Following up from discussion of spam in
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...chive_20080229
and looking at the current level of spamming I think it's time we
protected all the wiki so that only registered users can edit pages.

Earlier I had hoped/suggested that keeping the wiki open would encourage
casual visitors to start contributing with little edits such as typos,
clarifications etc, and maybe move on to becoming more heavyweight
contributors. However this doesn't seem to be happening anyway, and the
quantity of spam is getting unmanageable.

The quality of the wiki would probably be improved more by having less
spam and less work for regulars to do patrolling it, than any notional
contribution from unregistered users. Also when/if unregistered users do
contribute there's a danger their input may be mistaken for spam and their
IP get blocked.

Interested parties may follow up on the discussion page
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...age/Discussion
and/or here

--
John Stumbles

I can't stand intolerance

Earlier I had hoped/suggested that keeping the wiki open would encourage
casual visitors to start contributing with little edits such as typos,
clarifications etc, and maybe move on to becoming more heavyweight
contributors. However this doesn't seem to be happening anyway, and the
quantity of spam is getting unmanageable.

Is there a way to set up a generic password for the site to allow
editing - perhaps only give it out to regular contributors of the site
upon request ?

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:49:15 +0000, Colin Wilson wrote:

Earlier I had hoped/suggested that keeping the wiki open would encourage
casual visitors to start contributing with little edits such as typos,
clarifications etc, and maybe move on to becoming more heavyweight
contributors. However this doesn't seem to be happening anyway, and the
quantity of spam is getting unmanageable.

Is there a way to set up a generic password for the site to allow
editing - perhaps only give it out to regular contributors of the site
upon request ?

Sorry, I'm probably not being clear. All I'm proposing is that we
prevent anonymous edits. If someone wants to contribute they can create an
account for themselves and edit away. One or two occasional contributors
have already done this.

There are also a few spam contributors and it may be that if we prevent
anonymous edits the spammers will spend the extra effort to create
accounts so that they can continue their evil work. I don't know. I
daresay it will happen in the longer term and we'll have to respond as
that becomes more of a problem

--
John Stumbles

The clairvoyants' meeting has been cancelled due to unforseen circumstances.

John Stumbles wrote:

Following up from discussion of spam in
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...chive_20080229
and looking at the current level of spamming I think it's time we
protected all the wiki so that only registered users can edit pages.

Probably becoming necessary, however it is worth noting that the number
of obvious spammy registered users has grown enormously recently. There
were for a long time about 30 registered users - this has recently shot
up to 80:

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...100&offset =0

We could probably ban a bunch of those on spec... anyone reading this
lay claim to:

2. ActarOlvar
3. AloloAlviv
8. BasdaRtrsi
9. BasouCalar
10. BolarIclio
12. C4tvaRdron
13. CaletOlicr
14. CavarEltal
16. ChichImonb
17. ChipaSleto
18. CnacoDarol
19. CobocTrocs
20. CrolnOacli
21. CvielPasac
22. DarcaBasol
23. DeldaRerri
24. DelriCouol
28. DomboCleto
29. DomleTotrs
30. DomorCnoor
31. DomroLorel
32. DronaCelno
33. DronbOtrva
34. DronlEtola
35. DrontAtroc
36. EltrbOcc4t
37. GetdaRroli
38. GetriCchir
39. GetsiTmona
47. LetotRolod
49. LibodRonze
50. LinobOlimo
56. MonalLiget
57. MondeLelda
64. OloalPasde
65. OroloVarco
66. Oulic4tdro
69. RacerBasno
71. RelvaRlicc
72. RobocSitda
73. RolaoRracc
75. SitlaAcell
78. VarvaRcdom
80. ZelsiTdron

(interesting what you notice when you list them in a non proportional
font huh!)




We could do with email confirmation for new users really - i.e. convince
a sysop they are human and helpful before getting write access.

Earlier I had hoped/suggested that keeping the wiki open would encourage
casual visitors to start contributing with little edits such as typos,
clarifications etc, and maybe move on to becoming more heavyweight
contributors. However this doesn't seem to be happening anyway, and the
quantity of spam is getting unmanageable.

It has happened a little - some of the regulars here (Andy W springs to
mind) usually tweak without loging in, but by and large you are right
not much happens in the way of helpful edits.

The quality of the wiki would probably be improved more by having less
spam and less work for regulars to do patrolling it, than any notional
contribution from unregistered users. Also when/if unregistered users do
contribute there's a danger their input may be mistaken for spam and their
IP get blocked.

Interested parties may follow up on the discussion page
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...age/Discussion
and/or here

Yup, I would go for a global registered user only policy - either
implemented as such or by protecting each page if it gets attacked.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:08:29 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

Probably becoming necessary, however it is worth noting that the number
of obvious spammy registered users has grown enormously recently. There
were for a long time about 30 registered users - this has recently shot
up to 80:

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...100&offset =0

We could probably ban a bunch of those on spec... anyone reading this
lay claim to:

2. ActarOlvar
....

Easily spotted in this case but it'd be useful if the Wiki gave us better
info pages showing at a glance e.g. how many edits and how recently each
user has made so one can spot obvious spammers, and also disused accounts
(e.g. one edit shortly after creation, not used for 6 months - what's the
chance of the owner even remembering their login?)


We could do with email confirmation for new users really - i.e. convince
a sysop they are human and helpful before getting write access.

You mean like a moderator? Trouble with that is it'll put off the genuine
contributors who may have to wait hours or even days to make their first
contribution. I know that's a vanishingly small number of people but given
how few there are of us I'd hate to lose any potential extras.

What we really could do with is capcha, for which we need someone who's
got more time than Grunff has to manage the system.

Yup, I would go for a global registered user only policy - either
implemented as such or by protecting each page if it gets attacked.

The latter is more work, more error prone and doesn't deal with the
increasing incidence of spammers creating pages (sometimes with
authoritative-sounding names)

--
John Stumbles

I've got nothing against racists - I just wouldn't want my daughter to marry one

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:08:29 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

We could probably ban a bunch of those on spec... anyone reading this
lay claim to:

2. ActarOlvar
3. AloloAlviv
snip
We could do with email confirmation for new users really - i.e. convince
a sysop they are human and helpful before getting write access.

Another way that doesn't take time froma sysop is to have one of those
graphics that you have to type the code in from on the "create account"
page. I think there is a wiki plugin to do that.

If the d-i-y FAQ wiki is suffering spam edited into pages then the only
cure is to stop anonymous edits and clean up the user database.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:16:46 +0000, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Another way that doesn't take time froma sysop is to have one of those
graphics that you have to type the code in from on the "create account"
page. I think there is a wiki plugin to do that.

Called CAPCHA (or CAPTCHA?)
Unfortunately it requires a more recent version of the wiki than the one
we're running, and Grunff hasn't had time to update it.


--
John Stumbles

My karma ran over my dogma

John Stumbles wrote:

Called CAPCHA (or CAPTCHA?)

Supposedly from "Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and
Humans Apart" but it seems to lack "T"s...


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Stumbles wrote:

Following up from discussion of spam in
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...chive_20080229
and looking at the current level of spamming I think it's time we
protected all the wiki so that only registered users can edit pages.

Earlier I had hoped/suggested that keeping the wiki open would encourage
casual visitors to start contributing with little edits such as typos,
clarifications etc, and maybe move on to becoming more heavyweight
contributors. However this doesn't seem to be happening anyway, and the
quantity of spam is getting unmanageable.

The quality of the wiki would probably be improved more by having less
spam and less work for regulars to do patrolling it, than any notional
contribution from unregistered users. Also when/if unregistered users do
contribute there's a danger their input may be mistaken for spam and their
IP get blocked.

Interested parties may follow up on the discussion page
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...age/Discussion
and/or here

Sounds good to me John, the spam is a real problem, and
unregistered editors from elsewhere are rare. What happens
isnt guaranteed, but it will most likly put some off, and some it
wont, which would be a win.

BTW, how does one dl all the articles in one go in wikicode?
Special dl files seems to only point to pics, and only one at a time,
which is no use.


NT

John Stumbles wrote:

What we really could do with is capcha, for which we need someone who's
got more time than Grunff has to manage the system.

I don't know how easy it might be to integrate (the one time I tried to
hack about with MediaWiki it seemed unnecessarily hard to understand)
but the Recaptcha thing from a US university looks good.

Pete

On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:59:00 -0800, meow2222 wrote:

BTW, how does one dl all the articles in one go in wikicode?
Special dl files seems to only point to pics, and only one at a time,
which is no use.

I think that's probably a Grunff thing. I did it with wget but it was
horribly inefficient: dled *every* possible page (think of all the _edit_
links within articles!) and threw away most of it. Not very server
friendly. Maybe there's some tool already out there, otherwise it should
be relatively trivial (ha!) with Perl and one of the HTML:: modules or
suchlike.

--
John Stumbles

This sig intentionally left blank

John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:59:00 -0800, meow2222 wrote:

BTW, how does one dl all the articles in one go in wikicode?
Special dl files seems to only point to pics, and only one at a time,
which is no use.

I think that's probably a Grunff thing. I did it with wget but it was
horribly inefficient: dled *every* possible page (think of all the _edit_
links within articles!) and threw away most of it. Not very server
friendly. Maybe there's some tool already out there, otherwise it should
be relatively trivial (ha!) with Perl and one of the HTML:: modules or
suchlike.


Cheers. Its odd that it lacks some quite basic features, eg spammers
have to be reverted and blocked one by painful one. Still, it works.


NT