[ILUG] Re: wiki software

[Rory Browne]

On 5/23/05, Lee Hosty <hostyle at csn.ul.ie> wrote:
> On Mon, 23 May 2005, Rory Browne wrote:
> 
> > On 5/22/05, Lee Hosty <hostyle at csn.ul.ie> wrote:
> > > Rory Browne wrote:
> > > >>>My point was that login accounts aren't the only protection against
> > > >>>spambots, and they aren't necessarly the best.
> > > >>
> > > >>Without them, my experience is that you're overwhelmed.  (As mentioned,
> > > >>you may enjoy a fool's paradise of some months' duration until the bots
> > > >>all find you, but then you get clobbered.)
> > > >
> > > > That few months may be all we need to accumulate the momentum of being
> > > > a sufficient size that users will be willing to jump through the hoops
> > > > that they wouldn't have been willing to jump through for a small
> > > > five-page wiki.
> > >
> > > What few months? I have administered a few wikis over the last couple of
> > > years. If google can find you - the wiki spam bots will be there within
> > > a matter of hours, and call back every couple of hours from random IP
> > > addresses. Open Wikis were a great idea a year ago and longer. Today
> > > there is no way they will survive without constant moderation /
> > > administration.
> > >
> > > Some wikis have blacklisting and limited spam detection (MoinMoin IIRC),
> > > but I've yet to see any sort of small public wiki survive more than a
> > > month of spamming without going login-only or collapse comepletely. The
> > > main problem with wikis is that they are such a low hanging fruit fo
> > > spammers. Its trivial to write a Perl script using WWW:Mechanize to
> > > search google for wiki-specific content, and auto-submit to every page
> > > found.
> >
> > How many of those wikis implemented other protective measures, such as
> > the captcha, or fed the content through a spam filter. I'm not
> > arguing. Just curious.
> 
> CAPTCHA? None. CAPTCHA is completely un-accessible - which could be very
> important if you have disabled teachers / students. And if you are forcing
> people to type in something, it might as well be a login. I wasn't in
> charge of any of these wikis - ie. didn't have the final say in what was
> to be done. Two went away, the others turned themselves into forums
> instead. I'm no longer involved with any of them.
> 
Fair enough, but there are advantages and dis-advantages to
everything. How else do you propose stopping automated spam-bots from
using the system? Even if you do have logins, you have to have a way
for people to register for logins, and if this can be done
automaticly(without a capcha getting in the way) then we're back to
square 1.

I think we are going to have to compromise on this issue somewhere. We
need to keep spam bots out, that includes preventing automated
registration. In the event of a disabled teacher, or something like
that they could email the admin explaining their circumstances, and
their account could then be activated. Either that or they could ask a
non-disabled collegue to type in the captcha code.

Disabled students/teachers represent a minority, and I think that
whilst the system should accomodate them, it shouldn't be designed
around them. Besides, I think there are very few people who can't pass
any form of captcha. If they're blind for example, they probably
aren't deaf, and if they're deaf, they probably aren't blind. By this
I mean that we could create some sort of sound that would contain a
code for the user to type in.