Anyone using .LRN, I would greatly appreciate comments on this thread.

I need to know when .LRN should send email. Right now
if a user is added to a community, it _could_ send an email and admin for the community has created a welcome email message.

This needs to be more predictable.

Places where it sends email now

1) dotlrn/www/admin/add-instructor-3.tcl Should adding an instructor trigger a welcome email?

2) dotlrn/www/admin/users-add-to-community.tcl Adding users to a class or community. I think welcome email makes sense here. Should it be automatic, or configured per community? The current system sends a generic email from this page plus sends the community specific welcome message if it is configured.

3) member-add-3.tcl Sends welcome email if configured.

4) Bulk adding one or more users, sends welcome email if configured.

5) register.tcl Self registration, sends welcome email if configured.

These are the web user interface scripts that currently trigger the welcome email. I am refactoring the code to explicitly call th send email procedure when email should be sent instead of magically sending it when membership is approved. Confirmation from actual dotlrn admins that these events should trigger the welcome email would be useful.

In addition to refactoring I am adding a check, to allow the admin to decide to suppress the email or edit the email content before sending it.

I understand "Welcome message" as something like "Welcome to community A...", and generic message as "You have been added to community B...". So I think Welcome message is appropriate when the user has self-register or requested membership and received approval. On the other hand, the generic one (that could be edited) is more appropriate when the user has been added by an dotlrn_admin (receiving a welcome message could confuse her since she didn't request membership). However, since welcome message is configured by club/class admins, it's up to them to adjust its content to the enrollment policy.

1) dotlrn/www/admin/add-instructor-3.tcl Should adding an instructor trigger a welcome email?

IMO, yes. The instructor should be informed that he has been added to a class. I would let the dotlrn_admin edit the message however.

2) dotlrn/www/admin/users-add-to-community.tcl Adding users to a class or community. I think welcome email makes sense here. Should it be automatic, or configured per community? The current system sends a generic email from this page plus sends the community specific welcome message if it is configured.

I wouldn't send the community specific welcome message, just the generic one but providing a confirmation step where the dotlrn_admin can decide to send or not the message and edit it.

3) member-add-3.tcl Sends welcome email if configured.

OK.

4) Bulk adding one or more users, sends welcome email if configured.

When bulk adding users and adding them to a community, 3 messages can be sent:
1- welcome message to dotlrn with login information (if the "notify" field in the CSV file is set to 't')
2- generic message "you have been added..."
3- community specific welcome message if configured

I think only 1) and 2) are necessary.

5) register.tcl Self registration, sends welcome email if configured.

OK.