80 | Added a sentence in the summary to emphasize Invites. Changed the membership list to bullets. Linked more of the Community Management phrases to the actual page. Added a link format for members under community invites.
How do I add users and grant posting access to my community?
When you create a community, you decide whether membership will be closed, moderated, or open, and whether all members will have posting access. If you change your mind about your community's settings, you can edit them at the Community Management page. You may also want to invite users to your new community.
If your community has Open Membership with posting access given to All Members, you do not need to do anything to add users. These options allow any LiveJournal user to obtain membership and posting access in your community without seeking your approval. You can also allow anyone to join via Open Membership, but grant Posting Access individually using the Members (http://www.livejournal.com/community/members.bml?comm=communityname) link on the Community Management page.
If your community has Moderated Membership, users must request membership by attempting to join. At the bottom of the Community Management page, you can select to be notified by email every time someone requests membership in a community you control, or you can choose only to be notified when you load the Community Management page. When you load the Community Management page and there are pending membership requests, you will see "Members, # pending" (where # is a number); click on the # pending (http://www.livejournal.com/community/pending.bml?comm=communityname) link to reach a page where you can accept or reject these membership requests.
If your community has Closed Membership, only users you invite can join the community. No one can join on their own.
Inviting Users to Your Community
You can invite users to your community, which will allow them to accept or decline membership. To invite users to your community, simply go to the Community Management page and select the Members link for the appropriate community. If there is more than one page of members for the community, go to the last page.When you reach the bottom of the Members page, you will see blank spaces for the usernames you wish to invite. After entering their usernames and selecting the desired access levels (member, moderator, maintainer, posting access), click the "Update settings" button to add your community invitation to their Manage Community Invitations page.
Invited users will need to respond to the invitation from the Manage Community Invitations page within 30 days; otherwise, the invitation will expire. They will not receive an email informing them of the invitation; thus you may wish to notify them by email, a LiveJournal comment, a LiveJournal entry, etc. After sending invitations, you can go back to the Community Management page and select the appropriate Invitations (http://www.livejournal.com/community/sentinvites.bml?comm=communityname) link to view their status (accepted, declined, pending).
101 | Added a link in the summary to emphasize Invites. Added a link format for join.bml. Changed the bulleted structure from the Membership list. Rewording, etc.
Abe or other Abuse people: can you double-check the wording of the last sentence for abuse stuff? I thought there were limits if the comm required promotion for membership?
How do I join a community and read its entries on my Friends page?
All communities have a link at the top of the Community Info page reading "To join this community, click here." Clicking this link will give you information on joining the community. The only other way to join a community is to accept an invitation from one of the community's maintainers.
The Community Info page is located at http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=communityname, where "communityname" is the username of the community.
- If the community is open, you will be able to confirm your choice to join the community. You will also be asked if you would like to add the community to your friends list (also called "watching"). You can leave the box checked to do so or uncheck it to leave the community off of your friends list. If you change your mind later, you can add or remove the community at any time by modifying your friends list.
- If the community has moderated membership, you will be asked to confirm your choice to join and the community's maintainers will be notified that someone has requested membership. The maintainers can then decide whether to add you to the community, and you will be emailed when your membership request is accepted or rejected.
- If the community is closed, you will see a list of maintainers that you can contact for more information about joining.
Joining a community will usually give you both membership and posting access. Membership allows you to see any Members-only posts. Posting access allows you to post entries to the community. While joining a community will cause your entries to appear on the community's Friends page, the only people able to see your protected entries are those whom you list individually on your Friends list. Joining a community or adding it to your Friends list will not enable the members of the community to view your Friends-only entries.
Eligibility for membership in a community is determined by the maintainer. There is no other way to join a community, and there are no LiveJournal rules to define what an owner may or may not set as their requirements for membership.