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

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 9:05 PM, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
> FYI: I've renamed the group page to EditorsGroup. That's a better
> fit for what we intend to use it for.
>
> If people show a good track record they can then be moved on
> to the TrustedEditorsGroup, which removes the need to enter
> textchas.

I hope this works out well. It'll reduce the drive-by contributions
(no matter how good you are at empowering people who ask, the very
fact that they have to ask is a turn-off), but all that does is back
down the main boast of a wiki - most web sites have a LOT more hoops
to jump through before random readers can edit.

If this does reduce spam significantly, it might be possible to
eliminate textchas altogether; just put people straight into
TrustedEditorsGroup, and depend on the spammers being uninterested in
actually waiting for promotion (and probably being obvious anyway). As
we've seen, the determined spammers aren't put off by them for long.

Good luck!

ChrisA