User talk:Meyer

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Revision as of 22:03, 30 September 2007

Welcome to my talk page. Feel free to leave OESF Wiki-related notes for me here. Just edit the page and add your comments in a new paragraph at the bottom. Please sign and date your post by appending "--~~~~" to the end of your comment.

If I there's anything in your comments I need to respond to, I will append my answer to this page following your post. Watch this page if you care what I have to say to you. ;)

Hi Meyer, I liked the comment about cutting down trees with a herring!

Lets hope that someone among the admins recruits some help.

My idea would be that we recognise the bots and indefinite ban them and carry on doing that until they are all dead!

Of course that would only be a real solution if they also going to leave anonymous editing turned off and made the registering much harder for non-humans.!

See you later! Tux 06:41, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Glad you liked the herring line, but I stole it from Monty Python. ;)

Something definitely needs to be done about the spambots. It's embarrassing how vulnerable the wiki is. The only problem with banning is I'm sure the bots are already smart enough to come back with a new user name and IP address.

There are a number of things that can be done, including my personal favorite of installing the Wikipedia AntiSpamBot (fight fire with fire), but they all involve the wiki administrators, and I can't say how high the wiki is on their list of priorities. At least DK seems to be looking into the problem.

Back to the despamming. Keep fighting the good fight.

--Meyer 21:51, 25 Sep 2007 (EDT)

Congratulations Meyer on the sysop/bureaucrat bit! Hope I'll be able to cope with the sysop/bureaucrat stuff. Wish me luck. Tux 06:41, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Good luck to both of us, Partner. You'll have to teach me what the hell I should be doing. -- Meyer 07:05, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Well don't rely too much on me! I just blocked myself!!! Fortunately I noticed quite quickly!

What I do to kill spambots!

At the moment I'm going through the Recent changes list as I used to. This time I'm looking for RED user names and looking at the page history and the version attached to the name.

Obviously when I find a spammed page I can take a look at the RED user revisions and block as required.

If it is the spambot stuff I select: Block, other, 1 year ban, other and put spambot in the other box. Then select block.

I'm hoping this new wiki software can really block the same IP.

Tux 07:43, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

What is this Spambot of which you speak? Is that captcha that is mentioned in the forum likely to be of use here? Have you discovered how dz can turn off anonymous editing? I'm going to have to spend some serious homework time on those manuals. I also need to learn how to edit with style! Lots to do!.Tux 12:27, 27 September 2007 (EDT)

Did you read my post at OESF:AN#The_Robot_Wars and the web pages linked there? I think there are a couple of captcha mechanisms being talked about. One is already in place in the forum user registration process, and it is preventing spambots from getting wiki ID's created through the linkage between forum user registration and the wiki. Another captcha we've been talking about is a MediaWiki extension Dz will try to install this weekend. It will have a more direct impact on the wiki as it can be configured to check user registrations or edits by all or a subset of users. -- Meyer (talk) 13:03, 27 September 2007 (EDT)

I expect you've already found the enhanced (javascript) Recent Pages option. I've just started using it. I've also put a Delete pages and a Banned Users thread in the OESF WIKI forum. Hope they'll be useful.Tux 15:52, 28 September 2007 (EDT)

They are finding their way back. At the moment these little creatures are just pitting gibberish in. We really do need anonymous editing turned off!--Tux 18:03, 30 September 2007 (EDT)