wiki safety
 

I'm asking about a possible effect of a vandalism on wiki. We all know that enyone can edit articles.

So some vandals can edit an article and delete/rewrite stuff. This can be easily repaired and user can be banned (by username or IP or IP range)

Every article has its history (example) where you can see every change to it. Important thing is that you can revert back to older edition, so if someone will delete something, you can get it easily back.

However there are possibly several methods (I'd rather not tell them here) which could cause irreversible changes.

Suggestions :

• page lock - restricts modification to the particular page. Recommended for the main page. Changes can be made only by some people.
• make backups - maybe mediawiki already has some periodic backups. However I haven't found a manual backup (e.g. to download all articles in the compressed format) on the page. I think wikipedia has something like that

I know we have just started using this new mediawiki and we are all learning to use it, however the sooner we protect it, the better :). So are there some protection schemes in our wiki already ?

P.S. :
I recommend puting a link to wiki in the main www.bots-united.com page next to link to the forum (enter ze forum - join ze community), not just up-right-small-hard-to-see-easy-to-miss link

And I strongly encourage everyone to contribute to wiki.
If you spot some mistake, don't just "ah how stupid mistake, I'll tell them on forum". You can easily fix the mistake by yourself, even without registering on the wiki.
If you find some article that is incomplete or you know more about the given topic or you think there should be something added, you can do it yourself by editing that particular page.
Your contribution does not have to be perfect and bug-free. Somebody else can edit it and fix your mistake.
Articles on wikipedia are made that way and they very good :)

Re: wiki safety
 

we already had such case of abuse on the main page : http://wiki.bots-united.com/index.ph...024&oldid=3007

Re: wiki safety
 

darnit!
well, I'm not quite fond of locking pages. That's against the spirit of wiki. What do the others think? :|

Re: wiki safety
 

Not sure I'll ever use wiki to be honest: not fond of the idea of someone (who may not even be a member here) who doesn't understand something giving the wrong information, or someone who just wants to vadalize screwing up my hard work. :(

Thats always seemed to be the problem with wiki - you have to "babysit" it every day/hour/whatever, to make sure any changes made, were accurate and honest.

Re: wiki safety
 

Perhaps only allow certain people to edit the Wiki?

Re: wiki safety
 

yes, that's what I also wanted to post here ... maybe the ppl have to register to edit anything.

but as long as we dont have problems with such issues, and we dont have such problems at the moment, I think it should remain completely open.

Re: wiki safety
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...mon_objections
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...ia_is_so_great

Re: wiki safety
 

Good articles, but my comments weren't an ignorant cry for help, or a desire to be convinced. Believe it or not I'm quite aware of Wiki and its benefits.

For general interest stuff, Wiki is great, but for a specific, exclusive subject, say like MY bot, combined with a serious lack of time to oversee or "babysit" changes, it makes more sense for a me to write my own documentation.

If it was something like bot A.I. in general - Wiki would be an excellent medium. But who knows MY bot, and its specific internal workings, better than me? ;)

Cheers

Re: wiki safety
 

Another good read here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...ng_Wikipedians

Re: wiki safety
 

A wiki is a good media if its controlled to some extend. I believe that you coudl easily have more strict requirements for editing without killing the great wiki spirit.

First of all only registred users should be allowed to edit pages. If you dont care to register, then your submissions probably aren't going to be worth anything.

The admins(=the council) should be able to set some kind of flag for the important and already big pages. This flag should allow only certified people to edit them.

Thoose fairly simple rules would give the best value of a wiki imho.