My friend asked me for an Indie Hackers invite today but I have 0 invites...
My friend sent me a message today asking for an IndieHackers invite today but the site says I have zero invites. Definitely don't like this new growth hack! Also, I tried to update my bio with an updated link to my latest project, but the site won't let me update my bio with new links until I earn so many points.
IndieHackers, if you see this post, please let me update my bio with links, and let me send my friend an invite. I know this must be a growth hack of some sort, but it's not a good one. Sure you got a post out of me, but it's a negative post. And my friend would have signed up for IndieHackers regardless of needing an invite. You're just preventing him from using your site. This was a terrible idea adding invites, points, and banning links. I'm just pissed off now and probably will not return unless I receive an apology. I have real work to do now, for a real company that pays me money, I can't waste any more time trying to earn points so my friend can join this stupid forum.
Angry (& Now Former) Podcast Subscriber,
I'm not sure a website should ever owe anyone an apology and this post makes you sound a little entitled. I always find it amusing when people need to announce their departure from a forum they barely contributed to. For those who remember, the website a few months ago was virtually unusable with the amount of spam being posted, and the invite process has changed that for the better and I've had some great interactions over the last few weeks.
Am fortunate enough to be awash with invites without many friends, so if anyone ever needs one drop me a DM.
I'm sorry you're upset, but I really appreciate the improvement in quality that's taken place here since the invite code system was implemented. There was far too much spam prior to that. I agree that it's not a perfect system but nothing is. So thank you Channing and everyone else involved in keeping this community going - you're doing a great job!
I found myself in a similar situation when I got asked for an invite code. I would neither choose such drastic words nor take such drastic measures, but I agree with you on the matter: the system is flawed.
In general, I think an invite-only system is unfair as it bars out those without any friends on the Internet. We've seen much less spam but we have certainly also missed out on dozens of interesting topics (and new Internet friends!), too. I've always felt that active moderation by real users is key to content quality and also key to a sense of community and belonging in a forum of this size.
If invites won't go away, I think it would be fair to reward regular readers equally to thread starters or commenters. I also think that a certain time of membership with /some/ activity should grant you some codes on a regular basis, maybe up to a certain threshold.
Having said that: I have a couple of invite codes to spare, DM me on Twitter if you still want to do your friend a favor.