wiki spam

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Today a spammer defaced our wiki to put ads for porn & pills. If I could only catch this guy, I'd tie him and force him to eat only Viagra and watch pr0n until the end of his life or until his dick explodes. Anyway, that poses the question: do you think the main page of our wiki should be locked ? (i.e. only modifiable by administrators)

Pros: less problems with spammers
Cons: people need to ask an admin when they want to create a new section

That would be only for the main page, I precise.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

I voted no. Even though I have no better idea, I don't like it: a wiki should remain open to anybody.

[HangFire]

I vote 'no', at least for now. If its only an isolated incident, then there should be no need for much concern.


If this keeps up, then yes, I would say it'd be best to lock it.


In the meantime, its not like there was much damage done. It can be easily reverted.

[Iced_Eagle]

I vote no, for the above reason.

[Maleficus]

What about using something like a "trust" system??

i.e. people who we know, or have been here a while are "trusted" and get acess. This prevents the ass who registers, then 5 minutes later is defacing wiki for something stupid.

They have to be here so long or have so many posts, or be admitted by an admin before they can use wiki. They have to invest some time and energy in the community before they can use wiki.

We're not a big enough community yet to be self moderating, like some of the other wiki communities. This way there is a built in protection, so that there doesn't need to be one of us watching wiki every 5 minutes to make sure some ass doesn't abuse it.

TBH: its stuff like this that makes me VERY reluctant to use wiki for Fritz, simply because I don't want the aggravation.

btw: a bit OT - is it possible to use wiki but restrict access for a specific page?? I know thats a bit of a contradiction of the spirit of wiki, but I'd love to use wiki, but I don't want the annoyance of having to clean up my pages every time some 12 yr old uses his mom's computer.

[Maleficus]

Originally Posted by HangFire

In the meantime, its not like there was much damage done. It can be easily reverted.

True, but one thing you DO have damaged is reputation.

Imagine if some fellow bot coder out there in internet land came to check out BU, and went to the wiki in the hopes of getting some help, then came across a bunch of porn/pill ads.

He'd probably walk away thinking we're full of shit, and write us off. For the community who knows us, they'd understand this was not our intention, but for the passer by on the street, it can look pretty odd.

[sPlOrYgOn]

maybe make them register in order to edit?

[MarD]

Heyyo,

I think sPlO's idea's the best. At least this way if they mess with the wiki or anything, we can just give them a swift boot.

Like the filebase? note how it's very clean. This is freedom with minimal moderation. It works great, and so far no problems, so I don't see why our wiki would end up suffering if this was to be implemented.

[koraX]

best way is to restrict page edits (on every page) only to registered members and make registration harder for spam scripts, e.g. insert some verification picture, like yahoo has here
This way we keep wiki free to edit for everyone seriously interested in contribution.

Another solution is to lock main page, create subpages like General bot coding, C++ stuff, ... and move links to articles to these editable subpages. This way we protect main page and allow to create new articles (in subpages). Navigation could be a bit less complicated, but sooner or later we would have so many articles ...

Also try to consider this : http://www.uesp.net/wiki/ Look at their menu on left

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

@plo, MarD and KoraX... well, I like your idea. Quite. Make the people register at the forums before they can use the wiki, like it is for the filebase. I don't say it's possible yet but I'll look into it (this involves PHP coding again, grmbl).