Re: [Phpwiki-talk] Wiki spam and the future of phpwiki

[Reini U. <ru...@x-...>]

> 90% of the code I took from editpage.php in CVS current of PhpWiki,
> thanks to Reini. The 10% was two changes:
>
> 1. Modify the end-user error message to say "Sorry, too many links (more
>  than ##)" instead of "conflicts".
> 2. Add a configurable parameter SPAM_MAX_EXTERNAL_LINKS.
>
> Below is an approximate patch to editpage.php. Since we are almost a
> year different from Phpwiki, I cannot guarantee that the patch is
> entirely accurate.
>
> Also, I sent this patch to this list awhile ago. Perhaps I should also
> change it in CVS current?

I'd rather stay with the hardcoded number of 20 maxlinks.
This sounds useful to me, after a lot of analysis
and I don't want admins to play with that sensible number,
unless they know what they are doing.
Then they can simply fix the source.

And I want to give shorter and exact answers on typical support questions.
"Don't do more than 20 links in a new page or you are considered a spammer."
sounds better than
"Don't do more than SPAM_MAX_EXTERNAL_LINKS links (ask your administrator
how much exactly ) in a new page  or you are considered a spammer."

> (YOD) wrote:
>>On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Dan Frankowski wrote:
>>>1. Don't allow saving a page that has more than 20 external
>>> ("http://")  links. In our code, I modified "20" to be a configurable
>>> parameter  SPAM_MAX_EXTERNAL_LINKS. We've been completely spammed as
>>> well, and I  believe this will help us a lot. We have a wiki where
>>> each legitimate  page only contains a few external links, but spam
>>> pages contain tons  (>50 for sure) external links.
>>
>>I'd like to implement this modification. Would you be kind enough to
>> send it to me?
>>
>>I have three working PhpWikis but two (with a progressive
>>political orientation) of them I have only open blogging but otherwise
>> editing is now turned off due to excessive spamming. I just installed a
>> third Wiki to play with and haven't decided yet what to do with it.
>>
>>I am just waiting to see how long it takes for spam to find the new
>> open  Wiki and I suspect it won't be long (g).
>>
>>I also want to explore other methods for securing Wiki from spambots
>> (intentional spammers are much easier to deal with) so I have been
>> following these discussions with much interest.
-- 
Reini Urban
http://phpwiki.org/   http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rurban/