Chouse Approved-Members-Only Access — Step 1: Solution Assessment

Problem

Chouse should be a private approved-members site: unapproved visitors may reach only a lobby explaining the approval process, while approved users may use the complete site.

Option A — Centralized site-wide access gate with an unapproved lobby

Resolve the current viewer identity and approval state once for each request; allow only the lobby, the account page, and the authenticated user’s own linked profile to unapproved users. Route every other page, feed, API, backup, and content document through the gate.

• Pros:

  • One simple policy replaces resident labels, resident topics, and special topic filtering.

  • Easy to explain and test: approved or lobby.

  • Reuses the existing approved-user model and approval directory flow.

  • Future private-site features inherit the same boundary automatically.

• Cons:

  • Every public route and static-artifact path must be audited.

  • Authentication must prove key possession; an identity hint alone is not sufficient for a production privacy boundary.

Option B — Gate only the main board and leave supporting routes public

Protect the home/board route while retaining public access to profiles, threads, APIs, RSS, tags, and informational pages.

• Pros:

  • Smaller initial code change.

• Cons:

  • Violates the “only the lobby” requirement.

  • Leaks content through alternate URLs, feeds, APIs, or static artifacts.

  • Creates an inconsistent and difficult-to-maintain privacy model.

Recommendation

Option A. Make approval the sole membership boundary and add one dedicated, site-independent feature flag for the access policy. Permit only the lobby, key/account setup, login/authentication, and the minimum approval-related flows before approval. Return 404 for protected content to avoid revealing its existence. Disable public backups independently.

Confirmed access matrix

• No resident labels or resident-specific topic views.

• No #resident access semantics.

• Lobby users can access only:

  • the Lobby page;

  • the Account page; and

  • their own profile linked from Account.

• Lobby users cannot access public backups, other profiles, threads, posts, feeds, APIs, tags, activity, tools, or instance pages.

• Approved users can access the entire site.