Wiki spam

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hazelsct
Posts: 153
Joined: 05 Oct 2009, 17:02
Location: Boston, MA, USA
Contact:

Wiki spam

Post by hazelsct »

Hi,

The spam user Utobaten replaced the Wiki front page with a link to a spam site last night, and I just fixed it this morning. I had seen this user replace my Electrochemistry page last week, and I was able to fix it within a half hour, but didn't catch this one for over twelve hours. Please delete this user immediately.

Unfortunately, this is not the only spam user we've seen. I suggest that new users require approval, and that approval require a brief description of use of Elmer, making it much more difficult for spammers to get into the system and make these changes.

Any comments/thoughts?

Thanks,
Adam
hazelsct
Posts: 153
Joined: 05 Oct 2009, 17:02
Location: Boston, MA, USA
Contact:

Re: Wiki spam

Post by hazelsct »

Also, this is a call for contributors to look over your pages -- and their associated Talk pages -- for spam. It is sometimes subtle, so check the "history" to look for users you don't recognize and check their diffs.

-Adam
Takala
Posts: 186
Joined: 23 Aug 2009, 23:59

Re: Wiki spam

Post by Takala »

Hi,

I don't know if this is related to the spam pointed out by hazelsct, but it seems that in Elmer Wiki, there are some new constraints:
for example, I am unable to edit the Elmer Wiki. Is this going to be the case for now on, that users are not allowed to edit?

Cheers,

Eelis
raback
Site Admin
Posts: 4812
Joined: 22 Aug 2009, 11:57
Antispam: Yes
Location: Espoo, Finland
Contact:

Re: Wiki spam

Post by raback »

Hi

Yes, there are some serious problems in the Wiki. The problem was that initially the Wiki was free for everbody to register. While we were not overlooking hundreds of spammers/bots had registered there. Given the rather poor admin tools the MediaWiki offers its difficult (at least for me) to get the Wiki cleaned again. Recently we had to limit the rights of everbody because of some I/O problems the spammers caused to the site.

What we tried already some time ago, is to move to Wordpress. Pardon to all contributors we copy-pasted their stuff as well. Of course we would grant write access to the MediaPress as well for those wanting to contribute. The Wordpress seems to be pretty ok, but I don't know if there is any style that would better support the static nature of the Wiki. Actually the Wordpress is already the startpage of elmerfem.org. We could also make a fresh start in the Wiki copy-pasting relavant stuff. Basically the content is probably more inclined to Wiki type of publishing.

I don't have any strong opinion on the future of the Wiki. Something needs to be done. Any opinions?

-Peter
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