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

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
    }

Note that TrustedEditorGroup from above example can have groups as members.