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

[rydra_wong]

So maybe some possible strategies here would be to work on making OpenID more transparent for non-tech-savvy users, and make sure that finding invites is easier -- I totally agree with the idea of linking dw_codesharing from the front page.

(I have a vague recollection that at some point there was also talk about the possibility of a Ravelry-like system where you can put your e-mail address on a waiting list, with codes sent out as often or not as needed to manage site growth. That struck me as a sensible idea.)