🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)Nov 6

Why reactive moderation isn't going to cut it, aka, "The Sucker-punch Problem".

Imagine you invite your friend—let's call him Mark—to a club with you. It's open-door, which is cool, because you like when a lot of folx show up. Sure, it might get a little rowdy, but they have a bouncer, and you've never seen things getting out of hand.

So, you're busy dancing when a new guy walks in wearing a "I Hate Mark" shirt and promptly sucker-punches Mark. You didn't see it happen, but Mark is upset and tells the bouncer, who kicks the guy out.

A few minutes later, the same guy walks back in and sucker-punches Mark again. Same result. Some people in the club say they'll tell the bouncer if they see him come in again.

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.

A different guy walks in wearing a "I Plan On Punching Mark" shirt. No one tells the bouncer, because they've never seen *this* guy punch Mark.

He sucker-punches Mark. At this point, Mark is pissed and yelling about being punched.

The club members talk about putting up a "No Punching Mark" sign, but the owner is worried it'll hurt his club's growth.

Another Mark in the club proposes they turn away anyone wearing an anti-Mark shirt or espousing anti-Mark rhetoric at the door, but this gets shot down for the same reason as the sign idea—then someone sucker-punches him.

By the end of the night, your friend Mark is beat to fuck and says he'll never come to this club again. In fact, he's going to tell anyone named Mark to stay clear of this place.

The next time you go to the club, half the folx there are wearing "I Kill Marks" shirts, but there aren't any Marks there, so it doesn't come up.

I've been sucker-punched every day, for the last three days in a row by some of the most vile hate-speech and imagery. The accounts are using open registration servers and signing up with variations on the username "heilhitler1488". I fully expect it'll continue as long as we have open registration servers.

And no, username pattern blocking alone won't fix this, it'll help a little, but mostly it'll just make them wear a different shirt while they sucker-punch us.

#OpenRegistrationHurts

Show threadNetscape NavigatorNov 6

@alice

So, you’ve actually just supported an argument I made a while back — that the Fediverse needs AI. I first made this point during the major spam attack that hit the Fediverse last year.

Here’s why: if the goal is to grow the Fediverse, registration can’t be invitation-only. Right now, Fediverse software isn’t as user-friendly as mainstream platforms like Reddit, Twitter, or Facebook. Making it even more exclusive would only slow growth further, or even stop it internally.

I say this from experience. I remember how online forums tried to handle spam, bots, and trolls — by making registration harder. Some required manual review or moderator approval. That worked for a while, but it also made those communities less welcoming and more difficult to join. Over time, most forums faded away.

At the same time, keeping registration completely open invites bad actors, trolls, and spam. It’s a tough balance — too open, and the space gets toxic; too closed, and it stops growing. That’s exactly where AI could help: by automatically handling spam, filtering bad behavior, and letting real users in without creating unnecessary barriers.

Show threaddatum (n=1)Nov 6

@NetscapeNavigator

so in a subtoot @alice said

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

[edit for correctness] and in parallel you said:

I say this from experience. I remember how online forums tried to handle spam, bots, and trolls — by making registration harder. Some required manual review or moderator approval. That worked for a while, but it also made those communities less welcoming and more difficult to join. Over time, most forums faded away.

and, Netscape, I think you're not really doing the math well here. Alice has pointed out it takes them on average less than a minute to vet a new account application. It takes longer to write - but if a user can't be bothered to write a paragraph about themselves asking to join a server, are they really going to contribute to discussions? It is not gatekeeping. It is not onerous to have applications take a day to approve.

More importantly, it is not "less welcoming" to have a policy of no bad actors. It is more welcoming.

The sign up friction is not a concern in this way, and in fact is likely positive as there are studies showing that paying even a nominal amount of money or energy for a thing makes a person value that thing much more, which implies much greater stickiness, if growth of actual community members is your goal.

(Growth of new signups who never post should not be your goal.)

So.

Show threadStrypeyJan 31

(1/2)

@datum
> but if a user can't be bothered to write a paragraph about themselves asking to join a server

... then they're not going to fill out their profile, which means they will struggle to find anyone to follow or even interact with them. So here's a #UX suggestion; somehow combine the 2.

Ask them what their profile text would say if they're accepted, and have accepting the account autopopulate the profile with that text.

#FediverseUX #accessibility

@NetscapeNavigator @alice

Show threadStrypeyJan 31

(2/2)

Maybe that would be a less intimidating question for shy people to answer than 'why do you want to join'. Which, as other replies to @alice point out, can be misinterpretated as 'please justify your existence'.

Show threadCurio

@strypey
This is a great idea!

I originally signed up at a moderated instance (still here for now!), but it took me over a week to pass that barrier and finally send the request. This would have made it seem like less of a thing to be sure!

Mar 13 at 6:01pmWeb