Re: git.wiki.kernel.org spam ...

From: porpen+git@gmail.com <porpen+git@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 8, 2013, 03:39 UTC
Message-ID: <CAANzHtQ5bwBTiWZ=3Ctbdo52UUcfon-V-naBB3BxDn6iQXF_Xg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20130104234759.GC6501@thunk.org>

On 4 January 2013 23:47, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 12:27:12AM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

>> I was. John Hawley trusted me when I asked for admin privileges to keep
>> the spam at bay, but a very vocal voice on the mailing list tried to
>> discredit my work, and in the wake of the ensuing mailing list thread I
>> got the impression that that feeling was universal, so I abided and
>> stopped.

> changed since those early days because LF sysadmins (e.g., John and
> Konstantin) do *not* have time to police the various wikis for
> spam....)

Based on the proliferation of new users listed in some "recent changes" pages, the account registration step needs a captcha test. Perhaps some other limits too.. one new account per ip per day or whatever.. (edu domains excepted perhaps) :) (the explosion of users seem to have started back in mid 2010 or so.)

No human could keep up with unrestricted automated spamming from the internet that isn't filtered in any way. Human efforts to remove the spam will always result in a false positive from time to time and is simple mistake to make. Automated efforts to remove spam will DEFINATELY result in false positives too.. but you won't find a computer that graciously says "sorry about that" when it happens.

IMHO.. a big thanks to Johannes for keeping the beasts at bay, I'm sure it would have been MUCH worse with nobody cleaning the mess up.

Cheers! -phil