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What if tildes remaned invite only?
But was just really generous with giving out invite codes to its users, even host invite request threads where anonymous (non-registered) users can request an invite or something?
I think this could work and would help with the whole tree aspect tildes is holding on. Everything leads back to a tree. Groups, users, tags even mods and admins. Perhaps even keep the tree visible to only people in said tree and mods/admins, depending on user privacy settings.
What would the benefits of remaining invite only and cons?
Pro: It would add a certain level of confidence to Tildes. If it remains invite only not just to join, but to read as well, I would be more open to sharing more about myself.
Con: If Tildes succeeds in its missions, remaining invite only would make it harder for ~ to be noticed, which would make it less likely that it could serve as an example to others.
I feel like the hard work to make this community would only pay off if it was free to everyone. If Tildes becomes a quasi-utopian community, how will people learn from it if it's invite only? And why keep such a good community out of reach except if invited? What even is the necessity of being seen as a secret society?
Similar to private trackers I'd think, to ensure the quality of the community. You can't easily get a dozen puppet accounts either, making it harder for certain viewpoints to brigade against others. There's plenty of reasons to want to keep it invite-only.
It sounds pretty cool.
It seems as if a large portion of people believe that it is only a matter of time and it cannot be utopian. At some point, there will be too many people and everything we know and love will die! :P
Invites slows that process from happening. At some point though, invites just become a rubber stamp if you make them not scarce, like OP is suggesting.
Yes, exactly.
I really like the idea of it remaining invite only. The biggest reason why I have enjoyed this site far more than Reddit is because it is not diluted by repetitive jokes, memes, or insults towards other users. There are genuine discussions to be had and it is a breath of fresh air to actually engage with people in a productive fashion instead of having someone just berate you. Allowing it to remain invite only will insure that the quality of comments can remain high. There is already a high demand through reddit for people to join and those that already have joined have invite codes to share with others and so on. I think it is a perfect system that restricts immaturity and encourages civility.
We probably want to think about Tildes remaining invite-only in two ways: (1) invites are required to comment/vote (but not to read), and (2) invites are required to read as well as to comment/vote (the current system).
In my opinion, with Option 1, the general public can benefit from the discussions we have, but we might run into issues with server load (e.g., Reddit hug of death if someone starts something like /r/TildesBestOf) or with people unwilling to divulge information that would be publicly accessible. Beyond server load and confidentiality, I'm currently unable to think of a solid advantage for Option 2 in the long term.
(There's also an Option 3, in which users could register without an invite to vote but not comment, but I think that considering this option requires us to first agree on moving towards Option 1.)
Honestly read-only for most people in that scenario makes dealing with a spike much easier as spinning up read-replicas is much easier than than scaling out writes as well (although I imagine in that scenario the traffic is mostly read-only whatever you do).
I’m slightly in favor of option one. Yes there are very beneficial things that ~ could offer the world and keeping commenting/voting to invite only would help keep the community from decending into bregadding hell. That or a 2FA option to help prevent multiple accounts
I like the idea of keeping the site invite only. And I believe we should hold each user responsible for the invites they share. It would reduce trolling, and prevent the site from becoming overrun with troll farms pushing agendas.
Very true. On reddit, seeing what subs someone posts in is a huge help when trying to determine if an incident is something to be expected of them or not. I can only imagine how helpful an invite tree would be.
Even if it does eventually open up beyond invite-only, I think we need a more streamlined way to generate and share invite codes. I’ve helped send them out in the Reddit invite threads, and it’s quite a chore.
Nope. @deimos has said on more than a few occasions that he intends to open the site up eventually. However I don't think any decisions in that regard are final yet... and there has been some talk of potentially using "temporary" or "probationary" accounts as well. So we will have to wait and see.
I want the site to grow. Invite-only can mitigate that.