this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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That sounds infeasible in the real world. 90% of the population isn't even going to understand a system like that, much less be willing to use it.
Users don't need to understand the system, all they need to know is you need to get someone to vouch for you, and if you vouch for bad people/bots you might lose your access.
That's an absurd hurdle for accessing an online service. I guess I shouldn't expect people on the fediverse to understand, considering the barriers to entry it has.
Doesn't sound much more complicated than invitation-only services. Most people wouldn't even really need to know the details of how it works.
Invitation only services are bad.
I'm tempted to say "good riddance of those muppets", but that's just me being mean.
On a more serious note: you don't need to understand such a system to use it. All you need to know is that "if you want to join, you need someone who already joined guaranteeing you".
In fact, it seems that Facebook started out with a system like this.
Plus you don't need to use this system with lone individuals; you can use it with groups too, like the Fediseer does. As long as whoever is in charge of the group knows how to do it, the group gets access.
It also means that people with no friends already using it simply can't join. Big oof for them.
In this sort of situation there's always someone to guarantee whoever asks them to, regardless of being a RL acquaintance or not.
Yeah, but you have to ask someone to do you a favour. That can be a major psychological barrier, especially for people with social phobia or depression (no joke).
When it comes to social phobia, I think that this is a fair point - asking someone to guarantee you might trigger it in a way that captcha wouldn't. However, as I mentioned in another comment, this sort of system would work the best for situations where users interact actively with a platform, to prevent spam, and I think that people with social phobia would already tend to avoid those.
Another counter-measure would be groups guaranteeing each other, instead of individuals; that's what the Fediseer does. Then the guarantee boils down to "group A trusts group B to not allow botters", but which criteria each group uses to accept/deny individuals is up to the group.
Now, when it comes to depression, I think that it's more complicated - as it would depend on implementation, and captcha is already a problem for depressive people, since it already offers enough resistance against users that depressive people might say "...fuck it, I tried this shit twice, too much effort". And this will likely get worse with the progression of the arms race between botters and captcha systems.
Speaking as someone who suffers from both conditions, captchas are not a significantly worse problem for depressed people than for others—they're impersonal, and while irritating, they set a fairly low bar for effort. Dealing with machines being machines is comparatively easy if you're able to make the effort to fill out the join-up form at all.
Asking someone for something, on the other hand, is high-effort for many depressed people for a couple of reasons:
It requires you to feel worthy of help, because if you're certain you're going to be refused, why bother trying? Depression and low self-worth tend to go hand in hand.
It requires you to risk refusal. Even if the other person's reason for refusing is neutral ("I no longer do that for anyone," for example), it can feed back into the depression and make it worse. Since this can hurt one hell of a lot, you learn not to ask.
.
It's true that some people won't be able to scrape together enough interest or effort to pass even the captcha, but this alternative is much worse.
The issue with the group network version is that a few large corporations would end up taking it over. Again.
I could also go "as a" = "chrust me", but since this is the same as mincing words to say "yall buncha gullible cows!", I won't. Still, due to the merits of the topic (captcha and potential replacements) I'll still go on.
To be blunt you're in the worst demographic to talk about this from personal experience, as having both at the same time impairs your ability to tell their effects apart. Unless you were specific on "people who have both" (you weren't).
When someone has depression without the social anxiety, the problem is not if something is personal or not. People are... whatever, yet another bloody thing getting in the way of what you want. Just like waking up, shaving, or working on that huge pile of work so you can eat in the next month. (In fancy terms your "sense of agency" goes down the bloody drain.)
Captcha does affect it. It isn't just "irritating". It's yet another bloody barrier. And, as I said in another comment, it will likely get worse over time due to botting improvements. (And likely more egregious too, as people tend to overuse systems falling apart.)
Would this sort of system be another barrier? Yes, I'm not pretending that it wouldn't. Feel free to drop ideas for any system that keeps botters out, without being at least a minor barrier for humans*, given that captcha is likely going the way of the dodo.
Another thing that you ain't taking into account is that some people are really, really eager to offer shit, as long as they have the ability to do so. "I can guarantee people! Do you want to be guaranteed? Please please it's cool!" That's bound lower the barrier of the bother of asking those things called "other human beings" for help, and it makes you feel less like "I'm being helped, do I really deserve it?" and more like "okay whatever I'm playing along to get rid of you".
Explain two things here.
*Another poster mentioned proof of work; it's an idea worth thinking about, although it has a few cons.