I’m wanting to lock down site signups. I need your help on what question to put to applicants that can be used to vet their application.
Why do this? I expect that as lemmy matures and grows, it will gain the attention of trolls etc that we do not want here.
Also with Beehaw defederating some larger instances with open signups, I’d like to avoid the same fate.
tell them to write a sentence that contains the words they’re, there, and their, and use all three of them in a contextually accurate manner.
Their never gonna put there words over they’re!
Excuse me a moment while I throw up into my waste paper bin.
that was just beautiful, thank you
<wipes tear of joy away from eye>
You absolute madman. I like it.
Ok this thread has twisted my arm. Effectively immediately new signups require admin approval.
I’m not sure this is the right approach. Manual admin approval won’t stop people pretending they’re not going to be arses during the signup process.
You did the right thing in this instance. User was clearly a troll and has been justly banned. That’s a good outcome. That’s the system working exactly as it should!
But right now, this Lemmy instance is tiny. I’m trying desperately to promote it because I want to see the same great discussion on here that I have become accustomed to on Reddit (/r/brisbane particularly), but it’s hard. Lemmy is hard to convince people to try out because it’s confusing. Adding an extra hurdle in the way is only going to make that worse.
I’d say keep signups fairly easy, but be very active in moderation when users prove unwelcome. Putting hurdles in the way of legitimate users is only going to stunt any potential growth.
keep signups fairly easy, but be very active in moderation when users prove unwelcome.
Ideally yes, this is the plan. However I can’t be everywhere at once, and we’ll need more mods :)
I agree with Zagorath’s sentiment, at present it seems getting more users probably on balance outweighs the risk of the odd troll. However, having to answer a simple question as part of signing up doesn’t seem to be too bad at the moment (I signed up before so don’t know what the experience is). We don’t even need to verify emails at this stage to sign up.
Mature communities don’t have major trolling problems because users tend to know not to feed the troll. They’re just not engaged and as a result lose air pretty quickly. Forums are a good example - anything that isn’t on topic or just clearly a troll is quickly shut down, generally not by moderators but by other users, and there is enough nuance to know what is a valid debate (even if super heated or robust).
“Beating a test” also gives some sense of entitlement, and also it does not stop other users from other instances trolling.
With that in mind, what about a question such as "Do you agree:
- not to feed the trolls
- to report any offensive behaviour
- to look out for your fellow members?"
This is not to weed out the trolls but rather to remind users in such a fashion to nurture a “mature” community that self-regulates.
The current signup question is “Are you a bot, troll, terrorist or Nazi? Do you intend to be nice and respectful?”. I’ve been accepting pretty much any answer. The point isn’t the answer itself.
The point isn’t the answer itself.
Replies “yes”, still gets accepted haha
I think you handled that well - gave them fair warning on what they did wrong, then banned them when they doubled down. Agree admin approval is a good idea.
Thanks.
Wow, where did that prick come from? Well done.
Yikes. That’s certainly a take
Current signup question is “Will you break the rules, be obnoxious or otherwise a negative presence on this site?” I’m open to suggestions for improvements :)
Off topic: weird bug. I’m seeing your post as having 5 upvotes and -1 downvotes. Not 1 downvote, negative one downvote.
I’m seeing the same. Weird.
-1 downvotes = 1 upvote :p
free upvote!
“Yeah, but only after the fifth pint” … Access granted, but limited to /Perth?
(Here I am, writing this from Rockingham, WA, after a Friday afternoon in the city)
More seriously, I think that’s fine, as long as there’s no huge influx of people. Trolls won’t tell you they will be disruptive, so moderation needs to happen in any case. The signup form is more a way to set expectations, I reckon.
Eewww swinging pig… who let you in? 😉
Fair enough.
With beehaw defederating to protect their community, I was going to sign up here so I can use ‘Local’ as an Aussie bellwether.
If it were me, I would ask if they were Australian and add extra weight to the application if they were (in case you get more and more international applications). Bonus points for a trick question that requires an answer that is uniquely Australian like “chazwazzers” but according to Frinkiac, it’s not spelled like that. I’ve failed the test.
You’re still welcome to signup, I just need to smash an approve button before the account is enabled :)
Yeah, but I want to wait until the questionnaire is complex, each question more difficult than the last.
Maybe prompt someone to use the “nah yeah/yeah nah” and failure to do so is instant rejection.
As much as beehaw defederating has it’s issues, it also doesn’t. I’ve just been using aussie.zone not signed in and it’s fine. Not too much worth commenting on.
Yeah nah… not all Australianisms are as ubiquitous as some people think 😀
Happy with the current question for now.
Nah yeah, I was joking. All Australianisms can be websearched these days.
Yeah alright cobber
WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!?
Like airport questionnaires?
Are you a bot, troll, terrorist or Nazi? Do you intend to be nice and respectful?
I like that one… I’m going to use it.
I must have been one of the first to get it I think
Can you request email verification and block the throw-away account providers, e.g. mailinator etc.?
Anything else would require too much of your time manually approving people.
Nothing in Lemmy that I’ve seen to restrict email signups to specific domains etc. Not sure this is possible.
Also any sort of email validation is prone to issues. Running a mail server these days is just too hard.
Finish the sentence: “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…”
I did briefly consider that… or “Am I ever gonna see your face again?..”
This is an entirely appropriate question for an Aussie sub I recon.
Or: “living next door to Alice…”
The question is less important that the human interaction in my opinion.
Answering the question validly doesn’t make them a good person, or even a person, it just means that they have to apply and then someone else has to approve, and that delay is going to stop most of the bot stuff because it’s not worth it to the troll/spammer etc.
I remember joining a shooting forum years ago that asked “Please explain your 30 cal preference”.
There’s like a dozen 30 calibre rounds (30-06, 308, 7.62 * 2, 303, etc etc), and I’m sure the admins would let you in if you replied “6.5 Creedmoor is gods own round!”, because as I say, the question isn’t the important bit, it just means that a human read a question, formulated an appropriate response and then waited for another human to hit OK.
Absolutely, having a delay due to manual intervention will filter out some troublemakers. The question itself may result in some not wanting to register. Every bit helps.
give them the turing test
Can you have image-based questions? Something like “What comes to your mind on seeing this?”
The barrier to entry is small because there’s no “right” answer (eg. Ned Kelly, Bushranger, Outlaw, Bloke with a gun and silly helmet, etc.) but it still goes a long way toward proving that there’s half a human on the other end.
Ha! Thats a really fun idea! I think i’d respond ‘letterbox’
Haha thanks - that’s the idea! It’s an easy question that shouldn’t turn people away. Creative answers would be arguably encouraged, as it’s all the more proof of a real person answering!
Maybe even have a monthly competition for best answer!
Yes actually… the formatting options for regular posts are available in the question editing section. This opens up all sorts of possibilities…
hi, new here (who isn’t at this stage!). just want to say your approval process is extremely rapid. either that or it isn’t working!
Its working fine. I just happened to be at my PC when you submitted your application :)
Moderation is an ultra hard problem so yeah its gonna be difficult. Nothing can really be bulletproof in that sense. Most types of controls can get evaded in some way.
That’s not to say that putting up some little hurdles won’t help. It at least solves the problem of automated signups (temporarily) and low effort trolling. If someone runs a coordinated attack i think that’s just going to be very hard to defend against.
Yeah, unfortunately we can’t stop people from signing up automatically on other instances and flooding our communities. This will certainly be a pain as Lemmy grows, hopefully some automod tools are in the works - I am aware of an attempt to create a translation layer between Reddit API calls and Lemmy. Hopefully this will bring in some of the existing tools.
In the meantime, I suppose the best thing we can do is report problematic comments and posts so moderators can jump in. I think interacting with these people only gives them what they want.
I’ve turned on the captcha for signups, but disabled admin approvals for now. There have been instances of mass automated signups on several lemmy instances… so one or the other of these needs to be enabled for now.
