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.
I think what you can do is take a small subset of users that have registered in your instance and observe their behavior. If you've noticed a lot of them are acting in bad faith and in bad behavior then its likely that a lot of the user registrations in your instance are bots. How active are the users in your instance in terms of posting and in commenting?
Been keeping an eye- I don't think any of them are actually even active. At least, in the sense I don't see any posts/comments.
I mean for now it seems okay, I took the liberty to check out your instance to check it out and it seems to be okay imo too but still keep an eye out of bad actors
My current assumption- based on the data I dug up, it appears to be legit traffic originating from reddit.
I just don't think the users realize their account was approved... perhaps. /shrugs.
Unexpected wave of traffic I suppose.
Possible people who dont get approved immediately move on to amother server and settle in.