I don't think we should be limiting new users from commenting or posting. And 7 days is a long time.

Auto closing communities would be really annoying, but I think dimming them or marking them in the lists/search results would be nice. I filed an issue on this already https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/3174 maybe if more people think this is a good idea they could leave comments there

auto closing/suspending stale communities

Define "stale" commmunities.

wait 24h before commenting, wait 7 days before posting.

This would not help interacting levels at all.

There's been a huge wave of people (bots?) creating new accounts, posting a bunch, and then deleting their accounts after a couple of days. See: https://lemmy.world/post/39948262

Ehh still seems useless, they then just have to age the accounts before posting. One thing I'd want to know is of those posts are in topic areas that anyone would want to influence surreptitiously.

What is the point of "staggered new account permissions"?

At most we should be Autofolding/hiding unpopular comments.

Could limiting new users maybe help against bot spamming?

I could go for closing stale communities. There are some that have been vacant/inactive for years now. I mean communities with zero posts or comments.

If somebody wanted to takeover or revive one of them, they would've done it by now.

Yes, but it would tank the user retention rate.

Maybe slightly? But not worth turning away potential new users. We need more users.

Bots and spammers would just create accounts in advance and let them sit to get to the right age, it'd be the same.

A new user might come along and post something that revives interest in it. What Lemmy needs are more users to increase activity.

New users are unlikely to be interested in immediately committing to creating and/or maintaining a community with regular posts and moderation over a long period of time, but might be willing to contribute to existing communities. Better to have dormant communities that can be revived than to have a lack of topics for new users to contribute to.

• Bad. Don't even need to comment on this one.
• Non-conductive: spammers can just wait it out, whereas real users get demotivated.
• Dangerous: can be used for remotely censoring queer stuff.

auto closing/suspending stale communities
stale could be defined as unanswered mod reports, no mod activity (no post, comment, login in x time period), no posts

No. I've seen several times people ask the admins if they could take over a community. And it happened. Thus reviving dead communities.

staggered new account permissions:
wait 24h before commenting, wait 7 days before posting.

Why?

allow community users to flag posts or comments as NSFW.

This one I like.

Voting changes from up, down to up, down or NSFW.

That's not how it should be done though. The same menu that you pull out that lets you report things to a mod, instead of reporting to mod, it should let you report as NSFW. If a mod approves the request, it then becomes labeled as NSFW.

My proposed definition of stale is in the OP

This stuff? https://lemmy.world/u/FYLD_Proofchain

I think the issue is putting barriers to legit users even if it prevents some spam will keep us small.

I'll give some insight from NodeBB.

Adding in delays (x days until first post, y hours until upvote, etc.) do nothing to curb spam.

If your spam is manual, they will discover the waiting period, update their rulebook, and go to town when the waiting period is over.

If the spam is automated, it will work until the spammer admin discovers the waiting period, updates the script, and has the bots resume going to town when the waiting period is over.

At the same time it severly hampers usability at its most crucial (the first post).

The only thing that works to curb spam is a post queue with manual review... or locking the ability to post links behind reputation.