On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:19:41 -0500, Caleb Epstein wrote
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 06:02:15 -0700, Jeff Garland <jeff@crystalclearsoftware.com> wrote:
Since I didn't write the Wiki software, no. But that's an interesting idea, although I'm going to guess that it runs counter to the usual 'Wiki culture'....
A very simple and effective spam-combat tool I have seen employed by beleagured wikis is to password-protect the Edit pages, and to make the password simple and topic-relevant (e.g. "boost") but not in a machine-readable way.
See for example the Smarty wiki at: http://tinyurl.com/6f4c9
Interesting. Seems like a randomly generated password challenge would be a nice way to foil any 'bots' that are spamming the wiki. That said, from the spam I've seen I think it is mostly being done by hand by humans so a well known password isn't going to stop that.
Another suggestion somenoe made was to only allow registered users to edit pages.
I think either of these is a fine, marginally intrusive change
(assuming it can be done easily with the Wiki software) that would not stand in the way of legitimate users adding content and will go a long way to stop the spam.
Well, the issue is what does it take to get a registration? If it is non-automated it becomes a significant barrier because a person has to approve, might not be available for hours, etc. If it is automated (eg: via email or just the current 'preferences') then you go and get a free bogus email, register, and spam all you like until we detect it (note that at least a few spammers have actually registered on the wiki in the past). So again, I'm skeptical that this will help much. BTW, I've researched and we are already using the best-practices recommended by other folks running other UseMod Wiki's. There may be better Wiki engines out there now, but changing over would be a much bigger project... Jeff