Relax instance registrations to "Approval required for sign up" from current "Nobody can sign up"

in true coop spirit of not speaking unless i'm adding something, my thoughts in context of what others had said here: https://www.loomio.org/d/zoWFc7mR/relax-instance-registrations-to-approval-required-for-sign-up-from-current-nobody-can-sign-up-/20 and here: https://www.loomio.org/d/zoWFc7mR/relax-instance-registrations-to-approval-required-for-sign-up-from-current-nobody-can-sign-up-/22

Generally speaking, I agree that his would slightly lessen CWG work load (we could respond to an email instead of customizing a templated response to a new user every time; it's minimal, but sounds nice). However, I think there are better solutions that require more work. If we did this in the short term I think it would be valuable to follow up with a proposal for a signup application that takes the users info, checks that they're donating on Open Collective, and then provisions their account.

Previous experiments with this appear not to have made life easier for CWG Ops Team. New people join regularly, so the current method and the fact we aren't listed doesn't appear to be blocking registrations. So mildly disagree for now, as the cost of inconveniencing the CWG Ops Team doesn't seem worth the benefit. Suggest we work upstream with Mastodon for customisable registration form, then revisit based on outcome of that.

It would be good to streamline the onboarding process, but this one change is too simplistic to really help remove any of the manual steps involved (as others have said).

I vote in favor of submitting a PR to mastodon allowing multiple questions on the signup form. We should not remove questions, that will remove the high quality standard of this community, but multiple questions on form would be a good middle ground. Until that PR comes, my vote is no.

Disagree with flipping the switch. Agree with eliminating friction!

Tech Working Group could propose an alternate way using a webhook with OpenCollective.

I am not really qualified to say much without understanding more about the issue. Having said it, my instinct is approvals are to be avoided if we can manage without it. it says 'See post above :)' Am I missing somethig? Is there a link to the reason or something?

I am strongly in favor of making it easier for people to find us and to join up. The current system regularly filters out good folks that I refer here.

I am concerned about comments on how the current "jump through our hoops" system ensures "high quality". This seems ableist and elitist, which is the exact opposite from what I want to see in a cooperative instance.

That said, the CWG needs to be more involved in sketching out a solution before moving forward, so I can't vote "yes" yet.

Flipping the switch as-is seems like a net negative, but with some small improvements to Mastodon this would be awesome!