Not an application.

[swestrup]

I just joined the community, and now I'm un-joining. I would have posted this as a comment to the requested page, but its protected. *rolls eyes*

Simply put, I've been in a long-term loving relationship with my wife for almost ten years now, and I thought joining a community like this to talk to similar folks might be fun. But, I have a strong dislike for elitist groups that require an application form. That was the first strike against you. I joined on a friends recommendation and then found the need for the application or else I would be banned. That seemed excessive, especially as there was no good reason given. That's two strikes. Finally, the application requested that I actively promote the group. WTF?

Spam is the thing I hate most of all, and promoting this group would be just that. I don't know ANYTHING about it, since the vast majority of it is locked. How can I promote it honestly? I can't, obviously. For all I know at this point, the group is crap. That's three strikes all by itself.

At this point, even if I were to fill in an application and 'pass' whatever strange approval process you have, I would not want to be a member of a community that thinks that behaving like this is normal. I'm only posting this because I think its fair for the group to know WHY they've lost me and probably a number of other silent folks as wel. If you've had trouble getting members, there may well be a reason for that!

Comments

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Did you post this to the wrong spot?

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

Perhaps he posted it where he *could* post it after he was prevented from posting it to the proper place, leaving us LJers wo wonder what the proper place should have been. Perhaps swestrup will tell us what community he's talking about, or maybe it's too private. I leave it up to him. From his description, the community seems very defensive. They may have good reason, but they evidently haven't seen fit to tell it even ti potential members.

[swestrup]

Actually, I attempted to post it to long_term_love, but it ended up here. Probably because its a moderated site that doesn't give you permission to post until you've written an application. They never say WHERE to post said application though, and it seems that trying to post to the group itself doesn't work.

Ah well.

[angorian.livejournal.com]

The community appears to have several applications publicly posted. Not that you can tell much about it from what's there, but my sense is that's very into the "more special than thou" mindset. I wonder if the application was meant to be more of an introduction, but if so, they've sure presented it poorly.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you not know how to post to a community instead of your own journal? When you make an entry, at the bottom it asks you where you want to post to - communities you belong to are listed there.

[swestrup]

Actually, yes, I do. I'm a member of at least a dozen of them. Of course, a moderator has to give permission for me to post in a closed group, and one hadn't. The profile implied that I wouldn't be granted permission until I had 'applied' although nowhere does it say how they expect you to do that in a closed group.

So, it got posted here first as my LJ client defaults to this journal when a group is closed.

Oh, and I notice how brave you are to post this anonymously. I didn't bother to conceal my identity at any point, nor to even friendslock this post.