| 23 May 2025 |
 @leira:matrix.org | Hi~ Can I get an invitation to the new NixOS room? | 07:13:19 |
| @leira:matrix.org | Thanks! | 07:14:17 |
| @leira:matrix.org left the room. | 07:15:35 |
 @raboof:matrix.org | if that'd exist we could at least realistically tell affected users "talk to your homeserver admin" instead of "uh yeah that's just how Matrix is rn", right? that seems like an improvement. (but indeed AFAICT a simple user reporting system would be both more useful and an order of magnitude easier to implement? am I missing something) | 07:17:34 |
| @raboof:matrix.org | oh policy servers are at the 'room level'? then that's nice but doesn't help against invite spam at all? | 07:20:11 |
 BeatLink | I think the only way to fix it is to implement better permission systems. Like for example, discord allows you to set who can create invite links, how long they are valid for and so on | 07:21:32 |
| BeatLink | Right now, anyone in a room can invite anyone | 07:21:41 |
 emily | that's not our issue at all | 07:25:10 |
| emily | we have not had a single instance of anyone inviting a spammer with the rooms being invite-only | 07:25:27 |
| BeatLink | oh | 07:25:37 |
| BeatLink | im curious then, what is the main problem? | 07:25:50 |
| @raboof:matrix.org | spammers inviting users to rooms with names containing slurs (and hinting that the room will contain illegal/offensive material like CSAM, though I haven't joined obv) | 07:27:13 |
| BeatLink | ohhhhhhhhhh | 07:27:57 |
| BeatLink | oh no... | 07:28:03 |
| BeatLink | thats...bad | 07:28:18 |
| @raboof:matrix.org | right, and because the moderation tools are at the 'room level', but the invite is to a room controlled by the spammer, those moderation tools aren't effective against this. | 07:29:12 |
| BeatLink | makes sense | 07:29:30 |
 uep | in addition to spamming the rooms with that horror, of course. | 07:37:07 |
| uep | but yes, they're using invitations as the spam as well | 07:37:24 |
| @raboof:matrix.org | luckily I haven't seen the spam in the rooms, it sounded bad indeed... for that the current moderation tools are 'ok I suppose' though? and that policy server idea sounds like an improvement there. | 07:41:14 |
| BeatLink | i think policy servers could be a good thing. Kinda like bluesky's blocklists and similar to block lists used by ad blockers | 07:47:44 |
| BeatLink | having a centralized database of bad stuff would offload some of the burdens of each server's moderators | 07:48:12 |
| BeatLink | the main problem i think would be who will be ponying up the time and manpower to populate said policy servers? | 07:48:41 |
| BeatLink | ive heard horror stories of facebook moderators seeing all kinds of horrible crap | 07:48:57 |
| uep | there are already reasonable mechanisms for publishing and sharing blocklists | 07:53:36 |
| uep | and out bot shares (both inbound and outbound) with others | 07:54:21 |
| uep | but it doesn't apply to invites, and there's no real way for clients to use them, and the format is a bit limited so you can't use things like patterns for usernames | 07:55:40 |
| uep | and all the other things, like deleting images, are reactive and subject to lag and the vagaries of matrix being inconsistent | 07:56:32 |
| uep | so, for example, someone has been creating thousands of <hex-hash-guid>:home.server usernames, and sending spam, and they get added to the shared blocklist, so the bots dutifully add them to the block lists of all the channels they're protecting | 07:58:45 |
| uep | and i'm sure at some point this is going to be a new attack against matrix servers when those are too long | 07:59:13 |
