URL for community rules / welcome

[afuna]

Title:
URL for community rules / welcome

Area:
communities

Summary:
We recently added a feature where community moderators could designate a specific entry to show to community members when they join the community. I'd love to have a canonical URL, consistent between communities, to review this link.

Description:
I think that the most common use case for welcome entries like these are to put up posting rules, so http://examplecommunity.dreamwidth.org/posting-rules or http://examplecommunity.dreamwidth.org/rules would be the most logical place for me. However, it may need to be more generic, so maybe http://examplecommunity.dreamwidth.org/welcome could also be suitable.

If the posting rules are on the profile, we should either link there, or just pull in the bio text.

I think that this URL should be consistent for all communities. If there's nothing designated, then just have a friendly note to look at the bio or any administrator posts.

I'd like the post-join link to point to this suggested URL, as well, because it would be easier to go back to, for new members.

We could also link to here from the profile, but only if there's a value for the posting rules entry url.

We could maybe add a link to this from the update page, if you're updating the community using http://www.dreamwidth.org/update?usejournal=examplecommunityname

Poll #1840 URL for community rules / welcome

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 40

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
28 (70.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
3 (7.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (7.5%)

(I have no opinion)
6 (15.0%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[cesy]

That's a very cool idea.

[triadruid]

I really don't like trying to shoehorn every community's 'sticky' post into proceeding from a single common redirect. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how this works, but if they're already to be shown the entry, why do we need a redirect/canonical URL for it?

[aveleh]

I like the idea of it being "welcome" and also being used for personal accounts. Lots of people like short profiles but a detailed thing for friends, and might as well put it at the same URL.

[sky]

I have a hard time seeing how this is different from just posting a rules/link to the rules in the /profile page, which in my experience 99% of communities already do.

[callaoressene]

What if--on community profiles only--you have not only a "bio" space, but a "rules" space as well? Then, when you're viewing the main page of whatever comm it is, there's an automatic link generated (like already happens with the "recent entries", "tags", "memories" etc.) to that specific spot on the profile page for the comm that contains the rules?

That way, it actually kind of forces a mod who is intending that the comm be used by several participants to actually think about the rules they want people to play by up front, and users become accustomed to just looking for, and knowing where to find that link when they need it.

I am not a coder, nor do I play one on TV, so I don't know how feasible the logistics of this idea actually is...