[OSM-talk] Spam in user diaries

Tom Hughes tom at compton.nu
Fri Jan 20 10:24:48 GMT 2012


On 20/01/12 10:15, Andreas Labres wrote:
> On 20.01.12 10:25, Tom Hughes wrote:
>> Sorry, I wasn't trying to be negative, just trying to explain that it was
>> nothing to do with the OSM admins as such and it wasn't something we had any
>> direct control over.
>
> To get to the root of the problem:
>
> How is the spam happening? I would suspect:
> * registration, email validation and diary post within a short timeframe?
> * without anything else (especially OSM editing) in between?
>
> Maybe this could be identified by kind of a bonus point system where you
> * get some minus points in the first place
> * get bonus points by uploading tracks and/or editing OSM
> * maybe even get bonus points as time goes by
> * and get allowed to post, finally
> * or at least prohibit links if you don't have enough points

Indeed. We could give each user a score, call it the "spam score" or 
something and then suspend the account if it gets too high.

Oh wait, we already do that:

http://git.openstreetmap.org/rails.git/blob/HEAD:/app/models/user.rb#l194

Yes, there are some problems, and given this weeks outbreak of spam I 
will be looking to change some things when I get a chance.

One slightly strange thing has been that there have been quite a few 
with no links in, which seems a little odd, and means that there is no 
impact on the score.

Tom

-- 
Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/



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