Wiki-Spammers (was: [Pmwiki-users] pmwiki.org - version 1 - vandalised)

[Steffen Glückselig]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 15:41:57 +0100, Thomas -Balu- Walter  
<list+pmwiki-users at b-a-l-u.de> wrote:

> At around 04:00 this morning I noticed that "bob" once again vandalized
> my Wikis (old and new one), so I undid his changes... I also locked the
> old wiki pages by giving an edit password.
Bob visited two of my Wikis, too. He did not get through. I've been using  
the blacklist-script http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/BlackList on  
these wikis for quite some time and with satisfying results.

I have to admit, sometimes a spammer does get through. I will update the  
blacklist and revert the changes. No luck next time. ;-)

BTW I am strictly against captchas. Patrick has made some interesting  
points to this. As has already been noted, too, having captchas on all  
pages everytime would be quite anoying. I edit a lot in Wikis and having  
to decipher these captchas everytime would really slow me down,  
additionally I sometimes can not decipher them correctly. I would have to  
backup my edition to not lose it.

I think the solution using a blacklist is quite convenient for the  
wiki-user (he does not notice at all, usually) and does work quite good.  
No?
I've changed the blacklist-script in such a way as to mail me the text  
that did not get through the filter. So it is not lost when it turns out  
that it actually was not spam. I did not have false positives as of now,  
though.



best regards
Steffen