AI slop concerns are at an all-time high. jazzband just shut down in part because github has become inundated with unqualified AI PRs. facebook, X, reddit, et all feel more machine than human these days. lobste.rs, on the other hand, feels very human. i believe that this is in large part due to their membership system. the lobste.rs membership system works like so: * registration is invite-only * if an account is 70+ days old, the ability to send "registration invites" is unlocked * registration invites may be gifted to people to register their own account * invites are _not_ limited * because invites are traceable, you are responsible inviting good community members in many ways, this system winds up resembling a tree of "vouches". that is to say, the system is based on trust. this means that the entire userbase of lobste.rs may be mapped as a gigantic "tree of trust"! see the invitations faq for more details. this type of system has tradeoffs - the most obvious tradeoff is that user growth occurs at the rate of gifted invites, which is organic and *slow* -- an effect that is desireable for community-centric sites with limited moderation capabilities. not so desireable for hyperscalers. if a particularly AI-sloppy feeling account is discovered, moderators may easily uncover entire user branches of AI accounts & prune them. all of this dramatically raises the cost of AI slopbot campaigns. it also prevents the site from being eternal september'd. bless the mods of lobste.rs for thinking this system through so thoroughly & applying it -- i believe it's very effective, and i wanted to give it an explicit shoutout for anyone thinking about how to desloppify their own community. [0] /==g _ // >>>/---{_ `==::[[[[|: _ >>>\---{_ luv, jes <3 [0]: (lobster by Valkyrie)