- For old comments see the Archive.
RE: Suggestions
I do not think we should ban page creation by new accounts. On wikipedia that makes sense, but on appropedia, I am sure that we will have some readers who never sign up until they are ready to create a page based on their project. Unlike an encyclopedia, many of our community will have specific interest and expertise that may not have a corresponding page (even more true since we are still only a few thousand pages big). I think the main next step for spam abatement are:
- Install and customize a simple Reverse Turing test.
- Non-logged in users must solve a simple addition problem to comit an edit.
- To create a username a user must solve a simple addition problem.
- We can also set it up so that only when entering a URL is a Reverse Turing test administered.
- Consider installing a blacklist extension that prevents edits that contain certain spam URLs, or spam patterns in a URL, as listed in a blacklist.
- Much later consider http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bad_Behavior_extension
- This extension seems to have many counterindications
See http://wiki.evernex.com/index.php?title=Blocking_Spam_in_Mediawiki for a much more detailed and clear approach to spam abatement. The plan laid out there is very sound and would work for Appropedia, with the following exceptions:
- I think we should avoid implementing Bad_Behavior as it may interfere with submission, especially from more spam-ridden computers (often the case in older internet cafes).
- We may consider adapting the ConfirmEdit Reverse Turing test to the specifications I listed above.
--Lonny 09:53, 17 April 2007 (PDT)