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I created a new MediaWiki website, Speedypedia. It's currently in alpha in two languages - English and Hebrew. I also submitted my website to MediaWiki's directory of websites using MediaWiki, but this was a mistake - since then my English version is flooded with spambots and I had to protect it with a username & password. I even added a mathematical captcha but it didn't stop the bots. How can I block bots from my website, without making it hard for real humans, including those who are disabled? I prefer an invisible captcha, but since MediaWiki is used by thousands of websites, I'm not sure it's possible (maybe the bots already know how to cheat it).

By the way, there is no spam in my Hebrew version, why? Maybe the spam bots recognize the English language? How can I change my English version not to have spam too? Or maybe the bots only crawled the English list of websites using MediaWiki, I don't know. But I don't want to remove my website from this list, is there any other solution? I don't want users to edit pages anonymously, they have to create an account. Will it help if they will have to validate their email address? Currently email address is optional and they don't have to validate it.

I prefer not to block specific IP addresses, because I consider it Ipism.

I'm sorry if this question was already posted before, I found a similar question from 2011 on Stack Overflow, and it's closed, and its answers are not up to date.

Update: I removed my website from the English and Hebrew lists of sites using MediaWiki, and added it to the multilingual list.

I think this question is different than "How can I prevent spam on sites which I control?" because it's a specific question about MediaWiki, which is used in thousands of websites.

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Uri
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  • The thing you miss with your IPism theory is this: one, security is based upon IP addresses; and two, most spam comes from non-subscriber (not a person) networks such as host IP address ranges or from bad networks where users of low quality exist based upon behavior. There are users you do not want. I defined discrimination for the APA. Discrimination is a part of life. For example, you have two oranges- one rotten and one good. You discriminate when you chose the good orange over the rotten orange. Discrimination is a requirement for living life. Bigotry is a whole other matter. – closetnoc Sep 20 '15 at 18:17
  • @closetnoc Thanks for your comment. I understand your opinion, of course I don't want to eat rotten fruits. But I don't want to discriminate users by their IP address. By the way, I have another website, Speedy Net, and I don't have any problem of spam bots there. The problem with Speedypedia is that it's based on MediaWiki, and the bots know how to cheat MediaWiki. But I don't think they want to target Speedypedia specifically. – Uri Sep 21 '15 at 06:25
  • I get you. I do not want to block users either. But sometimes you have to block subscriber blocks and I do that when necessary. Fortunately, I have not had to do this for several years. All the IP address blocks I have blocked are not subscriber blocks and so users were blocked. As well, it is now automated and temporary. – closetnoc Sep 21 '15 at 14:45
  • I think this question is different than "How can I prevent spam on sites which I control?" because it's a specific question about MediaWiki, which is used in thousands of websites. – Uri Sep 22 '15 at 06:53

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