Last thing anyone wants is one more set of suggestions... but I can't help myself. Really... I can't!
Open up coop with instructions like this:
"Everyone interested in signing up for this coop should respond to this thread with the number of units you want. (Or use the store, however it is done...) The Coop registration
will close in one week. There is no doubt that interest may exceed the ability to answer all requests. To provide fairness, selection will be based on the first letter of your user name. Randomly letters of the alphabet will be generated... and until all slots are filled, users will be drawn from the list based on their user name.
For example: when registration closes, the letters R-U-J-H-B-F-Z-I-L- .... are drawn. Users starting with 'R' (Rog, richola, ripsnortin, ...) are selected. Then users with 'U' (umberto, umbrellahead, ...) Until all slots are filled."
...this is just a way for people to feel that there is some fairness.
There is another benefit. When we fill up a coop we don't really get an idea of how many people were interested and didn't even get their names added. Keeping the registration open for a week might tell you that there is a desire by 307 users to have 1456 units. If you only satisfy 300 of those units, you know that there is pent up demand for another 1156 that could be acted up by another coop manager.
I'm not even going to value my suggestion at '2 cents'. Let's call it 1.32 cents.