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<span style="white-space: pre;">> 1. Add a "blocklist" recipe to
the core (disabled by default). Most<br>
> sites are wanting to have some form of blocking available and are<br>
> using some variant of the blocklist.php or blocklist2.php recipes<br>
> --- bringing Blocklist into the core would allow it to be more<br>
> closely synchronized and maintained with the rest of the<br>
> distribution.</span><br>
<br>
I've been following the comments on adding Spam blocking to the core
and I'm totally for it, but I think we need to consider what type of
spam block needs to be added. It seems that the basic consensus of the
list is for something like Blocklist2, but we need to keep in mind that
while most of us on this list are "active" wiki admins there are tons
of pmwiki's out there that are installed and then left unattended for
LONG periods of time or even abandoned. <br>
<br>
Adding a spam block to the core that is turned off by default or with a
default basic block list is going to be a major help to those of us
that maintain our wiki's, but it's not going to cut down on overall
abuse of pmwiki by spammers. And while those other wiki's aren't
really our "problem", as long as the spammers can get free advertising
from pmwiki users they are going to keep attempting to spam ALL of us.<br>
<br>
IMHO, a script like MTBlackList (sorry, I have a personal relationship
with it) has a major advantage for this type of situation. Here is
what I'm thinking.<br>
<ol>
<li>Build a list of regular expressions that identify pmwiki spammers
(url's or keywords) - this list doesn't have to be very aggressive but
it needs to be updated to reflect the dedicated pmwiki spammers as they
show themselves.</li>
<li>Add a spam block script to the core that can read the list of
spammers (and potentially others that are more aggressive but disabled
by default - like MoinMaster -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://moinmaster.wikiwikiweb.de/BadContent">http://moinmaster.wikiwikiweb.de/BadContent</a>) and block posting if an
expression on any of the active lists matches a post.<br>
</li>
<li>To avoid the possibility of a wiki that caters to a generally
unacceptable content (ie a wiki for a company that distributes xyz
drug) being blocked, we could create a local white list file that could
contain expressions that would override the expressions in the
blacklists.</li>
<li>Blacklist files would only have to be downloaded daily (not much
bandwidth for either the server distributing the files or the server
using the black list).</li>
</ol>
The advantages for this approach are:<br>
<ul>
<li>Once a spammer is identified and blocked on the master list, YOUR
site is automatically protected.</li>
<li>pmwiki becomes a less abusable target - harder targets aren't hit
as often</li>
<li>Even abandoned wiki's (or your site during a long vacation) can
be protected by the community at large<br>
</li>
</ul>
FYI, MTBlackList already pretty much does all of this with the
exception of the white lists.<br>
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