you're welcome! although i can't claim that the required new user application was my idea. early in the lemmy days everyone had open registrations and we used to get trolls that would register many accounts (it's rate limited now), and would post weird nazi-ish troll images, or a bunch of scat images, etc. the trolls also seemed to enjoy impersonating the two main devs as well, and it just got annoying so most instances decided to implement the registration applications, and i just followed along, and have kept it ever since.

and there's now some drama with two of the bigger instances with open registration too. sighs

anways, i think i've said it before but will review the whole registration application thing at some point. i know it's an annoying barrier, and we could probably have more users if it wasn't on, but i like to think that the user/content quality is higher because of it. at least that's what i'm telling myself!

Right here with you and yes I am enjoying the small community as I know I am dealing with actual people instead of trying to figure out if something is automated or not.

Loving how fast this is.

Just watch out for ChatGPT responses from bad actors.

I still agree with having a little about yourself blurb, it just steps a nice tone in my mind for what this community is about. That plus the introductions thread just let's people start feeling a community spirit and remember there's a real person behind that username.

I'm enjoying the small community conversations, the fact that the board game community I made less than a week ago only has started to grow is great, but moreso the fact that people are sparking interesting conversations from it is what validates this.

As long as there's enough people to review to keep up with demand, it seems like a good way to ensure human beings are signing up. Though we should keep in mind the 90-9-1 rule of the internet

I 100% agree. I don't know how sustainable it will be if/when this instance grows, but I enjoyed the approval process. Deffo should limit bot accounts, and I too feel more comfortable here. The .world and .ml instances seemed a bit to hectic for my tastes.