On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, MenTaLguY wrote:
My point is that fancy verification mechanisms are an arms race we can't really win, and the fancier or more difficult, the more legitimate users we would hurt.
I think it's more important that our verifier be unique than that it be particularly difficult. If spammers can't exploit economies of scale by utilizing off-the-shelf software, it becomes much less economical for them to spam us in particular.
Agreed. Also, I am only aiming to get 80-90% out of the software, and count on the Inkscape community for the remaining 10-20%. As long as we have the tools at our disposal to get rid of the most repetitive, high-hassle stuff, the rest can be taken care of by just ensuring we have good participation from Wiki users.
A few weeks ago I met with some Wikipedia editors/admins and asked how they handled spam in Wikipedia. They said they have some code to measure time between edits, but beyond that they fish the spam out manually, the same way we've been doing. They just have a lot more eyeballs on it.
Anyway, I figure as long as we help keep the hassle of using wiki under control, we can depend on our community to help maintain it. :-)
Bryce