Admin: Comment Confusion

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

There appears to be some confusion over how posting and commenting work in the comm, so I'm here to clarify, answer questions, if there are any, and make a small change. The way the comm is set up, you must be a member to make a post. Anyone can join the comm, and anyone who joins will receive posting access; there's no screening, no velvet rope. This rule is about controlling trollish behavior, not about exclusivity or keeping anyone out. The power to grant posting access also gives me the power to remove it from anyone who posts maliciously or inappropriately. No one has ever been refused membership.

One need not be a member to comment, though; one need only friend the community, not join, even if it's only for the short period needed to add a comment to an existing post--one can friend, comment, and unfriend. I set it up this way as part of my plan to control misbehavior, but, on researching a little further, I see (I think) that I can ban any user from commenting in the comm if I need to, whether they've friended the comm or not.

Because of the confusion created when people try to comment and can't who don't understand that it's friending, not joining, that gives them commenting access, I'm going to remove the 'friends only' comments restriction and allow any registered user to comment--anon comments are still not allowed. If it goes well, it'll stay that way; if it doesn't, it won't, and I'll let you know if I change the settings back to friends only.

If you wanted to comment on Cath's post but don't want to friend the comm, you should now be able to. If anyone tries and still has difficulty, please email me at cc1 at charter dot net and let me know that it didn't work for you. If that happens, I'll...bother the help staff, I guess. It should work, though. And everyone will play nice, yes?