On Oct 25, 2007, at 10:47 AM, David Artman wrote:
URL blocking is nice for the spam; but these bots are just adding
garbage to the page (not URLs, yet), and they could still delete an
entire page's contents.
Bleh, I hadn't even looked at the contents of the spam to see that it
was simply nonsense, without even URLs. I didn't think this sort of
spam would be a problem; I'm not really sure what the point is,
unless it's just someone who thinks that automated vandalism is funny.
Further, the Rabbit wiki in particular is rife
with off-site URLs (convention sites, IcehouseGames.org, Wunderland,
retailers, etc).
*nod* I'll make it so that registered users don't have to enter
CAPTCHAs to type in URLs.
I really think halting registration (reCAPTCHA or admin approval only)
and requiring login to change anything on the site is the one-two
punch
to stop them.
I prefer to be as lenient as possible while still stopping the
problem that we actually have. Thus, I'd still like anonymous users
to be able to edit, though since there's a problem with vandalbots,
I'll require all anonymous edits to include a CAPTCHA (so,
registering means that you don't have to enter a CAPTCHA every time
you edit).
If we have further problems (anonymous real people actually abusing
the system, or real people signing up for accounts to post spam),
I'll make the rules more strict to stop the new problems.
I've made the changes I've mentioned in here, so please, try to test
things out to make sure I have everything configured properly.