With previous Rexit’s like the API debarcle etc. many users were left looking for an alternative, but with decision fatigue and bad UX etc. most did not find the Fediverse a viable option.
What needs to still improve, how can we be ready this time?
With previous Rexit’s like the API debarcle etc. many users were left looking for an alternative, but with decision fatigue and bad UX etc. most did not find the Fediverse a viable option.
What needs to still improve, how can we be ready this time?
They are already arriving to some degree.
The difference being is that Lemmy and other similar services have zero controls or ability to handle bots or bop traffic if those bots were bots from 2014.
Not bots from today.
It’s a bit of a problem and honestly with increasing bot traffic across the internet and fedaverse being extremely vulnerable to it It’s absolutely bat shit insane, but I don’t see any other option than somehow having some form of human verification.
It’s a problem
One of my favorite tricks that a friend of mine showed me years ago was this:
Put a check box or radio button somewhere on the page that will never end up visible to the end user marked with a label like “check here to verify you’re not a not” or “choose your ethnicity from this list or select prefer not to say”, then reject accounts that ever check those boxes, because a human never would. If you occasionally snare a blind person by mistake,they can email to bypass that with a human admin.
I don’t know if it would trick modern bots, but he said it worked awesome back then.
It’s largely considered ineffective these days. Detecting elements that don’t affect layout is trivial, or elements that are occluded, transparent…etc
Capchas are one of the best options. But even then, LLM users bypass those relatively easily, and LLM users are one of the biggest risk areas for astroturfing.