[e-lang] wiki.erights.org and anonymous edits

[Toby Murray]

On Mon, 2009-01-12 at 10:15 -0500, Kevin Reid wrote:
> On Jan 12, 2009, at 9:04, Toby Murray wrote:
> > On Mon, 2009-01-12 at 08:37 -0500, Kevin Reid wrote:
> >> * With anonymous editing, they just edit and we can block their
> >> address and prohibit account creation from it. Without anonymous
> >> editing, they create accounts (yes, there are spambots that do that)
> >> and Wikipedia hides their IP address (from me, at least), so we can't
> >> block anything but their throwaway account (which persists forever in
> >> the wiki database).
> >
> > I agree completely that these arguments must be considered. The  
> > reason I
> > gathered the data was to try to work out what weight to give these
> > arguments. The evidence (to me) suggests that
> ...
> > * reCAPTCHA breaking spambots are not a current threat.
> 
> Er, isn't the wiki currently set up to require reCAPTCHA for anonymous  
> edits?
> 

No, I believe it uses the default reCAPTCHA settings, namely

> By default, CAPTCHAs are triggered on the following events:
> 
>       * New user registration
>       * Anonymous edits that contain new external links
>       * Brute-force password cracking

This is why most anonymous bot edits are either random strings of text
or no text at all (with URLs being included in the text that describes
the change, rather than the change itself).

Cheers

Toby