Hmmm. My first instinct is the FB is such a cesspool right now that inviting an unknown element seems unwise. A few questions might beat the bots, but not necessarily the trolls. Bar the door!

It seems that the Group is such an auxiliary space for this board, I don't even know why someone would want to join if they didn't know us.

I'm with sj. Secret. It seems weird to accept people when they can't register here.

I'm with sj. Secret. It seems weird to accept people when they can't register here.

Agreed.

Yeah, it's backwards.

New people coming through FB does not seem right to me.

For the time being I changed it to Secret with the assumption that the change will keep FB from suggesting people join.

I still think the subject of new members is one to be discussed. Some of the pending requests look like people with shared interests.

It has been quite a long time since the new user function has worked here.

I didn't realize new users couldn't sign up here.

I agree with changing the FB to secret, at least for now. It does seem backward for someone to sign up there not having checked us out here first.

I agree with going Secret for now as a least-possible-damage quick fix until we've had a chance to discuss.

I also prefer Secret for the long term, because (a) the facebook group is an auxiliary to the board and not a general-purpose Buffy discussion group, and I can easily imagine a future where a ton of people come in that way and the fb _loses_ the usefulness it currently has for "is the board down" and "hey, if you haven't checked in for a while, please check Beep Me", and (b) facebook is a motherfucking cesspool of toxicity and actual evil, perhaps even a hellmouth, so I'd rather not see it become a primary discussion place with a whole different but overlapping crew of people (however lovely they may be).

Note that the latter is totally a just my opinion thing.

If FB is just an annex of the main board, I'm good with Secret.