It’s confusing for new users, and this instance in particular has 7k users but no interactions. It’s a bot army, with the top user being called @admin.

Extremely shady and misleading.

  • DarraignTheSane@lemmy.worldM
    6·
    1 year ago

    FYI, I’m not going to remove this post or anything (and I agree as well), but it’s not likely to be seen by the right people here. /c/Sysadmin is just our community for discussing sysadmin things and I don’t know how much /u/Ruud or any Lemmy devs hang out here.

    You might try cross-posting it to these communities:
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]

    Of note, lemmy.ml is the server that is operated by the primary Lemmy devs.

  • average650@lemmy.world
    5·
    1 year ago

    I think just banning them is enough. On other instances it will indicate they are on another instance.

    • izzent@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      I think some form of blanket ban on certain keywords in usernames should be used. Admin being an obvious one, but I’m sure a lot more would also be problematic.

      • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        I guess what I meant is, how? It could be put into Lemmy sourcecode but since its open source that could be easily removed.

        Each instance could possibly try and autoban any other instance user with that name?

  • A_A@lemmy.world
    73·
    1 year ago

    Let’s not federate with that instance. Then, they can have any bots or username they want.

    • izzent@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Usually I’d agree, but there has to be something more that can be done to prevent others from putting keywords like that in their name. Otherwise it’ll just happen again…

      • Master@lemmy.world
        61·
        1 year ago

        I think admin, administrator and those type names (system administrator, sys admin etc) should be reserved but you shouldnt ban admin as being part of a name. What about sadmin / sadminute… or badmin / badminute (and every variantion of that like MadMinotaur )and other variants like that.

      • A_A@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 year ago

        for other instances it’s name will appear as : @admin@Podycust …so not such a big deal

        • EatALime@kbin.social
          0·
          1 year ago

          Kbin doesn’t display the instance someone is on unless you click on their username for some reason. It’s not a great design choice for a federated platform.

          • A_A@lemmy.world
            0·
            1 year ago

            Today I’ve learned (TiL) ! thanks 🙂
            if original poster (OP) had posted there instead of in lemmy.world … would have been better … yet not a big deal 😌

  • emptyother@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    What if a persons real name is Admin in some weird language?

    A bit far-fetched I know. Still, I think that if theres gonna be a global hardcoded blacklist of usernames, someone should be very careful which words is added to that list. Each specific instance would know better what words is good and what is bad in their main language(s).

    • PaintedSnail@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      For those of us who understand how the platform works, it wouldn’t be an issue. However, if we want mass adoption of the platform, we need to take into consideration those who don’t fully understand the technology and avoid situations that will lead to scams where feasible. Names of authority, like admin, root, super, etc., make a user appear to have authority they don’t, which can mislead new users. (“Support our server by sending bitcoin to this address that is really my personal wallet” type scams comes to mind.) You could say that it’s the person’s fault for falling for it, but it’s something that would drive people away from the platform which can be easily avoided in the first place.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
    32·
    1 year ago

    Official instance admin and community mod roles are denoted with badges, though. That’s consistent across every instance already.

    I could change my name to admin and post here, but it wouldn’t give me any superpowers. Looking at my remote @admin user from a federated instance wouldn’t badge me as an admin for that instance.

    I don’t see the problem or see how that affects anyone. There can be an @john on every instance. Is that confusing for users, too? Should every instance coordinate and make sure there’s only one @john to rule them all? Who is the best John, and how is that determined?

    That’s just how the fediverse works.

        • FaceDeer@kbin.social
          0·
          1 year ago

          Interesting, so a bare “@admin” will link to whatever user has that name on your local instance? That should probably be a bug, I could type “@falafel” or whatever and end up linking to completely different people based on whatever instance someone happens to be reading from. Maybe giving all those people mention notifications, too.

          • VerifiablyMrWonka@kbin.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            I’m actually working on the problem now. It’s a tricky one to solve. There’s no context about who that user is, like at all. So we either don’t link any users. Or do a best effort.

            • FaceDeer@kbin.social
              1·
              1 year ago

              Personally, I would think either default to the same instance as the person who’s comment it is, or just don’t link it at all since it’s an incomplete address. Like failing to include the “.social” part of the “https://kbin” URL, it’s just a broken thing.