I saw that this instance had a large number of users so I thought “more users->more content->more fun”. Apparently, I had to prove my value by answering 3 questions that showed my interest in their community and my value as a potential future member.

What could possibly be my value to a general purpose instance besides money? I’m a software/cloud engineer so I guess there are things I could help with, but my guess is they were expecting me to say “I can donate”.

I get it, they need donations to exist, but this upfront? And to a community I don’t even know? Maybe I’m imagining things and they were looking for something else?

Do all instances rely on donations? I’d like to contribute to the instances I enjoy at some point. But only if I feel at home with them, not as a prerequisite to join.

  • Karlos_Cantana
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    1 year ago

    I believe they want to limit troll and bot accounts. I know that if I were hosting a community I would want to vet the members so that I didn’t have to spend all my time dealing with compliants and having to delete comments and ban people.

    • ElephantInTheRoom@vlemmy.net
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      1 year ago

      This.

      It’s like that with many instances. They ask you to fill out a form, answer questions or something similar to make sure you’re not some spam-bot. That’s it.

      • ElephantInTheRoom@vlemmy.net
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        1 year ago

        Better a weak filter than none at all, I guess. They’re not some multi-billion dollar corporation with the means to assign a lot of funds for spam mitigation.