[OSM-talk] Still need for spam protection and if yes, what about OSM-based CATPCHA?

[Stefan Keller]

Hi Philip

My question was exactly to ask for further need of spam protection
within the OSM tool "landscape".
Have you ever managed a Wiki or any CMS with accounts?
Unfortunately it's common place to get higher page rank registering
fake accounts and putting Weblinks into the users page - like in an
OSM Wiki or OSM server.
And that's the reason why OSM Wiki has a CAPTCHA (which currently
helps Google...).
The CAPTCHA I would propose would display geometries - similar to
Asirra (which displays cat and dog images).
If one reads the scientific and practical literature CAPTCHAs are
still state-of-the-art.
I accept the argument that image CAPTCHAs are a barrier for disabled.
But it's somewhat weird to me in the specific case of a graphics
oriented project like OSM.

Yours, Stefan


2013/5/7 Philip Barnes <phil at trigpoint.me.uk>:
> CATPCHAs are pure evil, I would like to see their use made a criminal
> offence as I am sure that they contravene the Disability Discrimination
> Act.  When faced with the things I tend to go somewhere else, they use
> such hard to read characters and always take several attempts.
>
> If reporting an error with OSM required a catpcha then I suspect many
> just would not bother and we would all be worse off.
>
> And as Tom says I do not see any evidence of automated spam in OSM.
>
> Phil (trigpoint)
>
>
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