Hello @zulip/server-settings members, this issue was labeled with the "area: settings UI" label, so you may want to check it out!

Hmm, we need to be thoughtful, because one could be trying to use a limited set of enabled authentication backends (E.g. SAML auth with some system) that limits the ability of folks to create accounts, but I'm not sure I see a non-brittle way one could setup authentication such that this would be useful.

I suppose if the URL for your Zulip server is secret, there could maybe be a use case for the option?

limited set of enabled authentication backends (E.g. SAML auth with some system) that limits the ability of folks to create accounts

Good point!

I suppose if the URL for your Zulip server is secret, there could maybe be a use case for the option?

If you invite a user they get the URL in the email, so I think they could still find the sign up page.

@Gittenburg just curious, Am I missing something?

I guess we shouldn't completely remove the guest option because that effectively renders the guests feature useless. We should only remove it if sign up is unrestricted, i.e. no invitations are required to sign up and sign up is not restricted to specific email domains. If we should also account for restricting to certain auth backends, depends on if such a restriction can be set up reliably (which I don't know, @timabbott suggested it might not be currently possible).

So, should I close my PR?

I think it is only lacking a more elaborate if condition (the template should just check a boolean like guests_enabled that is set in zerver.views.home.home_real). The difficulty is mainly in working out when we want to enable / disable guest invites, for example:

• realm.invite_required -> guests_enabled = True
• zproject.backends.any_social_backend_enabled -> guests_enabled = False

I think it is only lacking a more elaborate if condition (the template should just check a boolean like guests_enabled that is set in zerver.views.home.home_real). The difficulty is mainly in working out when we want to enable / disable guest invites, for example:

• realm.invite_required -> guests_enabled = True
• zproject.backends.any_social_backend_enabled -> guests_enabled = False

I see, well I haven't really checked out zulip's backend, This should be a good opportunity to tinker around :)

ok, I think I am confused now, as to what are we trying to achieve here, I thought we were ok with completely removing the guest option? Or at least let's keep it for non-members(Org admins, owners) but then that wouldn't make sense, Moreover u said that users can still sign up as guests through the sign-up page, so we are technically not removing the option overall?

Through the sign-up page you sign up as a full user (not as a guest). So offering the guest option doesn't make sense when anybody can just get a full account by signing up for a new account.

I see, so if we have to remove it overall, This should require a discussion at length with others, right?