A follow-on to my "Nazi Sucker-punch Problem" post, to address the most common argument I get, which boils down to:
"""
Moderated registration won't stop Nazis, because they'll just pretend to be human to fool moderators, but it will stop normal people, who won't spend the effort to answer the application question or want to wait for approval.
"""
Okay, I'm going to try to use points that I hope are pretty acceptable to anyone arguing in good faith, and I'm going to expand the definition of Nazis to "attackers" and lump in bigots, trolls, scammers, spammers, etc. who use similar tactics.
Attackers: we can group attackers into two main types: dedicated and opportunistic. Dedicated attackers have a target picked and a personal motive—they hunt. Opportunistic attackers have an inclination and will attack if a target presents itself—they're scavengers. In my years of experience as an admin on multiple Fedi servers, most attackers are opportunistic.
Victims: when someone is attacked, they (and people like them) will be less likely to return to the place they were attacked.
In general: without a motive to expend more effort, humans will typically make decisions that offer the best perceived effort-to-reward ratio in the short-term (the same is true of risk-to-reward).
Why does any of this matter?
Because it all comes down to a fairly simple equation for the attackers: effort > reward. If this is true, then the opportunistic attackers will go elsewhere. If it isn't true, then their victims will go elsewhere.
How can we tip that scale out of the attackers' favor?
By making sure moderation efforts scale faster against attackers' behaviors than against normal users' behaviors.
- A normal user only has to register once, while an attacker has to re-register every time they get suspended.
- A normal user proves their normality with each action they take, while every action an attacker takes risks exposing them to moderation.
- A new user / attacker likely spends a minute or two signing up, while a moderator can review most applications in a matter of seconds. Yes, attackers can automate signups to reduce that effort (and some do, and we have tools to address some of that, but again, most attackers aren't dedicated).
- Reviewing an application is lower effort than trying to fix the damage from an attack. As someone who gets targeted regularly by attackers from open-registration servers, I'd personally rather skim and reject a page-long AI-generated application, than spend another therapy session exploring the trauma of being sent execution videos.
I believe this points to moderated registration being the lowest effort remedy for the problem of the Nazi Sucker-punch. So before we "engineer a new solution" that doesn't yet exist, we should exhaust the tools that are already available on the platform today. Yes, we could implement rate limits, or shadow bans, or trust networks, or quarantine servers, but we don't have those today, and even if we did, there's no evidence that those would be a better solution for Fedi than moderated signups.
Will it stop *all* the attackers? No. But it will stop most opportunistic attackers.
Will it deter *some* potential new users? Yes. But communities are defined by who stays, not by how many come through the door.
lgbtqia.space/@alice/115499829…
Why reactive moderation isn't going to cut it, aka, "The Sucker-punch Problem".
Imagine you invite your friend—let's call him Mark—to a club with you. It's open-door, which is cool, because you like when a lot of folx show up.
🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄) (LGBTQIA.Space)
Owl Eyes
in reply to Owl Eyes • • •OK, I got 3 yeses to this Voxelibre idea. If that was you, please DM me, and I'll give you the server address. @murdoc , I know your name, but not the other two.
Owl Eyes
in reply to Owl Eyes • • •After a false start (thanks for your patience @murdoc ), I have the #Voxelibre server set up now.
My sense is to not just leave it up all the time, but rather only run it for a set, loosely agreed-upon, recurring period of time each weekend. This is so that people can expect to see each other over time in a friendly way. This is instead of making it available 24/7, and people rarely ever pop by, never form any sense of familiarity with anyone else.
I'm thinking a fixed period time every Sunday night (the fixed period pattern starting next week) would be most suitable. BTW: Luanti works in #Android (find it in F-Droid), so it can be played even from a smartphone or tablet:
f-droid.org/packages/net.minet…
What do you think? A recurring 4-hour period is proposed here:
docs.autis.toque.im/#timing/
Having said this, the Voxelibre server is up for *all* this weekend, for those who want to try it (a chance at early familiarization).
More details are in this little documentation wiki I wrote (explains if and how to connect):
docs.autis.toque.im/
PS: I worked hard on this! It was suprisingly tricky to set up.
@autistics #Luanti #Voxelibre #OpenSource #ActuallyAutistic
Luanti | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
f-droid.orgCy
in reply to Owl Eyes • • •I can offer the suggestion that you use the Fediverse. Pretty much anyone can message me if they want my Luanti server up, for instance. That way you can develop concrete relationships with people, with electronic records of them so you don't have to deal with it all in your head.
VoxelLibre is fine I suppose. Kind of derivative, and incompatible with a lot of mods. What mods do you have?
CC: @ActuallyAutistic@autistics.life
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Owl Eyes • •@Owl Eyes @Andrew I'm running a server myself. I opened it up to the public a couple years ago.
I expected griefing to be much worse than it has been, though I did have to banish a bunch of nazis who'd set up a camp about a year ago.
All in all, it's been a mostly (though not emtirely) positive experience.
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Owl Eyes
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •