Add reason for wanting to join a Moderated Membership community

[yvi]

Title:
Add reason for wanting to join a Moderated Membership community

Area:
Community management

Summary:
When joining a community with moderated membership, one should be able to add a bit of text for the administrators.

Description:
There are many moderated communities, which are moderated for specific reasons: you have to be over 18, or you need to complete a survey first, you need to sign up for the challenge first, or you need to have filled out an RPG application first.

It is currently not possible to add a small text blurb when joining, like "this is the URL for my survey/sign-up" or "I want to join because..." or "I sent my application from e-mail address xyx@xyx.com yesterday". I think such a thing would be helpful for community administration, as PM-ing admins can feel quite weird and things can get complicated with several admins, for example.

Implementation, in my mind:

When "Moderated Membership" is selected on the community settings page, have a checkbox where maintainers can allow users to send an optional text along with a membership request. OPTIONAL: Have admins put in a small blurb of what should be put in the textbox by the members (age statement, URL, whatever).

If this is set, and membership is requested a user gets a textbox of a certain length (preferable rather short, anything long can be done by mail/PM and would otherwise just clutter things up) where they can put in their text if they want to (OPTIONAL: show maintainer question as described above).

That text, if entered, is then sent along with the membership request (in e-mail) and can be seen on the 'pending membership' page alongside the user name.

ADVANTAGES:
* easier community administration, as no mapping mail/PM -> user who applied needs to happen
* less personal interaction with the admins which might be good for members who prefer less direct social interactions (I would find this way less uncomfortable then sending a mail)
* potential for abuse can be circumvented by banning users from community

DISADVANTAGES:
* new member might feel obliged to fill out request
* ? I am sure someone will tell me :)

Poll #1785 Add reason for wanting to join a Moderated Membership community

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 46

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
44 (95.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
0 (0.0%)

(I have no opinion)
2 (4.3%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[kyrielle]

If I could vote to implement this multiple times, I would be seriously tempted to ballot-stuff. Yes. Just so very YES, please do this. There's all sorts of nice little info that could go in, say, 140 characters (or, if you don't want to be Twitter-like, 150 or 200 or 250 - much more than 250 would be overmuch, I suspect).

[yvi]

I would say more something like 500 characters, but will happily leave that decision to someone else :)

[kyrielle]

That could work too, I just didn't want to suggest something too overwhelming - and you can say a fair bit in 250. :)

[triadruid]

250 seems reasonable to me.

[lassarina]

Great idea. YES.

[yvi]

This is what i come up with when I am lying in bed half-asleep. Seriously. And then I woke up this morning and went "I knew I thought of a suggestion yesterday evening! Now what was it???"

My brain can be great.

[cheyinka]

Hmm, a possible disadvantage is somebody using it to harass the moderators, though they'd only get one chance before being banned, provided they were banned quickly enough...

[kyrielle]

Are you allowed to apply for membership when you already have an application pending? If you are, you could already harass the moderators - seems to me it shoudln't be allowed....