New Users
eviltoast.org is still welcoming to new members. If you're looking to sign up, please feel free to create an account! If you already have an account on another instance or were referred by someone, mentioning that in the application box would be helpful.
What changed
For a few days now, the signup process for new accounts at eviltoast.org now require a small application process.
It's a simple text field, but means there is a manual step to approve new users. New users aren't expected to write an essay or anything rediculous, just prove their human and whether they have a connection with someone already here.
This is a measure to prevent spammers from launching attacks from our instance and being able to easily re-create new accounts to continue attacks from.
Future
If lemmy doesn't improve its mod and admin tools, I may end up making a sort of invite system so that existing members can invite new users instantly. And then the application process would be only for completely new users without an invite.
IMO I don't think it is something the lemmy devs are focused on, but there is a growing community creating helpful tools around moderation/federation/maintenance. There were some core features added like mods being able to see downvotes to detect mass downvoting, and open issues for things like an invite system.
LemmyAutomod is an example of a community effort. I saw some other similar bots posted too.
That's very peculiar that the devs don't seem to care about moderation tools. What do they think will happen to their platform?
I could be totally wrong but my take on it is that they're just wanting the community to handle it so they can work on other parts of lemmy. They at least don't seem like they're against better mod tools.
day-to-day mod and admin actions on this instance are pretty low. Bigger instances like LW probably would have more reason to complain :D