[Wikitech-l] many-wiki spam solution

[Evan Prodromou]

On Thu, 2005-17-03 at 20:12 -0700, Brian wrote:

> Small wikis no-doubt get the most spam. I run several smallish wikis
> and removing spam from them is nearly an everyday occurance. Take for
> instance the bomis wiki. [1]. Scroll down to the bottom and take a
> look at how hard it is getting hit (that's use mod)
> 
> So the idea is to build into the mediawiki software an interwiki
> watchlist, hosted by the foundation. This requires little modification
> as we can use the RSS feed that is already generated by the software
> and found at RC.  A simple opt-in during the install of the software
> and a message will be sent home to retrieve the feed every so often.
> 
> What it is appropriate to do after that, i'm not sure. But there are a
> lot of ways it could go.
> 
> Just wanted to throw this out there and see if it has merit. I think
> it is a simple solution at identifying lots of spam around the web.

It's probably worth noting that there's already an excellent shared
regexp list here:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cw/BannedContent

It's based on experience of Wiki admins and maintainers as well as some
other centralized lists (MoinMoin main list, I believe).

Wikitravel uses this list and I'd be happy to package the software that
implements the check as an extension if there's interest.

~Evan

-- 
Evan Prodromou
evan at bad.dynu.ca