Community sticky posts editable by all admins

[kaberett]

Title:
Community sticky posts editable by all admins

Area:
page: entries, site: community features, workflow: community administration

Summary:
It would be helpful if community accounts could make sticky posts inside the community, then editable by everyone with admin rights within that community.

Description:
Communities already make use of sticky posts for a variety of reasons - e.g. dw_suggestions has one (made by denise) that acts as an introduction and usage guide to the comm.

I suggest that it would be helpful for communities to be able to contain sticky posts nominally made by the community account itself, giving all community admins editing rights over it. I imagine this working via the "post as: another user" module in the new update page.

Example use cases: in dw_dev_training, I envisage this being used as an up-to-date centralised record of current babydev bait; Momijizukamori has said they'd love something like this to link to resources, beyond the bare bones in dreamscape's community profile.

ISSUES that I can come up with:
- community accounts currently can't be associated with posts, as far as I know, so that would be an exciting thing to work with
- would probably want there to be one post permitted per community (so would need to work out how to limit this - wouldn't just want automatic overwrite of pre-existing posts!)


Alternative solutions/workarounds:

(1) Create a mutual admin account (as in use at <user name="poetree"> with the shared account <user name="poetree_admin">). Downsides: security hassle - DW tends to discourage sharing accounts, I think? Logging out/in/out/in hassle - this will presumably be removed as and when seamless account switching is implemented.

(2) Some styles permit insertion of custom text to be displayed in the sidebar. Standardisation of this feature across styles (complete with full mark-up!), including choice as to where to site the custom text within the layout, might be a suitable alternative that would be editable by all admins.

Poll #13974 Community sticky posts editable by all admins

Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
13 (34.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
4 (10.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
4 (10.5%)

(I have no opinion)
14 (36.8%)

(Other: please comment)
3 (7.9%)

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

While I understand how this could be very useful the idea that someone can edit my posts really bothers me (even if it's a co-admin I trust, etc.). I think that if it wasn't an entry but something else -- like the profile bio -- that would be different.

[matgb]

I'd look at it as not "your" post, and ideally wouldn't have an individual author, it'd be written by the comm not a specific person AFA display and similar-I'd not want my name attached to a post rewritten by someone else, but I'd have zero trouble with an official "read this" post be edited by anyone given the authority to do so.

So either have such posts be written by the comm, or have authorship reassigned if an edit is done by a different admin?

[ninetydegrees]

So either have such posts be written by the comm

Oh I'd missed that part of the suggestion. Thanks. Hmm. I'd still like it better if that was separate from entries but I think this has more to do with sticky entries and communities in general than this suggestion. :)

[ninetydegrees]

Also thinking that you'd need an admin log to see who did what when because I can see the potential for drama.

[swaldman]

Having posts made by the community itself seems clunky... On the other hand, I think it would be ethically dubious to allow people to edit posts by others and have the author's name remain unchanged.... and equally bad to change the author's name after a minor edit...

I guess the "right way" to do this would be to allow posts on communities to have multiple authors. But while I haven't checked, I imagine that would be a Really Big Deal in a messing-with-fundemental-data-structures way. So if we want to do this (which I agree would be useful) it's a matter of deciding which type of bodge is preferred ;-)

[ketsu]

I'd like to see this as a possibility for any post, not just sticky posts.

[solitarywalker]

Agreed.

[cesy]

Any post that's marked as an admin post or posted as the community, rather than other people editing something that's posted under your name, though.

[kerravonsen]

I can see the appeal of the idea, but there's also so much potential hassle and confusion I can't decide whether it's a good idea or not!

[solitarywalker]

That's a really cool idea. Since I imagine implementing it would be a lot of work, perhaps it could be a paid-only feature (to encourage/reward paying for community accounts).

[azurelunatic]

Rather than sticky, I would say admin flagged entries. But after editing I would want it to be obvious that it was now a collaborative effort, either by changing the entry owner or by showing as made by the community itself, and as someone else mentioned, there should be records somewhere.

[marahmarie]

I would say if you set up the comm yourself as the sole admin you get to say who gets to edit what. I know the idea of anyone, even a theoretical co-admin, editing stickies I already made in my community makes my inner control freak do a total meltdown. Just no. But! It's still a good idea to have this functionality should the need or want arise. So you have a new ticky box on the create post page, and the ticky box alongside it says, "Allow co-admins to edit this post?"

So in my version it's post-by-post. I suppose you could also duplicate this in comm account settings as a global ticky box that applies to all sticky posts that will ever be made in the comm.

Either way, if the community started off with one admin who wants to maintain strict editorial control (try not to mind my inner control freak, thanks), this allows her or him to let go of that control strictly at will, easing their anxiety.

Whew. my inner control freak almost completely melted down just writing that.

[scratchy]

+1 on this, the idea of making it tickable on a post-by-post basis.

[qem_chibati]

I really like the idea of being able to have designated posts that administrators can share around the community. At the moment the only method I have with my co-administrators is to make a brand new sticky post, or wait for the other admin to get online, which gets quite frustrating when all you want to do is add another quick reference link.

I think people are getting confused by the poll question, since it's not as specific as your post.

[jjhunter]

*waves*

I'm one of the co-users of the poetree_admin account mentioned in this suggestion post; the system of written & visual cues alee_grrl and I have developed to signal who wrote / last edited which posts when using that communal admin account may be of use to others in this discussion.

For one-time posts to POETREE such as a comm announcement or a particular instance of a weekly feature (e.g. Sunday Picnic posts) the authoring admin includes their DW user name formatted in small italics in isolation at the top of the post as a byline.

E.g.,

[Post Title]
[Date]
poetree_admin

---

jjhunter

[Post content]

For multiple-use posts, such as our Community Calendar, the comm landing sticky, or signup posts for themed community weeks, alee_grrl and I do any pre-drafting we want to in access-locked posts to the poetree_admin account, and then post with that account to poetree proper with a footer detailing which of us has most recently edited that post & when.

E.g.

[Post Title]
[Date]
poetree_admin

---

[Post content]

---
Last edited 8/14/13 by jjhunter

We also use the poetree_admin default icon (the one I'm using here) with our personal accounts if we're acting in our capacities as comm admins but want to be a bit more personal / informal about how we're doing so.