@ryanc @jerry The spam analogy is very apt, I think, given Fediverse is often analogized to email.
And the wild-west-anyone-runs-anything approach is largely a failure there, too. I also used to run a personal mail server. It only worked if I proxied every message through my ISP's mail server.
A similar network-of-trust seems the only option here, give or take details.
@ryanc @jerry In the abstract sense, we're dealing with the scaling problems of the tit-for-tat experiment dynamics. Reputation-building approaches to social behavior only work when the # of actors is small enough that repeated interactions can build reputation. The Internet is vastly too big for that, just like society at large.