We were interested in understanding what information a community owner
seeks about an applicant, so we conducted a brief survey.
The responses fall into two broad categories:
1. Applicant’s knowledge of the topic being discussed
e.g. "How much do you know about Disney animations?"
2. Applicant's level of participation
e.g. “Is this person going to actively participate in the discussions
or lurk around till the end of time?”
I then explored various methods for the community owner to obtain
this information.
Proposal 1: Customization
Give community owner more ways to formulate questions.
Drawback: Community owners are unable to verify their answers.
Proposal 2: Auto rejection
Community owner can setup some criteria and the system auto-rejects
applicants who did not meet such criteria.
Drawbacks: Potential to inadvertently auto-reject preferred
applicants.
Given the drawbacks outlined above, we chose
to
make
the additional information optional in the settings.