CAPTCHAs and sign‑up quizzes annoy real people and barely slow down determined bots. As the fediverse grows, we need smarter, more humane defences, ones that don’t push away genuine newcomers. What creative, non‑intrusive ideas do you have? Trust‑based vouching, proof‑of‑humanity protocols, behavioural signals… what feels both effective and aligned with the open social web? I’m building a social media platform and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Having manual account approvals combined with a short questionnaire asking why they want to join and which communities interest them has been extremely effective on my instance so far, as most bots reveal themselves at this step.
Most low-cost and primitive bots. It costs nothing for ChatGPT to pretend to be a human in text. Are you sure they aren’t still there, lurking? Look up survivor bias.
I remember encountering my first request to write an essay in order to join an instance. I was flabbergasted and chose an instance without this madness and it appeared this instance was shadowbanned by major ones. Was close to giving up on Fediverse at this point.
“You’re in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down, and see a tortoise. It’s crawling towards you. You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back…”
Tortoise? What’s a tortoise?