Discourse Policy

plugin
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:discourse2: Summary Discourse Policy gives the ability to confirm your users have seen or done something, with optional reminders.
:hammer_and_wrench: Repository Link https://github.com/discourse/discourse-policy
:open_book: Install Guide How to install plugins in Discourse

Features

Discourse policy shares much of its DNA with polls, it has the goal of ensuring members of a group accept certain policies by clicking a button.

It has some specific features that set it apart from polls:

  1. It must apply to a group (the group must not exceed 200 users)

  2. It can optionally nag members of a group either weekly or daily to click accept on a policy

  3. The UX makes it very easy to see who accepted and who did not accept a policy.

Configuration

Screenshots

Before clicking accept

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After clicking “grey” person on top right

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After clicking accept

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Creating a policy

Discourse policy registers a custom [policy] BBCode element. Which means you need to write this block of code in your post where you want to show this policy.

[policy group=founders reminder=daily]
I accept this policy will annoy me daily until I click accept
[/policy]

In this case the policy applies to the founders group and a reminder is sent daily to all users that did not accept the policy.

Site settings

policy_enabled : is the discourse policy plugin enabled on the site.

policy_max_group_size : only allow policies on groups smaller or equal to this size (default 200)

policy_restrict_to_staff_posts: policies may only appear on staff posts

BBCode attributes

The [policy] element can accept the following attributes.

  • group: the group name that policy will apply to required
  • version: the version number of the policy, bump number up to require all users re-accept the policy
  • reminder: remind users of the group to accept policy (weekly or daily), optional, default off
  • accept: text used for accept button, default is “Accept Policy”
  • revoke: text used for revoke button, default is “Revoke Policy”
  • renew: number of days or text describing period (monthly, quarterly or yearly) after which a user needs to re-accept policy
  • renew-start: the first date renewals will start at Eg: 17-10-2017, useful if you want to set the renewal cadence so it happens every half-year (Jan,June)

Usage examples

Basic policy:

[policy group="team" reminder="daily" accept="Accept" revoke="Ignore" version="1"]
I have read, understand and acknowledge this policy.
[/policy]

Bumping the revision number, to require that everyone reads the update:

[policy group="team" reminder="daily" accept="Accept" revoke="Ignore" version="2"]
I have read, understand and acknowledge this policy. (Last updated [date=2020-04-23 timezone="America/Los_Angeles"])
[/policy]

Periodic auditing task:

[policy group="audit_committee" reminder="weekly" renew="90" renew-start="01-07-2019" version="1" accept="Assignment Complete"] 
I have ensured that someone is assigned to this quarterly audit task.
[/policy]

CHANGELOG

TODO

  • Optional immediate reminder for new policies
  • Possibly allow certain groups to apply policies (expanding on staff)
60 Likes
71

Hi there, at the moment I’m seeing that TL0 can create policies as well. Is there a way to only limit the ability to create policies to staff or moderators?

72

I did think that’s what the ‘policy restrict to staff posts’ setting did in practice, but let me just double check.

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Yes, with that toggled on (default) it only allows the Create Policy option to show up when creating a post/topic as an Admin or Moderator. :+1:

Though it would be good if this was updated to be a ‘group allowed’ setting like some of the other permission-based settings have been moved to.

2 Likes
73

Is it possible to disallow revoking agreement to certain policies?

74

I don’t believe this is currently possible.

I think the closest I could manage was to add some text to the Revoke button to make it less appealing for people to press:

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75

This is somewhat surprising to me. Was it a deliberate decision, or no one asked to implement this? I have a private category, and I’m asking members to keep information from that category confidential. Writing a formal contract is not an option and is not necessary. But if someone can revoke any time, that somewhat diminishes the whole point of a policy. He can revoke agreement just before doing something the policy asks not to do.

76

I’m afraid my knowledge of this plugin is relatively shallow, but I think people could do something that contradicts the policy even if they had accepted or revoked it? It does keep a record that you can pull out using the data explorer of when people accept and revoke each one, if that helps at all?

1 Like