[OSM-dev] Reducing size on mediawiki server

[Lambertus]

Nick Hill wrote:
> I have also added a basic captcha system (a reverse turing test) to stop 
> vandalbots creating accounts on wiki. This test is very simple, and not 
> particularly difficult for a machine to complete. If that gets broken, i'll add 
> an image based captcha, and/or we could require verification by email before 
> allowing edits.
>
>   
The anti-spam bot changes/settings I made to the OSM forum registration 
page seem to be very effective in stopping automated spambots. No 
spambots active last month, while there were multiple a week before 
that. They are:
- Verify registration by email.
- A simple mathematical question. [1]
- An invalid timezone setting in the timezone selection box (bots mostly 
register with the first item from such lists). [1]

An image captcha has the disadvantage that visually handicapped people 
will have huge difficulty in completing the registration.

BTW: Nick, can you redirect http://forum.openstreetmap.org to 
http://osm.na1400.info? Thanks.

[1] http://forums.punbb.org/viewtopic.php?id=14069&p=1