Yo, new subscribers. Just because we don’t have a very demanding application, doesn’t mean you can just ignore it. 
You know I read something some user wrote about how they believed manual approval was bad for the fediverse. I thought they were nuts or out of whack but after seeing this post and also the fact that almost every community I’ve attempted to start here and elsewhere has been a ghost town, and not for the lack of trying. I can’t say I disagree with them anymore.
I know many admins say something about spam and trolls, and… let’s just say I’ll believe it when I see it, I think many over-exaggerate the spam problem, and I do believe spam defense could be largely automated. Also trolls? I have a whole spreadsheet filled with assholes who slipped through and registered with application processes, this isn’t working for assholes who lie and come back.
All I know is that I desperately tried to start several communities and they never gained traction and I blame lack of user growth and the othering that happens when almost every server’s admins decide to be bouncers.I’m sorry if I sound hostile and angry, I just feel like this place is becoming much less inviting to others, we continue trying to make it harder for people to get in, set up barriers and annoyances. It hurts most when I try hard to start communities and no one knows about them or comes. That’s not to say I haven’t tried, I’ve tried very hard short of spamming links places going “Hey guys please join !dragons@pawb.social and post pics and discussions about dergs 🐉” something that wouldn’t end well for me or the community.
Sorry for this kind of angry rant, I sound unhinged, and I probably am.
The spammers problem is very real and the application process is a very hood solution. The only reason you’re not seeing it as a problem is because the solution is working. Kinda like complaining about about why we even need vaccines when nobody’s getting polio anymore.
Our application process is pretty trivial as well and most of those denied are attempted spammers
It’s not even just this server, it’s the growing amount of servers that do, and by comparison our registrations are way better, many of the others are way more vague and unhelpful, they carry the chance of being denied when you aren’t a spammer. Which is where most of my animosity towards this comes from. I obviously don’t blame you for this, if anything I blame the Lemmy devs for encouaging this as not a solution but THE solution. With no regard for how this impacts growth and onboarding.
Also I say I’d believe it when I see it because I am on a handful of servers who haven’t decided to become bouncers and they’re not brimming with more spam than scripts can handle. It’s doesn’t seem like a real systemic problem, maybe we should learn a thing or two from the admins of sh.itjust.works when it comes to automated handling of spam.
The problem is that not every admin has the technical know-how to deal with spammers like that and they can’t just “learn it” either. The skillset required here takes years to master. Even tools that I provide for free like threativore are usually too much for an amateur admin.
That actually is a good point, and for ones who are in that position I would agree. Honestly I feel the Lemmy devs should be trying to make anti-spam like this easier on people than advocating we make people play 20 questions of jump through hoops to join. Because this hurts us all in the long run.
I know in Fediverse rhetoric people parrot crap about how growth isn’t important but that’s dumb and wrong. It absolutely is otherwise I’m talking to myself when I try to start a community, and that feels like shit.
The problem is that everyone has their own priorities that they absolutely feel the lemmy devs should be working on first. It would honestly be much better if people joined and developed the features they think are lacking. Threativore and fediseer were started exactly because of the spam problems we’ve been having and expected to have, but there’s so few people joining us to improve them. I can’t even get a UI dev to help with the flairs.
Personally, I open comms for myself, to have places to post things I find. Places like !eudaimonia@lemmy.dbzer0.com and !flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com were mostly for me, but I tend to find a few weirdoes who join me. But I don’t mind. Obviously you have a different perspective since you want to discuss with someone, but we can’t just replace reddit that easily. Reddit took decades to get where it’s at, as traditional bb forums lost prominence. I believe the flow of history is on our side. We’ll get there…
