Q. List of server instances blocking QOTO?
Q. Anyone have a list of other server instances blocking QOTO?
(those seeing us as spam or hostile, policy mismatches etc).
General thoughts:
Not blaming QOTO for my low interactions (!) or engagement here but I do have that feeling it might be less and less with others too, as we lean towards certain things more or specialise often, but also maybe the spam accounts sometimes get to other instances (even though we do good job stopping that after being reported) and they think it's like we don't stop them.
Perhaps some policy differences also?
Hard to see and measure being blocked so I wanted to a list of instances blocking QOTO and would be handy not for me to guess we are somewhat isolated (by nature and by misunderstanding QOTO).
🇳🇱
Q. List of server instances blocking QOTO?
@freeschool the spam issue is more recent. We tend to catch it within 12 hours of spam.. but in the past we used to catch it much quicker because @khird used to run certain scripts that I think we stopped doing (he may just not have the time anywmore).. I have been considering locking registration again to fix that.
As for other instances blocking us, some do, but overall our footprint (how many instances we can talk to) is quite high, and higher than most instances (in fact we used to be int he top 20, though i havent checked recently).
I often notice this because we have had a few people with a few hundred followers after a month leave because they noticed some other servers block us. Then i will follow their new account and notice even after a year their follower count isnt even half of what it was after a month at QOTO. Which happens almost all the time. This is a pretty strong indication that while blocking is legitimate, we have far bigger footprint here still than most servers.
Q. List of server instances blocking QOTO?
Also measuring what blocks us in terms of count is **highly** discouraged as a measure. Because instances that dont block others will have high block counts from others as a consequence but since no outgoing blocks occur the ovberall footprint may be quite high.
More importantly though there was a large group of servers that spent some time (still do I think) trying to game the numbers to make certain servers look like they were highly blocked when in fact they were not.
What they did was create a server block count list, and the list was a gated community so just these collective of hostile instances were the ones curating the list, which meant those people creatin the list would leave off their own instances when they were blocked, while at the same time adding block counts to the servers they wanted to defame. To make matters worse though they started an intentional campaign where they split out servers with multiple people into very small one person servers, and then blocked instances they wanted to defame. So they were able to BS the block list because the list only counted the number of instances that blocked you and didnt account for how large those instances is. So one server would show with 300 blocks, all one-user instances, and another server would have just 1 block but form an instance with 10K users. So obviously it sent a very misleading picture.
@freemo @khird Most of this thread could go on a FAQ headed the same or as "Thinking of leaving?" as it makes leaving or staying clearer (I was thinking about leaving and did think more of misleading number count as you say. I will say I was thinking about leaving but did emotionally check because it's everyone and their overall level of shallow-only comms so more than jumping ship I knew to expect different somewhat but felt/feel like maybe I need to try something.
So it did help you responded. I wouldn't put down QOTO suddenly - just want more active participation or participatory projects, some imagination than building robots etc (which is probably considered extra - but shit I'll pay you to come on my podcast or chat privately for better human condition / educating humanity via interactivity!!)
My answer is this:
https://qoto.org/@freeschool/111629593509172988
Thanks, got plenty of time for folks here on #QOTO and hope more #QUESTIONS get answered like this for all our 2024 dreams :)
@freemo I still have my scripts. The real time commitment is manually verifying each "hit" based on my heuristics - I don't just ban people because the script thought they looked suspicious; there can be legitimate reasons to have an account that shares some features typically associated with spammers.
Anyway, I took some time off to see family about a year ago and by the time I came back the backlog was more than I could manage (at the end of 2022, Musk had started making unpopular changes at Twitter and daily influx was really high here). If I sent you a list of ~1k potential spam accounts later this week or early next, would you have the bandwidth to vet it? I think I can handle new accounts at the rate they're created, just not get through the backlog on my own.
So if you remember michael who was one of our mods a while back and a very good old friend of mine. He is actually one of the guys I hired who will be working on this sort of stuff, specifically our system admin.
While I do not want to make him a regular mod again (largely cause people are just too toxic and i dont want to expose him to that) I can assign him the work of helping you with the backlog as a temporary moderator.
So yea i can invest some of the company resources to help with that.
@freemo okay, thanks! I'll start building a list today and hopefully have it ready the weekend (I use the Mastodon API, so rate limits constrain how fast I can populate the list).
I don't remember Michael by that name - to my recollection, it's been you, arteteco, rgx, me, trinsec, and barefootstache. Maybe he was before I got involved or I didn't know the real name behind one of the above handles. In any case, I'm very thankful for the help.
@freeschool
Now that we are backed by actual resources, namely a development team and significant financial contributions you guys will see a lot mroe activity int he coming months for sure.
@khird