The page http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Autoconfirmed implies that mediawiki can throttle edits. Currently my LocalSettings.php file includes the lines:
$wgAutoConfirmAge = 60*60*24*30; # about 1 month, in seconds.
$wgAutoConfirmCount = 3; # edits.
$wgRateLimits['edit']['newbie'] = array( 1, 60*60*24 ); # one edit per day.
$wgRateLimits['edit']['ip'] = array( 1, 60*60*24 ); # one edit per day
What I expected to happen with the above settings is that a new spam account might be able to slip in one spam per day, but the mediawiki software would block any other attempt to create a new page or edit a pre-existing page until tomorrow.
What I see actually happening is that one spammer can register a new account, and then through that one account create several pages full of spam within the hour.
How do I enable the edit throttle at http://opencircuits.com/ ? MediaWiki 1.19.2; PHP 5.3.27 (cgi-fcgi); MySQL 5.1.56-log.