Brutkey

Fedi.Tips
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services

There are two ways that servers on here can accept new members:

-Sign-ups where you join instantly

-Sign-ups where the server moderator has to manually approve your membership

Approval sign-ups make moderation much more effective, but some people seem to find them more difficult.

If you are someone who finds approval sign-ups more difficult, could you explain the main thing putting you off?

(By the way, this isn't meant to be judgmental, just want to find out what the main barriers are! 🙂 )

windsor
@windsorwindsor2@mastodon.social

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services I just think we shouldn't build walled gardens. I had a bad experience with other platforms in the past where you have to "apply" to join, and those in charge found an opportunity to gatekeep.

There are some notable exceptions, but for the most part I won't join an online community where I have to "apply". That's how I ended up on the default server.

Fedi.Tips
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services

@windsorwindsor2@mastodon.social

This is the thing though, most of the time mods aren't actually trying to screen the kind of person who joins, they just want to put spammers off joining. (Spam attacks recently have all come from instant signup servers.)

If the question about why you want to join made this clear, would it help?

For example when I've joined a server and written "I am interesting in (topic of server)" that has been enough and I got approved quickly.

windsor
@windsorwindsor2@mastodon.social

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services Maybe it would. And I get that there are crazy amounts of attacks of all kinds nowadays that admins are dealing with constantly.

I'm used to environments like Reddit where I have to assume mods usually have bad intentions. But that's not true of Mastodon. I guess I'm still not used to a social network where people are nice!

Even if I change my view on this though, I think there will always be legitimate users who simply won't apply to a restricted server.

Fedi.Tips
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services

@windsorwindsor2@mastodon.social

This is a really interesting perspective, thank you.

Is there any way that moderators could make it clear that they aren't a restricted server, apart from allowing instant signups?