Talk:Main Page

Confirm Account Creation
What does everyone think about forcing account creation to be confirmed by an admin. --Joe (talk) 02:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC) Other options include disabling welcome bot (do we really need this anymore?) and setting it so that new users can't create pages. --Joe (talk) 02:03, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm still a fan of the welcome bot.


 * How would it work? How does an admin guy know whether an account creation request is valid or not? Can we fix it so that if someone tries to edit a page, they are asked to write a post to (some page somewhere, on PW) where they introduce themselves and explain what they can contribute? Even a reply along the lines "I'm an anarchist who loves ridiculing mathematicians" would be an adequate reason to allow access - any obviously robotically generated request would be responded to by blocking the user. --prime mover (talk) 05:27, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * ... and if we can, we should automatically block any user (and the domain they rode in on) who tries to post a page containing the words "Feel free to visit my website" as this is clearly the work of a particular spamming engine. --prime mover (talk) 05:59, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * We could make them submit a short bio or something on account creation. Just so long as they mention math/proofs then they can get an account. If they don't' write anything then they don't get an account. --Joe (talk) 17:59, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I saw this proposed as a turing test question, which seems appropriate for a mathematical wiki.--Linus44 (talk) 10:14, 27 May 2013 (UTC):


 * In the following question, the correct answer is indicated by the capital letters. They spell out a word that rhymes with the correct answer. Ignore the literal content of the question and insert the number that sounds just like the word spelled out by the caps.
 * What is the Only correct aNswer to the following question
 * 2 + 2 = __


 * No. That is a test that seems likely to result in weeding out dyslexics, which is not our intention. --Dfeuer (talk) 14:59, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Whatever we do, we should do it soon; the volume seems to be increasing. No objection to getting rid of Welcomebot. No objection to sensible restrictions on unconfirmed users. One minor concern: we tend to block account creation from spammers' IPs indefinitely. Doesn't this risk blocking out legitimate new users if those users are assigned a blocked address by, e.g., DHCP? --Dfeuer (talk) 02:13, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Stop whining like a baby, you bossy little twerp. --prime mover (talk) 04:58, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you even know how DHCP works? Every house (technically, router) has its own IP address and DHCP server; the DHCP manages internal addresses (192.168.x.x blocks usually) but does in no way affect the external IP. I deem the likelihood of someone buying a router that has been blocked due to a spam user and trying to register on sufficiently minuscule to gloss over it.


 * The problem is not WelcomeBot here, I don't see how it could be involved in this. Perhaps the ConfirmAccount extension could be a solution? It's a bit more work, perhaps, but it's preventive rather than enforcing work. &mdash; Lord_Farin (talk) 07:09, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * First off, a router may not have a static IP (I believe Verizon assigns one to mine dynamically each time it boots). Second off, not everyone necessarily accesses PW from a house, and some networks may expose dynamically assigned addresses (though this is probably rare). --Dfeuer (talk) 07:31, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I've disabled account create for now. The confirm account extension doesn't want to work, I'll look into it. --Joe (talk) 17:27, 29 May 2013 (UTC)