Use stricter spam filtering req'ts for posting, relaxed req'ts for just following/reading

[steveharoz]

See the screenshot. I clicked "follow" on my BlueSky profile from mastodon. Initially it said "following". But when I refresh, it says "pending".

[snarfed]

Which Mastodon account did you do this from?

[DoktorZjivago]

Yes, same happened to me today!

Edit:when I went back to their profile page, it changed from "pending" to "follow".

[steveharoz]

Which Mastodon account did you do this from?

From https://mastodon.social/@sharoz

[snarfed]

Looks like you got caught by the spam filters: https://fed.brid.gy/docs#fediverse-cant-find . BF currently requires a profile picture and a display name.

[steveharoz]

Can all restrictions about who is allowed to follow an account be removed? I don't see the value in such a limitation.

[snarfed]

I'm open to other suggestions on how to filter out spam like https://conspirator0.substack.com/p/federation-and-political-spam !

[steveharoz]

I understood that the bluesky account sharing posts has to have a display name and profile picture. But a mastodon account that wants to follow it also needs that? Is the reason the mastodon needs to go through the antispam measure in case it wants to reply?

(Not disagreeing with you about antispam measures. Just trying to understand.)

[snarfed]

Good question! Yes, the anti-spam measures currently apply to accounts as a whole; BF isn't yet granular on which requirements it imposes for reading vs writing. That could be a good feature request though! I've updated this issue's title to track that.