allow C++ as community name

[chadwhitacre]

Requested by @pawbyte on Twitter.

We currently disallow + in community names. They're using cplusplus. I tried UPDATEing under the hood to C++ but we actually 404 if the slug doesn't match the constraint.

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[seanlinsley]

Locally, this was as simple as updating name_pattern to include +.

I didn't open a PR for this because I'm not sure of the further implications. For example, should we allow users to have a + in their names?

[mvdkleijn]

Well, since the + sign is used in GET urls allowing them might confuse users or browsers. Its all fine if we use them because we can encode their usage, but since it'd be used for a community name, people would be (potentially) typing it into the browser.

Also to consider: if we allow +, where do we draw the line?

To me this seems too much of an edge case to allow vs. all of the potential problems we'd have to handle.

I'd deny the request and get on with other things.

[seanlinsley]

To me this seems too much of an edge case to allow vs. all of the potential problems we'd have to handle.

I wouldn't call the C++ community an edge case.

[rummik]

I draw the line at C#, since that just wouldn't do. :P

+ is often interpreted as a space in URLs, that's about the only issue I can think of regarding them. It's also in the list of reserved characters, according to RFC3986 Section 2.2.

That said, I don't think using them is really a problem, since Google uses them all over Google+

[chadwhitacre]

Can we special case this one? What would that look like?

[mvdkleijn]

I wouldn't call the C++ community an edge case.

The size of the community doesn't factor into this. It's still "just" one community. I meant an edge case in the sense that it'd just be a few communities that'd want / need this. I was attempting to point out that if you allow +, then the next guy wants # or? or & or... etc... where do we draw the line?

[chadwhitacre]

I don't think we should be afraid to do some special-casing for communities. My thinking on this is mostly informed by this post. We should think of the communities on Gittip as somewhere between "owned by them" and "owned by us." Ultimately it's our responsibility to deliver a good user experience. At times that calls for light curation of communities.

[rummik]

@mvdkleijn We wouldn't be able to add #

[mvdkleijn]

@mvdkleijn We wouldn't be able to add #

😄 Which is why I don't think we should "special case" anyone. Just causes confusion and possibly discussions like "... but they're allowed, so why aren't we??"

What would make c++ more deserving to be special cased than c# or anyone else? and, no... I don't consider community size (in- nor outside of Gittip) as a relevant factor.

Things like special casing and posts like the one @whit537 is referring to seem like cases of early optimization to me. That's a big no no to me.

[mattbk]

Closed until communities (or tags) return.