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Admins, we're about to have a really bad SPAM problem when Lemmy removes captcha support in v.0.18 - You ALL have a responsibility to communicate back to lemmy devs to try to stop it. (tucson.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Personally, I find it reasonably amusing that defending an open source, arguably collectivist project requires appeals to individualism.

"You can build it" "Just defederate" "It's the instance owner's responsibility" "You can do X for your instance, its in your control"

Like, which is it? Is this a collective undertaking by a community of multiple stakeholders or is this the Dev's individual project and they don't have to listen to anyone?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this a collective undertaking by a community of multiple stakeholders or is this the Dev's individual project and they don't have to listen to anyone?

Devs, especially extremely busy ones "listen" via pull requests. Instead of badgering the devs, put together some devs of your own, get some code working, and submit it as a PR.

If they don't accept it, you now have code that does what you want, and it would be easy to create your own fork.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, and this would work fine for new features. But for removing existing features that alter the entire ecosystem regardless if you upgrade or not? This isn't at all the same, and casting it as such isn't honest.

I feel like folks keep making this a technical merit discussion when that's not at all what it is. A better technical solution is required, I agree. I'm not even disagreeing that captcha can be bypassed - but so can a lock, or a door, or any security feature really given a sufficiently intelligent threat.

But so far the captcha has already made some difference in what instances have spam account problems and those that don't. To argue that it isn't perfect is a logical fallacy that's making my head hurt. Shall we get rid of door locks because they can be picked? Should we get rid of garage doors entirely with the new hacking devices available - obviously the security isn't perfect so why have it at all?

Since when did perfect become the enemy of good? We had a good solution... And now we're throwing it out of a better one, fine! But leave the good one in place until then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We had a good solution...

Did we? Do you know why it was removed in the first place?