3 or 4 spam “Buy Phloboxidril Now In Your Area” posts per day were tolerable. 20 to 50 aren’t. I know I could block the magazine, but I’m just one of the many who are subjected to it.
E2a: a day later I blocked science, only to find that askKbin also suffers from this spam
I think I volunteered to help moderate it about 3 months ago 😕
Using this approach, I am seeing none of those posts on /science. I updated the filters a bit today. The top post is a legitimate article from 2024-04-13 and is by HeartyBeast.
Now, I understand that this is seen as an unnecessary step (too fancy) for some. People want zero ads out of the box without anything extra. So I’m thinking about the next approach here.
Framing the problem:
- Filtering should be automatic
- End-user wants zero additional setup
- There is no active upstream development
- It’s not possible to inherit moderation of a magazine due to some queue of moderator application requests that is not being approved
The third point and fourth points are important here, since that’s currently intractable. You can’t reconcile zero additional setup with that.
But let’s suppose becoming moderator of a defunct magazine (point 4) were possible while point 3 remained unresolved. In other words, at least moderators can try to pick up the pieces. Something being underestimated here is how annoying it would be for the moderator to manually cull posts every single day. I think you would have instant turnover after a couple of weeks once the tedium sets in. Manual solution is not good. Clearly, automation is needed on the moderation side.
So assuming you could actually inherit a magazine, but with no guarantee of upstream development, what about restructuring the tool above so that it’s for moderators, instead of end-users? That’s pretty easy, and I could make it something the moderator clicks once and it’s done, auto-banning the posts. This is a pretty good method.
But you can’t inherit moderation right now, so that’s back to square one.
Realistically, that leaves these options at the moment:
- Wait (a long time) and see
- Use the tool above and make magazines readable, albeit at some sacrifice of convenience (?)
- Migrate to another instance
Third approach is the path of least resistance and is best for most casual users. Second is for diehards who cannot move instances due to some personal or technical reason. First approach is the most annoying and eventually leads to the third approach after frustration sets in.
Pick your poison, I guess. I can’t think of any other prophylactic approach at the moment, maybe this comment triggers some idea.
I think I’m going to give up on Kbin. Every time in enter it’s full of spam, so is not worth posting anything since is going to be buried in spam anyways
I’m gettin there myself; I took a closer look at Lemmy the other day. But man do I prefer the UI of Kbin.
Mbin has a very similar look and feel, aside from a couple of cosmetic things.
Has there been a change in sourcing new magazines? Last time I tried it I couldn’t get anything to matriculate, at least not kbin style with searching etc. Big turn off for me but otherwise mbin seems like the best fit.
Not from what I’ve seen, unfortunately. Getting new instances to federate, at least from smaller, non Lemmy instances, is a bit of a pain. In the past I’ve done some testing with the two mags I currently own, and it looks like things don’t always properly federate.
I’ve also noticed the same goes for voting. There’s been more than once I’ve seen differing upvotes/downvotes on a thread depending on whether you’re looking at it from kbin vs mbin.Maybe I should reach out to the person who runs the mbin instance I am on. They were a kbin person before and may have some insight. An mbin version of this meta would be helpful, as mentioned!
@Gordon_Freeman
It really depends on the very magazine. Basically, it’s magazines with Ernest as sole moderator where these problems occur. I’d give it a wait.
@Haus
Real posts (from kbin.social magazines) are becoming quite rare. I find myself coming to this site now to do the following circuit:
- sort by new and report SPAM and block users
- scroll through headlines and read (the few) recent comments/posts to mags I’m interested in
- come to kbinMeta and see if anyone else is seeing what I’m seeing and feeling the same way
- see if the radio silence has yet been broken by the dev
It’s a fascinating case study in the rise and fall of an internet community and digital communication platform. And it highlights one important fact about human community management and technology development: COMMUNICATION IS KEY.
Yeah, I can’t find it in abandoned mags, else I would have just taken it and cleaned it up.
Have you been successful in obtaining ownership or moderation to any abandoned mags? I’ve requested to a couple that I occasionally participate in just in case they get targeted for spam, but I haven’t heard yea or nay either way.
I got a few almost immediately after requesting them, though I did it just after the feature was released.
