New accts is pay only because of spam

[FIREin2018]

MMM notified me when i checked in today that because the MMM app is no longer being supported that all new accts are pay only in order to post.
Yet no thread about it here?

1) There was a MMM app???
2) Why is it no longer being supported?
3) How does the MMM app no longer being supported increase the # of spam bot accts?

[Tasse]

This is briefly discussed here: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/forum-information-faqs/stuck-on-'updated-registration-agreement'-page/

The history as I understand it: the forum has long struggled to weed out spam bot accounts. For a while mods handled this by requiring people to sign up through the app (though they could subsequently log in through a browser once the account was created). It's a bit harder to code up a spam bot for an app than a website, basically.

But now that the app is no longer supported, they need to figure out a new way to weed out spam accounts. My impression is this is a trial period for the $5 thing, and there have been suggestions to, for example, allow existing users to "sponsor" people they vouch for to join for free, but I don't know how easily that could be created or if it will happen.

I assume the app is no longer supported for cost reasons, but I have never used it and don't know anything more than that.

There are lots of other ways this could hypothetically be done, but our mods are volunteers, so whatever makes their jobs possible is good in my book.

[ChpBstrd]

I tried to set up a SMF forum on a Wordpress site a couple of years ago and did nothing to advertise it. Within days - literally days - I had hundreds of accounts posting links to viruses and stupid things to buy. There were no other users than the bots ... sometimes replying to each other, lol. I nuked the thing from orbit. It was the only way to be sure. Moderation would have been a 12-hour a day job.

So yea, this forum is built on old tech from the 2010's that is unprepared for the onslaught of simple bots, much less the coming AI bots which will hopefully destroy social media as we know it.

I think the $5 fee to join is an amazing experiment. THAT will filter out the bots, guaranteed. But it will also raise the ante for the people willing to do things that will get themselves banned, like flame warring or incivility. Maybe that argument isn't worth it if setting up a new account will cost five bucks!

Also, AI is well past the Turing Test and the MMM Forum is instituting this cover charge just as all other social media services are about to be inundated with bot accounts that cannot be identified by either machine or human mods. Thus the old timey MMM Forum might become the last place on the internet where you can rest assured you are chatting with a fellow human being. And not just any human being... not the trolls of Reddit for example... but people who are motivated to be here.

I'm sure the rationale for the cover charge is that the forum will need money for upgrades eventually, OR maybe MMM or the Mods are just tired of managing it and aren't afraid to let it die. But I can see things going another direction, and the forum becoming an oasis of quality in a desert of trash data.

It could actually become more popular among humans who are not too cheap to spend a fiver as every other service becomes 99.999% AI-generated within the next couple of years.

My only concern is for the... Cheap Bastards. Spending $5 on a social media account is hard to justify. Thus the voices of the hyper-frugal could be slowly extinguished on the MMM Forum, and eventually the internet (as there is no incentive for bots trying to sell stuff to advocate frugality). Perhaps the almost ad-free experience will be worth it for frugalistas.

[twinstudy]

Doesn't hurt to charge users a nominal fee just so that they value their accounts. Maybe $5 is too much - maybe it should be $1? Anyway, I think Metafilter also charged $5 per account and it led to consistent high quality discussion, although MF is also dying so maybe it's not great for growth.

[GilesMM]

I thought CAPTCHA foiled bots.

[ChpBstrd]

Doesn't hurt to charge users a nominal fee just so that they value their accounts. Maybe $5 is too much - maybe it should be $1? Anyway, I think Metafilter also charged $5 per account and it led to consistent high quality discussion, although MF is also dying so maybe it's not great for growth.

$1 per bot might be a reasonable price to pay to put spam and malicious links in front of the wealthier-than-usual MMM crowd.

[grantmeaname]

Twitter's bot problem did not get better when they introduced pay-to-win, it just supercharged the business of any spammer that could monetize the accounts at a rate better than the $8 charge. A platform is very different than a forum, of course, so it might not be wholly comparable here.

[GuitarStv]

Good thing I signed up before the app thing - I don't have a cellphone.  I feel like charging an admittance fee will significantly reduce the number of new guests.

[Tigerpine]

The signup fee will definitely discourage new users.  For what it's worth (not much, I know), if there had been a $5 signup fee I never would have created an account on this forum.

On the other hand, spam bots absolutely must be countered somehow.  For the sake of the forums, I hope this is the right way to do it.  Otherwise, it will have been a good run.

[ChpBstrd]

Reddit is free, but I can definitely see the difference in quality.

The questions are:

• Can anyone else see the difference in quality?
• Does anyone else care about the quality of content/interactions they consume?

[spartana]

The signup fee will definitely discourage new users.  For what it's worth (not much, I know), if there had been a $5 signup fee I never would have created an account on this forum.

On the other hand, spam bots absolutely must be countered somehow.  For the sake of the forums, I hope this is the right way to do it.  Otherwise, it will have been a good run.

I wouldn't have either. When the Motley Fool started a fee based system I quit going there. I can see how it could reduce spam and make the (awesome!) Mods job easier but us "cheaper the thou" type likely wouldn't join. I also wouldn't have joined if back then it was only thru an app.

[twinstudy]

Reddit is free, but I can definitely see the difference in quality.

The questions are:

• Can anyone else see the difference in quality?
• Does anyone else care about the quality of content/interactions they consume?

I don't think I've ever seen a more negative, insular, hive minded place than Reddit.

Some small subreddits are useful, but main reddits are just a cesspool of idiots.

[grantmeaname]

IMO the quality of conversation on the FI subreddits in particular is strikingly worse than MMM Forums.

[Fru-Gal]

IMO Reddit since their IPO and the advent of ChatGPT is SUPER FAKE. So much karma-farming.

[RetiredAt63]

Ravelry is one of the best forums on the internet.  I'm no sure how much work it takes to keep it that way, but every group has moderators so the workload is spread out.

[FireLane]

Charging a fee to join is a bummer. It'll reduce the already-low number of new users to a trickle, and it'll filter out the uber-frugal types who most embody the spirit of MMM...

...but I get it, the spammers are relentless, and the mods are volunteers. WordPress has a pretty good automated spam filter called Akismet, which also works for some bulletin boards, but I don't know if anything like that exists for SMF.

Here's a suggestion: New users have to pay to join, but if they go a certain length of time (or make a certain number of posts) without getting reported or banned, they get the fee refunded. (I have no idea how feasible that is...)

[oneday]

Ravelry is one of the best forums on the internet.  I'm no sure how much work it takes to keep it that way, but every group has moderators so the workload is spread out.

On that point, would more mods help here? Can we step up to keep this place thriving?

[ChpBstrd]

Here's a suggestion: New users have to pay to join, but if they go a certain length of time (or make a certain number of posts) without getting reported or banned, they get the fee refunded. (I have no idea how feasible that is...)

AI's could meet this criteria and get their fee refunded before blasting the entire forum with 10,000 spam posts.

[VanillaGorilla]

IMO Reddit since their IPO and the advent of ChatGPT is SUPER FAKE. So much karma-farming.

I've been developing this theory for a while. At this point I'm convinced that most of Reddit is fake. Most of the popular content is either bored kids, Russian trolls fomenting social unrest, or karma farming.

Unfortunately, a lot of people read Reddit and accept it at face value, which is quite terrifying.

[FIREin2018]

Here's a suggestion: New users have to pay to join, but if they go a certain length of time (or make a certain number of posts) without getting reported or banned, they get the fee refunded. (I have no idea how feasible that is...)

AI's could meet this criteria and get their fee refunded before blasting the entire forum with 10,000 spam posts.

Anyone know how Bogleheads deal with spam bots?

[FireLane]

Here's a suggestion: New users have to pay to join, but if they go a certain length of time (or make a certain number of posts) without getting reported or banned, they get the fee refunded. (I have no idea how feasible that is...)

AI's could meet this criteria and get their fee refunded before blasting the entire forum with 10,000 spam posts.

In my experience, spammers aren't patient enough to play the long game like that. Anything that raises the barrier to entry even a little will ward off 99% of them, and the mods can handle the rest.

[grantmeaname]

That's not what happened with Twitter.

[GuitarStv]

That's not what happened with Twitter.

Oh no.  You think Elon Musk is going to buy MMM forums?  :P

[VAR]

I wouldn't pay 5$ I guess I'm a cheap bastard and I wouldn't have signed up with an app. I was just talking with a friend the other day how the internet is largely useless now vs xyz years ago. A guilty pleasure I have is reading bored panda at night before bed despite the annoying ad onslaught. Using dark mode was critical - who wants flashing ads on a white background at midnight? Now  dark mode is a premium service you pay for....ok no more bored panda. I'm reading more books lately. Maybe overall for me it's a good thing. Forums in general are dying. I used to be on so many and there were good conversations - actual conversations. Now I'm on 2 including this one. I usually just read here as I was learning and now just maintaining. The other one I mostly use to keep up on news as they have a news forum where somebody is always posting the best/relevant headlines so I can avoid the trash that is most news websites.... I miss conversations online and real life.

[Telecaster]

That's not what happened with Twitter.

You could always have a free account in Twitter.   Musk started charging for verified accounts in order to increase revenue.  What Elon didn't realize but everyone else understood is that the verified accounts benefit the platform far more than the verified user.   If you are an NBA nut but don't know if that's actually LeBron James tweeting or not, then there is no reason to log onto Twitter.   

Some verified users thought it was useful to pay the fee to remain verified, but lots didn't.  Between the rise of fake accounts and the decrease in moderation, Twitter rapidly become an even bigger cesspool than it already was.   Eventually, Elon realized his blunder and removed the fee for verified users.   

[ChpBstrd]

That's not what happened with Twitter.

You could always have a free account in Twitter.   Musk started charging for verified accounts in order to increase revenue.  What Elon didn't realize but everyone else understood is that the verified accounts benefit the platform far more than the verified user.   If you are an NBA nut but don't know if that's actually LeBron James tweeting or not, then there is no reason to log onto Twitter.   

Some verified users thought it was useful to pay the fee to remain verified, but lots didn't.  Between the rise of fake accounts and the decrease in moderation, Twitter rapidly become an even bigger cesspool than it already was.   Eventually, Elon realized his blunder and removed the fee for verified users.

So Musk went full into the ad supported paradigm instead of reversing his decision to fire the mods.

Now Twitter is indistinguishable from the bot-driven extremist platforms Telegram or 4chan or 8chan, and Musk is wondering why his $42B investment is not earning a financial return.The real mystery is why respectable politicians and celebrities still use it, which forces the media to cover it.

Because Twitter is in no way technically superior to the trash platforms, there’s no reason for this to continue except the branding and inertia built by Twitter’s previous management. Seems ripe for disruption.

To me, the damage to Twitter demonstrates the folly of the ad supported plus no moderation combo. The MMM forum obviously can’t go that route, so here we are.

[Loren Ver]

The forum isn't being put behind a paywall so all the advice over years of wonderful, thoughtful people is still available to anyone that wants to click on by.  I think that is an important point.  For anyone that has been around for a little while, we all know that the advice for FIRE doesn't really change.  Someone's specifics might change, but if you look around for a little bit, you can apply the rules to most situations.  Same with reducing ones environmental impact,  influencing people at work for the better, on and on.  It might not be custom fit to you, but the knowledge is there, and hopefully not going to be buried under an Internet's worth of AI-bots drivel. 

If you want to contribute- there is now a higher bar.  Will it stop some people, yes.  All bars will stop some people.  The app would have stopped me as I didn't have a smart phone.  But I also lurked for a long time before I decided to join and post anything.  One can learn a ton lurking (see paragraph 1).  The app did stop my DH from joining since he doesn't have a smart phone and couldn't join when he tried.  It happens.  But forums also stop people that don't communicate predominately by typed word and not video or English, or lots of other reasons.  Not everything will work for everyone all the time. That's just part of life and making decisions.

Maybe this will work really well, or maybe a new idea will come out and the forum will pivot to something else that works even better.  I think the important thing is that the volunteers are trying to make things work instead of just going, "This is hard better just give up, it was a good run."  Like several other online communities I have been a part of over the years.

Loren

[Telecaster]

Because Twitter is in no way technically superior to the trash platforms, there’s no reason for this to continue except the branding and inertia built by Twitter’s previous management. Seems ripe for disruption.

There are two problems.  One is the network effect.  Everyone uses Twitter because everyone is already on Twitter.   That's hard to disrupt, but it can be done.  Facebook did it to Myspace.  But Google+ couldn't do it to Facebook.   

The other is the Twitter doesn't make money.   So not a lot of players eager to enter the space.   

[ChpBstrd]

Because Twitter is in no way technically superior to the trash platforms, there’s no reason for this to continue except the branding and inertia built by Twitter’s previous management. Seems ripe for disruption.

There are two problems.  One is the network effect.  Everyone uses Twitter because everyone is already on Twitter.   That's hard to disrupt, but it can be done.  Facebook did it to Myspace.  But Google+ couldn't do it to Facebook.   

The other is the Twitter doesn't make money.   So not a lot of players eager to enter the space.

Agreed, but MySpace, Geocities, and blogging itself have shown us that no platform is permanent. Facebook is now known a a Boomer platform. X will soon be known as the Generation X platform - hopefully with some negative associations about GenX's gullibility and willingness to believe anything they see on the internet.

Disruption has upended network effects before, and it will do so again. That said, network effects are no small thing when it comes to internet businesses.

[GilesMM]

...

The app did stop my DH from joining since he doesn't have a smart phone and couldn't join when he tried.  It happens.  But forums also stop people that don't communicate predominately by typed word and not video or English, or lots of other reasons.  Not everything will work for everyone all the time. That's just part of life and making decisions.

...

Can you two share an account?