Notices by Managing Barista and Janitor (proprietor@wandering.shop)

Hey friends!

The current spam wave is not abating despite the best efforts of many - it's getting to be a lot to keep up with.

Since mastodon.social is the source of most of the scam/spam/phishing accounts I'm seeing reported, we are going to put that instance into "Limit" status for a while.

"Limit" does not break existing follow/follower relationships but it keeps their public TL posts off our TL and vice/versa, so we're all less exposed to this nonsense.

Consider taking this opportunity to invite any of your friends/contacts/connections to move away from meganodes like mastodon.social and join a smaller and less chaotic community!

Friends, I just boosted a #feditips post & boost about the latest wave of “your account needs to be verified” phishing that is going on.

We have some pretty reliable confirmation that the links being sent out are malicious, DO NOT CLICK THEM. Report the post.

The other great advice in that boost is to know your mod/admin accounts. You can find them on the “About” page for any instance, even when not logged in.

We do not deputize random generic names from other instances to “verify” anything.

Modblurt of the moment:

There's another uptick in "spam" going on, particularly with begposts for GFM donations or mutual aid. These are really hard to pre-empt, as most reasonably moderated servers remain reluctant to outright forbid mutual aid requests.

It's also been noticed by instance admins that the people running these scams are now creating waves of new accounts and immediately blocking their own instance admins, and any others they can think of.

Please keep reporting these.

PSA for my friends …

And those of you who have been encoutering “Nicole, but you can call me Fediverse Chick …”

https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/what-are-pig-butchering-scams.html

“Pig Butchering” is an exponentially growing scam model, being carried out by trafficked people. It rolls a whole psych warfare + romance + free crypto money scam together with some sort of grandpa-scam entree, and they’re in for a long game.

Mastodon Admins are trying to get rid of “Nicole”, but its a hydra.

DO NOT ENGAGE.

Hey out there Fediverse ...

For our information here at Wandering.Shop, is anyone aware of instances/servers that ARE actively looking to take in displaced bot accounts?

Looking for #fediTips, general knowledge if you have it, or any new official bots-and-fun instances, that we can refer folks to when they ask us.

I don’t usually use this account to boost random fun or “personal” things, as it’s the work account. BUT we are a fedi server attempting to model our vibe after a friendly cafe serving book nerds. Thus, this cute bot seems a worthy exception! @_random_cafe is showing off coffee shops and tea houses of the world!

From: @_random_cafe
https://mstd.seungjin.net/@_random_cafe/112779774430180854

@youronlyone @ratcatcher Hey! Geez, I'm sorry it, looks like I ignored this request - missed it in my timeline last week as threaded responses rolled along.

I'm guessing,though, you caught this, as there was something of an admin-to-admin reporting effort that went on and they all seem to have been shut down.

I got distracted answering a whole bunch of "is it threads? It's all threads, isn't it?" presumptions. 😜

'Til next time, I guess.

@ratcatcher No.

At least one of them is on c.im though.

Hey friends!

The Fedi moderation community is watching a cluster of inauthentic accounts popping up across numerous servers. These are posting bland, platitude-laden or word salad posts, unattributed images, or generated content along with a certain few hashtags to get attention.

These will not be able to register here unless invited, but please report them if you see them. Other moderators need to know.

A few years old now, but as I contemplate fediverse growth, this essay by @mmasnick is a thinky read for those in the instance moderation or community admin space.

https://www.techdirt.com/2019/11/20/masnicks-impossibility-theorem-content-moderation-scale-is-impossible-to-do-well/

Our hands-on, know-your-clients moderation paradigm can't survive 6- or 7-figure user numbers. But algorithmic moderation, as is presumed to be at least the first pass methodology in this essay, is bound to have both false-positive and false-negative results at levels which are in absolute terms, horrible