Sorry, Ber, it wasn't meant to be impertinent (and of course I know you didn't mean to just let them in, but put up an invite-thread).
It's what pips said:
...Which wouldn't be fair on the people who haven't registered, IMO. I've been writing to people and trying to keep them informed, and they know about the Invite process, which is why they haven't signed up.
Some people are just naturally bold, they hear of this board somehow and go looking for it on google - you're right, it certainly isn't the centre of the internet, in order to find it at all, you need a certain energy to begin with.
It's not very likely that someone finds this board by accident, looks at the memberlist, which is all they can see, thinks 'cool, I want to be a member here' and registers, because that's the normal procedure on other boards.
So, this normal way of getting on a messageboard doesn't apply here at the moment, IMO. The normal way to get here would be through hearing of it from someone, in which case the normal procedure would be what pips described, and therefore, for my idea of fairness, the people who should get preference, if anyone gets preference at all, are the ones who have the patience to wait for the regular process to ask them in.
I'm sorry I can't explain that any better. I just think that if we let more people in right now it's not fair to prefer those who are just bolder than others.