Post #1513906

2026-04-18 16:32 UTC

As a volunteer mastodon admin I HAVE to balance growing a community with managing my time. One way this comes up is new account registrations. Approval or Open is the eternal battle I see happen. I hate it. I want open registration but not loose my life to battling new account spam. So here is a screenshot of the tool I built. It checks new accounts and grades them and then silences or bans them based on 54 different properties. It&#39;s not perfect but seems to work for me. #mastoAdmin

Replies (9)

@stefan@gardenstate.social 2026-04-18 16:35

this tool can support multiple users from other instances. But TBH I'm a little worried about sharing it. you must grant the tool almost full admin permissions and I'm not the best sys admin.

Open ##2868851
@stefan@gardenstate.social 2026-04-18 16:42

here is what my new account page looks like. I didn't have to take an action on any of these accounts because of indicators that made their spammy-ness seem obvious enough.

Open ##2868852
@stefan@gardenstate.social 2026-04-18 16:52

Again nothing is perfect. But here is an example of my "dry run" mode that will let you see what the bot would do if you toggled it on. #mastoAdmin

Open ##2868853
@andypiper@macaw.social 2026-04-18 16:39

@stefan@gardenstate.social looks potentially very helpful! Understand your caution in sharing it though.

Open ##2868858
@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange 2026-04-18 18:11

@stefan@gardenstate.social I could see this being useful for other Admins! Any plans to make it available? Maybe @jerry@infosec.exchange could take a look? 🙂🤷‍♂️

Open ##2868862
@oli@olifant.social 2026-04-18 17:58

@stefan@gardenstate.social Not all open registration instances are created alike, that's for sure. I appreciate you doing your part to make sure that new accounts created don't run amok.

Open ##2868864
@troy@opencoaster.net 2026-04-18 18:45

@stefan@gardenstate.social been meaning to build something similar but to auto approve requests to join. Spammers have been doing a good job outing themselves. It just sucks that real people might be turned off.

Open ##2868866
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online 2026-04-28 01:51

@stefan@gardenstate.social This is nice!

Open ##2868869
@amfernee@gardenstate.club 2026-04-28 10:42

@stefan@gardenstate.social really cool. Might be worth blurring some of the criteria? Also, holy crap dude Justin Bieber is joining your instance!

Open ##2868870