[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Create script for admins to manage "spammy phrases" (Issue #6566)

[Pablo Brasero]

pablobm left a comment (openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website#6566)

> we're trying to make the half-way house - the phrases are in the db, but then we want to just load them read-only from a data file

Ugh, you are right. I should have stepped back for a moment when considering those proposals. That's on me.

> I consider the whole approach of trying to build a set of "bad words" to be hopeless tilting at windmills.

I agree that it's not great. However my understanding is that it's still helpful. At https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/6044#issuecomment-3385621582, @firefishy said:

> Yes, this will help to reduce the 100s of spam accounts that are created each day. This isn't the ultimate solution, but an intermediate measure. It should catch around 15% of the spam accounts.

I understand that the "15%" figure is an estimate and I don't intend to take it literally. What I do take from the comment is that the feature can lead to a noticeable reduction in the manual anti-spam work, while other solutions are studied.

I don't have access to the data or the admin/moderation interfaces, so I'm flying blind here and can only go with what those with access say. If an admin says that this can land us a noticeable reduction, that's a relatively concrete data point that I can work with. It's also a relatively simple thing to implement, so it scores just ok under "High Impact" and very well under "Low Effort". To me this sounds good enough to give it a go.

A specific counter-argument is that the list of phrases could grow too big. I understand that. My thinking is that this isn't a user-facing feature, but one for the admins. If and when things get out of hand, admins can rein it in themselves. With any luck, we'll have other solutions ready by then. This is only a temporary stopgap to help reduce actual, measurable, manual work that is currently taking place.

Honest questions: does my logic make sense? Are there other opinions, feedback, or data points to contradict it or make a different argument? I am happy to ditch the whole thing if it really doesn't make sense.

Should this feature stay, there's the issue of the implementation detail. I would be happy to revert the migration and return to just holding the phrases in memory. Before that I have to ask: what would admins, as its users, prefer for an interface?
- A web interface, accessible by admins.
- Load from a file.
- Both? Other?

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