Oops...
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: King InuYasha ngompa13@gmail.com Date: Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 4:34 AM Subject: Re: Wiki challenge question on user account creation To: Dmitry Timoshkov dmitry@codeweavers.com
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 12:07 AM, Dmitry Timoshkov dmitry@codeweavers.comwrote:
"Dimi Paun" dimi@lattica.com wrote:
On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 11:59 -0600, John Klehm wrote:
I wouldn't really want per save captcha either, per account creation is what I was hoping would cut down the spam. If the accounts are created manually not much we can do about it :(
I think that's the case. Which is why I think it's not worth doing, as we would just make it harder on most real users, while not detracting any of the spammers.
Actually if there are a lot of user account creation every day in the Wine wiki then there is something wrong with it. There are not that much Wine developers and probably some active testers/appdb maintainers, who else could pretend to have a user account in the Wine wiki?
Moreover it will add additional maintenance
burden on our part to keep the captchas operational.
Isn't that an one time effort?
-- Dmitry.
A wiki shouldn't have users creating accounts every day, that is a bad indicator. Also, in theory, CAPTCHA code does only need a one-time effort, but most wikis do not implement the best way to do CAPTCHA, so unless Wine was to use ReCAPTCHA, they would need to make sure that the CAPTCHA made is confusing enough that a computer cannot read it, which means mixing colors, strike lines, shapes, etc. It doesn't help that WineHQ uses MoinMoin wiki, which afaik does not have a CAPTCHA extension available. Also, it's quite obvious that the Moin engine on WineHQ is modified, so even if there was one, it may not work, depending on the intensity of the changes to the engine.
2009/3/5 King InuYasha ngompa13@gmail.com:
A wiki shouldn't have users creating accounts every day, that is a bad indicator.
It is difficult to understand the thinking behind such a statement unless you are literally aiming to close a project to outside participation.
- d.
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 3:46 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/3/5 King InuYasha ngompa13@gmail.com:
A wiki shouldn't have users creating accounts every day, that is a bad indicator.
It is difficult to understand the thinking behind such a statement unless you are literally aiming to close a project to outside participation.
- d.
Sorry, I should have completed my thought. If you can justify users creating accounts every day and adding real content to the wiki, then that is fine. But in most cases, when wikis have lots of users creating accounts every day, generally some serious spamming is going on or is about to go on. Now, WineHQ is a high-activity site, so there is some justification for having lots of users, but take care to use basic precautions when having users created. My two favorite methods of ensuring users are actually real ones are email confirm and CAPTCHA, usually a combination of the two. If you still see similarly high levels of user creation and real content is being added, then its ok. However, if you use an old version of any web content software, then the benefits may be negated by the fact that it is possible that the wiki engine had already been compromised.
2009/3/11 King InuYasha ngompa13@gmail.com:
On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Ben Klein shacklein@gmail.com wrote:
2009/3/11 King InuYasha ngompa13@gmail.com:
Why are we using Moin anyways? I know Fedora used to use Moin and they moved off of it for their wiki, and I honestly think that perhaps WineHQ needs to as well.
If you're going to argue for a complete replacement of the Wiki system, you'll have to provide better support than "Fedora dumped Moin".
I didn't want to provide reasons to dump it unless I know why we ARE using it so I can provide better counterarguments. Just showing up with arguments for another wiki based system without knowing why Moin is chosen does not paint me in worse light than I already am ;) It makes me seem belligerent.
Does what we have now work? Yes. Is there any reason why we should consider moving from Moin to some other Wiki system? Your turn to answer.
2009/3/11 King InuYasha ngompa13@gmail.com:
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 3:46 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/3/5 King InuYasha ngompa13@gmail.com:
A wiki shouldn't have users creating accounts every day, that is a bad indicator.
It is difficult to understand the thinking behind such a statement unless you are literally aiming to close a project to outside participation.
Sorry, I should have completed my thought. If you can justify users creating accounts every day and adding real content to the wiki, then that is fine. But in most cases, when wikis have lots of users creating accounts every day, generally some serious spamming is going on or is about to go on. Now, WineHQ is a high-activity site, so there is some justification for having lots of users, but take care to use basic precautions when having users created. My two favorite methods of ensuring users are actually real ones are email confirm and CAPTCHA, usually a combination of the two. If you still see similarly high levels of user creation and real content is being added, then its ok. However, if you use an old version of any web content software, then the benefits may be negated by the fact that it is possible that the wiki engine had already been compromised.
Number of new users is not necessarily proportional to number of new spammers. Do we actually have a problem with spam on the Wiki?
2009/3/11 Ben Klein shacklein@gmail.com:
Does what we have now work? Yes. Is there any reason why we should consider moving from Moin to some other Wiki system? Your turn to answer.
At work, I use a ridiculous range of wiki engines. I've used Moin and MediaWiki most heavily.
Reasons for picking Moin are typically:
* it'll do * it's not PHP * it doesn't use a database.
Reasons for picking MediaWiki are typically:
* it'll do * people know how to use Wikipedia.
I did a move at work from Moin to MediaWiki, on the intranet wiki ten of us use all day every day. Our reason was that our Moin wiki was just somehow not as usable as we wanted from a wiki, so we gave MediaWiki a go and it was good enough to bother moving engines. Also, the Moin wiki was full of outdated rubbish, so this was a handy excuse to start over.
It's not clear that any of those reasons apply here. Moving wiki engines is a *pain in the backside* and it's not something you do unless you have to.
Number of new users is not necessarily proportional to number of new spammers. Do we actually have a problem with spam on the Wiki?
If there is, I'll hereby put my hand up to help.
- d.
2009/3/12 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2009/3/11 Ben Klein shacklein@gmail.com:
Does what we have now work? Yes. Is there any reason why we should consider moving from Moin to some other Wiki system? Your turn to answer.
At work, I use a ridiculous range of wiki engines. I've used Moin and MediaWiki most heavily.
Reasons for picking Moin are typically:
- it'll do
- it's not PHP
- it doesn't use a database.
Reasons for picking MediaWiki are typically:
- it'll do
- people know how to use Wikipedia.
Moin is sounding better to me so far. Less overhead is good. Generally, people pick a Wiki that Just Works (TM). Unfortunately, they pretty much all do, so there's no absolute "this is better". The existence of so many different Wiki systems is testament to that.
I did a move at work from Moin to MediaWiki, on the intranet wiki ten of us use all day every day. Our reason was that our Moin wiki was just somehow not as usable as we wanted from a wiki, so we gave MediaWiki a go and it was good enough to bother moving engines. Also, the Moin wiki was full of outdated rubbish, so this was a handy excuse to start over.
"somehow not as usable" isn't a strong argument either. Specifically what issues do you have with Moin, and are they present on wiki.winehq.org?
Number of new users is not necessarily proportional to number of new spammers. Do we actually have a problem with spam on the Wiki?
If there is, I'll hereby put my hand up to help.
You were implying that there IS a problem with spammers. I see a request elsewhere on wine-devel to have an IP blocked, so that's one spammer out of how many new users?
2009/3/11 Ben Klein shacklein@gmail.com:
2009/3/12 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Reasons for picking Moin are typically: Reasons for picking MediaWiki are typically:
Moin is sounding better to me so far. Less overhead is good. Generally, people pick a Wiki that Just Works (TM). Unfortunately, they pretty much all do, so there's no absolute "this is better". The existence of so many different Wiki systems is testament to that.
Well, yeah. Has anyone given a good reason to move from Moin? I can read the wiki and write stuff in it OK.
I did a move at work from Moin to MediaWiki, on the intranet wiki ten of us use all day every day. Our reason was that our Moin wiki was just somehow not as usable as we wanted from a wiki, so we gave MediaWiki a go and it was good enough to bother moving engines. Also, the Moin wiki was full of outdated rubbish, so this was a handy excuse to start over.
"somehow not as usable" isn't a strong argument either. Specifically what issues do you have with Moin, and are they present on wiki.winehq.org?
None. You appear to be reading something that I didn't write.
Number of new users is not necessarily proportional to number of new spammers. Do we actually have a problem with spam on the Wiki?
If there is, I'll hereby put my hand up to help.
You were implying that there IS a problem with spammers. I see a request elsewhere on wine-devel to have an IP blocked, so that's one spammer out of how many new users?
Er, I didn't state that wiki.winehq.org has a problem with spammers - I asked if there was, *in the text you actually quoted*. Again, you appear to be reading things I didn't write at all, even while quoting what I did. Your communications are confusing, please make them less so.
- d.
2009/3/12 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Again, you appear to be reading things I didn't write at all, even while quoting what I did. Your communications are confusing, please make them less so.
I apologise, I was getting you confused with King InuYasha. Serves me right for emailing while tired :D
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Ben Klein -
David Gerard -
King InuYasha