Invite generation policy for durare.org
Badri Sunderarajan
Public
Seen by 8
From what I can gather from the thread about invite processing, we are asking people to manually request accounts on the Durare website and then sending them an invite link.
When onboarding new people IRL, it's helpful to be able to generate an invite link for them and get them signed up right away. Since the main reason for requiring invites is to prevent spam, this should be fine except for the following:
People should not share unlimited-use signup links publicly, as this will defeat the purpose of requiring invites
There is the risk of someone gaining invite access, and then abusing the system by generating links and using them to invite bots.
Due to this, I have a question and a suggestion:
Do all Durare users currently have access to generate invite links, or is it only admins?
Regardless of the above, can we provide access to trusted community members (whether using Durare or not) to generate invite links? For example, Thejesh in the FSCI group chat is using his own domain but it would be useful for him to be able to generate Durare links to onboard new contacts.
Depending on the answer to (1) I can make a proposal for (2) and we can decide on criteria to give people invite access—this could be fixed criteria or more informal like "if we trust them"; we can discuss that as well.
Poll Created Mon 20 Oct 2025 6:51AM
Allow trusted non-Durare users to generate durare.org invites You have until Mon 3 Nov 2025 6:00AM to participate.
What is the decision you need to make?
Currently, all Durare users can generate invites to get users onto the network. I am proposing that we allow specific users of others servers to also generate Durare invites.
This permission can be given on a case-by-case basis on request. We would normally give it to trusted community members who are actively working to encourage XMPP usage.
Why is this important?
There would be people who have accounts on other servers, but, for whatever reason, still want to get their contacts onto Durare. For example:
their server may have a longer signup process or be currently closed for registration
they may be using a personal server where they only want to host close friends and family, but want an alternate option to onboard other people
their server admins might be relatively unresponsive due to which they would prefer Durare whose admins are more available to quickly troubleshoot issues
perhaps they are Durare volunteers but using a non-Durare host as their primary one (like me!)
Since we have disabled open signups to prevent spam, invites are the quickest way to onboard new people onto Durare.
What are you asking people to do?
State whether you are okay allowing select non-Durare users to generate Durare account invites. You can also give suggestions for criteria/restrictions for which people are allowed and what kind of invites to allow.
For this proposal to pass, we need the majority of members to vote Agree.
If you Disagree, say why and what needs to change for you to Agree.
Current results
| Current results | Option | Votes | % of votes cast | % of eligible voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 3 | 100 | 5 |
|
| Abstain | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Block | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 55 | 0 | 95 |
|
3 of 58 votes cast (5% participation)
Badri Sunderarajan
Mon 20 Oct 2025 6:51AM
I use Disroot as my primary XMPP server. However, Disroot has a longer signup process, and users may also get overwhelmed by all the other offerings there. Especially when meeting people IRL, I find it much more effective to get people onto Durare, so we are at least connected and can discuss other things (including the benefits of Disroot 😉) over text.
Also, when my friends forget their passwords it is easier for me to reset things for them myself rather than wait for the other server (as an example, the jabber.at SMTP server seems to be down, so one person was unable to reset their password when switching to a new Monal device; I eventually sent a Durare invite instead so I can troubleshoot password resets next time)
I have quite a few friends who joined other servers before durare.org existed, but for whom Durare would be a better option to invite new people to.
I am already de facto able to generate invites because I'm one of the admins (and also have server access), but this way we can provide options to people not in my exact situation as well 😜
As another example, Thejesh in the FSCI room was looking for XMPP server options to onboard other users (without involving his personal server which is for closer friends and family). If he has access to generate invites, then Durare will be one good option for him.
Buster Keaton
Mon 20 Oct 2025 6:51AM
I am happy to share access to users of other domains to generate invites. At present, I can only think of trusting people who are either familiar or active and contributing to FOSS community.
Pirate Praveen
Mon 20 Oct 2025 6:51AM
I'd like even go further and have open registration with email / sms otp verification. We just want to prevent spam sign ups.
Badri Sunderarajan Mon 20 Oct 2025 10:34AM
@Pirate Praveen sounds like a close fit for the XEP-0389 grant we were planning for Prāv 😃
Badri Sunderarajan · Mon 20 Oct 2025 6:33AM
@Buster Keaton clarified on the group chat that currently all Durare users can generate an invite. So I guess we can leave it that way unless it becomes a problem.