Extension:ConfirmEdit/Patch

Patch for even more spam protection
This is a patch to allow experienced users to bring in external links without solving a captcha, regardless if they has skipcaptcha permissions. A user is considered to be trusted if she has a large number of edits.

This patch also prohibits new users from adding _any_ external links. Such behavior should help a lot to tackle spam, because the whole reason of spam is to add such links (they call it "link building") and spam is almost always added by newly created users.

Configuration:

Apply the patch to extensions/ after unpacking ConfirmEdit 1.2. If you want to deviate from the defaults, add this to LocalSettings.php:

The patch isn't as well honed as it could be, for example user messages aren't localized. Also, the refusal for newbies to add external links applies no matter which permissions a user has. Other than that, it appears to work just fine. For a wiki using this patch, see http://reprap.org.

Markus "Traumflug" Hitter, September 2013, 

Experience with this patch
After two months with this patch, we still wait for the first spam edit. Other than spambots still creating accounts, misuse of our wiki has completely disappeared.

Legitimate users apparently understand the error message. No complaints, but occasionally useless edits to raise the edit count appear. Typically, these users revert their useless edits without maintainer intervention. Exactly like planned.

-- Traumflug@reprap.org