CAPTCHAs and sign‑up quizzes annoy real people and barely slow down determined bots. As the fediverse grows, we need smarter, more humane defences, ones that don’t push away genuine newcomers. What creative, non‑intrusive ideas do you have? Trust‑based vouching, proof‑of‑humanity protocols, behavioural signals… what feels both effective and aligned with the open social web? I’m building a social media platform and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
I think payment is a really good idea for deterring bots, and making people behave better too. It does leave a paper trail to your real identity though (unless instances are willing to accept cash or crypto), which many people would rather avoid.
A fixed fee is also relative to who pays it. To a company who only care about jacking up their share price it could be nothing, but for a person working in a very exploitative economy it could be several days wages. I would say that it’s the poorest people whose voices are most suppressed, so I wouldn’t want to be part of that problem.
Now, having said that, if there was a mechanism for distributing back the surplus from signups after running costs to good users of the instance I would be in favour of it. Per-user instance costs are very low on medium and large instances, so most users would get most of their money back, and perhaps even make money. Making it a cooperative would mean low costs for genuine users and incentivise participation in making it a good instance. If OP wants to do something like that let me know - I’d love to get involved!
Ooh, I really like that idea! You are putting money in as a sort of deposit, but after a period of time it has served its purpose and the money can be returned. If I have to be active for say 3 months and also a certain amount of activity to get my deposit returned then burning the account after would be a pain in the arse and I would not bother. Having an account in good standing could also be a soft filter. Users could only show content from validated users and thus filter out all the bot junk, but if they wanted their comments and posts to show up they would go through the process.