[Mediawiki-l] Re: Major Spam Problems

[Jan Steinman]

On 7 Nov 2005, at 13:17, mediawiki-l-request at Wikimedia.org wrote:

> From: "Tony Molloy" <tony.molloy at uconn.edu>
>
> Also, all of the accounts created by our spammer have invalid e-mail
> addresses. If something could verify that the e-mail was legit before
> enabling the account, that would be useful as well.

My vote is for mail-back authorization on account creation. Maybe  
I'll just do it...

One way that I've eliminated ALL spam is strictly by accident: I  
changed the account creation page. I wanted to have first/last name  
fields, which I then concat to make the user name. This apparently  
confuses spambots enough that they don't even bother.

:::: The record is clear that left to their own devices, the  
automobile manufacturers lack the wisdom or the will or both to  
switch decisively to the production of inexpensive, compact, energy- 
saving cars appropriate to our present needs. -- Donald E. Weeden, 1975
:::: Jan Steinman <http://www.Bytesimths.com/Van>