That would also be a reasonable approach, sure. Maybe it'd be better. But our approach hasn't caused any problems as far as I'm aware, I've never seen anyone say that we didn't have the pronouns they wanted, and I'm confident that if they did the mods would add the option for them, like what happened with doe/deer. We were just concerned about opening up an avenue of misuse, and it's very rare that someone uses pronouns not on the list so it's easy for the mods to accommodate when it happens.

:::spoiler Here's the list fyi

none/use name
any
comrade/them
des/pair
doe/deer
e/em/eir
ey/em
fae/faer
he/him
hy/hym
it/its
love/loves
she/her
they/them
undecided
xe/xem
xey/xem
ze/hir

at the time the decision was made, the site hadn't yet taken a zero tolerance policy about transphobia - this was 3 years ago. so we weren't sure the bans would actually happen. a few months later, the fact that pronoun tags were mandatory got relitigated so often that trans users started leaving, including one of the admins of the site. they convinced her to stay and had a come to jesus moment and they immediately took a hardline stance against bigotry. the decision not to put in an open field was never relitigated because it was such a tumultuous time for the community - for the longest time, no one wanted to reopen those wounds.

I should also say that since then hexbear has become the most trans-supportive space, that's not exclusively for trans people, that I've ever been in. and the fact that pronoun tags makes every reactionary froth at the mouth has been a boon for making sure reactionaries can't hide amongst the userbase for very long before they out themselves involuntarily.