[aur-general] Fighting spam on the AUR

[Allen Li]

On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:55:26AM +0100, Markus Unterwaditzer wrote:
> 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.
> 
> * Do whatever Reddit does, they seem to deal very well with spam.
> 
> -- Markus (from phone)

Absolutely not the autoban, then spammers could *REALLY* do some damage.

I am personally for a simple registration captcha.  I doubt any spammers
targeting the AUR are really invested; it's not really a high-profile
target, most likely some pranksters, so a simple captcha could really
help weed them out.  How about implementing a registration captcha and
seeing how it works before considering more complex options?

Limiting repeated actions also sounds good (if someone really needs to,
e.g., flag a lot of packages, they can just drop a request here and let
a TU handle it), but it doesn't really stop spammers.  They'll just make
more accounts.

Allen