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

Just to follow up on my vote comment (which got restricted in length):

I think the starting point for this is a discussion with the community working group people. I mentioned on the call we tried this before, and it didn't work out.

And the relevant bit from the terms is:

Working groups are encouraged to make proposals among themselves to determine consensus and operate within their scope of responsibility, but only proposals passed by the full group may be considered binding for Social.coop. Any member may make a proposal to the full group, though it is encouraged to first discuss matters within the appropriate working group.

Hi! I don't understand what didn't work out here :)

I read that paragraph as being centered around "considered binding". Of course the tech working group couldn't vote at their scope and decide on this and have that decision be binding. But I don't see anything wrong with starting a proposal at a greater scope and have the discussion with the working group owning this (community) while we all vote and get information for steering the discussion in the process?

I respectfully posit that removing steps towards collaboration is usually a good idea at least by default, and in particular when one moves towards greater inclusiveness while doing so (as we presumably did in this case by putting it to a general vote) so I currently stand behind this "experiment" :)

Thanks for the initiative @Flancian! I think if we did this, we would end up pointing folks to a separate form anyway to collect information such as the OpenCollective profile. Unless Mastodon lets us customize the information collected during the sign-up flow, I'm not sure we'll gain much from switching to the native flow.

This is basically my question -- can you customize the fields of the sign up form to mirror the current sign-up? I have had friends interested in the instance that didn't join because they couldn't figure out the process and were turned off. If not, it seems like something relatively straightforward that we could implement in our fork (presuming we run on a fork?). It looks like there already is an `invite_request_fields` array in the `.haml` for account registrations: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/c3aef491d66aec743a3a53e934a494f653745b61/app/views/auth/registrations/new.html.haml#L31-L34 and https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/87a55e2cd67a2af754f5a80282635e789c255e72/app/views/about/_registration.html.haml#L19-L22

In either case I'm pro this proposal, making our registration flow as similar as possible to other instances is good for both entrance into our own instance as well as the broader health of other masto instances: in general, when possible, I think if mastodon doesn't support some feature that we need, like specific mod flow to approve accounts, special fields, etc. then we should work to PR those into mastodon itself rather than make side channels.

it's not possible to customize the fields (last time I looked anyway). we don't run a fork, we simplified the tech setup as much as possible, as it's been hard to keep tech motivation high enough to keep up with updates.

it would be super to have the multiple field approval thing, I think that would be well supported by social.coop people, the question is more who would do that, and in a way to make sure we can still manage to do updates (that's kind of the bare minimum needed to keep running properly).

as I mentioned in another comment, @Akshay had mentioned the idea to find/create an issue in upstream mastodon. and it's probably best started as a discussion there, rather than code first and hope they accept.

@Nick Sellen what would satisfy your urge to block? Should we arrange a meeting between working groups?

And it is true that final confirmation of a decision like this should happen at large, rather than in a working group.

Thank you @Nathan Schneider , @Nick Sellen for your feedback! I've changed the duration of this poll from an insufficient 3d to 12d (double the recommended minimum). Apologies for not following procedure -- I did think 3d seemed short but that was the default suggested by Loomio. I wonder if it can be changed? On a meta level I think it would be a good idea to reduce friction for new proposals, and setting better defaults for the group (if feasible) seems like good bang for the buck.

In any case, I want to clarify that I started this thread and the proposal to gather feedback and get a quick pulse of what the community thinks+feels; I don't know the established procedures and their history enough to say "what we're doing is wrong", they just seemed improvable at low cost so I thought I'd give it a shot :)

Finally, I've invited the wider community to vote -- this is not limited to the tech group, and I agree of course it shouldn't be.

@Nathan Schneider / @Flancian thanks for extending the time.

so my main point remains that the topic of registrations is in the scope of the community working group as they actually do they work there. it's easy to flick the switch in the interface to "approval required" registrations, but then it changes the work that is required for other people, so without consulting the people that do the work, or including considerations for how their work changes, I don't really see it as a proper democratic process, which is not only about voting, but discussing with those impacted, hence the block.

additionally we went down this path before, as I proposed exactly the same change when the "approval" feature was added. and the community working group tried it out, and found it made things much more difficult for them (unfortunately I can't find the notes/thread/etc where it was discussed).

on the topic itself, I totally see, and agree, that from the perspective of the new person signing up it's clunky to have to go and fill in the other form, and there are various niggles. a smoother process would be great and I'd love to see creative solutions for that! ... but we have to think about more than just the "consumer" side of things. @Akshay had a great idea to create an issue upstream, and see if a "multi field" registration form can be included in mastodon... maybe we can participate in that work.

if it is just intended to gather a quick pulse, there is no action to be taken from this vote outcome anyway? (so my block isn't technically blocking anything, but just an indication) or do I misunderstand?

I'll be honest: ideally when it comes to trying things I'd like "take a quick pulse" and "run experiment" to converge as much as possible :)

I think blocks are working like (as I understand them) they should work here: if somebody can't consent to this change if it passes, then it's perfectly fine for them to block and signal that. That raises a question (how to remove the block), and drives us all towards the right discussion. If at the end of the process blocks remain, that's fine by me; we surely will have learnt something?

But by all means I intend to flip the bit if it passes, so if it reaches the finish line without blocks (waiting of course optionally until any agreed upon conditions are met.)

See also: https://www.loomio.org/d/zoWFc7mR/relax-instance-registrations-to-approval-required-for-sign-up-from-current-nobody-can-sign-up-/32 :)

Hi all, I think it would be great to have an easier process but the one we have now serves several purposes: people have to have an account on Open Collective, they have to give a reason for joining (this helps us filter spam registrations), they are asked to tell us how they found us, and they have to agree to the Code of Conduct. If the person on call on the CWG ops team feels that there is not enough info, or something odd about the registration, they can email the person asking for more info. When a registration is approved, we send an email with additional info (about Loomio, about Meet.Coop) and our names and usernames on the instance.

The ideal process would enable a person to sign up via Mastodon, with an editable form so we could ask the questions we want to ask, and then, dream of dreams, have a shared sign-on for Mastodon, Loomio, Open Collective, and Matrix/element.