Spam attack on the Wiki

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 10:25:34PM +0000, Vladimir Panteleev via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]
> I've now implemented a new CAPTCHA for the D wiki, which challenges
> would-be editors with randomly-generated questions (so that they are
> not Google-able). Basic programming knowledge is required for all of
> them, and some require some familiarity with D syntax. Hopefully, this
> should still be inclusive enough for most editors.
> 
> You can demo the CAPTCHA on the following page, so you don't have to
> clutter the wiki with test accounts or edits:
> 
> http://wiki.dlang.org/extensions/DCaptcha/demo.php

Wow. :-O  This is truly impressive. Could this be the beginnings of a
Turing Test? :-P (Or anti-Turing test, since ostensibly a machine
equipped with a D interpreter would be able to find the answers faster
than a human can. :-P)


> Source code:
> 
> https://github.com/CyberShadow/dcaptcha
> 
> https://github.com/CyberShadow/DCaptcha-MW (MediaWiki adapter)
> 
> Pull requests for more challenges are welcome. I plan to integrate the
> CAPTCHA into DFeed (forum.dlang.org) as well.

Very nice! I'll see if I can cook up a few challenges.

OTOH, are these tests triggered only when the wiki/forum post contains
suspicious content (like links to questionable sites)? We wouldn't want
to discourage legit participation by forcing everyone to solve
programming puzzles every time they try to contribute / ask something.
We definitely don't want to turn newbies off by making challenges that
require too much in-depth knowledge of D.


T

-- 
"You know, maybe we don't *need* enemies." "Yeah, best friends are about all I can take." -- Calvin & Hobbes