1. What is a TextCHA?
It is a pure text alternative to CAPTCHAs. MoinMoin uses it to prevent wiki spamming.
Features:
- for page save, ask a random question
- match the given answer against a regular expression
- q and a can be configured in the wiki config
- multi language support: a user gets a textcha in his language or in language_default or in English (depending on availability of questions/answers for the language)
Tips for answering:
- you need to answer the textcha for e.g.:
- page save
- attachment upload
- user profile creation
- you do not need to answer the textcha for e.g.:
- page preview (if you do, it will remember what you entered, though)
- user profile changes
- it is usually a simple/short answer
- it compares case-insensitive
- sometimes you can find the right answer by reading some important pages of the wiki
2. Configuration
Tips for configuration:
- have 1 word / 1 number answers
- ask questions that normal users of your site are likely to be able to answer
- do not ask too hard questions
- do not ask "computable" questions, like "1+1" or "2*3"
- do not ask too common questions
- do not share your questions with other sites / copy questions from other sites (or spammers might try to adapt to this)
you should at least give textchas for 'en' (or for your language_default, if that is not 'en') as this will be used as fallback if MoinMoin does not find a textcha in the user's language
In your wiki config, do something like this:
textchas_disabled_group = u"TrustedEditorGroup" # members of this don't get textchas
textchas = {
'en': { # silly english example textchas (do not use them!)
u"Enter the first 9 digits of Pi.": ur"3\.14159265",
u"What is the opposite of 'day'?": ur"(night|nite)",
# ...
},
'de': { # some german textchas
u"Gib die ersten 9 Stellen von Pi ein.": ur"3\.14159265",
u"Was ist das Gegenteil von 'Tag'?": ur"nacht",
# ...
},
# you can add more languages if you like
}