Add description of how we vet requests to join obo-discuss

[nlharris]

as described by James in #2112. I changed the 'I' to 'we', but it would be better if we replaced 'we' with the name of the role of the person who does the steps described (who apparently is currently James).

fixes #2112

[jamesaoverton]

Yes, this is exactly the current process, and this PR is fine to merge as it is.

As I was reviewing, I had more thoughts...

When someone includes a reason that they want to join, I approve them right away, but 80% do not. So I just added this text to the description of the Google Group:

Everyone is welcome to join, but to avoid spam we check new member requests. When signing up for this list, please tell us why you want to join, so we can tell that you're not a bot.

I haven't heard any complaints about the existing process, but it's annoying for several reasons. Let me just write them down for the record:

• people don't like waiting for approval
• I'm never sure if people get my confirmation requests
• I don't like checking the pending list, sometimes I forget for a few days, I don't check on weekends or vacation
• I think I'm the only one who does this job
• as admins we don't have a way to coordinate who we've sent follow-up emails, so it's hard to share the job

Instead of checking new members before they join, we could allow anyone to join and then moderate. That sounds like even more of a pain, and higher risk. So I think we're left with the status quo.

I guess my small suggestions are:

1. set up a private Google Sheet to track new member requests and add it to the SOP
2. get more people to do this job, which would hopefully minimize how long it takes to approve a new member

What do you think @nlharris ?

[sebastianduesing]

@jamesaoverton I'll volunteer to be another person doing that job—I don't currently have many responsibilities within OBO Ops, so I'm happy to step up for this.

[nlharris]

I guess my small suggestions are:

• set up a private Google Sheet to track new member requests and add it to the SOP
• get more people to do this job, which would hopefully minimize how long it takes to approve a new member

Sounds good to me! Thanks for your work on this, and thank you, @sebastianduesing for volunteering to help!

[nlharris]

When signing up for this list, please tell us why you want to join, so we can tell that you're not a bot.

Is there a way to add this text to the 'reason' field of the application form?

[nlharris]

btw, re

get more people to do this job,

It would be good if we had a way to refer to 'this job' in the documentation. I don't think it would be ideal to put individual names in the SOP. Can we call it "obo-discuss moderator"?

[nlharris]

I guess we decided to go ahead and merge this and maybe make future improvements (e.g. my suggestion above to name 'this job')?

[jamesaoverton]

Yes.

I did not see a way to add any other message to users about the 'reason' field.

[nlharris]

Me on 2025-06-11: I guess we decided to go ahead and merge this and maybe make future improvements (e.g. my suggestion above to name 'this job')?
@jamesaoverton on 2025-06-12: Yes.