I'm wondering because the rules says that sign up pages can't be tried out so they're not Show HN. Invite only can be tried out but only to a limited amount of people. In addition to that, we have a demo product in our site but being able to use it for your own is the invite only part.
Interesting idea to provide a discussion platform that prevents trolling and toxic discussion. What makes you different than other platforms like Disqus? They claim to be working on this:
How interesting. I'm developing a discussion system, and something that helps preventing trolling & toxic things = could be useful. So I hope you post to HN even if the try-it-out is invitation only.
Agreed with @ddtaylor that asking for forgiveness, is the good approach, from your point of view. From your point of view, if you post a Show HN and it gets deleted because there're some invite-only things — then that seems like harmless to me? I don't think you'll get banned or something like that. You can just try again a bit later, with a real demo? instead of invite-only.
You mentioned there's a demo already? Then to me sounds like enough for a Show HN?
Would you like to please email me when you post to HN? Email in my profile
Edit: Ok it's in your profile (I read in another comment). And it wasn't exactly what I thought it was. Anyway, if you have time, would still be interesting if you sent an email.
My advice would be ask for forgiveness instead of permission. While I don't exactly like it, I have seen links that were gated in various ways from paywalls to invite only. I don't have any sources on hand - who keeps a list of such things?
I did a Show HN when my product was in private beta, so I don’t see why you couldn’t. People post landing pages all the time, attempting to validate an idea.
https://blog.disqus.com/first-steps-to-curbing-toxicity
Looking forward to your response and hope the best for your product.