Post #1483736

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• @unchartedworlds@scicomm.xyz 2025-11-07 17:53

  @jpaskaruk Regarding admins/mods who favour instant signups: I don't think they necessarily think of it in terms of "giant instance is best" - or not primarily. I think there's a thought process like "The Fediverse is great, and it's important to welcome people, and it's a shame when people are put off by the sign-up process! So we're doing a good thing by keeping the sign-up process as simple as possible." And there _are_ people who will be put off by having to write a request and/or wait for an answer - so in that sense, it isn't a far-fetched concern to have. (Not _all_ newcomers are bothered about that kind of process. Some people don't find it a big deal, and/or are used to it from elsewhere. Most Discord groups I'm on, there's an intro channel, and you don't get access to most of the channels till after you posted an intro. But I can get how that genuinely is a daunting obstacle for some.) This is how admins can conceive of providing instant signups as a form of being of service. The problem is with the trade-off: effectively, instant signups prioritise {ease of access for a subset of newbies} over {protection from harassment for people already here}. One way to put it is that admins of instant-signup instances are undervaluing the cost of harassment, and overvaluing that particular expression of "being welcoming". I suspect that newcomers who _understand_ the trade-off would mostly be okay with the temporary burden of writing and/or waiting - same as most people understand the social convention of knocking on a front door and waiting for it to be opened. But I'm not assuming that people do understand that trade-off by default, esp if they themselves haven't experienced much harassment. I think the moderated version could itself be made more welcoming with a bit more context, e.g. - explaining up front that the point of it is to exclude harassers and bots, not to select some kind of elite in-crowd by arbitrary & secret standards. - giving examples of what kind of message the admins are expecting. There might be scope for a "friend vouches for you" system as an alternative route, as well. Relatedly, I wonder about the future vulnerabilities of moderated signups: how easy will it become to fake an intro, how cheap will that still be after the AI-hype subsidies stop, what else might be useful as a next line of defence. @tillshadeisgone @welshpixie #moderation #Fediverse

  Open ##1483737