There are two ways that servers on here can accept new members:
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Just going by recent experience, all of the recent spam/scam attacks were on servers with instant sign-ups. When servers switched to screened sign-ups, the spammers avoided signing up there.
That seems to be the number one reason why so many servers currently use this feature, it seems to work in the real world.
@FediTips @tokyo_0 @TroikaFox
Hey thanks for asking these questions and gathering feedback. I'd just like to humbly try and make sure we're not operating on a bad assumption here -When servers added moderated signups, the spammers stopped signing up on those servers - that is clear. However, if ALL servers moderated signups, would the spammers give up? Or would they adapt to the moderated signups (say, with an AI LLM) and continue spamming?
It is possible that they only stopped signing up on servers that added signup moderation because other open-signup servers were easily available. If that were no longer true, and if the spammers adapted and continued to sign up, then requiring moderated signups adds a barrier only for non-spammers, which seems counterproductive.
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@FediTips @tokyo_0 @TroikaFox
Hey thanks for asking these questions and gathering feedback. I'd just like to humbly try and make sure we're not operating on a bad assumption here -When servers added moderated signups, the spammers stopped signing up on those servers - that is clear. However, if ALL servers moderated signups, would the spammers give up? Or would they adapt to the moderated signups (say, with an AI LLM) and continue spamming?
It is possible that they only stopped signing up on servers that added signup moderation because other open-signup servers were easily available. If that were no longer true, and if the spammers adapted and continued to sign up, then requiring moderated signups adds a barrier only for non-spammers, which seems counterproductive.
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Okay, thank you so much for that!
So a customised question that made those points clear would make joining easier?
About the waiting time, is the main problem the actual time itself or not knowing how long it was? For example if it said "Most applications approved within 24 hours" would that help?
@FediTips Being told up front what the purpose was and what is expected would make it much less daunting. I personally would really like to see a automatically calculated number, say "Mean approval time in last week = X hours" or something, because you would really know what to expect, but having some idea would be an improvement.
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@FediTips @tokyo_0 @TroikaFox
Hey thanks for asking these questions and gathering feedback. I'd just like to humbly try and make sure we're not operating on a bad assumption here -When servers added moderated signups, the spammers stopped signing up on those servers - that is clear. However, if ALL servers moderated signups, would the spammers give up? Or would they adapt to the moderated signups (say, with an AI LLM) and continue spamming?
It is possible that they only stopped signing up on servers that added signup moderation because other open-signup servers were easily available. If that were no longer true, and if the spammers adapted and continued to sign up, then requiring moderated signups adds a barrier only for non-spammers, which seems counterproductive.
"Or would they adapt to the moderated signups (say, with an AI LLM) and continue spamming?"
We don't know, but so far they haven't. Manual approval is seen as effective because it currently is.
Also, apart from the spam, there has also been the problem of people signing up with hateful racist usernames etc, which was prevented on servers that require manual approval but hasn't been caught by servers with instant sign-ups.
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@FediTips Being told up front what the purpose was and what is expected would make it much less daunting. I personally would really like to see a automatically calculated number, say "Mean approval time in last week = X hours" or something, because you would really know what to expect, but having some idea would be an improvement.
Really great suggestion
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I think we are talking at cross purposes here?
The idea of this thread wasn't about the general topic of fighting spammers, I'm mainly asking how to make moderated signups less daunting.
Moderated signups aren't just about spam, there are also things like the hateful usernames which appeared recently. There is no way to circumvent this with AI, a hateful username will be immediately obvious to a moderator and can't be changed later.
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There are two ways that servers on here can accept new members:
-Sign-ups where you join instantly
-Sign-ups where the server moderator has to manually approve your membership
Approval sign-ups make moderation much more effective, but some people seem to find them more difficult.
If you are someone who finds approval sign-ups more difficult, could you explain the main thing putting you off?
(By the way, this isn't meant to be judgmental, just want to find out what the main barriers are!
)I don't like feeling like it's a gated community.
It gives me gross.
I completely understand kicking out spambots and bad actors, but I want to be able to look around and explore right away. Not wait and see if I get approved without any idea of how long it might take.
On the internet, even a day is too long and I'll go find something else.
There have been a number of platforms in the past where you couldn't join without an invite. No thanks. Exclusive clubs are not my jam.
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I don't like feeling like it's a gated community.
It gives me gross.
I completely understand kicking out spambots and bad actors, but I want to be able to look around and explore right away. Not wait and see if I get approved without any idea of how long it might take.
On the internet, even a day is too long and I'll go find something else.
There have been a number of platforms in the past where you couldn't join without an invite. No thanks. Exclusive clubs are not my jam.
From the luddite normie perspective.
I feel like people are more discouraged by extra hoops than spammers.
Sure, spammers will take the path of least resistance, but why profile everyone when the bad actors are going to show you who they are anyway?I feel like it's behavior that needs to be monitored. Not access.
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I don't like feeling like it's a gated community.
It gives me gross.
I completely understand kicking out spambots and bad actors, but I want to be able to look around and explore right away. Not wait and see if I get approved without any idea of how long it might take.
On the internet, even a day is too long and I'll go find something else.
There have been a number of platforms in the past where you couldn't join without an invite. No thanks. Exclusive clubs are not my jam.
Thanks for the feedback
This is why I'm asking, as most of the time the moderated signups are not meant to be about exclusivity or gated communities or similar. But they have no way to customise the question to make this clear
Would it help if the question was customised to make clear that they aren't trying to be exclusive, that they're just wanting to put off spammers etc?
And if they gave a rough idea of how quickly approvals happened?
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There are two ways that servers on here can accept new members:
-Sign-ups where you join instantly
-Sign-ups where the server moderator has to manually approve your membership
Approval sign-ups make moderation much more effective, but some people seem to find them more difficult.
If you are someone who finds approval sign-ups more difficult, could you explain the main thing putting you off?
(By the way, this isn't meant to be judgmental, just want to find out what the main barriers are!
)@FediTips the approval process made me feel my profile and use was surveilled. I know it would be, possibly just as much, with a no-approval server, but having to write a note for someone to read about my inner-most thoughts made me feel very vulnerable and exposed
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From the luddite normie perspective.
I feel like people are more discouraged by extra hoops than spammers.
Sure, spammers will take the path of least resistance, but why profile everyone when the bad actors are going to show you who they are anyway?I feel like it's behavior that needs to be monitored. Not access.
All that said, I have absolutely no problem doing some version of the "I am not a robot" routine.
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From the luddite normie perspective.
I feel like people are more discouraged by extra hoops than spammers.
Sure, spammers will take the path of least resistance, but why profile everyone when the bad actors are going to show you who they are anyway?I feel like it's behavior that needs to be monitored. Not access.
The reason there's such a controversy and discussion about instant signups is beacuse the spammers and trolls aren't just causing problems on their own server.
For example a few days ago there were trolls signing up with extremely racist usernames. They couldn't do this on servers that have moderated signups because the mods would see it, but they were able to do this on servers with instant signups.
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All that said, I have absolutely no problem doing some version of the "I am not a robot" routine.
So, if they could make clear that this is all they wanted, it would help?
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@FediTips the approval process made me feel my profile and use was surveilled. I know it would be, possibly just as much, with a no-approval server, but having to write a note for someone to read about my inner-most thoughts made me feel very vulnerable and exposed
Thanks for the feedback
Would it help if the question about signing up made it clear that they aren't surveilling your profile?
Most of the time mods only ask purely because the act of asking puts off spammers and trolls from joining. It isn't introducing any kind of surveillance or inteded to do anything like that.
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Thanks for the feedback
This is why I'm asking, as most of the time the moderated signups are not meant to be about exclusivity or gated communities or similar. But they have no way to customise the question to make this clear
Would it help if the question was customised to make clear that they aren't trying to be exclusive, that they're just wanting to put off spammers etc?
And if they gave a rough idea of how quickly approvals happened?
Being up front about community standards and what would give someone the boot would make a big difference. Then I could make an educated decision about whether that works for me.
But I'll be honest, just waiting to see if I'm approved by someone else already feels culturally loaded in an awkward way. Reminds me of lots of ways I've had a bad time.
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How long would be too long to wait?
Or is it not knowing how long it is that's the main problem?
@FediTips ya, imagine wanting to do that for a while, then u FINALLY do it and u gotta wait.
waiting could be minutes or days, you dont know... -
@FediTips ya, imagine wanting to do that for a while, then u FINALLY do it and u gotta wait.
waiting could be minutes or days, you dont know...It would help if it said how long it would take?
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This is the thing though, most of the time the moderators aren't really bothered about what people actually write. I've joined servers where I just said "I am interested in (topic of server)" and it was quickly approved.
Would it help if the question made this clear?
The main reason a lot of servers have this question is just because it seems to work against spam attacks. All the spam attackers from the recent mass spam waves joined servers with instant signups.
@FediTips No, it would not matter what the question was or how it was worded.
I will not have someone be in judgment of me in those circumstances. I just won't sign up.
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@FediTips No, it would not matter what the question was or how it was worded.
I will not have someone be in judgment of me in those circumstances. I just won't sign up.
If they're not wanting to be in judgement, if they don't really care what you write, would that make a difference?
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This is the thing though, most of the time mods aren't actually trying to screen the kind of person who joins, they just want to put spammers off joining. (Spam attacks recently have all come from instant signup servers.)
If the question about why you want to join made this clear, would it help?
For example when I've joined a server and written "I am interesting in (topic of server)" that has been enough and I got approved quickly.
@FediTips Maybe it would. And I get that there are crazy amounts of attacks of all kinds nowadays that admins are dealing with constantly.
I'm used to environments like Reddit where I have to assume mods usually have bad intentions. But that's not true of Mastodon. I guess I'm still not used to a social network where people are nice!
Even if I change my view on this though, I think there will always be legitimate users who simply won't apply to a restricted server.
