[linux-audio-user] Attracting more Linux audio developers

[Rob]

On Monday 11 December 2006 21:42, Esben Stien wrote:
> That's a big point in having a wiki where you don't have to
> register. You actually have no, absolutely zero, maintenance,
> because the users removes the spam.
>
> You install a wiki, then leave it be.

That's great with a wiki that has a wildly active userbase, like 
Wikipedia.  On any other wiki, what the spammers count on for 
their business model is that people are not looking at the 
recent changes page 20 times a day to delete Chinese search 
engine bait.  On a public site with a moderate pagerank and a 
few hundred users making updates a few dozen times a day, like 
the one I ran for Gambas documentation (it's still there, and 
still called a wiki, but it's really a CMS with more structure 
than a wiki) once they found it, it was totally out of hand.

Even with registration, if you're running any common kind of wiki 
software, like Mediawiki or TWiki, there are thousands of bots 
out there that will auto-register and post spam.  You need a 
CAPTCHA or email verification besides the registration.

And even if your site is as active as Wikipedia, that means the 
site is big enough that it's going to need constant maintenance 
anyway for non-content-related reasons.

The truth is that wikis, like gardens, need to be tended 
constantly or they get vermin and weeds.  In no way is it a "set 
it and forget it" situation.

Rob