1. A server for managing online communities, the server comprising: a processor; a memory coupled to the processor; an online community persona manager stored in the memory and executable by the processor; a crawling module stored in the memory and executable by the processor the crawling module configured to collect information from at least one online source that is viewable by a plurality of users, and to collect user profile information contributed by a user; a social inference module stored in the memory and executable by the processor, the social inference module configured to automatically classify social roles of the plurality of users of the online community, wherein the social inference module utilizes information collected by the crawling module; and a social recommendation module stored in the memory and executable by the processor, the social recommendation module configured to: (i) receive classification information from the social inference module, (ii) determine a user's manifested topics of interest based on the user's behavior, (iii) determine a user's stated topics of interest primarily based on the user's profile information, (iv) provide a mapping between the user's manifested topics of interest and stated topics of interest, (v) recommend adding one or more topics of interest to the user's profile based on the mapping and current profile, (vi) identify live conversations within the online community and corresponding social roles of users corresponding to the live conversations, (vii) send at least one suggestion to the user, wherein the at least one suggestion includes a suggestion of an online conversation for the user to join, based on an assumed social role of the user and/or a social roles identified as needed for the online community, and (viii) send behavioral alerts to users.
1. A server for managing online communities, the server comprising: a processor; a memory coupled to the processor; an online community persona manager stored in the memory and executable by the processor; a crawling module stored in the memory and executable by the processor the crawling module configured to collect information from at least one online source that is viewable by a plurality of users, and to collect user profile information contributed by a user; a social inference module stored in the memory and executable by the processor, the social inference module configured to automatically classify social roles of the plurality of users of the online community, wherein the social inference module utilizes information collected by the crawling module; and a social recommendation module stored in the memory and executable by the processor, the social recommendation module configured to: (i) receive classification information from the social inference module, (ii) determine a user's manifested topics of interest based on the user's behavior, (iii) determine a user's stated topics of interest primarily based on the user's profile information, (iv) provide a mapping between the user's manifested topics of interest and stated topics of interest, (v) recommend adding one or more topics of interest to the user's profile based on the mapping and current profile, (vi) identify live conversations within the online community and corresponding social roles of users corresponding to the live conversations, (vii) send at least one suggestion to the user, wherein the at least one suggestion includes a suggestion of an online conversation for the user to join, based on an assumed social role of the user and/or a social roles identified as needed for the online community, and (viii) send behavioral alerts to users. 3. The server as recited in claim 1 , wherein the profile augmentation recommendation module is further configured to identify stated topics of interest and measure a level of similarity between different groups of words or posts in a conversation within the online community to determine the manifested topics of interest of the community, and provide a mapping between the stated topics of interest and the manifested topics of interest.