IMO, Lemmy would gain far more users if you were able to create a user account without having to be approved by a server first.

If communities want to remain invite only that’s fine. But I really, really think you guys should decouple account creation from the requirement of being approved by a server. It’s a barrier to entry that imo will prevent many users from registering.

Edit: If not global auto-approving of user account creation, I think what would be a more reasonable request is an indicator of whether a server auto-approves account creation or whether it is invite only.

  • jazir5@lemmy.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    but if the site did become overloaded in spam

    But if the protocol for Lemmy is already decentralized, it would still be entirely up to the admins of the server to allow instant account approval or not, would it not? Lemmy.ml is not the entire lemmy protocol, Lemmy.ml gets to decide the rules here, and banning hate speech accounts from approval is a totally legitimate decision on their part because they don’t want that kind of spam here.

    That’s what mods are for on reddit, so I’m currently failing to see the problem. Moderators exist on Lemmy servers right? That’s how reddit solves the problem, why can’t that work the same way on Lemmy?

    The admins of the server have every right to ban users they don’t want on their server or to make their server invite only, I am absolutely not contesting that. Their space, their rules. A violation of the servers rules should absolutely result in a ban.

    • Outsider7542@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      That’s what mods are for on reddit, so I’m currently failing to see the problem. Moderators exist on Lemmy servers right? That’s how reddit solves the problem, why can’t that work the same way on Lemmy?

      I think the difficulty with a place that has such a low userbase that then grows rapidly is not having a lot of established active moderators. There’s a lag time to some extent to getting active and responsible moderators. Plus not being a moderator nor an admin on Lemmy, I don’t know the capabilities they have at hand, but I know with reddit the moderator tools were built up over time. All of the automodding capabilities they have now didn’t exist at the beginning, and the automod tools are what allow them to handle such high numbers of users. I suspect Lemmy probably doesn’t have extensive automated moderating tools at their disposal at the moment if I consider other deficits that Lemmy has at the moment.

      • Adda@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        You are completely right. Disabling the approval feature equals unmoderatable instance (when the bots come), because a human (a moderator) simply cannot compete with a Python script posting spam every few milliseconds. Such instances are therefore instantly defederated by others in order to protect themselves.

        • jazir5@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Would automod functionality and keyword ban list for usernames serve to alleviate those concerns you have? If not, is there any solution you would propose that you think may work to solve that issue?

          • Adda@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Sure, they would. But for that, you would need to implement them first, and implement them right, which is a highly challenging endeavour. I could imagine that this is on a backlog for Lemmy development, but it will take a while before any usable implementation is applicable.

      • jazir5@lemmy.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        How do you feel about a simple tag/indicator on the join-lemmy.org site that indicates whether a server has open registration or is invite only?