I've got completely lost in all the mutations of the "Refactoring" thread, and don't recall all that has been said, so please forgive me if what I'm about to suggest has been dealt with already.
Two low-barrier methods I have seen work quite successfully on wikis, forums, and similar sites are: 1) People must ask for an account; they can't self-subscribe. Nothing is required except a few words about who you are and why you want an account. Any one of several people authorised to approve or reject these requests can deal with them expeditiously. Very few spammers, in my experience, take the trouble to actually request accounts. 2) Alternatively, or in addition, the first X edits/ contributions/ whatever are moderated by a group of people, any one of whom can approve or reject the items. After X acceptable contributions, the person is then allowed to edit the wiki without further supervision -- until or unless they start posting inappropriate material such as spam. Again, very few spammers will take the trouble to post some useful info before going into spam mode. These methods deal with the vast majority, if not all, of the concerns I have seen Rob expressing about systems with no control at all, but at the same time they do not require more time or commitment on the contributors' part to be authorised to participate. AFAIK, most wikis & similar sites provide some way to limit the editing of specific pages to a smaller group of people (admins or whatever). --Jean
