't put in a survey
32:55 Building a sustainable community business
34:21 Expanding into a community for tech people
35:19 Matching members with job opportunities
37:15 Why offline events and chapters still matter
40:55 Designing interactions beyond the platform
42:22 Where to find Rosie
#communitybuilding #onlinecommunity #ai #podcasting #unscalable
