[pydotorg-www] Vandalism/spam on wiki.python.org: changes to default permissions

[Carl Karsten]

On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 4:39 PM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>
wrote:

> But here's the disagreement: some people think that the barrier to editing
>> public Internet sites should be low and yet magically repel defacement;
>> others
>> think that getting serious contributors to demonstrate their commitment to
>> making quality edits isn't that hard and that they actually won't mind
>> doing
>> so (because they are, after all, committed).
>>
>
I likely agree, but your word choice needs work ;)


>
>> Experience shows that magically repelling defacement of Internet sites,
>> whilst
>> somewhat possible with some interesting measures that could be
>> implemented for
>> Moin, is a bit like announcing a generously catered party for one's
>> closest
>> friends in the most public and open way possible, not assigning some
>> rather
>> "persuasive" people to the venue entrance, and then somehow avoiding
>> random
>> vandals and hooligans from inviting themselves in and trashing the place.
>>
>
> The cost of defacement should be higher than a cost of revert.
>

No one wants to spend any of their time reverting, regardless of how easy
it is or hard it was to deface.



> If defacement
> edits are not indexed, there is no motivation to write bots for it.
>
>


I suspect the bots and owners do not try to figure out how effective the
bot is.  If it finds a likely target, it will do it's thing and move on to
the next target.   That is way easier than examining the results.

It isn't easy to figure out about how low the barrier to entry should
be.    In the case of a wiki, I am find missing out on the spelling errors
getting corrected if it means no one has to clean up spam.  The barrier
needs to be high enough that all the spammers go somewhere else.  I suspect
that will mean the effort to make a trivial edit is at least doubled or
tripled. I think that is fine.

It is *way* more fun to jump though hoops to be productive than
jump though hoops to undo something that could be prevented.



-- 
Carl K
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