Hello there.
I’m very new here, and new to sysadmin and all back end stuff in general.
I’m basically here because i’m trying to create a Forum, centered around the theme of building a “Solidarity Economy” &/or a “co-operative economy”, here in my local city.
FYI: these alternative economies generally have to do with local mutual aid organizing efforts, establishing democratically managed/owned organizations & businesses etc(aka: co-ops, worker cooperatives, land trusts, etc), and convincing established top down hierarchical organizations, to restructure themselves to be more participatory, as well as more accountable to and representative of the people they effect.
these generally run on participatory democratic strategies, like “Sociocracy”, that are still developing, and tools Like “Loomio” that expand such collaborative decision making processes into asynchronous digital spaces.
they often also use techniques like those in “Art of Hosting” to foster community consciousness at larger scales, for larger in person group formats.
I am basically trying to create a forum for people who are interested in discussing and getting involved in such things, here in our city specifically..
I want it to be public to some degree, because everybody should have access to the tools, and resources we’d be collecting and building there, as well as an entry point to getting involved in organizing efforts in their neighborhoods.
My concern is outsiders, AI agents, and bad actors that may try to access the forums.
Most social organizing efforts in our city use Facebook, or other standard social media, and those platforms have become utterly nightmarish and corrupt.
So my questions are as follows..
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Does anybody have any ideas on what pre-existing Discourse features could be used to ensure that only real, local humans, have the option to join?
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How could a forum be structured so that neighbors from a particular region can connect and talk about local issues, run polls etc, without non neighbors being involved?
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Could community organizations &/or groups, be given a private or read-only(for outsiders) subsection within a forum?
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Does Discourse have any features that could be used by either users or mods, to send a specific invite code, that would both allow a person to sign up, and also track who initially allowed that person to sign up?
I realize that what i’m asking for might just not be possible with Discourse as it currently exists.
Regardless, thank you for your time in reading and considering. 
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