Maybe it’s the privilege talking (okay, it’s DEFINITELY the privilege talking), but I don’t think there should be zero places on the Fediverse with open signups.
Should every server have open signups? Hell no.
Should most servers have open signups? Probably not.
Should tools for detecting and moderating bad actors be WAY better? YES.
But if someone becomes curious and pops on over to sign up, I want them to GET IN WHILE THEY’RE STILL INTERESTED.
Waiting one hour, or one day, or ??? to get approved may not seem like much of a barrier to you, but it’s a barrier to somebody. Just like choosing a server is.
Someone will no doubt swoop into my mentions and say “Well, if they can’t wait a day to sign up, we don’t need them.”
If that’s you, let me save us both the trouble and say GET FUCKED. Take your literacy-test attitude somewhere else; it’s making the Fediverse worse.
To be clear, I’m not saying moderated signups are bad. I’m on a server with moderated signups.
I’m just saying: there needs to be an easy on-ramp to this place. And if we can about decentralization, there should probably be more than one.
@maxleibman I just checked, and the server I'm on does require manual approval, though I frankly can't remember if they did when I joined in 2022.
But the key fact that would probably put me off is that there was no expectation set. Will approval take 5 minutes, 5 days, or what? If it's an hour or less, at least during business hours (clarify the time zone if that applies!), and that expectation is actually met, I think that amount of friction would be okay.
@mweston @maxleibman I totally agree.
And more Servers are coming online as more people join. #theforkiverse being one... @pj and co made it and got thousands of new members in a few days.
It wasn't that hard to join, maybe a few hours wait.
But it was moderated...
Mastodon.social how long on there?
