Lemmy.world is temporarily disabling open signups and moving to an application-required signup process, due to ongoing issues with malicious bot accounts.

We know this is a major step to take, but we believe that it’s the right one for both us and our community right now.

We’re working on a better long-term technical solution to these bots, but that will take time to create, test, and verify that it doesn’t cause any problems with federation and how our users use our site, and we’d rather make sure we get it right than have a site that’s broken.

We’re making this change on 28 Aug 2023, and don’t have a specific timeline for how long registrations will require an application, but we will post an update once our new anti-abuse measures are in place and working.

Take care, LW Team

  • QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz
    1219·
    11 months ago

    IMO registration applications should have been in use right from the start. Less annoyances for admins and moderators.

    • Durotar@lemmy.ml
      14·
      11 months ago

      I wouldn’t put the manual review of thousands of application into the “less annoyances” box.

    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
      31·
      10 months ago

      Absolutely agreed. Similar to waiting periods for weapons purchases. It would be an effective filter for most people who get in the mood of making a troll post, they would get tired of it before they are approved, and many users with hateful names would be disallowed before they can start posting their hate.

      Example of hateful user

      @lgbtslayer@lemmy.world being the quintessential example that pushed Beehaw to defederate from LW, after that user posted anti-lgbt and misogynist stuff directly into Beehaw’s lgbtq+ community :::

    • Aux@lemmy.world
      311·
      11 months ago

      No, applications are a very degrading process for both users and admins.

      • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
        15·
        11 months ago

        I agree it’s annoying and hopefully will one day soon not be necessary, but “degrading” is something I don’t think ever occurred to me. Is there some aspect to having to get manually approved that is degrading that I’m not aware of?

        • Aux@lemmy.world
          32·
          11 months ago

          I never use services which require an application. First of all, that’s a bad user experience. Second, it’s enough to write some bullshit during job applications.

          • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
            10·
            11 months ago

            The application is a question asking if you read the statement (which is the same as the post above).

            The rest of the application is the same application you had to fill out when you created the account even when it was open sign ups. The only real difference is it’s not automatically accepted but manually accepted.