I’m wanting to lock down site signups. I need your help on what question to put to applicants that can be used to vet their application.
Why do this? I expect that as lemmy matures and grows, it will gain the attention of trolls etc that we do not want here.
Also with Beehaw defederating some larger instances with open signups, I’d like to avoid the same fate.
I agree with Zagorath’s sentiment, at present it seems getting more users probably on balance outweighs the risk of the odd troll. However, having to answer a simple question as part of signing up doesn’t seem to be too bad at the moment (I signed up before so don’t know what the experience is). We don’t even need to verify emails at this stage to sign up.
Mature communities don’t have major trolling problems because users tend to know not to feed the troll. They’re just not engaged and as a result lose air pretty quickly. Forums are a good example - anything that isn’t on topic or just clearly a troll is quickly shut down, generally not by moderators but by other users, and there is enough nuance to know what is a valid debate (even if super heated or robust).
“Beating a test” also gives some sense of entitlement, and also it does not stop other users from other instances trolling.
With that in mind, what about a question such as "Do you agree:
This is not to weed out the trolls but rather to remind users in such a fashion to nurture a “mature” community that self-regulates.
The current signup question is “Are you a bot, troll, terrorist or Nazi? Do you intend to be nice and respectful?”. I’ve been accepting pretty much any answer. The point isn’t the answer itself.
Replies “yes”, still gets accepted haha