INTENSE WIKI SPAM

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  • edited June 2012
    hi, all! despite the fact that y'all seem to be a little unenthusiastic about wikiness, i figured i'd let you know what php i'd like to add to the local settings. here's a summary (in english!) of each line or so of php:

    a user must make 5 edits before they are autoconfirmed
    a user also must have been registered for ten minutes before they are autoconfirmed
    anonymous users CANNOT create pages which are not talk pages
    anonymous users CANNOT create talk pages
    [non-autoconfirmed] users CAN create talk pages
    [non-autoconfirmed] users CANNOT create pages which are not talk pages
    autoconfirmed users CAN create pages which are not talk pages
    autoconfirmed users CAN move pages
    autoconfirmed users CAN patrol edits
    instead of being autoconfirmed, a user can be email confirmed by confirming their email address
    email confirmed users have the same rights as autoconfirmed users
    moderators DO NOT have edits patrolled automatically
    configuring RECAPTCHA protection

    so if anyone has any suggestions/objections/whatever then they should speak up! :)
  • @apollo Sorry about the lack of replies. It's been a tough weekend because it's been a JoCo touring weekend -- @chicazul, for instance, might be interested in the discussion but has been traipsing all over the West Coast with the rest of SuperTrain.

    All your suggestions seem reasonable to me! The other question I have is whether we should autoconfirm people at all -- the "spam filter," as it were, on these forums is that applicants have to apply and I (or someone else with mod rights, but usually me) have to log in and click a button to approve them. Should we do the same for the wiki? It'd be annoying, I guess, but there seems like fewer new people who are real people trying to register for the wiki.

  • edited June 2012
    @Bry
    hm, well, i can look into sysop approval for all users, but i'm pretty sure the closest thing mediawiki has to that would require a sysop to actually make the account for the user, and then turn over the password and things. that's just as far as i know, though, and there could potentially be a different way to do it! so yeah, i will see about that. but bear in mind that spambots will have to go through the reCAPTCHA before they can register an account at all, and i know that's a highly effective system. my friend Q, from tmbw, says that over there they also block account creation from russian ips, since russia is a very spammy country (but real russians can email about making an account, if they are so inclined). maybe something like that could be worked out? i wonder if there's a similar source for all of your spam, hmm.
  • edited June 2012
    @Bry ;
    okay! update: i found a mediawiki extension, confirmaccount, that works in the same kind of way as the forum's system. it would require some extra installation and configuration, but so would reCAPTCHA, so whatever. whichever system folks would prefer can be used, i think!

    eta: confirmaccount is kinda complicated and there are a few known bugs, so i guess that should be considered in the decision, as well. you can read about that yourself here.
  • edited July 2012
    OKAY, news of mixed goodness!
    scarface said he "made the changes to the configuration file" and while i didn't actually suggest anything directly to him (so none of those changes up there are going into effect, presumably), it seems you now need to confirm your email address to edit/create pages/whatever else. which is an improvement, hopefully.

    eta: i've also asked scarface to install reCAPTCHA and he said he'd look into it so the spam should be gone once and for all. mostly. hopefully.
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