[aur-dev] Fighting spam on the AUR

[Dave Reisner]

On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:33:18AM +0100, Lukas Fleischer 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     every comment and flag out of date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 * Allow package maintainers to block the "Flag package out-of-date"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   cripple the "out-of-date" function.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!

Please just do this. We aren't dealing with some "spam epidemic" so much
as we are dealing with a small number of bored idiots who are hiding
behind Tor exit nodes.

> 
> Comments and suggestions welcome! We need to find a proper solution as
> soon as possible!
> 
> [1] http://www.google.com/recaptcha