Well, thanks to tux for bringing me back to this thread (and the image upload thread next door). As I am recently busy with some other stuffs I do not check oesf that often anymore... anyway lets first answer your questions:
1. What was the URI that gave you the above error?
Any page on the oesf wiki, for example:
https://www.oesf.org/index.php?title=Main_PageI am effectively blocked from viewing all oesf wiki pages from my office network.
2. What was the date and time the error occurred? (If you can't remember, try accessing the URI again and report the results.)
Well, basically I can reproduce the error any time I was in office when I try to access any wiki pages. The last time I had such problem.. was probably the time when I posted the message, so it was approximately Nov 4 2007, 09:41 PM server time.
3. Can you access any other MediaWiki (like Wikipedia) from behind your company's proxy server?
Yes, of course. I own several MediaWiki websites myself:
here,
here,
here, and
here, just to name a few. And I can access them from office without any problem.
4. Are you saying that you are being blocked from viewing/browsing the Wiki or is it that editing is being blocked? Are you able to access other wikimedia sites that have BadBehaviour and the other spam defenses, some of which you suggested, installed. cool.gif
I will check tomorrow when I am back in office to see if viewing the wiki is still being blocked - if it is so then I believe there's too much anti-spam defenses on the website and that's affecting legitimate users. No I am not aware of any other mediawiki sites with the BadBehaviour extension.
5. Do you have a problem when accessing the Wiki using non-proxy access?
Well I am now on my home network at a fixed IP (through a router) at 125.59.xx.xx and had no problem viewing the site - but Bad Behaviour is preventing me from creating a new user account on the wiki. I do not experience the same problem I had in office when I use my own private Squid server at 202.177.xx.xx to access the wiki, account creation is still blocked though.
6. I must say that something strange appears to be going on if attempting to access the Wiki apparently asks for / access. blink.gif From your experience with the wikimedia software have you any pointers to a solution? Did your IT staff have anything to say?
Since it is apparent from the
Bad Behaviour page itself that the bad behavior extension is generating way too many false positives, I think it may be more beneficial if the extension is removed and replaced with other anti-spam measures, for example the
ReCaptcha extension developed by UC Berkeley together with some access control customization settings. On the other hand you could try settings Bad Behavior blocking mode to normal, instead of strict I presume you are running. The Bad Behavior extension does not offer any fine tuning of the anti-spam settings, and the documentation is awfully vague and limited:
quoteStrict: Bad Behavior operates in two blocking modes: normal and strict. In normal mode, some checks which could stop spam, but also block certain types of corporate and government users, are disabled. When strict mode is enabled, spam from these sources is blocked, but those users may be blocked as well. It is up to you whether you want to have the government reading your blog, or keep away the spammers.
(Other options are present, but not currently used in the MediaWiki port.)
p.s.
Wikipedia does not use Bad Behavior, instead they use AntiSpoof, a modified ConfirmEdit for links in incoming edits and account creation, SpamBlacklist and Username Blacklist.
