[pmwiki-users] Core Spam Blcok Thoughts

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud at pobox.com
Wed Apr 5 15:03:45 CDT 2006


On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 02:47:34PM -0500, Wendell Brown wrote:
> > I don't see how MTBlocklist addresses this problem better than 
> > Blocklist2. By this problem, I mean having blocklist code that is 
> > turned off by default or blocklists that are not maintained. Although 
> > MTBlocklist *may* appear to address the latter, I note that it stopped 
> > working at one point when the remote blocklist server died or was killed.
> 
> Actually I meant turn on blocking by default but have it set to use the 
> pmwiki specific list that is automatically downloaded not more than once 
> a day (and yes, one of the possibly block list sites went off line and 
> the script didn't handle it well - that has been corrected).  But 
> Patrick has said that he is opposed to automatic updates to the block 
> list, so this is probably a moot point.

Just to be clear about what I'm in favor of and what I'm against--

I'm generally in favor of having the community work together to
maintain a central blocklist (e.g., on pmwiki.org) that can be 
easily downloaded, and offerring pmwiki.org for that purpose.

I also think having automated download schemes are a good idea.
I just don't think they should be enabled by default in the
distribution, as many admins would be surprised if PmWiki were
to "phone home daily" by default.  It ought to be explicitly 
enabled.

Lastly, I don't think automated download features are yet mature 
enough to be part of the core, in the sense of "I (Pm) don't want 
to have the perceived responsibility of troubleshooting a 'core' 
automatic update feature for sites where it's not working."  PHP's
safe_mode already gives me enough headaches without adding this
on top of it.  :-|

Pm




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