Submitted by celebratedrecluse in meta

For now, i agree it is best left closed. However in future, is there interest in making applications vetted by community, for a few at a time? Could be a compromise that allows new users but disallows the gameification and abuse of the service.

6

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

NOISEBOB wrote

What about making it invite only?

0

Bezotcovschina wrote

is there interest in making applications vetted by community, for a few at a time?

This isn't clear for me. Could you explain how you see it?

2

Bezotcovschina wrote

I don't know. As for right now I strongly oppose invite only policy. If Raddle was invite only, I, certainly, wasn't join it. Not a hug of desl, but whatever.

Dog, Ims to drunk, sorry.

5

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

We can make a new forum, f/apply, and new accounts can only post once in there. You introduce yourself, explain your interests, and why you want to join raddle. The community weighs in, and after a waiting period you may be added to the site as whitelisted full user if there is consensus among those who comment on your post.

It doesnt have to be onerous, but it would disallow hundreds of spam accounts, etc

5

6c_6f_76_65 wrote

How about asking two or three questions and then the account has to be approved. This would only serve to delay the mass creation of accounts. This would negate needing to provide an email address. Users would just need to check back for when/if the account is approved.

Is it possible the captcha challenge can be easily defeated?

I would think if there are a few random questions that have to be answered, the captcha, and having someone wait it would defeat most trolls. Over time you may need to inject new questions if someone wants to write a web scraping tool.

3

6c_6f_76_65 wrote

Very true. Could implement a system where only X number of accounts are allowed from Y IP address.

The downside to this is people will use TOR and with only so many exit nodes there is a high chance that multiple users could come from the same IP

The additional strain will be that most any idea that is conceived will require code change, I am not sure how many developers there are for Raddle, and I am not competent enough to develop the ideas that I can conceive.

4

kore wrote

Can I be the troll that lives under the bridge and makes people pay to get into raddle?

5

Majrelende wrote (edited )

I would be fine with allowing registration at certain times, though as a reminder, we should make sure that all time zones are favoured equally to make sure, for example, that no one has a registration time at only midnight.

However, as one might expect, I oppose some of the more authoritarian (in my opinion) suggestions— applications on the milder end, then invitations. I certainly would never have been let in if I needed an invitation, and I would likely have shied away if I were asked to answer questions or write an introduction (gasp)— the previous unintrusive and mild process, if it can be called that, is one of the only reasons I was not an eternal lurker; this is still my only online expression. At least, that is what I remember...

On the other hand, if you hate me and wish I never started peddling my useless and nonsensical ideas and whatever else, little of this is probably relevant. (Please do not be afraid to be rude if this is your opinion.)

3

celebratedrecluse OP wrote (edited )

I think applications can be better, although some people might be deterred its not like you cant lurk if you arent trying to post

Also, i think restricting registration is more authoritarian and problematic, and does not solve the problem at hand-- how to prevent abuse and ban circumvention

1

ziq wrote (edited )

This would negate needing to provide an email address

You don't need to provide an email address currently fyi.

1

ziq wrote

Limiting by IP won't work since all the spammers use tor or a vpn and switch ips with each account they make.

What if admins could set the numbers of accounts that can be created per hour? Then we could limit it to 1 or 2. Combined with this, we could choose to make new accounts wait an hour before posting, or at least limit each account to a single post per hour (rather than the current 3) until approved by an admin.

1

ziq wrote (edited )

Yeah I like that. A forum only admins can see that brand new users can post to asking for their account to be granted access to the wider site. Only problem is a lot of people won't stick around for hours while they wait to be approved.

2