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mark is working on a project to import communities so we can migrate ![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-community.gif)
scans_daily, and part of that means making it so that OpenID users can edit and delete posts in communities, but not post to them. But what if OpenID accounts with verified emails were allowed to post to communities?
* OpenID users can already join communities, so they can comment as members, but they're barred from participating directly in the community through posting. However, many communities are too quiet as is--opening them up could have good effects, even if few OpenID users take advantage of the ability.
* If OpenID users want to give communities content for members to read, that's probably not a bad thing. If somebody only wants to participate in our communities and doesn't feel like they need an account because their main blog is elsewhere, making them get an account to participate isn't going to make them want to use it like a full account. (This is especially good for some things like letting outside developers make posts in![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_dev.) Letting them participate without getting a full account slightly lowers the barrier of entry, and prevents username space from being taken up more than it has to. And, we could make it easy to upgrade an OpenID account to a full fledged account with an invite code and the choosing of a username, converting all their posts and comments.
* Community admins might want to restrict this, so they should be given controls to be able to choose whether or not OpenID accounts can make posts in their community. They could also choose to have all OpenID account posts go into a moderation queue, but real accounts automatically go through. Defaults could make a big difference here: allowing OpenID accounts by default creates a more open, outward facing friendly Dreamwidth overall, while allowing community admins to open up their communities to OpenID posts but not having it on by default makes it the responsibility of the community creators to advertise that they're using Dreamwidth as an open platform for that particular community.
* One downside is that spamming via communities would become much easier. However, like discussed above, communities could be given controls to let admins determine whether or not OpenID accounts could post at all or be automatically moderated. However, because OpenID accounts wouldn't be able to *create* communities, it would be much harder to use that as a loophole. On the other hand, it would mean spammers would only need to get ahold of one account to start mass producing communities for OpenIDs to spam in. But then again, there's nothing really stopping them from doing that now besides the community creation rate limiting.
So, what do you think the effects of letting OpenID communities post to DW would be? Positive? Negative? Underutilized?
mark is working on a project to import communities so we can migrate scans_daily, and part of that means making it so that OpenID users can edit and delete posts in communities, but not post to them. But what if OpenID accounts with verified emails were allowed to post to communities?* OpenID users can already join communities, so they can comment as members, but they're barred from participating directly in the community through posting. However, many communities are too quiet as is--opening them up could have good effects, even if few OpenID users take advantage of the ability.
* If OpenID users want to give communities content for members to read, that's probably not a bad thing. If somebody only wants to participate in our communities and doesn't feel like they need an account because their main blog is elsewhere, making them get an account to participate isn't going to make them want to use it like a full account. (This is especially good for some things like letting outside developers make posts in
dw_dev.) Letting them participate without getting a full account slightly lowers the barrier of entry, and prevents username space from being taken up more than it has to. And, we could make it easy to upgrade an OpenID account to a full fledged account with an invite code and the choosing of a username, converting all their posts and comments.* Community admins might want to restrict this, so they should be given controls to be able to choose whether or not OpenID accounts can make posts in their community. They could also choose to have all OpenID account posts go into a moderation queue, but real accounts automatically go through. Defaults could make a big difference here: allowing OpenID accounts by default creates a more open, outward facing friendly Dreamwidth overall, while allowing community admins to open up their communities to OpenID posts but not having it on by default makes it the responsibility of the community creators to advertise that they're using Dreamwidth as an open platform for that particular community.
* One downside is that spamming via communities would become much easier. However, like discussed above, communities could be given controls to let admins determine whether or not OpenID accounts could post at all or be automatically moderated. However, because OpenID accounts wouldn't be able to *create* communities, it would be much harder to use that as a loophole. On the other hand, it would mean spammers would only need to get ahold of one account to start mass producing communities for OpenIDs to spam in. But then again, there's nothing really stopping them from doing that now besides the community creation rate limiting.
So, what do you think the effects of letting OpenID communities post to DW would be? Positive? Negative? Underutilized?
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 06:09 pm (UTC)Also, OpenIDs don't have to explicitly agree to the Terms of Service, which is something pretty scary for a site operator to have people who use your site who don't have to agree to your ToS.
The only way I could see this working is to remove invite codes (so we don't place artificial pressure on people to go get an OpenID to get around our restrictions) and make an OpenID account be forced to agree to the ToS before they can do things on the site.
If both of those happened, then people might as well just use a normal account so we can keep OpenIDs as the "you want to participate in comments, but you don't want to actually join the site" sort of "lite" accounts, IMO.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 09:08 pm (UTC)Good point, well made.
So yes, if you dump invite codes, then this might not be worth doing, but if you keep invite codes (I care not one way or t'other), then perhaps have a need to agree to TOS when an OpenID is validated, and only allowing validated IDs to take part?
There're loads of things I'd like to see improved for OpenIDs, never have written them all up (auto discovering email addresses and Gravatar support would be two), and full involvement in comms is lower on my list, but I favour it, I think it'd benefit the site, but it's not my site after all.