And I just prepared this post, to show people who might be interested in joining our community.
Qoto.org moderation team has decided to implement a new policy, to restrict new user applications - the door was NOT locked, but we are requesting people wanting to Join Qoto to provide a little info about themselves.
How do their interests relate to our Science, Tech, Engineering and Math focus, so that we could have a less General type of instance; there are MANY of those, open to signups.
I noticed in a @users post this morning that we have added *5 new users* only, over the last 24 hours. This is down from a recent peak of over 90 in the same 24 h period.
...and you know, there IS a reason.
We ask new users some questions, and they can fill in their response, which gets sent in to us, mods.
I looked at my email just now. I had 20 New User Application messages.
And I took a couple of snapshots - to share here. One of these has a ONE WORD response (not enough, you think?)
Most of them, had NO response at all. Honest, should we let such a low effort response in?
From the 20 in my email, I think I remember about *3 or so* that got approved.
Making this public, as I think it's for the BEST.
Thanks to @freemo and @arteteco - we are on the right track, friends. Steady as she goes. Carry on. 😛
@design_RG @users @freemo @arteteco I’m wondering whether the people with empty or minimal responses don’t realize a real, live human will look at what they wrote. So many (maybe most) of the forms we fill out are just plunking info into a database which is only looked at in aggregate.
@mkb
That is possible, yes -- and I think that my post here can help show them we are serious about this. I am quite happy to reduce the incoming numbers, and have a more focused instance.
Personally, I had encountered this Signup info Request twice, and both instances are using it effectively. One of them turned me down at first, with a full submission of required info, no less.
I reapplied later, and sent the local admin a personal Direct Message - explaining why I wanted an account there, which was then granted.
hopefully it will help you avoid the kind of "requests" I get too!
@M0YNG @freemo @arteteco LOL..... 😝
We get the Escort services people too. And other colourful ones.
Time we show people that it takes work and money, time and talent to provide them a Free service.
We are not corporations, we don't collect or sell information, like the corporate networks. So, play nice in our playground, will they?
I am all for keeping a gate and controlling things a bit. Tired of spam, escort, pirated video and other accounts we have to remove daily.
@users @freemo @arteteco
And here is a snapshot of the new user signup screen as of today -- our Admin worked hours to modify HTML and CSS files to enable :
* More Space for User response (I have noticed it being limited on some other instances that implement this same function)
* More Space for Instance Description and to request user input (and we have a VERY detailed one now)
I have copied those posts to our Discourse Forums as well -- since there I can have the wonderful Text Formatting that unfortunately Mastodon at this moment does NOT have (Pleroma Does it, Better, again!).
https://discourse.qoto.org/t/want-to-join-our-mastodon-instance-welcome-but-please-fill-in-the-requested-information-for-signups-thank-you/239