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XenFans.com Article: Working with rules and guidelines
Copyright (c) 2010-2011 http://xenfans.com, author: Iestyn
Community guidelines are on of the most important aspects of online communities. It ensures your member base know what strict guidelines they have to follow to continue being a part of your community.
I like to divide rules into two categories, global and forum based.
Global Based
A few communities use this method, for example, XenFans uses what I call a global announcement, this means that they have a set of rules/policies in one location in the community. A link to the rules can be found in the navigation:
Once clicked, it’ll take you to a thread in the Information and Rules forum which you can view the rules and guidelines.
You can also add a link to the rules in the footer too.
Admin CP > Options > Basic Board Information:
Forum Based
This is the method I’ve always preferred. I create a set of rules, post them in each forum, lock and sticky them. I prefer this method because they are visible and not hidden. When I started out my community, people weren't following the community rules, and they told me it was because they didn’t know where the rules were, so I decided to do it forum based from then on.
There are quite a few issues with doing it this way too. Especially if you have a forum with multiple stickies, things can become quite confusing.
There are a few template edits that can be done to make the sticky threads stand out, you can find instructions on how to do so here:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/separate-sticky-and-normal-threads.15124/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/apply-css-styling-to-sticky-threads.8967/
It’s up to you as a community admin on which way you want to manage your rules, wether you want to use the global or forum based way.
Please share your views and opinions, how do you manage your rules and guidelines on your community?
Copyright (c) 2010-2011 http://xenfans.com, author: Iestyn
This article is giving a personal opinion on using XenForo to display the rules and guidelines to a community. Food for thought when you're setting up yours.
Community guidelines are on of the most important aspects of online communities. It ensures your member base know what strict guidelines they have to follow to continue being a part of your community.
I like to divide rules into two categories, global and forum based.
Global Based
A few communities use this method, for example, XenFans uses what I call a global announcement, this means that they have a set of rules/policies in one location in the community. A link to the rules can be found in the navigation:
Once clicked, it’ll take you to a thread in the Information and Rules forum which you can view the rules and guidelines.
You can also add a link to the rules in the footer too.
Admin CP > Options > Basic Board Information:
Forum Based
This is the method I’ve always preferred. I create a set of rules, post them in each forum, lock and sticky them. I prefer this method because they are visible and not hidden. When I started out my community, people weren't following the community rules, and they told me it was because they didn’t know where the rules were, so I decided to do it forum based from then on.
There are quite a few issues with doing it this way too. Especially if you have a forum with multiple stickies, things can become quite confusing.
There are a few template edits that can be done to make the sticky threads stand out, you can find instructions on how to do so here:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/separate-sticky-and-normal-threads.15124/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/apply-css-styling-to-sticky-threads.8967/
It’s up to you as a community admin on which way you want to manage your rules, wether you want to use the global or forum based way.
Please share your views and opinions, how do you manage your rules and guidelines on your community?