Category talk:Users

Piotr: I see your intention with regards to having a Users category ... but I do wonder whether many users will bother to add themselves to it. Most don't even create a wiki user page.

The reason that we don't purge the username table of all the fake spam-bot generating users is because that also removes their ban. I.e. when someone spams I infinitely ban them from posting, so then the bot needs to create another username, etc. The use of spam-trapping regex variable listing the majority of spam-related words and forbidding any page saves with those words in it has also significantly cut down on the spam.

Hi James. As far as this category is concerned, I'll have no problem whatsoever seeing it go. I only created it because I saw no sensible way to see who else is around here among the bot users, and because it's a wiki, so I knew my changes can be easily reverted/deleted any time. OTOH, I don't see how it can hurt -- if some of those who choose to create a user page (now or in the future) also decide to allow others to locate them easily, why not let them? But then, there may be no need for that indeed, so how about letting the category stay for a while and deleting it if no one is interested in joining it? Of course, given the modest traffic, it might make sense to give it some time, and (perhaps, just perhaps) let others know of its existence on the main page.

As for the spam-bot problem -- I saw versions of wiki that required users to type a magic word when registering. Perhaps that can reduce the number of bot users -- have you considered that? Best, Piotr Banski 13:06, 3 April 2007 (BST)

Sure, I'm happy for it to stay. Yes, a 'captcha' might be a good idea. I've been fighting for the person responsible to upgrade the wiki software as well, since we're now several versions out of date. So anything like that would have to wait until after such an upgrade. :-( James 13:11, 3 April 2007 (BST)