[pmwiki-users] This post has been blocked by the administrator

[christian.ridderstrom at gmail.com]

On Sat, 8 Apr 2006, Pico wrote:

> I got this message on a page and it took a bit of figuring out to figure
> out what was going on and how to work around it.

The same thing has happened to me once or twice. It does surprise you...

> I think it would be helpful for ordinary users to be presented with a
> more specific error message when their post is blocked due to the number
> of external links, and, perhaps, to be presented with a workaround, e.g.  
> This post has been blocked by the administrator.  Remove or disabled
> external links to continue.
> 
> Now, of course, the argument against this is that it would also give 
> guidance and assistance to spammers.  Without that added information, 
> their their immediate reaction might be like mine: oh #@$! I've been 
> blocked as a spammer!  If they receive more targeted information, then 
> they may be tempted to follow the advice and continue with their 
> spamming.  Of course, as for the links themselves, they will never work, 
> but I understand the concern here.
> 
> What do you think?

I think we could at least say *why* the post was blocked. Perhaps saying 
something along the lines of:

	This post has been blocked by the wiki system since it resembles
	spam.

I changed 'administrator' to 'system'... the first sounded too much to me 
like a real person had actively blocked  my post...

As for the argument about not giving information to the spammers, I don't
think it holds up really. The spammer could just google the web or search
this ML for information...

/Christian

-- 
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44               http://www.md.kth.se/~chr