Look, we can debate the proper and private way to do Captchas all day, but if we remove the existing implementation we will be plunged into a world of hurt.
I run tucson.social - a tiny instance with barely any users and I find myself really ticked off at other Admin’s abdication of duty when it comes to engaging with the developers.
For all the Fediverse discussion on this, where are the github issue comments? Where is our attempt to convince the devs in this.
No, seriously WHERE ARE THEY?
Oh, you think that just because an “Issue” exists to bring back Captchas is the best you can do?
NO it is not the best we can do, we need to be applying some pressure to the developers here and that requires EVERYONE to do their part.
The Devs can’t make Lemmy an awesome place for us if us admins refuse to meaningfully engage with the project and provide feedback on crucial things like this.
So are you an admin? If so, we need more comments here: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3200
We need to make it VERY clear that Captcha is required before v0.18’s release. Not after when we’ll all be scrambling…
EDIT: To be clear I’m talking to all instance admins, not just Beehaw’s.
UPDATE: Our voices were heard! https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3200#issuecomment-1600505757
The important part was that this was a decision to re-implement the old (if imperfect) solution in time for the upcoming release. mCaptcha and better techs are indeed the better solution, but at least we won’t make ourselves more vulnerable at this critical juncture.
Because this spam-bot seems to be currently only targeting these instances.
So what you’re saying is that a poorly constructed door is better than none at all? Huh. That was my exact point.
No I am saying the this bot seems to specifically look for instances without captcha and doesn’t even try others. Low hanging fruits and all that. If all admins enable captchas the bot would just switch to those and circumvent the cheap captcha that is currently implemented in Lemmy.
So the solution is to force everyone to be low hanging fruit in the meantime?
Look, I get where everyone is going in terms of improvements, but to remove an already working solution and leaving folks exposed in the meantime is not how we should be rolling improvements.
See my other comment. Lemmy already implements other ways to prevent this from happening that are much more effective.
Email validation works only until my domain get’s blacklisted…
Manual registration only works up until a certain size…
What other effective solution shall I consider? Those aren’t very effective to me.
If you reach a size where manual approval doesn’t work anymore you should seriously consider closing registration completely or increase the size of your admin team.