In the last few weeks the staff team has been very strained and given the speed at which we have been required to move to respond to issues and also accommodate for the huge returning vendor base which requires pretty strict verification procedures, we are short enough on time and hands already. Following a burst of activity from Coachella and several other known trolls, my decision to close registration was not taken lightly but it had to be done in order to maintain a forum which was not laced with trolls, spam and misinformation whilst we dealt with accruing issues. The invitation system was implemented by request of users - it was the user base who ultimately called for the system to allow more users to join at a controlled rate and I have done what I can to widely distribute invites and we have not yet seen the return of the residential troll so the tactic so far has been effective since it limits the potential for damage and distraction. Some of the above is true - moderators cannot see the invitation links but users and myself can, and it is certainly true this could be used to profile users by creating a web of people. However, there is no requirement to invite people and if you are not comfortable doing so you only need to not hand out invites - the tradeoff for OPSEC versus bringing whomever to the forum is therefore passed onto the user, I am not enforcing poor decisions on you just as how a user chooses to use PGP or not as I have said repeatedly there are a lot of invite codes posted on my Twitter which you can direct people to and indeed many people have taken advantage of this already. The invite system is a temporary measure, but it will remain in place until we are properly up and running the site so we can focus more on those developments and the moderators processing users than have to clean up after a very persistent and annoying troll. When free time becomes more readily available, we will look at what options we have, but until then our only alternative is to close registration entirely which is a situation I personally feel is not beneficial to anything whereas the invitation system is a go-between for now. However, to address the very question in the topic thread - the invitation system does not harm anonymity in itself. The only way in which it can harm it is if you as a user fail to take proper measures to protect it, so for example you use the same forum name to order on the market in plaintext for both the inviting user and the invitee. In this environment, we are all anonymous and I cannot stop people not being responsible for themselves to stay safe and so even if this system is in place there is no reason it should compromise anonymity unless you have already done so yourself and that is the distinction I make between the potential harm versus the benefit in the circumstances we are in right now. How we move forward is still open for debate, but this culture of criticizing the system no matter what the state has to end, we need to actually hear some plans being put forth which are not the typical followings (ie close registration, open registration) since we have tried that and have come under even more criticism than the current state. So until a better idea is put forth where we can see greater support and realistic pros and cons which are in the interest of the circumstances, we will have to stick with the invite system which remains optional should you personally wish to make that tradeoff. This is going to draw criticism yes, but I ask you to consider the alternatives and appreciate the situation we now face.