Registrations should require a valid email address and temporary/disposable (e.g. temp-mail.org ) email services should be rejected.

Note this should not be implemented as a whitelist; “obscure” email services such as Protonmail, Tutanota and personal email servers should be allowed.

Pros:

  • Cuts down on the number of trolls attempting to register, reducing load on mods and admins.
  • Improves our standing with other instances.
  • Ensures users have the ability to reset their password.

Cons:

  • Has privacy concerns - people may not want to associate their email address with everything.
  • Users may not (and perhaps should not have to) trust the admins of this instance with their email.
  • May not be supported well by Lemmy, and/or require a blacklist that needs updating.

Aye and nay in the comments, please.

  • aspsekaEnglish
    71·
    2 years ago

    So… What you really want is a captcha on the registration page of this instance? Fine by me.

    • Cracks_InTheWallsEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      So we already have that. What I mean is an additional layer by requiring email addresses that have a more cumbersome registration process (not all that cumbersome for a legit user, cumbersome for someone trying to flood an instance).

      Anyone can make a couple hotmail (for example) accounts, but it’s a bigger pain in the ass than going to a temp mail site and getting a ton of inboxes going. Effort v. Incentive is the idea here - if you’re a troll just trying to disrupt for the sake of disruption, if it takes you 5-10 minutes per account creation attempt from start to finish, you’re probably going to focus your efforts on something faster to spin up. A latched door prevents opportunists and all that.

      Does it stop everyone/the most dedicated trolls? No. But it narrows the funnel.

      Edit to acknowledge after reading more of this thread and thinking about it more, I’ve voted Nay - let’s see if the instance CAPTCHA is a sufficient barrier for this purpose first.

      • FaendolEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        I really feel like it’s just too easy to whip an email together with Gmail for this to have much impact. I like the goal here but I think we would need to find a different solution.