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Is there a mastodon server that doesn't require email for signup? Throw away providers did not work for me, free email providers require a phone number. It's li

Is there a mastodon server that doesn't require email for signup? Throw away providers did not work for me, free email providers require a phone number. It's like signal, the benefits are contrasted against metadata exposure.

gargron 6y ago
I'm not aware of one. Unfortunately any server not requiring e-mail confirmation for sign-up would be overrun by spammers (we don't want to add CAPTCHAs because 1) they are unpleasant for real humans and 2) they require loading external resources which is minus points for the user's privacy).
- badrabbit 6y ago
  I prefer captchas or even arbitrary btc donations. Matrix.org Riot does this just fine. Since it is just for registration, it's easy for me to register in a privacy preserving conditon (vpn, private mode,noscript,etc...)
- robobro 6y ago
  You are lying. I have ran many Pleroma servers that do not require email to sign up, and have used Pleroma servers that do not require email to signup. None of them are overran by spammers. You have forgotten your origins, James, and it bums me out. Email sucks. Requiring email to join a site sucks. Let's cite a popular essay from our old community: http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/ http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/ * Registration keeps out good posters. Imagine someone with an involving job related to your forum comes across it. This person is an expert in her field, and therefore would be a great source of knowledge for your forum; but if a registration, complete with e-mail and password, is necessary before posting, she might just give up on posting and do something more important. People with lives will tend to ignore forums with a registration process. * Registration lets in bad posters. On the other hand, people with no lives will thrive on your forum. Children and Internet addicts tend to have free time to go register an account and check their e-mail for the confirmation message. They will generally make your forum a waste of bandwidth. * Registration attracts trolls. If someone is interested in destroying a forum, a registration process only adds to the excitement of a challenge. One might argue that a lack of registration will just let "anyone" post, but in reality anyone can post on old-type forum software; registration is merely a useless hassle.
kabacha 6y ago
Surely there's an email provider that doesn't require a phone number? Protonmail, Tutanota?
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Tried both. Proton let's you donate as an alternative, but only with a card. I haven't tried cash visa/mastercard giftcards with it. It's a recent thing they're doing. I routinely create at least half a dozen free email addresses a year, phone number did not use to be an issue. They've locked down pretty tight.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  Or cock.li if you are into edgy domains.
dependenttypes 6y ago
I am not aware of any mastodon server like that but there are quite a few pleroma servers that accept fake emails.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  I just wanna note that there is a strong comorbidity between "being a Pleroma" and "being blocked by a lot of Masto instances because you're run by someone with an anime girl icon who thinks the whole internet should be an acceptable place to behave like a denizen of the bowels of 4chan".
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    Is being an anime fan a bad thing now? Or do you feel that putting a political label on someone just because they find a specific piece of software comfortable for them is a nice thing to do? Anyway, in the same spirit one could say that "there is a strong comorbidity between being a harasser who jumps on random threads just to insult people as well as subscribing to racist and authoritarian idelologies and using mastodon" which (while true in my personal experience) would be unfair to the nice people that use mastodon and possibly cause these that read it to be prejudiced against mastodon users due to their software of choice.
    - egypturnash 6y ago
      “Wanting the Internet to be 4chan forever” is a political label? Watching anime is fine by me, I’ve enjoyed the hell out of a lot of the stuff in my time. I run a Masto instance and I am just speaking from my experience in what shows up in the tags where us admins share block recommendations; there are bad actors using Masto too! I defederated from a Masto instance just this morning after seeing its admin aggressively escalate a conflict with well-practiced speed. One of those pops up about every six months. Pleromae where the admin encourages escalating conflicts and wears an anime girl icon are a constant feature of the block suggestion tags.
      - 6y ago
Grumbledour 6y ago
I used Tutanota just a few weeks ago for this and they didn't require a phone number. I also found that trying a few providers, sooner or later a throwaway address would work. But I also think asking for at least an email is not that unreasonable. Sure, I value my privacy, but I also value a good community and keeping the worst spammers out often helps. Talking smaller instances here, obviously, but I think that's where the value is with something like mastodon. Tight knit communities with the option to reach out to others.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Perhaps they do that when I used a VPN. You can police your community without spying on them or collecting sensitive information. Reddit and HN did it since the start!
  - Grumbledour 6y ago
    This seems a bit harsh to me in response to asking for a valid email address for proof of realness and to be contacted when necessary. Reddit surely requires one. Can't remember if hn did, but don't know how they keep out spam. I also like the idea of using BTC you mentioned in another post to state good intentions, but acquiring BTC to use in the first place seems like much more hassle, registrations and sharing of data is required.
    - badrabbit 6y ago
      Reddit did not mandate email as of about a year or so ago. I only use HN because no email (well I might have signed up with email anyways but I certainly never provided one). Look at all the dead posts under new on HN, they get spam and do a good job of managing it. You can get btc with cash, if you already have it,it's a nice option. "If it can be abused,it will be abused". Captchas and small btc payments can't easily be abused against the user but email and phone number can. Email and phone number are also not costly to an attacker to spoof or churn out at a high rate. Captchas and small payments have accumulating prohibitive cost for an attacker. IfI create a gmail just to sign up,it certainly is much more of a hassle. Even temporary inbox services are a hassle these days compared to a 20sec captcha.
mewmewblobcat 6y ago
I run the server busshi.moe, if you sign up there I can manually confirm your account if you use a fake email. Mastodon has no option to disable requiring an email, but Pleroma does.

gargron 6y ago

I'm not aware of one. Unfortunately any server not requiring e-mail confirmation for sign-up would be overrun by spammers (we don't want to add CAPTCHAs because 1) they are unpleasant for real humans and 2) they require loading external resources which is minus points for the user's privacy).

badrabbit 6y ago
I prefer captchas or even arbitrary btc donations. Matrix.org Riot does this just fine. Since it is just for registration, it's easy for me to register in a privacy preserving conditon (vpn, private mode,noscript,etc...)
robobro 6y ago
You are lying. I have ran many Pleroma servers that do not require email to sign up, and have used Pleroma servers that do not require email to signup. None of them are overran by spammers. You have forgotten your origins, James, and it bums me out. Email sucks. Requiring email to join a site sucks. Let's cite a popular essay from our old community: http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/ http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/ * Registration keeps out good posters. Imagine someone with an involving job related to your forum comes across it. This person is an expert in her field, and therefore would be a great source of knowledge for your forum; but if a registration, complete with e-mail and password, is necessary before posting, she might just give up on posting and do something more important. People with lives will tend to ignore forums with a registration process. * Registration lets in bad posters. On the other hand, people with no lives will thrive on your forum. Children and Internet addicts tend to have free time to go register an account and check their e-mail for the confirmation message. They will generally make your forum a waste of bandwidth. * Registration attracts trolls. If someone is interested in destroying a forum, a registration process only adds to the excitement of a challenge. One might argue that a lack of registration will just let "anyone" post, but in reality anyone can post on old-type forum software; registration is merely a useless hassle.

kabacha 6y ago

Surely there's an email provider that doesn't require a phone number? Protonmail, Tutanota?

badrabbit 6y ago
Tried both. Proton let's you donate as an alternative, but only with a card. I haven't tried cash visa/mastercard giftcards with it. It's a recent thing they're doing. I routinely create at least half a dozen free email addresses a year, phone number did not use to be an issue. They've locked down pretty tight.
dependenttypes 6y ago
Or cock.li if you are into edgy domains.

dependenttypes 6y ago

I am not aware of any mastodon server like that but there are quite a few pleroma servers that accept fake emails.

egypturnash 6y ago
I just wanna note that there is a strong comorbidity between "being a Pleroma" and "being blocked by a lot of Masto instances because you're run by someone with an anime girl icon who thinks the whole internet should be an acceptable place to behave like a denizen of the bowels of 4chan".
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  Is being an anime fan a bad thing now? Or do you feel that putting a political label on someone just because they find a specific piece of software comfortable for them is a nice thing to do? Anyway, in the same spirit one could say that "there is a strong comorbidity between being a harasser who jumps on random threads just to insult people as well as subscribing to racist and authoritarian idelologies and using mastodon" which (while true in my personal experience) would be unfair to the nice people that use mastodon and possibly cause these that read it to be prejudiced against mastodon users due to their software of choice.
  - egypturnash 6y ago
    “Wanting the Internet to be 4chan forever” is a political label? Watching anime is fine by me, I’ve enjoyed the hell out of a lot of the stuff in my time. I run a Masto instance and I am just speaking from my experience in what shows up in the tags where us admins share block recommendations; there are bad actors using Masto too! I defederated from a Masto instance just this morning after seeing its admin aggressively escalate a conflict with well-practiced speed. One of those pops up about every six months. Pleromae where the admin encourages escalating conflicts and wears an anime girl icon are a constant feature of the block suggestion tags.
    - 6y ago

Grumbledour 6y ago

I used Tutanota just a few weeks ago for this and they didn't require a phone number. I also found that trying a few providers, sooner or later a throwaway address would work. But I also think asking for at least an email is not that unreasonable. Sure, I value my privacy, but I also value a good community and keeping the worst spammers out often helps. Talking smaller instances here, obviously, but I think that's where the value is with something like mastodon. Tight knit communities with the option to reach out to others.

badrabbit 6y ago
Perhaps they do that when I used a VPN. You can police your community without spying on them or collecting sensitive information. Reddit and HN did it since the start!
- Grumbledour 6y ago
  This seems a bit harsh to me in response to asking for a valid email address for proof of realness and to be contacted when necessary. Reddit surely requires one. Can't remember if hn did, but don't know how they keep out spam. I also like the idea of using BTC you mentioned in another post to state good intentions, but acquiring BTC to use in the first place seems like much more hassle, registrations and sharing of data is required.
  - badrabbit 6y ago
    Reddit did not mandate email as of about a year or so ago. I only use HN because no email (well I might have signed up with email anyways but I certainly never provided one). Look at all the dead posts under new on HN, they get spam and do a good job of managing it. You can get btc with cash, if you already have it,it's a nice option. "If it can be abused,it will be abused". Captchas and small btc payments can't easily be abused against the user but email and phone number can. Email and phone number are also not costly to an attacker to spoof or churn out at a high rate. Captchas and small payments have accumulating prohibitive cost for an attacker. IfI create a gmail just to sign up,it certainly is much more of a hassle. Even temporary inbox services are a hassle these days compared to a 20sec captcha.

mewmewblobcat 6y ago

I run the server busshi.moe, if you sign up there I can manually confirm your account if you use a fake email. Mastodon has no option to disable requiring an email, but Pleroma does.