Mastodon: UI: Improve the onboarding experience when account approvals are active

[joyeusenoelle]

As a moderator on mastodon.social, I notice occasionally that people sign up for an account, don't get approved right away, and then sign up for a second account thinking that they've done something wrong. This indicates an area for improvement.

I've reviewed the current onboarding process, and I recommend changes like the following:

Add explanatory text to /about

Indicate explicitly on the /about page that one of the moderators of the instance must approve all account requests, beyond "Request an Invite". The process should be clear to all potential users.

Change the button text on /about

When account approval is needed, change the button text from "Request an Invite" to "Request an Account" or "Request Approval". This makes it clear that they are reaching out to the site owner, and not asking the site owner to reach out to them.

Change the request endpoint

Whether or not accounts must be approved, clicking the "Request"/"Create an account" button should not redirect to /auth/sign_in - because even if account approval is turned off, they still can't sign in yet. (They still need to confirm their email address, and that process also takes them to /auth/sign_in.) Instead, this should be a new endpoint explaining the rest of the process: "Please confirm your email address by clicking on the link we just sent you. Once you've done so, our moderators will be notified and will review your account for approval. You will be notified if your account is approved." or something similar.

Change the confirmation endpoint

If account approval is turned on, the link in the confirmation email shouldn't go to /auth/sign_in either. It should go to a third endpoint, which says something like "You have successfully confirmed your email address. Our moderators will review your account for approval. You will be notified if your account is approved." - without the sign-in form, so that users don't get the impression that they can sign in right away. The approval email should then link, finally, to /auth/sign_in.

This all speaks to the current approval system

@trwnh has suggested substantial changes to the system at #10590, which change the way onboarding works in general. Please coordinate any development that happens on this issue with development happening on that issue so that nobody is working at cross-purposes.

[joyeusenoelle]

An additional thought I had while reviewing accounts: it would be nice, as a moderator, to be able (but not required) to tell someone why I'm rejecting their application.

For instance, many people come from Tumblr, where NSFW content is being purged, and just see that their friends are going "to Mastodon" and sign up on the flagship instance, assuming that's the only instance. I'd like to be able to tell them that mastodon.social isn't an appropriate venue for their porn posting, but that there are multiple other instances where such posting is not only allowed but encouraged.

Ideally, this would have both a textarea for custom text and configurable pre-defined messages, like the current warn/silence/suspend page has.

[N07070]

Hello,

As a moderator myself, I fully support the propositions made by @joyeusenoelle .

One thing we could do too, is let users who haven't been approved read the timeline, maybe for a limited time. It might cause problems with bots who do data-mining.

Let the user enter the account, but don't give them posting powers until there account has been approved ?

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.