[suggestion] block new accounts from posting
More and more new accounts are posting spam and ads to communities (eg !technology@programming.dev), would it be an idea to block new accounts from posting to any p.d community?
More and more new accounts are posting spam and ads to communities (eg !technology@programming.dev), would it be an idea to block new accounts from posting to any p.d community?
That would massively hinder growth since actual users would get affected and then leave since they can't actually use the platform
Probably better to set up some link blacklists and then add things to it based on what spammers are linking to
edit: what you linked to is also not a community, did you mean !technology@lemmy.world or !tech@programming.dev?
There was a 6 day old user (ruckusnetwork) on our instance yesterday that posted an ad on !technology@lemmy.world yesterday. I banned and purged it ~2 hours after it was posted I think. We got about 6-8 reports in that time frame though.
Most spam accounts aren't from us though, nor would it solve anything due to federation. It would just drive users to sign up on other instances with looser restrictions.
Upvoted, but I don't know that such a change would materially affect anything. Spammers would just create a backlog of aged accounts to use, and we lose the helpful icon (if your client has one) that shows it's posted from a brand new account and to be extra skeptical.
I mean it might help, hence the upvote, I'm just taking a cynical perspective. I don't have a better option other than smarter automod tools.
I like this idea. Something like no posts for the firts 30 days or a net of liked comments above 10? Of course, comments would always be allowed. But it may be difficult to implement. Perhaps, even detrimental to our health (speaking for myself, I'd probably lurk without an account for months just because of the rule bothering me. Or worst, just stay away from Lemmy or the instance.)
I think a 30 day limit is far too restrictive. Imagine making an account to ask for help and then being told you have to wait 30 days. You'll just turn to reddit like the 99% did from the start. The fact I couldn't help/answer people's question on SO after signing up permanently turned me away from that network, just as as an example.
Most spam reports that reaches this instance is from other instances, so even with the wrong assumption that us putting up a restriction would block spammers, it would hardly put a dent in the amount of spam.
I think the real solution will be better moderator tools so that mods can effectively control their community as needed. An auto-mod can already do exactly what you're asking for on a community level, which wouldn't be as oppressive.