Allow OpenID users to post to communities

[feathertail]

Title:
Allow OpenID users to post to communities

Area:
communities

Summary:
OpenID lets you have a single digital identity that follows you everywhere ... except to DW comms. Maybe we should fix that?

Description:
Right now we let people from other sites leave comments that are authenticated using OpenID. We don't let them post entries, though, which makes sense; if people are using an OpenID, then they have a journal or other site elsewhere. We don't need to give them their own, and we can't afford to, either. That's why we have the invite codes.

As it stands, though, people from other sites still can't participate fully on Dreamwidth. This is because the "no posting" rule applies to comms, too, thus making our comms communites of Dreamwidth members only.

If that's the intent, then this is a feature and not a bug. It makes it awfully hard to get conversations going though, because right now our limited membership means that a lot of comms are failing to reach critical mass. Plus, some members might <em>want</em> their communities to be open to outsiders, such as friends who don't have or don't want Dreamwidth accounts.

Personally, I chose Dreamwidth to host the community for <a href="http://becomeyourfursona.com">my and my mate's site</a>, <user name=becomeyourfursona>, because we both use Dreamwidth and our target audience includes a ton of Dreamwidth and LiveJournal users. It seemed more sensible to create a comm than to make a forum, with separate identities and siloed data. If this suggestion is totally against the intent of what should be allowed, though, we may have to reconsider that.

If this idea is implemented, I suggest just making it automatic for any comm that allows OpenID users to join and to comment. (I don't suggest doing the same for anon users, though.)

Poll #2559 Allow OpenID users to post to communities

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 67

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
21 (31.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
4 (6.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
34 (50.7%)

(I have no opinion)
8 (11.9%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[zarhooie]

I believe that the example provided by the OP as a reason to develop this feature is erroneous. There are provisions in place for transferring a pre-existing community to Dreamwidth. If a potential member feels so antagonistic about Dreamwidth that they refuse to create an account, even with the community transfer provisions, then I do not feel that they'd be an active member of the community, full-stop.

This aside, I feel that people who are participating in the Dreamwidth community should be *part* of the Dreamwidth community. OpenID users can add other users to their reading lists, upload icons and comment on existing journal entries. I strongly feel that adding more functionality, such as posting entries (to personal journals or to comms), is not beneficial to the site. This is because OpenID users can't pay for their accounts, and thus can't pull their financial weight. If a user wants to make use of the site, they should cough up the $$ for a paid account. It's $3/month, and not unreasonable.

[rydra_wong]

If a user wants to make use of the site, they should cough up the $$ for a paid account.

Or just go to dw_codesharing and pick up a free invite code. There's not exactly a shortage.

[jaaaarne]

And lots of these end up being inactive. Out of 8 codes I've given there only 3 are relatively active. And this is only 8 codes; I know there are people who've given out much more codes. Do we really want this many inactive accounts? Why does it look like trying to trick people into registering at any costs? For the record: I don't think it's really is, but it really looks like it.

Although, I'm sure that if a person doesn't want to take an easy way with registering, then they probably won't take the more windy road with OpenID. It's just very sad that nobody acknowledges that there might be other reasons for using OpenID than sheer laziness.

[eruthros]

Yeah, this!

Plus I'm not sure what the interest would be -- for the last round of kink_bingo, we offered invite codes to lj users (and covered everyone just from other comm members who had invite codes) or a posting proxy who would post links to their stories, for people who didn't want a dw account. Of all the people who have posted so far, we've had only two use the posting proxy -- everybody else just got a dw account, even if they left it inactive later. I imagine that this is particularly true because most of the folks who didn't have dw journals were coming from lj or ij, so dreamwidth's account creation was pretty familiar.

[feathertail]

That defeats the purpose of having OpenID accounts, though. Which, as I understand it, is to let users make use of the site without having a paid account.

It's something I appreciate having on other sites, because it means I can use my Dreamwidth account there instead of having to create an account or comment anonymously. I know other LJcode sites don't let people post to comms, but I rather wish that they did. There are a lot of comms on LJ that I'd like to participate in without needing an actual LiveJournal.

[jaaaarne]

If a user wants to make use of the site, they should cough up the $$ for a paid account.

There are no stats concerning the free to paid accounts rate, but I really don't think that all the site users are paying. Actually, I'm sure of it since at least I am not currently paying (stupid PayPal and Google). So, I don't think that not paying for the account should be the reason to prohibit people from using the site.

I can't disagree with the fact that currently there are more invite codes available than there is a demand for them, but somehow nobody seems to even contemplate the possibility that there might be some other reason for a person to want to use Open ID than being antagonistic or not wanting to pay/get a code. I personally think that centralized ID is a very neat idea.

[feathertail]

I believe that the example provided by the OP as a reason to develop this feature is erroneous. There are provisions in place for transferring a pre-existing community to Dreamwidth.

This assumes that the sole use case for involving people from off-site in a Dreamwidth community is importing one wholesale to Dreamwidth.

I guess part of the reason I'm saying this is because there are going to be other sites based on Dreamwidth someday, and I'm not going to want to maintain a separate journal on each one in order to participate on comms that just happen to be based on them. (Sort of like I currently have to do on LiveJournal.)

[rydra_wong]

We don't need to give them their own, and we can't afford to, either. That's why we have the invite codes.

AFAIK, at the moment, the invite codes aren't needed to limit site growth: there are far more codes available than people taking them up. There's certainly no difficulty in getting a code for anyone who wants one.

[yvi]

If that's the intent, then this is a feature and not a bug. It makes it awfully hard to get conversations going though, because right now our limited membership means that a lot of comms are failing to reach critical mass.

I really, really don't get the impression that this is because OpenID accounts can't post - most people actually interested in participating in Dreamwidth besides reading and commenting will want a real account anyway. Most of the comms I moderate don't even have OpenID accounts as members.

[jaaaarne]

Sadly, OpenID is still not that easy to use like I personally would wish it to be. Confirming email and maintaining a profile is sometimes more than a user would want. Especially the email confirmation part. Gravatars and confirmation by the OpenID provider should be enough, IMO. But then, I don't know all the particular details...

[feathertail]

An OpenID account is a "real account." The whole point of OpenID is that it lets you use your account from another site instead of having to register with Dreamwidth.

What's wrong with wanting to participate on Dreamwidth without wanting to move to Dreamwidth? I personally want to participate in LiveJournal comms without needing to maintain an actual presence on the site. And I like that I can use my Dreamwidth OpenID on other sites instead of having to create a new, separate identity in each place.

[allen]

I'd suggest limiting this to paid communities, since that way we trade some support for DW (bringing in more full DW accounts as opposed to OpenID users) for a different kind of support (more money for DW).

Also, I'd make this opt-in by the community maintainers, rather than automatic. That would go along with limiting it to paid communities (you wouldn't want somebody saying, "Well, I'd make this a paid community, but then we'd have to let OpenID users post").

The main reason I'd support this is that I'd like to see all other sites support similar functionality (*cough* LJ *cough* Facebook), and I figure that DW should act as a good example.

[msilverstar]

This, yep!

I remember trying OpenID and being boggled that there was no Post button or link, anywhere.

[rydra_wong]

My concern there is that you'd get a small number of very popular comms (of the scans_daily or kink_bingo type) getting a huge amount of traffic from people who come over from other sites specifically to visit that one comm but don't have any interest in DW per se, and who aren't going to be creating DW content or participating elsewhere (and obviously aren't going to be paying anything).

To put it bluntly, you might find certain comms basically becoming a LiveJournal annex. Except on Dreamwidth's servers and with Dreamwidth's paid users subsidizing the cost.

I'm not saying that any of these suggestions are necessarily bad, but that they open up big questions about OpenID and what its role is, and how changing that affects the social dynamics of a site like DW.

[dhobikikutti]

I would be very happy to see this implemented.

[kyrielle]

The more I think about this, the more I think the current behavior is also the paradigm most internet sites lead me to expect. I use an open id to comment on other sites, but I don't get to use it to post content. It allows me to come in, as a guest, and post non-anonymous replies.

This is most visible on Blogger where a single login can have posting rights to multiple blogs (individual blogs or shared blogs) and where, as far as I know, OpenID can comment on blogs but can't post to a shared blog. That would be the closest non-LJ equivalent of a community that I'm aware of, assuming my impressions are right.

[feathertail]

It's possble! Personally, I'm thinking of forums.

Maybe a comm isn't meant to be a forum, but in many ways it's superior; not just because of Dreamwidth's features like threaded comments, but also because instead of having to register for each and every one you can just use your DW account.

Unlike LJ, we let OpenID users join and subscribe to comms. So why not let them post too? Can't we just use whatever metrics we use for the number of full members allowed in a free comm, and apply those to OpenID posters too? That way it won't cost us anything extra for the server load.

Come on, you know you wish LiveJournal let you do this. ~.^ Or if you don't, you know there are others who do. So why aren't we doing it? If they're paying comms it's not like we're subsidizing freeloaders.

[ey]

So much yes. This drives me insane. For example, this account is my DW account for Organization for Transformative Works-related content; the extent to which I wish I could use my, you know, actual identity for this content — i.e., elizabethyalkut.com — cannot really be rendered by a mere tickybox.

Hell, if this were possible, I would totally participate in DW communities such as omnomnomnom and boilingwater, which I currently don't, as I keep my foodblogging firmly tied only to my legal-name-ID. So, for great data point: waaaant.

[feathertail]

That's kinda the way I see it, and I use my DW ID as my primary one.

It looks like a lot of the criticisms were related to server load. Do you think I should resubmit this suggestion, taking those criticisms into account? (I'm not sure what else is causing this backlash.)

[foxfirefey]

Previous discussion has taken place on this topic here:

http://dreamwidth-meta.dreamwidth.org/2962.html

Mostly, fear of spam is the greatest (in my opinion) factor holding this back.

[foxfirefey]

Possible mitigating implementation:

* All OpenID posts to communities go into moderation, UNLESS a moderator has explicitly given posting access to the OpenID in question

[ciaan]

I'm torn. On the one hand, I do see how that creates a greater load on DW's resources without neccessarily greater support for the site.

On the other hand, I think that it would be awesome to be able to use my DW openID to post in LJ comms, and I think that allowing posting by openID in DW comms would possibly draw more people to DW, and they might find and get involved in a comm here and then eventually decide to start doing other stuff on the site as well and possibly get an actual account. And more content in comms brings more users in general.

[azurelunatic]

A follow-up, since I happened to see this in the code tour: there's development in the direction of allowing community administrators to individually decide whether to allow OpenID users to create entries in their communities.

[matgb]

Heh. I'd actually have no problem with that. I'd also have few problems restricting it to paid comms, although I'd prefer it if it weren't.

Commenting should always be open to anyone with an account, including an external account, but posting is slightly different and I'd understand comms wanting to restrict it, I'd hope not many would, but I'd understand it.

[feathertail]

This is very exciting to me. >.>b It un-breaks DW's part of the web, and it makes me feel better about the idea of using DW for my website's community. Do you know how close they are to implementing it?