Wiki Busters

[Ghost in the Shell]

By the way, I think we should perhaps decide on a standard way to do and mark the spam removal. I've seen that you, Tiamat always set the de-spam as minor edits, which is probably a good thing (when I removed spam for the first time, btw, it wasn't a minor edit so to say... ^_^). Additionally I will switch to tag it as "De-spam" as well, this makes it easier to check for what has been de-spammed and when if you're looking at the recent changes section.

Regarding the actual "technique" I am curious whether you manually delete all the new spam-additions (go to the site, click edit, mark all spam, delete it and save it as a minor edit) or "revert" the content, which I do: I go to the site, click on history, click on the last intact version of the site, click edit and save that version of the site as a minor edit. That way I can be sure to get back the exact same version of the site before the spam without having to look at everything. For now I think this doesn't make a difference, but if the sites get more content and perhaps a bit layout I guess that's the quickest way to do it. Just in case you didn't get that idea yourself yet. ^_^

edit: I just added the old EN character profiles, or better said tried to mix them into the existing ones. I am not that contended with the way I did that, but have no idea how to do it better for now. Feel free to change what I did.

[Tiamat]

I use a reversion - sometimes the spam deletes original content and the only way to fix everything is to go back to the previous version. I've been jokingly adding taunts to the spam-bots on the spam-produced pages to break up the monotony and keep me from flipping out in real life over the state of the intertrons and the people who occupy it, but as far as standardization goes marking as minor and setting the 'changes' text as De-spam sounds good to me.

A suggestion to Viking, our wiki sysop: I know you don't want to lock down the whole wiki, because then it would just be the three of us even capable of working on it and that would suck. But, most of the spam-bots are posting as anonymous. Maybe we can keep username creation and lock out anonymous posting instead? Just a thought.

[Ghost in the Shell]

Vote for the block of anonymous posting in the ES wiki.
I guess the people willing to post there will want to register themselves with the wiki anyways, even if they're just by-passers and/or one-time posters.

[Neko7]

I don't know if that have any value, but I vote for the block of anonymous posting in the ES wiki.

Those who want to participate, but who don't specially know how to make a wiki nicely have alway the possibility to have a topic "Participating to the EN Wiki" where they can post their articles. Those would be read/corrected/(dismissed) by those in charge of the wiki.

[Ghost in the Shell]

Ok, we definitely need to do something about the wiki.
I know it's neither the most polite not the most efficient way to adress things, but I am fucking stoned atm (to give an impression on how stoned: I managed to watch "Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow" and "Immortal - *don't know what the fuck the title was, all I know was that is consisted of no-plot and much CA*" in a row...) and just realized that we are going to lose to all thos damned spam bots.
Since reading RS and EN is a hobby of mine I have to admit I am not able to invest much time on the EN wiki, but as I just checked and found several new bot-induced rapings on the system I realized: It makes no sense to try to improve the wiki's content without first ensuring the new pages don't get instantly fucked up by pr0n ads. Let's face it, other than us probably no one is willing to writre something about EN into that wiki, so I suggest to ban everyone's ass except ours (that is Jordan's Lab Assistants and of course Poe and Impy). If anybody really wants to contribute to EN they will surely find the forums and we can manually allow them/add them to this group.
Personally I thought several times to add new sites, but then was like "nah, it's only getting to be messed up by the bots" and let it be. Fuck, now the nots even start to add own sites with titles luring normal user to them! It may be the alcohol, but I feel the urge to do some lethal damage to a living being for this! (Preferably someone who is involved with coding those bots...)

So please, as soon as it is possible, do something about this wiki, Viking! Make it more resistant towards being rtaped in the ass with a thorny stick! I can't bear it! (and now I better stop before the alcohol does more damage to my precious brain...)

[Tiamat]

I realize that asking this is one of the surest ways to see that it never happens, but what the hell.

Testing week is over for me and most of my classes are in a lull between now and the end of thanksgiving. Would it be possible for you to grant me temporary sysop powers so I can set the wiki to make everyone log in and then prune the list of the three or four people I can remember logging in to post spam? I know you're busy so it might be a bit much to ask you to run the boards, the wiki, your life, and the games at the same time.

In the mean time, I'll just bask in that warm glow i get after i purge the board of spam.

[Graybeard]

I realize that asking this is one of the surest ways to see that it never happens, but what the hell.

Testing week is over for me and most of my classes are in a lull between now and the end of thanksgiving. Would it be possible for you to grant me temporary sysop powers so I can set the wiki to make everyone log in and then prune the list of the three or four people I can remember logging in to post spam? I know you're busy so it might be a bit much to ask you to run the boards, the wiki, your life, and the games at the same time.

In the mean time, I'll just bask in that warm glow i get after i purge the board of spam.

This is all good, but unless creation of new usernames is disabled, it won't be sufficient. The Heretic Knowledge Vault got spam-bombed by some webspider that created vast numbers of 6-character usernames, which lay in wait until the time was right to create spam, and then pounced. We had to protect every friggin' page on the wiki and block every friggin' spam-username, and it only helped a little because more kept on being created. There is also a switch that has to be thrown in the MediaWiki software itself, to disable creation of new usernames except by those who have the Bureaucrat privilege. If that hasn't been done, all this will be in vain.

The good news is that the Heretic Knowledge Vault has been spam-free now for several months, so draconian as the measure is, it works. Get the switch thrown to stop username creation except by the Bureaucrat(s), and you should be able to win this battle -- for now.

[Tiamat]

This is all good, but unless creation of new usernames is disabled, it won't be sufficient. The Heretic Knowledge Vault got spam-bombed by some webspider that created vast numbers of 6-character usernames, which lay in wait until the time was right to create spam, and then pounced. We had to protect every friggin' page on the wiki and block every friggin' spam-username, and it only helped a little because more kept on being created. There is also a switch that has to be thrown in the MediaWiki software itself, to disable creation of new usernames except by those who have the Bureaucrat privilege. If that hasn't been done, all this will be in vain.

The good news is that the Heretic Knowledge Vault has been spam-free now for several months, so draconian as the measure is, it works. Get the switch thrown to stop username creation except by the Bureaucrat(s), and you should be able to win this battle -- for now.

Yes, I was part of damage control then, too. Thus far, though, there've been no mass creations of user-names, just an unstoppable (and unless I miss my guess, increasing) flood of anonymous spammers. My other plan was to watch for that and call for a lockdown if the usernames ever started being created. The six-character thing is a pretty good indicator.

[Graybeard]

Yes, I was part of damage control then, too. Thus far, though, there've been no mass creations of user-names, just an unstoppable (and unless I miss my guess, increasing) flood of anonymous spammers. My other plan was to watch for that and call for a lockdown if the usernames ever started being created. The six-character thing is a pretty good indicator.

You sure were, and it was very much appreciated. The 6-character spambots have now been replaced by 10-character spambots, which have been showing up on some other wikis that I admin. I haven't looked to see whether they're infesting Jordan's lab. If they aren't, they will.

[Viking-Sensei]

Unfortunately, until the Tech Budget has rehabilitated once again, I don't have FTP access and therefore can't get at the root-of-the-wiki to make the changes we need to effectively stop the spambots for good.

In the meantime, I'm granting you (Tiamat) the power of (Bureaucrat, sysop) so that you now can delete your own pages. Behold!