I'm hearing reports of people having difficulty obtaining accounts on
the Haskell wiki, without which it is impossible to make edits.
Currently, account creation is disabled as an anti-spam measure, and the
idea is for people to mail the admin and request an account. If this is
to work, accounts need to be granted reasonably quickly - so far, I'm
aware of a case where after 4 days there has been no response.
This is particularly problematic for Anglohaskell, as signups and the
like are via the wiki page - as a temporary workaround, I'll (and anyone
else willing to lend a hand who already has an account) have to make
edits on others' behalf, which is a serious inconvenience for both
myself and attendees, as well as something of a barrier to entry.
What's going on, and how can we speed things up?
--
Philippa Cowderoy
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Philippa Cowderoy wrote:
I'm hearing reports of people having difficulty obtaining accounts on the Haskell wiki, without which it is impossible to make edits. Currently, account creation is disabled as an anti-spam measure, and the idea is for people to mail the admin and request an account. If this is to work, accounts need to be granted reasonably quickly - so far, I'm aware of a case where after 4 days there has been no response.
This is particularly problematic for Anglohaskell, as signups and the like are via the wiki page - as a temporary workaround, I'll (and anyone else willing to lend a hand who already has an account) have to make edits on others' behalf, which is a serious inconvenience for both myself and attendees, as well as something of a barrier to entry.
What's going on, and how can we speed things up?
Presumably Ashley is busy. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/?title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop There are only 3 bureaucrats/admins; one is a dummy account, one is Ashley, and one is John Peterson (who hasn't edited for a year). One solution would be to have Ashley re-enable user registrations. This has been suggested before, but no one knows how bad the spam would be. Another solution would be to sysop a few users to admin/bureaucrat, so that even if a few are inactive or away, the rest can handle requests. If I might suggest some users we might give the bit to: myself, dons, Magnus Therning, Neil Mitchell, and byorgey. All have been editing the wiki for some time, some have administrator experience on Wikipedia, and all have commit bits for various Haskell repos (and so presumably can be trusted). (Of course, this list isn't intended to be exhaustive; they're just who comes to mind looking over Recent Changes.) - -- gwern -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEAREKAAYFAkoyhm8ACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oLTzACfff/rM02Fy/b/VbCwIqgaWO/B 39QAnAkZGKyOTg2zVpDw7NcwNkaED7Ln =KXdO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
This runs on MediaWiki, right? How about adding a CAPTCHA for account
registrations?
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit
And, more generally:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Combating_spam
Cheers,
Thomas
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 18:46, Gwern Branwen
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Philippa Cowderoy wrote:
I'm hearing reports of people having difficulty obtaining accounts on the Haskell wiki, without which it is impossible to make edits. Currently, account creation is disabled as an anti-spam measure, and the idea is for people to mail the admin and request an account. If this is to work, accounts need to be granted reasonably quickly - so far, I'm aware of a case where after 4 days there has been no response.
This is particularly problematic for Anglohaskell, as signups and the like are via the wiki page - as a temporary workaround, I'll (and anyone else willing to lend a hand who already has an account) have to make edits on others' behalf, which is a serious inconvenience for both myself and attendees, as well as something of a barrier to entry.
What's going on, and how can we speed things up?
Presumably Ashley is busy.
http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/?title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop
There are only 3 bureaucrats/admins; one is a dummy account, one is Ashley, and one is John Peterson (who hasn't edited for a year).
One solution would be to have Ashley re-enable user registrations. This has been suggested before, but no one knows how bad the spam would be. Another solution would be to sysop a few users to admin/bureaucrat, so that even if a few are inactive or away, the rest can handle requests.
If I might suggest some users we might give the bit to: myself, dons, Magnus Therning, Neil Mitchell, and byorgey. All have been editing the wiki for some time, some have administrator experience on Wikipedia, and all have commit bits for various Haskell repos (and so presumably can be trusted). (Of course, this list isn't intended to be exhaustive; they're just who comes to mind looking over Recent Changes.)
- -- gwern -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEAREKAAYFAkoyhm8ACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oLTzACfff/rM02Fy/b/VbCwIqgaWO/B 39QAnAkZGKyOTg2zVpDw7NcwNkaED7Ln =KXdO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Thomas ten Cate wrote:
This runs on MediaWiki, right? How about adding a CAPTCHA for account registrations?
See http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Special:Version ConfirmEdit would require an upgrade. - -- gwern -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEAREKAAYFAkoym4gACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oJHAwCghVWZxh2O+zi4WNp2VHBytXTH a6EAn2wlTz/pjp7vUfuaWZJ1WpNuyQ7m =k/yM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Gwern Branwen wrote:
This runs on MediaWiki, right? How about adding a CAPTCHA for account registrations?
See http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Special:Version
ConfirmEdit would require an upgrade.
This is the ideal solution. But it requires an update of the machine from an old Red Hat distro (RHEL AS release 3 update 9) to something a bit more modern, like Debian 5.0 or Ubuntu Server 9.04. -- Ashley Yakeley
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 07:53:41PM +0200, Thomas ten Cate wrote:
This runs on MediaWiki, right? How about adding a CAPTCHA for account registrations?
What do we avoid at all costs? _______________________________________ |_______________________________________| -- Felipe.
Am Freitag 12 Juni 2009 18:46:41 schrieb Gwern Branwen:
There are only 3 bureaucrats/admins; one is a dummy account, one is Ashley, and one is John Peterson (who hasn't edited for a year).
One solution would be to have Ashley re-enable user registrations. This has been suggested before, but no one knows how bad the spam would be. Another solution would be to sysop a few users to admin/bureaucrat, so that even if a few are inactive or away, the rest can handle requests.
I support that.
If I might suggest some users we might give the bit to: myself, dons, Magnus Therning, Neil Mitchell, and byorgey.
I consider these users trustworthy. Which of them besides Gwern are willing to take the job?
All have been editing the wiki for some time, some have administrator experience on Wikipedia, and all have commit bits for various Haskell repos (and so presumably can be trusted). (Of course, this list isn't intended to be exhaustive; they're just who comes to mind looking over Recent Changes.)
Daniel Fischer wrote:
Am Freitag 12 Juni 2009 18:46:41 schrieb Gwern Branwen:
There are only 3 bureaucrats/admins; one is a dummy account, one is Ashley, and one is John Peterson (who hasn't edited for a year).
One solution would be to have Ashley re-enable user registrations. This has been suggested before, but no one knows how bad the spam would be. Another solution would be to sysop a few users to admin/bureaucrat, so that even if a few are inactive or away, the rest can handle requests.
I support that.
If I might suggest some users we might give the bit to: myself, dons, Magnus Therning, Neil Mitchell, and byorgey.
I consider these users trustworthy. Which of them besides Gwern are willing to take the job?
Cool, I'm up for it! /M -- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus＠therning．org Jabber: magnus＠therning．org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 08:22:25PM +0200, Daniel Fischer wrote:
Am Freitag 12 Juni 2009 18:46:41 schrieb Gwern Branwen:
There are only 3 bureaucrats/admins; one is a dummy account, one is Ashley, and one is John Peterson (who hasn't edited for a year).
One solution would be to have Ashley re-enable user registrations. This has been suggested before, but no one knows how bad the spam would be. Another solution would be to sysop a few users to admin/bureaucrat, so that even if a few are inactive or away, the rest can handle requests.
I support that.
If I might suggest some users we might give the bit to: myself, dons, Magnus Therning, Neil Mitchell, and byorgey.
I consider these users trustworthy. Which of them besides Gwern are willing to take the job?
Fine with me. -Brent
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Gwern Branwen
If I might suggest some users we might give the bit to: myself, dons, Magnus Therning, Neil Mitchell, and byorgey. All have been editing the wiki for some time, some have administrator experience on Wikipedia, and all have commit bits for various Haskell repos (and so presumably can be trusted). (Of course, this list isn't intended to be exhaustive; they're just who comes to mind looking over Recent Changes.)
I've spoken with John Peterson (the other admin/bureaucrat besides Ashley), and he has no problem with giving these people the bit. If there aren't any objections by next Saturday/Sunday, I will email him and ask him to do so. -- gwern
Gwern Branwen wrote:
Presumably Ashley is busy.
Yes. Average request rate is about one each day; I tend to do them in a lump about once a week.
One solution would be to have Ashley re-enable user registrations. This has been suggested before, but no one knows how bad the spam would be.
Basically, someone was creating thousands of accounts automatically. It seems likely this will happen again.
Another solution would be to sysop a few users to admin/bureaucrat, so that even if a few are inactive or away, the rest can handle requests.
What would the process be? -- Ashley Yakeley
I'm hearing reports of people having difficulty obtaining accounts on the Haskell wiki, without which it is impossible to make edits. Currently, account creation is disabled as an anti-spam measure, and the idea is for people to mail the admin and request an account. (...)
Maybe OpenID could help with spam problems without the need for manual intervention: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:OpenID Best, Maurício
Maurício wrote:
Maybe OpenID could help with spam problems without the need for manual intervention:
Nope, can't install it on this version. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Special:Version -- Ashley Yakeley
[sent to the list as well this time] On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 14:26 -0300, Maurício wrote:
I'm hearing reports of people having difficulty obtaining accounts on the Haskell wiki, without which it is impossible to make edits. Currently, account creation is disabled as an anti-spam measure, and the idea is for people to mail the admin and request an account. (...)
Maybe OpenID could help with spam problems without the need for manual intervention:
I doubt it - I know LiveJournal has a problem with spambots gaining free
accounts, and it provides OpenID. They may not be exploited for the
OpenID account yet, but I imagine they will be sooner rather than later
- OpenID is more useful to tie in people's existing identities.
--
Philippa Cowderoy
On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Philippa Cowderoy
[sent to the list as well this time]
I'm hearing reports of people having difficulty obtaining accounts on the Haskell wiki, without which it is impossible to make edits. Currently, account creation is disabled as an anti-spam measure, and
On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 14:26 -0300, Maurício wrote: the
idea is for people to mail the admin and request an account. (...)
Maybe OpenID could help with spam problems without the need for manual intervention:
I doubt it - I know LiveJournal has a problem with spambots gaining free accounts, and it provides OpenID. They may not be exploited for the OpenID account yet, but I imagine they will be sooner rather than later - OpenID is more useful to tie in people's existing identities.
On that topic, as a future enhancement of the haskell wiki I would love to be able to use OpenID. Jason
I'm hearing reports of people having difficulty obtaining accounts on the Haskell wiki, (...)
Maybe OpenID could help with spam problems without the need for manual intervention:
I doubt it - I know LiveJournal has a problem with spambots gaining free accounts, and it provides OpenID. They may not be exploited for the OpenID account yet, but I imagine they will be sooner rather than later - OpenID is more useful to tie in people's existing identities.
I would sugest that Haskell wiki only accepts OpenIDs, without providing then itself. So spammers would have to use domains, and I (naively?) believe those are costly to obtain and easy to block. Maurício
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 8:23 AM, Maurício
I would sugest that Haskell wiki only accepts OpenIDs, without providing then itself. So spammers would have to use domains, and I (naively?) believe those are costly to obtain and easy to block.
It's easy for a spammer to obtain an OpenID without having to obtain a domain. Unfortunately, OpenID by itself is not a sufficient mechanism for preventing spam. Josh
participants (11)
-
Ashley Yakeley -
Brent Yorgey -
Daniel Fischer -
Felipe Lessa -
Gwern Branwen -
j3h -
Jason Dagit -
Magnus Therning -
Maurício -
Philippa Cowderoy -
Thomas ten Cate