this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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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.

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[–] kool_newt@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why would devs remove something like this, at this time? Is it causing huge problems larger than the problems removing it would cause?

Makes me wonder if the devs are being paid to cripple Lemmy. This is where open source shines, we don't have to be held hostage to one product/service.

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[–] fastfinge@rblind.com 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nope. This is a huge accessibility fail. Any instance that has captcha enabled is locking out anyone even slightly low vision. Everyone should be manually approving all applications. It keeps instances small, and ensures that the fediverse remains distributed. Once we start having a spam problem, we should all just be defederating every instance that offers open registration; make a script to scan for it, and update the blocklist. Nobody should be running that way. If you are, not only are you allowing spam, you're also probably allowing humans who are engaged in ban evasion and other bad things. All posts and comments that come from your instance are in some small part your responsibility. Be at least vaguely aware of who your users are. If you ban one, and you run open registration, how do you intend to make sure they're not the user you just banned, signing up with another email address? We're not big tech, so we don't have the kinds of tools (IP reputation lists, lists of VPN IP addresses, etc) to fight ban evasion in any kind of automated way.

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Just created the instance, now the spammers consumed all my email allowances today :( I just enabled CAPTCHA now, now I'm gonna wait till tomorrow how much this makes difference.

[–] xtremeownage@lemmyonline.com 5 points 1 year ago (21 children)

Hunh.

I just had a surge of user registrations on my instance.

All passed the captcha. All passed the email validation.

All, had a valid-sounding response.

I am curious to know if they are actual users, or.... if I just became the host of a spam instance. :-/

Doesn't appear to be an easy way to determine.

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[–] MJBrune@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

While I am glad that they listened to the community. Everyone seemed to forget that you do not have to upgrade to the latest version. If the risks outweigh the benefits it's perfectly fine to stay at the last working version. There is also the possibility of backports and manual restoration of Captchas to get the features you want out of the later versions if you have the development skillset to do so.

[–] caron@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't have a responsibility to do anything. This isn't my issue and you can't force me to care.

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