I kinda wanna pin this to my account, but I didn't write it.

Apologizing seems so hollow, but this just fucking sucks, and I'm sorry it keeps happening to you (and everyone else it happens to).

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embarrassed to admit that I don't know how to quote toot 😣

I'll figure it out, tho! I'm an Owlbear of moderate intelligence, how hard can it be?

"No one else is complaining, not sure why it is an issue"

Heard that. left

@amd @NetscapeNavigator Goodhart's Law strikes again.

When a measure of success becomes a goal, it ceases to be a good measure.

Growth should be seen as an indicator that we're doing something right, not as an end goal in and of itself. If the fediverse is a good place, people will want to be here; but if we optimize for growth, we will make this a worse, less inclusive, toxic dump.

I'm now firmly against open registrations.

Even closing registration won't stop someone determined from faking their way through the process: it's a bit like a locked door. You know as well as I do how little of an impediment that is to someone determined, but the absolute least we should do is make them work for it.

I'd love it if these assholes chose me as their first stop, but all they ever get out of me is something to the effect of, "lol, eat shit troll" (I think this is actually a quote from my last interaction with one) and a report - usually I check the server to see if it's worth blocking as well.

🫂

#OpenRegistrationHurts

@datum

She may have said that in a comment to someone else, because if I search for this in the whole thread:

> I should specify that I mean "moderated registration" not "invite-only" or "no signups" when I've been saying closed registration here.

The only place I see it is in your post and mine. 🤷

Or, she edited it after she blocked me. Which is unfortunate, since I felt my comments were respectful. But not everyone likes someone who disagrees. A sign of the times, I presume.

@grimacing

Moderation starts with the Applicant's username at registration, effective code will stop most trolls before they can even get a foot in door.

As someone who is neurodivergent having to write a sentence about myself/what I'm looking for would be a massive impediment to making an account and would make me feel excluded and further unable to be a part of a community.

The comments @grimacing made about time/reputation limits on what actions are available to new accounts would be far more effective without being exclusionary.

"Mark wants to leave, but you tell him it's not that bad—after all, you've never been punched, and you didn't see Mark get punched, so maybe he's just being sensitive."

This attitude is way too common 😞

Next time I'm on Cap Hill, coffee's on me.

The other stuff... I have been trying to hone awareness, and will continue to do so. So much of what I see/hear/think has been wrapped in my privilege for so long. I'm aware of it now, but it still fools me sometimes.

I'll listen more, too. I think I already do, but I can always do more.

"but in the meantime, we do have something that can be exclusionary to people who are neurodivergent. Like it can be turned on with a few clicks."

@grimacing

I can understand why people would want open registrations - but I think it would also be fair to say that fedi software just doesn't have the moderation tooling to support that right now.

I reported two replies to you yesterday - 12 hours apart, both undeniably awful / illegal, using the same image and wording. It looks a lot like an automated script. If it takes that little effort then no wonder we have a harassment problem. I'm sorry you're on the receiving end of it.

Open registration is not the problem. Even if vetting process will be involved, trolls and other hostile actors still have many options to get inside and start making damage.

Reactive moderation is not enough and I absolutely agree with you on this. It needs to be proactive and act quickly. For this reason, it's good idea to have some automation tools in use to detect fake accounts and trolls, and then act quickly to take proper action.

Making fediverse less accessible by restricting registrations would make it less appealing to the people. It's in human nature that people want to have solutions that are simple and easy to use, which also includes registration process.

The whole problem surely needs to be addressed, but limiting access and making registration process to be more complicated and less user-friendly is not the best idea.

@alexadeswift in the Netherlands on the other hand 14 is the number of the favourite footballer from the 60s/70s (There was a documentary on Cruyff, Nummer 14 Johan Cruyff) And the Netherlands won the UEFA Euros in 1988.

So when NL national footbal games are celebrated, for whatever reason, the number 14 and 88 are stuck to everything

@maryoh

I screenshot Nazi-type accounts, then send out an alert post and request help reporting...often that helps.

@NetscapeNavigator

Don't you see that Nazis too want ease of use? Add a little friction to the sign-up process and you'll reduce their numbers significantly.

That's what closed registration and sign-up moderation offers. So they don't come here.

People who need to be safer online, NDs, BIPOC, LGBT people, will gladly suffer the higher cost of entry if they can be safe from bad actors and threats.

The average Joes who don't have the patience for a sign-up process that's a little abrasive, they are probably safe on Twitter/Bluesky/whatever, they don't NEED a safer place.

Would it be great to have a billion people on the Fediverse? Probably! Do we need it? Absolutely not! Do we want it? Yes, but not at any cost.

@alice

I once was working with a friend on how to design a social network and from that discussion resulted Martin's Third Law:

If anything permits the harassment of people, that will become its dominant use case.

This is valid practically for all tech. You could already observe some shit in the UseNet newsgroups in the early 90s.

If you design social networks, you have to do adversial thinking: if someone wants to harm someone else, how can that person use the technology to do that. It would be useful to do wargaming like exercises to learn how resilient your product is.

Commercial social media does this, but only so far that they look how someone could use the technology to hurt them.

First, what happened to you is terrible, and should not have happened. That's obvious, and should go without saying.

But I don't think jumping to the conclusion that the only fix is to close registration is correct.

There are many other things that can also be done to provide a better experience for people.

I didn't even know about that option. And it works in @trunksapp

Doubt if I'll use it much but handy to know about.

@OvertonDoors @cocaine_owlbear Well, there are some groups that try to launch targeted attacks to make the whole fediverse to be less friendly and to make people to move away from it. Recently, we identified such attempts and prevented it.

It would be good idea to have some channel for exchanging information about such groups, including domain names and mail servers they use to launch attacks. This would be helpful to jointly address issues regarding fediverse's safety.

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boosted, but on the other hand, i cant be arsed to write anything about myself nor a reason why i would *want* to join any server at all, nor am i connected enough to just say "i am" to be admitted to any of the cool servers... both together mean i have to see who lets me in. at least it hasnt been that bad so far. but my experience on here is just a speck of birdpoo compared to yours (maybe, idk)

and just like with xmpp: in-band registration was always highly discouraged to curb spam (well, as far as i remember, maybe that was also just another painful process), what is one to do *but* close registrations / heavily moderate them?

It's not hard, but for most people the moment the process is becoming more complex is like hitting the wall. I'm not saying that having vetting process is bad idea, personally I support it, but I know that for many people more complicated (for them) registration process makes them to resign from joining the fediverse.

I absolutely agree with you that open registration comes with issues and that there are many attacks against people, especially if instances are incapable of having proper moderation or having moderation at all.

May I add a brief rules & regulations page with a tick-box to assert to abiding to said conditions for the privilege to access the site.

Add: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_…

100% agree.
I don't have the knowledge/language to search for this properly, but is an open+moderated thing even feasible?
Like, open registration on a sort of sandboxed thing, moderation to "access" the whole network. Instances and users (already "moderated" ones) should be able to choose whether they want to deal with the sandboxed stuff.
All that, on top of what's already there, so an instance/users turns bad later, they can be blocked and banned and whatnot.

basically, have a pen where everyone can enter, an locked gates for the rest of the village.

@OvertonDoors @lindasgoluppiart Yeah, I agree that the "growth is all that matters" crowd is just... I mean, they're either dead wrong, or they're intentional bad actors.

I can actually site Bluesky as an example. I wasn't in the Beta, but I did hop in early on, and it was fun. It was all shitposting and Alf memes, along with legitimate advocacy. It wasn't perfect - far from it - but it was a kinda fun community.

Then Twitter imploded, and it turned into a cesspool of outrage farming, poorly disguised (and undisguised) Nazi accounts, trolls, and assholes. And the Bluesky mod team did... nothing, because they considered rampant growth a feature, not a bug.

(That's not fair; the mod team was overwhelmed, sometimes had their decisions reversed by the toolbags in charge, and did boot a lot of accounts, but they also let in known transphobes and other shitstreaks. Their performance was... about 60/40.)

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