Please. Captcha by default. Email domain filters. Auto-block federation from servers that don't respect. By default. Urgent.
And yes, to refute some comments, this publication is being upvoted by bots. A single computer was needed, not "thousands of dollars" spent.
I disagree. I think the solution is moderation. Basically, have a set of tools that identify likely bots, and let human moderators make the call.
If you require admins to manually approve accounts, admins will either automate approvals or stop approving. That's just how people tend to operate imo. And the more steps you put between people wanting to sign up and actually getting an account, the fewer people you'll get to actually go through with it.
So I'm against applications. What we need is better moderation tools. My ideal would be a web of trust. Basically, you get more privileges the more trusted people that trust you. I think that should start from the admins, then to the mods, and then to regular users.
But lemmy isn't that sophisticated. Maybe it will be some day, IDK, but it's the direction I'd like to see things go.