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.

Technology@beehaw.org – 216 points – 1 years ago

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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Also, even if I don’t upgrade to v0.18, I have to live in a fediverse that have other instances that WILL, and they might pose a problem with increased spam.

A fork avoids this problem how?

I disagree, once your open source project “sprouts wings” you enter an unspoken power battle. If enough of the community disagrees with something the chance of a successful fork grows. Once a project is forked away, you no longer have any control at all.

Who's writing the code for the fork? If you see them, can you ask them to just submit the PR that the devs said they'll approve?

That assumes that the fork would be mCaptcha rather than a simple reversion to the existing captcha. But yeah, the fork would initially be a roll back until mCaptcha is implemented either in our own or in the base repo.

And then you’ll need to convince every instance admin to swap to this fork.

Right but to your other point, the admins who don't fork will send you spam.