because spammers and bad actors are motivated exclusively to get something by joining the community. they are willing to put in the work in anticipation of attention, traffic, sales, whatever. it is their job. they will also try over and over to figure out what they need to do and then exploit their method of entry when discovered.

on the other hand, a person who might have a more collaborative relationship with a community is considering both the benefits and the costs of joining. they are wondering if anyone will be interested in their contribution, and if they will get relationships, feedback, learning, good feelings, whatever.

If you need to solve several puzzles to gain entry, and you aren’t a puzzle solver kind of person, it is a very loud message: “we are not interested”. A person who is receptive to social cues will pick up on that and draw the inference that their time is better spent elsewhere. and being receptive to social cues is one of the qualities that makes a person a good participant.

Sounds like in your case, a person would be correct in that conclusion. All I can say is I think that is erroneous at the platform level. I think it’s good to have focused places to go that meet different needs and have various expectations set. and as a user you should spend your time where it suits. But there isn’t like a magic puzzle to determine how interesting a person is. Personally I find the nerd parts of reddit to be the most easily replaceable. Here we are, and on many other forums as well. But there are all kinds of little interest communities populated by people who can’t just spin up a server, who will not be so able to re-find each other and those were very cool and now they are gone. If reconstituted it will be on some walled garden proprietary service.