It is known that a lot of Utopian contributors get rejection over and over again because of not reading or not taking notice to both general and category specific rules. I believe that showing rules only before posting is sometimes feels like "Terms of Conditions" in game installation process for most users. Many just press "Next, next, next, write and submit" and this situation leads to mistakes which can not be reverted like using wrong and inactive repositories, providing information not as high quality as stated in the rules, or even forgetting the main goal of the category. Therefore, I would like to introduce my suggestion for guaranteeing users are aware of both general and category specific rules while they are posting.
Components
The suggestion covers changes in new contribution page and and addition of a pop up screen to submitting phase.
Proposal
- There should be a button which is easily accessible while posting in case of forgetting, or any need of re-reading rules concerning the post. This button should pop a screen listing both general rules, and rules of the category. It is possible to add 2 buttons, one for general rules, one for category rules for simplicity.
- Submit button in new contribution page should pop a screen which contains preview of the post on the left, and rules concerning the post both general and category specific. This may even be extended with repository specific rules and warnings with some help of a panel for managing rules. One of the following options can be implemented:
- Contributors should tick only one checkbox as agreement of the rules.
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Contributors should tick checkboxes belong to rules, one by one.
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Current rule page may be removed since there will be no need if these suggestions are implemented.
Mockups / Examples
All examples are provided with some on-screen changes on the website. So I didn't spend too much time on styling since they are just examples.
1. An example rules button. There could be 2 buttons seperately for general and category rules.
[IMAGE: https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1517576466/guiwfug1vhzikukp1qkk.png]
2. Rules pop-up screen
[IMAGE: https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1517578281/uqsna5dyajtb91o0gi19.png]
3. Pop-up screen for submitting
[IMAGE: https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1517580478/subccamsf4elffsggp2g.png]
Benefits
- Easily accessible rules on contribution page allows contributors to read them more frequently and avoid simple but irreversible mistakes.
- Warning users before submitting might significantly increase attention to rules and decrease rejection rates in contributions. This would be beneficial for all since contributors would get less rejections, moderators would spend more time to moderate higher quality posts and there would be proper contributions for any open source project.
- New rules can be easily presented for users who still didn't read the rule changes.Rules buttons could be improved with badges, so users simply realize there are rule changes or announcements whenever they open new contribution page.
- If an additional panel is built for managing these screens, users can be easily warned for anything right after the changes. These warnings may be about rules, certain repositories, common mistakes etc.
Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors
