On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:55:26AM +0100, Markus Unterwaditzer wrote:
Lukas Fleischer <archlinux@cryptocrack.de> wrote:
Status quo:
06:54 < gtmanfred> ok, it really is time for something else 06:54 < gtmanfred> the spammer is now creating a new account for every comment and flag out of date
The account suspension feature does not help here.
Options:
* Allow package maintainers to block the "Flag package out-of-date" feature for a certain amount of time. Note that this might eventually cripple the "out-of-date" function. Also, this does not work for comments.
* Use CAPTCHAs during account registration. We could either use MAPTCHAs ("What is 1 + 1?") or something like reCAPTCHA [1].
* Moderate new accounts. Might be a lot of work. We need some TUs that review and unlock accounts. Also, it might be hard to distinguish a spam bot from a regular user. If we require a short application text, this might result in less users joining the AUR.
* Block IP addresses. Bye-bye, Tor users!
Comments and suggestions welcome! We need to find a proper solution as soon as possible!
Other options:
* Deny the repeating of a specific action... e.g. you may not flag more than ten packages within ten minutes. Also block comments with same content.
* ability to report users (dunno if already possible), autoban if enough reports
* "Buffering actions" aka shadowban when a user gets reported, until a moderator reviews the report.
All of these do not address our current issue. We do have an account suspension feature already but that does not help if a new account is created upon every request.
* Do whatever Reddit does, they seem to deal very well with spam.
I think they use a Bayesian filter and reports. Not sure if it is worthwhile adding that to the AUR. Also, Bayes classifiers will not prevent spammers from flagging packages out-of-date. Please correct me if I am wrong in my assumptions.
-- Markus (from phone)