Communities: enforce comment/no comment rules, etc.

[kyrielle]

Title:
Communities: enforce comment/no comment rules, etc.

Area:
communities, posting, community admin

Summary:
Allow community administrators to set posting defaults (comments allowed, screening, minimum security) as rules instead.

Description:
In at least one recent suggestion, the comments moved into a question of rules of a community vs. posters desire. Some communities have rules that posts be members-only, or (more commonly) that comments always be allowed or always be screened initially or the like.

When the default settings for these things are created, I propose administrator have a drop-down next to each that makes sense (what do make sense? I think the three I listed, but are there others?) that offers choices of "Just a default" or "Required for non-administrators" or "Required for all".

Just a default does what it does today.

Required for all will block, with an error, any post that doesn't use the required setting. The user may choose to correct it and then post, or decide they don't want to post based on the rule.

Required for non-administrators does the same thing, except administrators are allowed to break the rule, for example if they want to put a public notice up. When they get a post confirmation it will include a note about any non-standard settings so they can confirm they meant to do that, but it won't block them.

The advantage to this is that it gets rid of scenarios where a community admin has to delete someone's post or leave up a violating post until they can contact the member. It should reduce drama a little since the rule would be enforced at the point of participation, not after the fact. It reduces work for community admins, since this is one less thing to watch for.

Drawbacks: adds another option (albeit in a spot that's intuitive to find and will call attention to it). May need to also tie into moderator vs. administrator - and I know there's changes planned there as far as permissions; this would probably complicate those changes. (Worse, I can see a case where you might want to let someone break one rule - ie public posts - but not another such as allowing comments. That would <i>really</i> complicate it, from a user and technical standpoint.)

Poll #2510 Communities: enforce comment/no comment rules, etc.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

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This suggestion:

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Should be implemented as-is.
25 (50.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (4.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
5 (10.0%)

(I have no opinion)
17 (34.0%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.0%)