this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
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About two days ago we found a bug with the registration system on lemmy. Because of this we have updated our registration process a few times, and cannot deny any applications as the person registering does not receive any message and cannot re-apply.

We currently have several hundred people that we are waiting to deny, and some unknown amount of people that we denied prior to finding this issue which we would really like to contact and give them a chance to register as they didn't write enough in their registration for us to really evaluate if they were a good fit for this instance.

If you're a developer please take a look at this github issue and please work your magic to help fix this problem.

As an aside, we also have a list we've been working on for enhancements that would make moderating and administering this instance a lot easier, and enhancements we think users would enjoy in terms of UI and UX. We'd love to share these as well as facilitate a discussion to surface more ideas (and we plan to in the future), but right now we need to focus on the most pressing issue to us running this website, whether people can create an account here and participate.

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[–] nutomic@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As a workaround you can go into the database and query directly for users with rejected application and email provided. Then write a script to email them. Getting a fix developed, reviewed, merged and deployed will take a few days in the best case. And even longer now because we are busy with lots of things.

[–] admin@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago

Thank you. I've suggested this method to @Penguincoder@beehaw.org and we are looking into it.

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[–] ghostalmedia@beehaw.org 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bit of a tangent here, but if you’re ever looking for experience designers to help out here and there, or to just give something a second set of eyes, I might be able to lend a hand or connect y’all with some bright and chill people.

You probably don’t want me making any PRs, but I know my way around Figma and a user test plan.

[–] Lionir@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I'd love to see you redesign some parts of the Lemmy UI!

In my option, a lot of designing work is still to be done so I'd love to see mockups you can make and your thoughts on design work!

[–] ghostalmedia@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nice! I’m pretty new, so let me get a little bit more familiar with the platform, and I’ll craft up some stuff!

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[–] cityboundforest@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago

Hiya! Lemmy was actually one of the reasons I started learning Rust, but I do also know JavaScript, Python, a bit of Julia, C, C++, MASM, NASM, MIPS, a bit of TypeScript, and Java. I've worked on both frontend and backend although I think my expertise and comfort lies with backend primarily. I'm not sure if I'd be able to help with y'all's issue as I'm not familiar with the Lemmy codebase, but I'd be willing to try and help debug the issue and hopefully get it under control.

[–] SpacePirate@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Likely need to define some basic rbac controls. They signed up, sure, but don’t receive a “user” role until after approval. Then in the home page, when signed in with no roles assigned, they get a banner saying they’re still pending approval and will not be able to post or comment.

The major concern will be retroactively applying user roles to the existing users.

I'm a fan of this approach. That way, we can return a 200/201 on subsequent registrations for the case where an attacker would query if a user name already exists on an instance. If rejected, remove the account. If accepted, add the user role.

[–] thiccdiccnicc@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago

Thanks for posting and writing all this up. I'll take a good look at it if this is a Friday that work tickets decide to slow down.

[–] Blue@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought this was a mistake. I filled out an application early on and didn’t fill it out correctly. I expect that account was denied, but I did notice that the user was created the exact second I applied which was weird. I assume the username is now in a limbo state. Seems strange that lemmy would create an account before it’s approved.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

There needs to be something to approve or reject, after all. It could have been a separate table but this way is probably better ultimately, modulo current bugs. The same machinery can be used for suspending accounts and other steps in the account lifecycle.

[–] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I cannot code. 🫤

But it occurs to me that we need a couple of features - although maybe they already exist.

One is the ability to back up a Lemmy account and download the data.

The other is account portability - the ability to move an account from one instance to another.

But I suspect that #2 might be impossible.

[–] crank@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

mastodon has some portability features but not the ability to fully move the content of your account: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/ though you can move some stuff like friend lists etc.

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[–] vibrate@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I wonder if the RES devs might consider working on BES (or LES)?

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We can definitely use all the help we can get. Luckily since lemmy and its UI is open source, we can embed all this highly popular functionality directly into lemmy-ui.

[–] sailsperson@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

I'd love it. I don't hate the UI as it currently is, but I'd definitely appreciate some features, like the hotkeys RES has, or a tighter UI in general, with less padding and space between elements.

To be fair, tweaking the UI is surely in my power and skillset, but UI is surely my least favorite part of development as a whole.

[–] Zoop@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

If I remember correctly, RES has basically been limping along in maintenance mode for quite a while now and there's only one or two people left working on it - and only from time to time.

[–] SpaceCowboy639@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

I'm a beginner with Rust, but a full-time web engineer with React/TS/PHP/SQL/etc experience. I'm a bit swamped at the moment, but I'm down to contribute eventually :)

[–] Rentlar@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A "quick fix" might be to test for a user unapproved status on login and provide it as a status (e.g. 404:application_denied). Then the behaviour can be either release all created but unapproved accounts after 24hrs elapse or perma-"ban" until approved like it is now depending on server preferences.

"Quick fix" as in it's seems quick but will take me a while to implement if I were to try and I won't have time for a few days to get serious and become familiar with the code.

[–] ultraHQ@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] chinpokomon@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Servers may also send [a 404] response instead of 403 Forbidden to hide the existence of a resource from an unauthorized client.

In this case, I agree that 403 is the better response, but for some resources, in the name of security and privacy, 404 might be more appropriate depending on the request.

[–] ultraHQ@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah at work we mask all responses to the client in production to x00, but in the scenereo the original commenter laid out exposing the 403 would be best.

Adding a modal client side would prob be best here.

[–] SubArcticTundra@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Off topic but I'm really happy that the developers chose Rust to code Lemmy in. Low maintenance + high performance is the ideal combo for open source server software.

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[–] northernlightmountain@mstdn.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Gaywallet what if you signed up without an email? I don't think I added an email address until later attempts.

What can we do to reapply with a decent effort?

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

We do not require an email at signup for many reasons. You do not have to provide one ever. We recommend having an email in case you get locked out of your account, but that's your choice. We are not currently denying applications, so if you are in queue to be denied (there are currently >1000 individuals in this space) you will have to wait for a fix.

There is no reapplying until this is fixed.

[–] Admiral_Thrakus@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Does this issue also explain why I didn’t receive an email to say I was successful and only discovered I was approved by just trying to login just in case or is that a separate issue? Edit: I am a fool. I don’t believe I supplied an email address… I’m off to a great start!

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[–] biscuitsofdoom@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

To work on bugs and test do I just need the UI and backend? Does the backend code have a embedded DB for local development? I can code, btw. I can figure rust out, great with JavaScript and JVM languages.

[–] s900mhz@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The rust backend, Postgres Db and UI are all available as docker images. The rust “lemmy” repo has a docker compose file (if you are familiar with the concept) allowing you to spin up the whole stack locally pretty easily if you already have docker installed.

[–] mobyduck648@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

I didn’t know it was written in Rust. I looked at it years ago but never went anywhere with it. I bet I’d be much better at it having written Scala for the last six months, never really got into functional programming until now.

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[–] dlegan@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm a react dev. I'm happy to contribute in my spare time, probably weekends and smaller issues. I noticed the client is built in inferno, which from a quick look appears to be fairly similar to react, so I'm sure I can be useful. I'll have a look tomorrow, can see a large list of issues so I'm sure I will find something to do.

[–] Hellebert@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

I don't really know Rust at all but it might be a good opportunity to learn. I come from a C# and Python background so I might see if there's anything I can tackle.

[–] Impulse0424@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

I can't code, but I'd be happy to send donations to those who can to work on Lemmy. I'm not a rich man but I'll happily help how I can.

[–] electrona@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

I am a software developer. I will look at it this weekend at some point. I'll try to help if I can.

[–] karce@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

I have Rust experience and will consider helping out. I've been wanting to help out Lemmy recently anyway.

[–] Pexily@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ll take a look at it and submit a post request with fixes within the next week

[–] Pexily@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Pull request*

[–] cark@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

I'd be happy to help contribute as best I can. I don't have much Rust experience but I'd like to learn more. One thing I'm noticing: I like that there are a good deal good first issue tags for the backend repo, but only one for the frontend. I'm not sure if there's really that far fewer intro tasks for the frontend or if they're just not tagged as thoroughly.

[–] Garrathian@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have front end and back end experience but work has me kind of bogged down this week. If nobody has stepped up by Sunday I should be free to start taking a look at it at the very least.

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