That might work.Sure it will probably make the site hotter, but as long as potential users are evaluated, it probably won't hurt the quality of the site.
If we shut the door to new registrations, we definitely shouldn't make an invite only available from a member. I'm sure I would have had trouble getting an invite that way.
What might work is deciding on a growth rate that can be handled by the site and the community, and then limiting the number of sign-ups each month, or even day. We could just use a list of email addresses for new users and send out X number of invitations a day.
And we could also do more discourage those wacky comments. We could have new users do a short test, something trivial that requires them to have actually read the user guidelines. Maybe a multiple choice quiz where they have to distinguish between a trollish comment and an acceptable comment. Also we could start them out with a probationary account with stricter rules. Maybe if their account is newer than 5 days, and they have less than -8 karma, they get banned, or forced to read the site guidelines again before they posted more comments.
Though if the site does implement anything like an invite system it's going to be hard. Some people are going to accuse the site of being elitist. So it would have to be communicated that any rules are solely for all comments civil and professional, not because we are trying to exclude anyone. Hey, I like some of the pun threads on reddit, and trolls on yahoo answers, but I think this site would get ruined if even a few trollish comments were allowed.
If we shut the door to new registrations, we definitely shouldn't make an invite only available from a member. I'm sure I would have had trouble getting an invite that way.
What might work is deciding on a growth rate that can be handled by the site and the community, and then limiting the number of sign-ups each month, or even day. We could just use a list of email addresses for new users and send out X number of invitations a day.
And we could also do more discourage those wacky comments. We could have new users do a short test, something trivial that requires them to have actually read the user guidelines. Maybe a multiple choice quiz where they have to distinguish between a trollish comment and an acceptable comment. Also we could start them out with a probationary account with stricter rules. Maybe if their account is newer than 5 days, and they have less than -8 karma, they get banned, or forced to read the site guidelines again before they posted more comments.
Though if the site does implement anything like an invite system it's going to be hard. Some people are going to accuse the site of being elitist. So it would have to be communicated that any rules are solely for all comments civil and professional, not because we are trying to exclude anyone. Hey, I like some of the pun threads on reddit, and trolls on yahoo answers, but I think this site would get ruined if even a few trollish comments were allowed.