The ladder’s player link
Every ladder has its own link, and it works exactly the way a box’s player link does. Press Player link on the ladder, or find it under League settings → Links, and post it in the group chat. Everybody on the ladder taps their own name to sign in. On a doubles ladder each person taps their own name rather than the pair's.
This is how somebody signs in who is on the ladder and in no box. A name typed straight into a ladder joins the club, and until they have a link there is nothing for them to open. The same warnings apply as for a box’s player link. Sign in on the phone you use most, and open it in a real browser rather than inside WhatsApp.
One live link per ladder. Replace link stops the old one working straight away, and anybody already signed in stays signed in. Archiving the ladder ends the link.
Starting again
A ladder can start again every year, or never. Never is the default and what we recommend: a rating is worth defending once it has had time to mean something.
If you do turn it on, you choose what happens when the year turns. Keep every rating starts the table again and leaves everybody's level alone, so nobody plays their placing matches twice. Put every rating back to the start does what it says: everybody plays their placing matches again, and a rating somebody spent a year earning is gone. Change nothing only decides which matches the table shows.
None of it is written down anywhere. It is worked out from the setting and today's date every time the page is drawn, so turning it off again brings everything back.
Starting the ratings again, now
Different question, and a rarer one: the ladder was set up wrong and you want to begin properly. Ladder settings → Start the ratings again → Clear every match takes every match off the ladder and puts every rating back to 1200. Who is on the ladder and its settings are untouched, so you are not rebuilding it, and you have to type the ladder's name to confirm.
Nothing is destroyed: the matches stay in the history, and a match cleared this way can be looked up like any other. Owner only, and it is the one action in the ladder that moves every rating at once.