In 2006, a spam bot created several new accounts a day, in the beginning their email was [email protected]. BTW, new user creation still seems easy for a bot - no captcha or mail activation needed as far as I can see. So, although the bot created user has no edit rights without email verification, they might still be continuing to create useless accounts.
A few things in the works (or already implemented) to try and help a little with the spam and bot problems.
A new account must be email verified - still possible to script around this, but it does stop anonymous page edits and limits the effectiveness random/quickly created dummy accounts.
There is a new-ish spam regex that I've added that blocks page saves based on a keyword list (looks for common spam word combinations like viagra, world of warcraft etc etc.). I can and do add to this word list when spam slips though.
We have had several requests for https login. I hope this will be implemented with the MediaWiki 1.15 upgrade that will be planned in soon.
We haven't looked into detail on CAPCHAs. They are used on the OOoForum, and periodically cause problems where people cannot see the images, and thus cannot login/create a new account. If we add another layer to the login process, then we will need to set things up with a few volunteers who can/will monitor an admin email address and who be able to sort out user login issues when they happen (and they will). Currently there is no one really doing anything like this (at least not officially).
Another idea, maybe you can also place a note on the account creation form stating that accounts not used for a given time will be deleted automatically. So at least new users should not be offended.
That can be done. I want to look into detail on the new user welcome scripts that can now be executed (now that the php bug that we had for so long has been fixed and the php scripts can be executed correctly). There is some possibility to
C. -- Clayton Cornell [email protected] OpenOffice.org Documentation Project co-lead StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
