Spam In The Wiki!

[InSearchOf]

I have no access to the wiki :-(, I'm sorry

Late

[tux]

I have no access to the wiki :-(, I'm sorry

Late
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=167453\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Thanks for the interest ISO, I knew that you weren't a Wiki admin.

I another hour or so reverting spam today and exploring the features of the wiki. There are 5 sysops/bureaucrats listed:

DZ, Ev1l, Offroadgeek, Tapjpa and Tumnus.

I'm going to research this wiki business and see if I can come up with some suggestions. From a quick scan, DZ suggested upgrading to the current version of MediaWiki and some extra helpful software. Don't know how far he got with that.  

I'm going to see when the 5 people above last posted to these forums also...

When looking at the user lists there seemed to be an enormous number of spurious ones, obvious spambots. Would the best thing be 'bans' until 2020, or simply deleting them? It would probably take my spare time for a week to do the banning.    

On a similar tack I've found a large number of 'spurious' pages. Would it not be possible to delete those pages?

But then I'm not an admin! So I can't do anything about those two suggestions. Yes I suppose I'm volunteering for that tedious position. Yes I'll even read RTFM and be cautious in what I do.

Any chance of that being helpful?

Oh well, I'll go and lose some more sleep by checking the latest spam!  

PS Just spent a few minutes reverting myself!!!

[InSearchOf]

I will see what I can do with getting you moderator privileges to the Wiki... I personal would disable all r/w to the general public (even if you are registered) and only allow writing to those who ask... I had to kill ALL writes to the general public for pdaXrom.org due to the amount of spam that came in there...

But that is just my .02 ... I will work on it

Late

[sdjf]

Disable "all r/w"?  Or just all w except on approval?

sdjf

[koan]

I personal would disable all r/w to the general public (even if you are registered) and only allow writing to those who ask

Disable all w is overkill IMHO; what is needed is a decent CAPTCHA and registration system.

Writing for those who ask: That might work but if you go this way it's better if people can submit changes so that those with write permission can approve them.

[sdjf]

Recoding to include RECAPTCHA might take too long to implement immediately.  I agree that disabling all w is pretty heavy duty but maybe they might have to do it as a stop-gap measure so that the wiki isn't continuing to get trashed while the better solution is getting worked on.

I do believe there are some human spammers, not just bots, as well, so Recaptcha alone might cut down time-consuming robot activity, but won't eliminate all spam by itself, IMHO.

sdjf

[koan]

Recoding to include RECAPTCHA might take too long to implement immediately.  I agree that disabling all w is pretty heavy duty but maybe they might have to do it as a stop-gap measure so that the wiki isn't continuing to get trashed while the better solution is getting worked on.

I do believe there are some human spammers, not just bots, as well, so Recaptcha alone might cut down time-consuming robot activity, but won't eliminate all spam by itself, IMHO.

sdjf
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=167619\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I agree; it might be better to switch off w access to all who haven't asked for it until better registration is implemented. Most of the spam seems to be from the same source so I'm surprised it's not possible to kill w from certain IP addresses.

I saw a simple captcha recently: a mathematical question; e.g. What's five plus six ? It seemed to work well.

[urkden]

I saw a simple captcha recently: a mathematical question; e.g. What's five plus six ? It seemed to work well.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=167630\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

It's so simple... First time I saw something like this I tried more than 20 times writing "11" xD

[sdjf]

If you missed it, Recaptcha is a official project of Carnegie Mellon Univ. that has it's own website:

http://recaptcha.net

They provide free code to use that links back to their word recognitions, whether to get access to a website or hide an email address or whatever.

It's quick and easy to install on standard webpages, just a question of whether our admins can get access here to install it on the wiki or wherever, and THAT's not so quick and easy.

sdjf

[Meyer]

Definitely need to do something about the spambots. I tried a round of reversions, but it's a futile as cutting down every tree in the forest with a herring.

Concerning screening technology, I know capchas are poplular and may be the only practical choice, but I'd prefer something that didn't create new problems for users with vision problems or text-based clients.

[Meyer]

How about running Wikipedia's AntiSpamBot on the wiki?

[dz]

How about running Wikipedia's AntiSpamBot on the wiki?
[div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I'm in the process of upgrading the entire Wiki software system and linking the accounts table with the IPB accounts table.  Check the following thread for info:

[a href=\"https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=24041]https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=24041[/url]

[Meyer]

Which thread? That link's a 404.

[tux]

Which thread? That link's a 404.

 Just take the s off forums for now!!