MS used to have 800-900 at this time 2 days back. How much can you in a monopoly keep avusing Hindus & BJP... Now it's 391... While it's cousin mstdn.social is now down to 238!! Dying a slow painful death! https://mastodon.host/@federationbot/103147974667062354
It was just a passing fad.
These idiots with mice brains cannot appreciate what qoto has to offer.
They deserve to be manipulated by algorithms.
@Full_marx how good is qoto?
1. QOTO is run by a computer scientist !! @freemo
2. It offers a 60k charachter limit, so you can rant as much as you want.
3.It is pro free speech and doesn't moderate without warnings.
4. It has other technical features as well, eg- search works differently.
@inditoot is amazing as well, It is pro-free speech and I believe the admin depends on contributions to keep the instance alive.
Both Qoto and inditoot have great relations and I think a no-ban policy as well.
Friendly diplomatic relations.
Would advise people to move out of Mastodon.social though. It is getting overloaded anyway.
🇳🇱
We will occasionally ban but its pretty rare we need to, its almost always very obvious cases like advertising bots.
We do not however ban **instances** meaning you can follow anyone from any instance, always.
Yeah I mean't they won't ban each other.
But wait, QOTO won't ban alt-right instances either? The sexist, racist, homophobic breeding grounds?
I did not know that!!
We wont ban but we will **silence**, but even that we do rarely.
Our rule is we only silence instance who dont respect our users right to disengage. That means if oine of our users says "go away" and the offending user does not leave them alone (or worse yet creates multiple accounts) then we will silence the instance.
A full out ban we wont do because silencing prevents anyone on our server from "hearing" anyone from the offending server unless and until the user follows someone. So silencing is more than enough to protect our users usually.
It's beginning to feel more and more like mini nations.
With foreign policy and what not.
Plus we have moderator elections as well.
All we need is some crypto coins....
@Full_marx @freemo @inditoot My own take. Nobody should ever be banned or even silenced. At the most advertising... User has a right to block... So user can use it if another User targets... Again I stand for absolute #FoE so won't ever complain on anything or anybody nor will I block. Now comes the dicey thing. For me a block means user A does not want any further interaction with User B... But user B should be able to see User A and even reply which others see not A. Anyways
And when your blocked if the user creates a new account every time to circumvent the block?
To me in practice a no block policy doesnt work, there are always edge cases whbere you either have to block or the network becomes unusable.
I also dont want to see my users needing to block a new advertising account every 5 minutes manually. If a server has a no block policy after about a year the advertising trolls get wind of that and you will have a new advertising account signing up and spamming every few minutes. So the local and federated timeline becomes annoying really fast and the only way a user can combat the spam is to spend alot of time banning people constantly.
Can't we regulate bot behaviour?
Like a posting rate (posts/hour).
Or considering the timeline is anyway Chrono, just outright charge them!! -- (I know I know this statement is blasphemy)
Never realised the kind of problems fediverse faces.
Ip's are scrambled too??
Not sure if they are all from the same source, doesnt look like it. I think its just lots of people spamming products and they all use the same bot software or something
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot Like so already said advertisers being banned is fine. Cause that does not fall under FoE...
Well advertising is the vast majority of reasons we ban. It is exceedinly rare we ever need to ban a user really.
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot if it's so rare might as well be let go. Anyway up to you to think. All I am saying is you have got yourself to a stage where you are banning very rarely. Might as well let go... To me it's like banning the death sentence... Maybe you don't like the analogy or not even relate to it... But my thoughts.
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot and I also know how difficult a job it is to not ban.... Much more difficult than banning when you are doing it very rarely.. But from what I heard you are doing a great job 👍👍
I've seen the communities where they dont ban, most tend to very quickly degrade into unpleasant places, the good people have no interest in being there and the bad people dominate. It is only rare right now because we make rules that clearly state what the limits are, so those sort of people dont join us in the first place.
Why would I want to create a community that I wouldnt enjoy being a part of, right now almost every single person in our community has enriching interactions.
The only rule we need is treat people with respect, we dont moderate based on opinions, just how you treat others. PErsonally why would i want anything different than that?
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot In such a case most would just block so basically that unwanted person ends up talking to a wall. As for me I really don't care what the other guy has to say since I never connect to somebody on a social media platform at a personal level so my only takeway is if there is one else it doesn't matter. I am able to detach myself to a certain extent !
You would think that is what happen, except it isnt. How it usually goes is like this
1) some guy joins and attacks everyone he talks to and the cruelest of ways they can think of
2) some people are hurt by this and leave the server (usually the people who came for the respectful environment they expected) some just block and stay... of course the more bad people you get the more people leave
3) other instances start to block you too because that user attacks people on other instances too
4) your server winds up with fewer users and no longer federating with any other instances except maybe a small handful.
5) people start leaving because all the people who used to get interactions from therir followers now are silent, no one can see or hear their posts, people start leaving your server specifically because they want to have a voice that people can hear
6) these effects snowball until after about a year your left with a server comprised almost entierly of trolls, no value for anyone, and even the mods dont want to be there anymore.
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot it should be tackled at the earliest using some mechanism. The handle must be censured. Told what is acceptable what is not... Priority should be to ensure it never comes to point 2. Also in the rare case of point 2 an automated email can be dropped to the email id with an appropriate message. ..Always better to be Proactive than allow a situation to degenerate to the last level !
How would you prevent the situation escalating without banning the offending accounts or limiting their reach?
Three flags and the system automatically silences the account or if it is on your own instance puts a temp block.
Moderator reviews the situation and decides appropriate action.
(There is a possibility that this could lead to flag-abuse but then we would know the offenders.)
This could limit the destructive radius of the offender.
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Frankly I don't see any issue with banning them.
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I'm thinking about this bot issue. That's an unresolved problem, degrading the experience and affecting the signal to noise ratio.
That solution, by its nature, employs blocking as a solution, since ultimately a moderator will look at it and make that call.
Thats kinda my point. I do agree that a block shouldnt be very quick, there should be warnings, discussions, and ultimately the ability to reverse a block.. But in the end if a user is actively being hostile to people they meet then a ban must be on the table as a consideration.
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Bot issue.
There are two scripts I have found so far.
1️⃣ One that uses the Mastodon.py library, but you need the 'Unique Mastodon app key' to access the bot, and hence we can flag a bot when we see one.
2️⃣ There is a simple command line script that only takes in your username password and source twitter feed. No idea if this bot goes unnoticed.
Oh my !! I'm beginning to think this is an issue that is arrising out of the decentralised operating-mechanism of mastodon.
I think a UI mod could take care of this issue for the client.
I have a desire to break my head solving this issue.(no matter how unqualified I am) I sense a growing itch approaching.
"The handle must be censored" that sounds like effectively a ban no?
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot No. He is warned what he is doing is not right for the environment and it would be vitiated if he is allowed to continue this way & that a repeat offence would lead to him being silenced for the affected IDs. To me the key is not to allow Point 2 breached. Repeat offense should lead to only IDs that follow him being able to see his posts. If he repents do have a mechanism to revoke the silence but this revocation must be carefully done.
If a user is silenced they are effectively as good as banned. No one would know they existto be able to follow the in the first place.
But i understand.
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot yes as good as banned with only those following him able to read. Then comes the repentance part where you carefully weigh the option and decide to recoke or put if off further... to me the first censure would act as a warning and nobody would want to go down that path !
Fair, sadly the end result is still going to be banned by the vast majority of instances all in an attempt to protect someone who you effectively banned anyway.
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot yes it would be like a sentencing for life rather than a death sentence !!
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot anyways the fact that you were willing to patiently listen and debate shows your character and why you are being praised & are doing a good job. So keep doing what you think is right! You will do well. Time for me to hit the bed. Was good talking to you. Good night.
I appreciate that. Treating people with respect and "the benefit of the doubt" is important to me.
Well um...
Nuclear option would be to just include a switch to turn off all bots from showing app on your feed.
But that still doesn't solve the issue of the load on the server.
I'm thinking of an interaction based rating system.
If people are interacting with a bot, we let it stay.
But after one month of low interaction, we make the bot pay in order to continue.
@Full_marx @freemo @inditoot we usually get a different IP if we even reboot. But there would be ways.
There would be ways, all of which would be far worse for the users than the current way.. Right now the way it works is advertising botss arent welcome here locally, there are instances that are 100% bots though, and we do federate with them, that is the place for such a bot. That way a user can block all advertisements and bots with a single clock, something that is unmanagable if they are allowed locally.
@freemo @Full_marx @inditoot on advertisers being banned is not an issue at all. At the individual level is all I meant.
@Full_marx
We could but we arent talking about a singular bot. This tend to manifest as thousands of bots each posting infrequently but collectively dominating the feed. Most spam bots sign up for an account and post rare and just create many accounts for different products
@TheSecularOne @inditoot