Here's my uninformed opinion. Please dismiss it for lack of competency.
I'm wondering how many of the people waiting to get into this board are like me. That is, I'm happy to accept whatever rule system b77ers want, really. I'm here because you guys are. I trust you all not to do anything outrageous, and so I feel that people who do have a strong preference for how the board is run should have their less diluted voices heard. If the others are like me, then will it really cause a problem with the constitution process to let them in? And here's why I think they are: because it's those who were the most affected by the TORC blowup who seem to be the most invested in creating a system in which that can't happen.. As far as I understand it, all of those people are already b77ers, and some were b77ers as far back as October.
My point is, even if some people do want to be very involved in structuring, I have to express skepticism that most will. Thus, I don't think allowing them in will throw the structuring process off significantly.
Since I was one of the last invitees in before the moratorium, let me give you my timeline:
c. March 1: read fandom_wank, found out about the TORC blowup, made it to board77.com, freaked out when I saw who had been banned, and immediately started sending out random emails to people asking for information. Spent the night reading TORC trying to figure out what happened. Sent email to b77 admins asking in, sent email to b77ers asking in.
TORC had about as much meaning over the following days as a graveyard would have to one looking to interact with the living. By which I mean, the living, and the explanations, and the uncensored speech were over at b77, something I couldn't see. Emails from my b77er friends contained talk of invites, ten day waiting periods, polls, constitutions, petitions...all these things that...c'mon, I was just a TORCer. It was a little bit above my head, I was grieving for the "board that was" in my own way (by which I mean, refreshing gmail constantly waiting for replies from TORCers) - and all I wanted to do was to get to this b77 place so it could substitute for the TORC that...mutated...when I wasn't even there to see it happen. It's a different kind of shock, sadness, nostalgia, whatever, than what the people who were there when it happened probably experienced, but it's still there nonetheless.
March 13 (I think): allowed in. Longest twelve days or so of my online life. (yes, there have been far more pressing things in RL
)
If there are any others out there like me, my vote is to let them in. I don't know who they are, I'm not thinking of anyone specific, but if they want to be here with their friends, based on my own experience, I'd want to let them come.
Thanks for indulging my uneducated mini-ramble.
- TP