I'm not sure this is the right approach. Manual admin approval won't stop people pretending they're not going to be arses during the signup process.
You did the right thing in this instance. User was clearly a troll and has been justly banned. That's a good outcome. That's the system working exactly as it should!
But right now, this Lemmy instance is tiny. I'm trying desperately to promote it because I want to see the same great discussion on here that I have become accustomed to on Reddit (/r/brisbane particularly), but it's hard. Lemmy is hard to convince people to try out because it's confusing. Adding an extra hurdle in the way is only going to make that worse.
I'd say keep signups fairly easy, but be very active in moderation when users prove unwelcome. Putting hurdles in the way of legitimate users is only going to stunt any potential growth.
I think you handled that well - gave them fair warning on what they did wrong, then banned them when they doubled down. Agree admin approval is a good idea.
I think your behaviour there, not to mention you underhandedly linking the thread from here, serves as adequate warning of what an immature tyrant you are, and that this instance is doomed.
Current signup question is "Will you break the rules, be obnoxious or otherwise a negative presence on this site?" I'm open to suggestions for improvements :)
"Yeah, but only after the fifth pint" ... Access granted, but limited to /Perth?
(Here I am, writing this from Rockingham, WA, after a Friday afternoon in the city)
More seriously, I think that's fine, as long as there's no huge influx of people. Trolls won't tell you they will be disruptive, so moderation needs to happen in any case. The signup form is more a way to set expectations, I reckon.
With beehaw defederating to protect their community, I was going to sign up here so I can use 'Local' as an Aussie bellwether.
If it were me, I would ask if they were Australian and add extra weight to the application if they were (in case you get more and more international applications). Bonus points for a trick question that requires an answer that is uniquely Australian like "chazwazzers" but according to Frinkiac, it's not spelled like that. I've failed the test.
Yeah, but I want to wait until the questionnaire is complex, each question more difficult than the last.
Maybe prompt someone to use the "nah yeah/yeah nah" and failure to do so is instant rejection.
As much as beehaw defederating has it's issues, it also doesn't. I've just been using aussie.zone not signed in and it's fine. Not too much worth commenting on.
The question is less important that the human interaction in my opinion.
Answering the question validly doesn't make them a good person, or even a person, it just means that they have to apply and then someone else has to approve, and that delay is going to stop most of the bot stuff because it's not worth it to the troll/spammer etc.
I remember joining a shooting forum years ago that asked "Please explain your 30 cal preference".
There's like a dozen 30 calibre rounds (30-06, 308, 7.62 * 2, 303, etc etc), and I'm sure the admins would let you in if you replied "6.5 Creedmoor is gods own round!", because as I say, the question isn't the important bit, it just means that a human read a question, formulated an appropriate response and then waited for another human to hit OK.
Absolutely, having a delay due to manual intervention will filter out some troublemakers. The question itself may result in some not wanting to register. Every bit helps.
Can you have image-based questions? Something like "What comes to your mind on seeing this?"
The barrier to entry is small because there's no "right" answer (eg. Ned Kelly, Bushranger, Outlaw, Bloke with a gun and silly helmet, etc.) but it still goes a long way toward proving that there's half a human on the other end.
Haha thanks - that's the idea! It's an easy question that shouldn't turn people away. Creative answers would be arguably encouraged, as it's all the more proof of a real person answering!
Moderation is an ultra hard problem so yeah its gonna be difficult. Nothing can really be bulletproof in that sense. Most types of controls can get evaded in some way.
That's not to say that putting up some little hurdles won't help. It at least solves the problem of automated signups (temporarily) and low effort trolling. If someone runs a coordinated attack i think that's just going to be very hard to defend against.
Yeah, unfortunately we can't stop people from signing up automatically on other instances and flooding our communities. This will certainly be a pain as Lemmy grows, hopefully some automod tools are in the works - I am aware of an attempt to create a translation layer between Reddit API calls and Lemmy. Hopefully this will bring in some of the existing tools.
In the meantime, I suppose the best thing we can do is report problematic comments and posts so moderators can jump in. I think interacting with these people only gives them what they want.
I've turned on the captcha for signups, but disabled admin approvals for now. There have been instances of mass automated signups on several lemmy instances... so one or the other of these needs to be enabled for now.