Allow users to 'Apply to join' a forum that is private (forum management concern)

Posted by Graham Perrin on Jan 15, 2009; 2:33pm
URL: https://support.nabble.com/Allow-users-to-Apply-to-join-a-forum-that-is-private-forum-management-concern-tp2162681.html

Hi

A couple of points concerning subscriptions.


1. Apply to join (major workflow issue)

Example: at <http://n2.nabble.com/restricted-f2162384.html> our Freeman Centre 'ICT group' forum:

a) is visible as a title 'ICT group'

— correct

b) will not reveal its content to a Nabble user, unless a co-owner of the forum has granted access rights to that user

— correct, the Access Rights Configuration set by me at <http://n2.nabble.com/forum/PrivacySettings.jtp?forum=1489538> is respected

c) requires the co-owners of the forum to add subscribers

— the interface to which is <http://n2.nabble.com/catalog/ManageSubscribers.jtp?forum=1489538&tab=add>

d) does not allow a registered Nabble user to apply to join the forum.

Point (d) is, to our workgroups, a potentially major workflow issue.

In some systems other than Nabble I see use of tickets that are persistent, and *not* user-specific. I do offer such tickets but I realise that for private/restricted areas, a universal ticket is not a great approach.

What I'd like to see in Nabble, for the use case above, is something like:

i)   user finds interest in the title of a private forum
     (or, forum owner advertises the existence of the forum
     through media *other* than e-mail)

ii)  Nabble user clicks 'Apply to join'

iii) forum owner (or co-owners) receive the application

iv)  forum owner clicks 'Approve' or 'Deny'.

(Denial at step iv could be less crude, but you get the idea ;)

Maybe I'm missing something?

@ Nabble: your advice please.

(As background: e-mail-only approaches to encouraging membership of private lists have never succeeded for our workgroups. Also, the prospect of manually subscribing users is less than appealing … as I know you know :)

Side note: this request for improvement is similar but not identical to a point within <http://n2.nabble.com/-tp1113013p1113013.html>.


---

2. Menu content (minor cosmetic issue)

At the forum level: the owner should find
Options menu | Users | Manage subscribers
in lieu of
Options menu | Users | View subscribers

— to the owner, it's a management interface (not limited to read-only (View)).


Best regards
Graham