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General >> Project Goliath - The History of The Sling >> The Wiki spammer is back
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Message started by ADAXL on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 4:05pm

Title: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by ADAXL on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 4:05pm
I hate to tell this to you guys, but the Wiki spammer is back. This time, he vandalized the main page. See here: http://www.slinging.org/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges

I removed his junk, but he'll be back. This time, he obviously creates user accounts for himself.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Tint on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 7:22pm
Thanks ADAXL!

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by curious_aardvark on Jul 3rd, 2007 at 12:16pm
nope still can't see what the fuss is about :-)
you'll have to leave it there a bit longer next time ;-)

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Dravonk on Jul 4th, 2007 at 12:00pm
I needed to revert it again. Could someone block the user "ZskKqv"? (If possible I wouldn't delete the user, just block it. Else I fear a new account would be generated automatically).

And here's a link for the aardvark that is curious what a vandalized page looks like:
http://www.slinging.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=2477
    ;-)

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by curious_aardvark on Jul 4th, 2007 at 12:43pm
Ah ha - nope you don't want that lol

Title: What can we do against the spammer?
Post by ADAXL on Jul 4th, 2007 at 3:35pm
This Wiki spammer is becoming a mayor annoyance. What can we do to keep him off the Wiki? Where does this jerk come from (you got his IP addresses, right)? What are other Wikis doing against spam attacks like this?

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by sv on Jul 6th, 2007 at 6:43am
he missed out "carrot enlargement" - mine's ok, but i should have married a smaller wife

SV

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Dale on Jul 6th, 2007 at 8:56am
Sent a message to Matthias and Chris -- one of them should be able to block this bozo.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by curious_aardvark on Jul 7th, 2007 at 8:38am

Quote:
mine's ok, but i should have married a smaller wife


lmao - excellent :-)
I take it she doesn't read your posts ;-)

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by sv on Jul 7th, 2007 at 9:22pm
damn right she doesn't - she nearly broke my neck the last time we had a fight but i suppose it was my fault - air pistol, open window, there she was, bent over in the garden....

SV

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by ADAXL on Jul 10th, 2007 at 12:03am
I just reverted another vandalism attempt on the main page. I hope I did everything right.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Rueben on Jul 10th, 2007 at 11:53pm
Reverted yet again. Hopefully an admin will soon ban the two vandals. The guilty parties are:

ZskKqv - vandalism and spam
FagHf7 - vandalism (same modification as ZskKqv)

Funny how appropriate (in a childish way) that the second user name is, considering it is probably just a random bunch of characters.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by ADAXL on Jul 18th, 2007 at 1:27pm
He's back again. He sets up junk accounts and spams the wiki. This time, his name is "EtoBqi" aand he spammed the Cestrosphendon page.

Can we set the software to refuse (or at least report) edits with too many links in them? If he can't post links to spam anymore, he will probably go away.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Dravonk on Jul 19th, 2007 at 4:12am

ADAXL wrote on Jul 18th, 2007 at 1:27pm:
If he can't post links to spam anymore, he will probably go away.

I guess "he" is a bot.

Title: This guy is really getting on my nerves!
Post by ADAXL on Jul 21st, 2007 at 5:30pm
I made another spam revert a few minutes ago. It was the Cestrosphendon page again.

Title: We gotta do something
Post by ADAXL on Jul 22nd, 2007 at 8:28am
I just made another revert (the main page!). We have to keep this extremely annoying person (and his bot!) off the wiki.

Title: The spammer has a new trick
Post by ADAXL on Aug 15th, 2007 at 10:22am
It appears our spammer has a new trick. He creates entire pages of junk: http://www.slinging.org/wiki/index.php?title=89178.net

Can somebody delete this page?

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by curious_aardvark on Aug 16th, 2007 at 7:31am
that's a different spammer. The previous one was just flogging 'meds'. this one is promoting some sort of chinese company.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by ADAXL on Aug 18th, 2007 at 1:20pm
I just blanked a number of junk pages on the Wiki. Can samebody please delete these pages?

What can we do? I spend time removing this junk, but I can't do this every day.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Dravonk on Aug 19th, 2007 at 1:10pm
The English Wikipedia has a spam-protection image test. Maybe that is available in all recent versions of MediaWiki? If it is, we'd just need to update our Wiki.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Dravonk on Aug 20th, 2007 at 8:09am
I've sent a PM to Chris:


Quote:
Hi Chris,

the Wiki is getting out of hand, dozens of spam pages are created and the main page is frequently vandalized. The Wikipedia has got a spam protection built-in. Maybe all the new versions of MediaWiki have it?

In case putting in a spam protection isn't possible in the next few days I would recommend temporarily disabling the creation of new accounts and deleting the spammer accounts.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by siguy on Aug 21st, 2007 at 2:13pm
is there possibly a way to restrict the wiki to members of this site, though that could have negative effects

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Dravonk on Aug 21st, 2007 at 2:37pm
I guess it is possible, but you would have to hand-code it yourself.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Aug 22nd, 2007 at 12:40am
I'll try to put some time toward the wiki this weekend. Maybe we can come up with some sort of interim plan... The number of users who are actively involved in editing the wiki might suggest that we just lock it off completely to anyone that isn't preapproved...

Sorry that this hasn't had the attention it deserves. I know that quite a few of you have put a lot of effort in.

Matthias

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by ADAXL on Aug 23rd, 2007 at 2:29pm
I just did another series of spam reverts. Please act quickly. I can't do this every day.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Dravonk on Aug 23rd, 2007 at 4:21pm
You did the work of blanking all those new pages? Respect. I just reverted the real pages. But one and a half hour after my revert the bot added the spam again...

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by ADAXL on Aug 26th, 2007 at 5:46am
I just did the daily spam reverts. Please lock down the wiki ASAP.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Aug 26th, 2007 at 5:03pm
The Wiki is locked until we can fix the problem properly. I'd hoped to get to it this weekend, but I'm going to need a few more days. Does anyone familiar with mediawiki have any suggestions as to the best approach?

Thanks again to ASAXL, Dravonk and everyone who have been keeping the wiki alive.

Matthias


Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Chris on Sep 22nd, 2007 at 6:17pm
Sorry I have been so absent on this.  My hat is off to all of you.

Chris

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by axon50 on Oct 30th, 2007 at 1:19am
wow, the person who did that is a unconsiderate saddist or something.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Ethan on Dec 23rd, 2007 at 10:02pm
Well, the Wiki is still locked (at least to me). My user isn't that new, so is it locked to everyone? Could we test, and see if the spammer is still working?
I have some revisions to make, mainly on the seige weapons. Should I just email them to Chris?

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by CanDo on Jan 6th, 2008 at 9:02pm
Ethan,
I was registered quite early on, and it's locked to me as well.

Chris and Matthias,
It is possible to block an IP address to prevent someone from creating new accounts.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by big_sling_gland on Jan 11th, 2008 at 7:13pm
I beleive it is possible...

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Chris on Jan 15th, 2008 at 12:00am
Problem is that the spammers use many different IPs, so it isn't a good way to block them.

Your account shouldn't be blocked...  I just logged in fine.  Does it give you an error of any kind (user not found, bad password, etc?)

Email me: info@slinging.org
Chris

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Ethan on Jan 15th, 2008 at 2:04pm
No, I log in just fine, but I can't edit anything. The text box just won't accept anything.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Jan 15th, 2008 at 4:07pm
The wiki is still (still...  :( ) locked down. Give me a few minutes and I'll try to re-enable edits for pre-existing accounts, and anyone new who wants to contribute will need to enquire.

The problems this summer just spiralled. :-/

Matthias

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Jan 15th, 2008 at 4:31pm
The wiki is back open (wide open... :( ) I'm looking at our options. The user list is 99% spam. Stay tuned.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Jan 15th, 2008 at 5:07pm
Getting there! Working solution identified... a bunch of changes made... implementation coming...

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Jan 15th, 2008 at 6:26pm
Ok... I just learned quite a bit.

Edits to the wiki are now restricted to pre-approved members of the "slinger" group on our wiki.
New users are still able to sign on, but do not have edit rights UNTIL they ask for them.

The following wiki Users are members of "slinger":

ADAXL
Dravonk
CanDo
Tint
Zwiebeltuete
Dale
Narya
siguy
Ethan
Rueben
Naiyor
Gunsonwheels
Wanderer
Jas
THOMAS
Amras
Nightweave
Rschulz
Lohho
Admin (Chris)
Matthias

Anyone NOT on the list who would like to be, please A- make sure that you have a login on the wiki and that it matches your slinging.org username B- post to this thread

I'm sorry that it's taken this long to get this problem fixed (fingers crossed) and I hope we haven't lost ADAXL completely... he was a lone slinger defending the city against the hordes for a while there, and shouldn't have needed to. Thanks to Dravonk and the others who helped out as well, and of course everyone who have contributed to the wiki.

Matthias



Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by axon50 on Jan 24th, 2008 at 11:55pm
hey, could you put me on the list? (please), my wiki account is.... well hey, axon50. ;)

Title: !
Post by Matthias on Jan 25th, 2008 at 1:57am
hmm... I can't find you... Still trying to figure out the administration of the wiki, but the user list skips from Astral... to B6k3d...

Was your wiki name a preexisting one, or did you just create it? I'll do some digging tomorrow.

If anyone on the list could check for me to see if they have access again, it would help me out too - I can see things, but that doesn't mean much!

I really want to get the wiki healthy again. Watch this space.

Matthias

Title: Re: !
Post by wanderer on Jan 25th, 2008 at 10:44am

Matthias wrote on Jan 25th, 2008 at 1:57am:
If anyone on the list could check for me to see if they have access again, it would help me out too - I can see things, but that doesn't mean much

Access works for me.

Title: Re: !
Post by axon50 on Jan 25th, 2008 at 6:54pm

Matthias wrote on Jan 25th, 2008 at 1:57am:
hmm... I can't find you... Still trying to figure out the administration of the wiki, but the user list skips from Astral... to B6k3d...

Was your wiki name a preexisting one, or did you just create it? I'll do some digging tomorrow.

If anyone on the list could check for me to see if they have access again, it would help me out too - I can see things, but that doesn't mean much!

I really want to get the wiki healthy again. Watch this space.

Matthias


To be honest, I only just made it, i had one, but it didn't match my username on here, sorry if it's a bother to you.

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Jan 25th, 2008 at 8:43pm
Thanks Wanderer - looks like we're back up and running then. I'm going to remove all the add pages that were previously blanked and then hopefully we'll have a clean slate again.

axon50 - there still isn't a user for you. I'm not sure what is going on yet, but could you try one more time? Make sure you put your user name (axon50), two copies of your password, and your name. Once you are logged in, you will have account info showing in the upper right. I could create and account for you, but I'd like to get this method working if at all possible! Thanks for being the guinea pig.

Matthias

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by axon50 on Jan 25th, 2008 at 9:56pm
Did what you said, logged in, then searched for myself, and i couldn't find myself in the wiki account search ether........ dunno.  :(

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by axon50 on Jan 25th, 2008 at 10:14pm
wait, i'm a bit of a noob with wikipedia, now try, it might work. (I just did something).

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Matthias on Jan 26th, 2008 at 1:55pm
Yep, that did it. You should be cleared to edit.

Matthias

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by Chris on Jan 26th, 2008 at 2:07pm
My compliments to Matthias for figuring this all out.

Chris

Title: Re: The Wiki spammer is back
Post by axon50 on Jan 26th, 2008 at 7:07pm
thanks!   :)

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