Post #1483727

2025-11-04 19:57 UTC

@tillshadeisgone @welshpixie I had my instance on open registration until last year (closed because I couldn't guarantee reliability until after I moved to someplace safer)... and honestly it's a hard balancing act. Those with open registration are the fediverse evangelists trying to grow the network and usually with the awareness that any friction in registration will drastically reduce adoption... But then you get situations like this which are an extremely valid reason against... Given that the open registration problem won't practically go away outside of whitelist only networks (which are inherently very small)... we really need better tools to manage these instances from the outside (since we can't control the inside) I'm genuinely curious what ideas people have that could help? I've been mulling over the idea of figuring out a system for collaborating on blocklists so moderators or users who trust eachother can expand their response time and power to quickly shut down these problem users. (Yes, I'm aware that blocklists also get used to compile lists of people for various reasons, but that's just assholes using a random tool that's not even good at that job) This makes me think that maybe we need settings on the various platforms to do things like hide users under a certain age. Or maybe blocklists of problem email addresses so they can be blocked from registration without also having to set up a new email account?

Replies (3)

@tillshadeisgone@blackqueer.life 2025-11-04 21:06

@shiri agreed that more tooling is needed. But I will just repeat what I already said about safety vs. growth. Of course it's a tricky problem, community moderation is difficult. Signing up to run an instance means you're agreeing to take on difficult problems. So I don't have much sympathy in this context because white techies have been choosing growth and reach over safety from day 1. And the rest of us have been catching hell for it the whole time. One of the many reasons the fediverse is as white as it is

Open ##1483728
@welshpixie@mastodon.art 2025-11-05 06:38

@shiri @tillshadeisgone 'are the fediverse evangelists trying to grow the network' - that's the problem. That's growth at the cost of safety and nobody wants that. The fediverse *shouldn't* grow if it can't do so safely, and open sign ups are not safe. This is that whole 'finding tech solutions for people problems' - the problem is all the privileged white guys with their growth mindsets who think-

Open ##1483730
@nu@wetdry.world 2025-11-04 20:50

@shiri @tillshadeisgone@blackqueer.life a filter like that was kind of my thinking also it would be ideal imo if the "hide posts from users under a certain age" thing could also be a per-instance setting, i.e. so an admin of an instance could turn that on only for the big instances like mas.to, but leave it off for instances with application-based signups that the admin(s) trust

Open ##3943509