better options for posting access in communities

[domtheknight]

Title:
better options for posting access in communities

Area:
communities

Summary:
I would like to reword the "who can post entries to your community" options for clarity, and also add a button on the members page to grant all members posting access or take posting access away from all members who aren't maintainers.

Description:
This requires some background information, since I think the current behavior is confusing and not very transparent.

Currently there are three posting options. The first, anybody can post, works as expected, so let's discuss the other two. The current wording is as follows: All Members: Only members of this community can post entries to it; and Select Members: Members' entries will only appear in the community if they're approved by the administrator or moderator.

To me, it seems that All Members means every member no exceptions, and Select Members means we default to the check boxes on the member page, where a maintainer can go through and change posting access for each individual person.

What actually happens is, if the community starts as Select Members and then switches to All Members, anyone new who joins does get automatic posting access, but members who had previously been in the community without posting access don't automatically get it; a maintainer would have to go grant it to each of them individually on the members page.

I can see that having that sort of setting (All Members except for this one particular member) could be useful in certain circumstances, but I think that the way the behavior is right now, many users will expect that changing the setting does also change the corresponding checkboxes on the members page.

What I'd like to propose is that, since this behavior could be useful, we keep it but provide some additional tools to make it easier to use.

So, I'd like to have Documentation reword the options, so that it's clear on the settings page that switching between All Members and Select Members only applies to new members and doesn't change the corresponding member posting access list. I'd also like to add a button on the member list which would allow maintainers to grant all members posting access at once or take posting access away from all members at once (I think it would be sensible to restrict that to "all members who aren't maintainers").

Poll #2844 better options for posting access in communities

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
36 (87.8%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (2.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (2.4%)

(I have no opinion)
3 (7.3%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[yvi]

Related suggestion: http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/170711.html

Okay, had to run out of the door right after digging up that link, so some info on that other suggestion: It's about changing the way these things are done, while domtheknight wants to a) change the documentation for the current way, b) a way to do "grant all" and "revoke all", as I understand it (that second is also covered by mark's suggestion, but only a small part of a larger overhaul). That's at least how I understand these two suggestions :)

[domtheknight]

Well, I think if we overhaul all the community management aspects then this suggestion is pretty useless. On the other hand, it might be a faster fix and something that could get done quickly while the overhaul of community management waits. So... that was sort of my reasoning.

[yvi]

Yeah, sure! The other one will likely take a while and documentation + "grant all" would fix the problem faster, I think.

[feathertail]

Agreed.