Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: Has anybody attempted tobuildAldor+Axiomlately?

[William Sit]

Bill Page wrote:
> 
> On August 13, 2006 6:16 PM Bob McElrath wrote:
> >
> > I'm gonna vote with Simon here...I know spam is a problem but
> > this is overkill.  Banning http will cause a lot of problems
> > for new users, exactly those a budding young project can't
> > afford to alienate...
> >

I don't agree with Simon's solution, which seems to me to be a stop-gap
fix and not a long term solution. I don't like being limited in the
number of links I post on a Wiki-page. Example pages would be survey
articles with many links. Spammers do not need to post many links.  I
don't like Bill's change either, because since the new method of posting
URL is public, it is only a matter of time when spammers will be able to
write some new script to use the new convention and we will be back to
square one. This change in convention is also costly because we need to
modify all existing link references each time a page using the old
convention is updated. The ban on using "http://"; anywhere in the source
is similar to the ban on using "<<" in pamphlet documentation sections.
Simon's solution partially solves this updating problem for now. 

However, I do find it easier to type "Website: abc.com" than
"http://abc.com,"; or the html way.

> Now personally I do not much like sites that require me to register
> although I have to admit that I have gotten used to it over the
> last couple of years.

I think requiring user registration is a must. A naive suggestion to
make use of the user registration to avoid spam is to ban the user from
editing (put him in a blacklist for say 30 days) once he is known to the
system to have spam any page. Of course, the spammer can create new user
id, and perhaps one can also ban the IP address when repeat new user id
requests come from the same IP. The objective should be to cost the
spammer time, not at the inconvenience of regular users.

Requiring an email address to supply an initial password is also an
effective way to lessen spam. Other sites have also require the user to
read a random gif message and type it back to validate human presence.

Alternatively, we can also maintain a gold list of users, once people
have established their trustworthiness (after some constructive editing
or contribution).

> So the solution to the spam problem that I like most right now is
> to embed the existing Axiom Wiki site inside Plone and use the
> standard Wiki skin to keep the same look and feel as the existing
> site. This gives us access to the Plone user registration process
> which allow us to limit edits and comments to authenticated users
> and also would allow us to merge the content of both the Wiki and
> the Portal without loosing any functionality.
> 
That sounds great. 

William