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Philosophy of OvaritKeep the invite system
Apologies if I’ve missed any official comments on this, but I’ve seen a few comments now suggesting this with a lot of positive feedback so figured I’d make a dedicated post!
What I personally think:
There’s a ton of attention on us right now from our #1 fan clubs, just waiting to “cheat the system” and wriggle their way through. With the current invite-only system, even if they got ahold of a code, banning them and tracking who they’ve invited is an easy task. Having open registration would eliminate that trail and make ban evasion a breeze, even IP bans could be bypassed if they had used a VPN while invite-only would take much more time and effort.
Of course (wo)manpower to approve all requests is a big hindrance, but I think ensuring a female-only space for the long run is a higher priority than automatic approvals and sheer numbers right now (quality over quantity). Like many others, I was a lurker on r/GC for a long time before actively participating beyond just voting, my views and opinions hadn’t reverted just because I wasn’t commenting. If people are interested in reading our content then I think they’ll visit regardless, and waiting even a few days for approval won’t make any noticeable negative impact.
While I understand and kind of agree, it' s impossible even with the invite system to keep this space female-only. The mods don' t know us personally, and while I have interacted with flapyourwings for years on the old debate sub, I could very well be a man as far as she knows.
Our lovely opposers are not exactly known for telling the truth and respecting our boundaries, even with the invite system they can infiltrate and ruin us from the inside. And with their resources, they could do it without joining anyway. Not to mention, we can' t expand our numbers like that: one of the biggest strong points of the old sub, was that people could join the conversation, if they can' t do it, there' s a chance they might scatter.
I honestly don' t know how it could be solved. I guess everything depends on how it' s easier and more convenient for the mods. I frankly am ok both ways. As others have said, I guess that the more sensible thing to do is to make a general sub open to anyone and maybe make the others private? But even that can be tricked if you are really motivated.
It’s the difference between “lock your door” and “well if someone wanted to break in they’d do it anyway so might as well leave the door wide open”.
Of course people could lie but just because we can’t guarantee complete certainty, we should throw away all effort and settle for no certainty whatsoever? I’d accept 50% over nothing at all.
Hopefully those with codes aren’t just giving them away willy-nilly to the first person that asks either. The point is to verify them in some way, or use your best judgment; your average trolling TRA isn’t likely to have a history of gender critical commentary.
The invite system makes this harder to do.
The advantage to the codes is the “paper trail” it leaves behind: Person A invited Person B who invited Person C, and so on. If Person B turns out to be a troll we can easily investigate C for similar behavior as well as look at A and do a mass sweep of all relative commentary. Without this trail it’s a free-for-all guessing game and game of chance which takes more time and effort to catch.
I’m not suggesting close registration. You can still join, it just wouldn’t be instantaneous. I doubt not being able to comment while awaiting approval will turn someone away for good. It’s no different than browsing old threads that are no longer active, you wouldn’t leave the site permanently just because you couldn’t comment on that specific topic- that would be silly. I’d argue anyone who would is in the very low minority.