Wiki.bestpractical.com spam problem

RT Users
1

Is there any way to further reduce the amount of spam that is ending up in
the wiki? If you take a look at the recent changes page, every change that
has my name on it (besides 1) was removing wiki spam by reverting back to
the unspammed version. See
http://wiki.bestpractical.com/index.cgi?action=recent_changes .

Just tonight I reverted back 12 pages. Is there anything that can be done?

Thanks,
Sam

2

rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com wrote:

Is there any way to further reduce the amount of spam that is
ending up in the wiki?
[…]
Just tonight I reverted back 12 pages. Is there anything that can be
done?

What about requiring that users who edit pages be logged into the
Wiki?

-bws

3

Is there any way to further reduce the amount of spam that is
ending up in the wiki?
[…]
Just tonight I reverted back 12 pages. Is there anything that can be
done?

What about requiring that users who edit pages be logged into the
Wiki?

It won’t help. Our spammers are actual humans. They ddn’t slow down when
we tried Captcha “security images”

4

Is there any way to further reduce the amount of spam that is
ending up in the wiki?
[…]
Just tonight I reverted back 12 pages. Is there anything that can be
done?

What about requiring that users who edit pages be logged into the
Wiki?

It won’t help. Our spammers are actual humans. They ddn’t slow down when
we tried Captcha “security images”

In most Wikis, you can restrict edits to a set of ‘known’ users. Addition
to this set of users is done on a vouching system. This cuts most
update’n’run spams, but not the bad apples.

Bruce.

5

Jesse Vincent wrote:

What about requiring that users who edit pages be logged into the
Wiki?

It won’t help. Our spammers are actual humans. They ddn’t
slow down when we tried Captcha “security images”

That’s the last time I’ll try to suggest something reasonable about
spam. Do people have nothing better to do w/ their time?

What about the Nuclear Option? :slight_smile:

-brian

6

In most Wikis, you can restrict edits to a set of ‘known’ users. Addition
to this set of users is done on a vouching system. This cuts most
update’n’run spams, but not the bad apples.

Though that means stopping the casual users from updating things. Which
has, to now, been a huge boon for the wiki.

7
  • Jesse Vincent [2005-04-25T11:37-0400]:

In most Wikis, you can restrict edits to a set of ‘known’ users. Addition
to this set of users is done on a vouching system. This cuts most
update’n’run spams, but not the bad apples.

Though that means stopping the casual users from updating things. Which
has, to now, been a huge boon for the wiki.

Is there a way to allow more users to perform rollbacks? I expect
many or most of the wiki’s regular readers would do this whenever they
found a defiled page.

Dave.
Dave Edwards <dle&sympatico,ca>
Freelance and Technical Writer,
With Special Interest in Open Source Software
http://bigStory.homelinux.org

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8

Is there a way to allow more users to perform rollbacks? I expect
many or most of the wiki’s regular readers would do this whenever they
found a defiled page.

I am not sure what you mean - anyone can perform a rollback.  And,

someone posted instructions recently on this list.

9

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Everyone is already able to rollback pages. It is usually just (from
memory):

  1. click “Previous”
  2. click “Edit”
  3. click “Save”

jbw

Dave Edwards wrote:

  • Jesse Vincent [2005-04-25T11:37-0400]:

In most Wikis, you can restrict edits to a set of ‘known’ users. Addition
to this set of users is done on a vouching system. This cuts most
update’n’run spams, but not the bad apples.

Though that means stopping the casual users from updating things. Which
has, to now, been a huge boon for the wiki.

Is there a way to allow more users to perform rollbacks? I expect
many or most of the wiki’s regular readers would do this whenever they
found a defiled page.

Dave.

The rt-users Archives

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com
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10
  • Joby Walker [2005-04-25T10:02-0700]:

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Everyone is already able to rollback pages. It is usually just (from
memory):

  1. click “Previous”
  2. click “Edit”
  3. click “Save”

Thanks.

Dave.
Dave Edwards <dle&sympatico,ca>
Freelance and Technical Writer,
With Special Interest in Open Source Software
http://bigStory.homelinux.org

signature.asc (189 Bytes)

11

Dave Edwards wrote:

  • Joby Walker [2005-04-25T10:02-0700]:

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Everyone is already able to rollback pages. It is usually just (from
memory):

  1. click “Previous”
  2. click “Edit”
  3. click “Save”

Hmmm, out of curiousity, what’s to prevent a spammer from rolling
all the way back, then introducing a new spammed page? Does that
branch in RCS or are all the original changes lost?

Thanks,
Steve
Steve Wampler {sbw@tapestry.tucson.az.us}
The gods that smiled upon your birth are laughing now. – fortune cookie

12

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It doesn’t work that way: the revisions are linear not branched.

jbw

Steve Wampler wrote:

Dave Edwards wrote:

  • Joby Walker [2005-04-25T10:02-0700]:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Everyone is already able to rollback pages. It is usually just (from
memory):

  1. click “Previous”
  2. click “Edit”
  3. click “Save”

Hmmm, out of curiousity, what’s to prevent a spammer from rolling
all the way back, then introducing a new spammed page? Does that
branch in RCS or are all the original changes lost?

Thanks,
Steve

Steve Wampler {sbw@tapestry.tucson.az.us}
The gods that smiled upon your birth are laughing now. – fortune cookie

The rt-users Archives

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com
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