Category talk:Active administrators of this wiki

Welcome, 192.168.144.2, you have reached the discussion / talk page of the administrators group for WikiIndex.

If you have a question, problem, hint, want to report a spammer, and so on, please leave us a message
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Archived discussions — 2008–2009, 2010–2011, 2012–2013, 2014–2015.

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Archived discussions — 2008–2009

Die freie Verschwörungsenzyklopädie

Hey guys. Die freie Verschwörungsenzyklopädie has been renamed to "Verschwoerungen.info" but I can't rename the article because there exists a redirect with that title. Could you please do that for me? ^^ --Koveras 03:40, 22 January 2011 (PST)

Done :) --Wolf | talk 13:32, 22 January 2011 (PST)

Thanks a bunch. :) --Koveras 23:06, 22 January 2011 (PST)

Lots of spam in the past few days

Question, I have marked the article pages with the spam tag so they can be found, but do we also mark the user's page with the spam tag as well? And if you need more help with this, I'm willing to spamcop things. TeraS 12:36, 13 March 2011 (PDT)

Yikes, I've forgotten to check this site for the past few days and suddenly there's a big spambot attack and 30+ pages needing deletion. If you or anyone else wants to be an admin ask this guy. Elassint, 03 16 2011

Yikes, Tera - thanks for tagging the spam. My goal will be to try and get a new captcha on now - or push on the upgrade asap. Best, MarkDilley

Glad I could do some good for the site, and Mark, it's up to you about the Admin stuff, if you want to get in touch, my email is in my profile and so on. Thanks for all you do! TeraS 11:06, 16 March 2011 (PDT)

an upgrade is longggggggggggggggg overdue :) ...--Comets 16:07, 5 April 2011 (PDT)

you are correct - will start creating an upgrade project, maybe you can help. Best, MarkDilley

Category:Wikis to add Thoughts

Sorry if I overstep my bounds, but I have been looking through this category and I am finding that many of the links are dead, inaccurate, or spammy. I would like to know whether or not it is acceptable to simply delete those wikis that are obvious spam magnets or otherwise are dead sites from the list. Assuming that the dead sites have to stay, can we mark them in the Dead Wiki category and then remove the add Category on them? I'm asking because having that many to correct and straighten out, over 600, seems excessive to me and do we need to keep wikis that were entered with little or no information on them? Thoughts? TeraS 15:45, 4 April 2011 (PDT)

Practice so far on this wiki is to change the template. Would be open to discussing different ways of handling past wiki. That list is mostly from me. It is my basic way of building WikiIndex. Originally I had called the project SwitchWiki - all I did was collect wiki - then in alphabetical lists - here in that list - until people asked that it not be used any longer. So - now I keep a text file of wiki that I want to add - some of the more important ones I add pretty quickly - others languish on my text file! :-) As far as any spam or dead wikis on that list - I think it is fine to edit them away. Best, MarkDilley

I call spammer on this

If you look in the recent changes Emijrp has posted, a load of sites that are incomplete, generally have nothing to do with anything in a wiki format, and honestly, I think is just an attempt at a link farm to their pages. I call spammer on this, and want to remove it all and spam the user. Comments please before I do something? TeraS 12:16, 8 April 2011 (PDT)

LOL. I was adding all the deceased wikis of the dead elwiki.com wiki farm. Is that wrong? I think that it has historical value and they are marked as dead correctly. emijrp 12:32, 8 April 2011 (PDT)

(EC) User:Emijrp is not a spammer at all, he is posting sites in typical WikiIndex style. If you look closely, you can see that s/he used the proper templates on most pages and all the sites he's listed are wikis. Elassint, 04 8 2011

Adding them in the template Inactive would be better than adding the Category:dead - and Emijrp is here from a conversation we had in IRC I think. :-) Thanks Tera for checking in here. Great instincts!! Going to a crazy editor and saying, 'What the heck are you doing, I don't understand' is good too :-) - Very happy with how we are all working to figure stuff out. Best, MarkDilley

Well I wasn't going to do something rash or otherwise without checking on what the heck was going on... Was on my phone and this was the only way I could think of to get a message across with my concerns... Thanks for understanding! TeraS 15:24, 8 April 2011 (PDT)

Thus the definition of WikiRockstar for you!! :-) Best, MarkDilley

Happy editing to all : ) emijrp 16:09, 8 April 2011 (PDT)

i have known Emijrp since my Wikipedia days..he is anything but a spammer...jeez TeraS u just became an admin recently..stop jumping to conclusions.. :P ...--Comets 02:52, 9 April 2011 (PDT)

Would someone check on these pages and tell me if I am right that they are spam? User:John s User talk:John s Thank you... TeraS 06:27, 21 April 2011 (PDT)

Definite linkspam as far as I am concerned. I see that Elassint agreed. They're gone now. --MarvelZuvembie 17:53, 21 April 2011 (PDT)

Category:Wiki Topic

Okay, there was a long mess of edits and new articles added this morning which I removed and blocked the users that did the spamming. I think, not 100% sure, but I think that the page Category:Wiki Topic is correct now. I messed up and deleted it and then in my attempt to fix that I might have messed it up further. It looks okay. I think it's right, but can someone check me? Thanks and sorry again! TeraS 07:10, 3 June 2011 (PDT)

Looks good to me! No worries!! You and everyone else battling spam are great! My personal goal is to get an upgrade done by June 21st!! Fingers crossed. Best, MarkDilley

Holzminden page

Hello, I have more questions than habilities ;-)) Can't get rid of the things appearing close to the link Holzminden right side. Can you pls check and correct? would be great! And pls don't cancel this page or change it, unless it's trouble making... Holzminden is a very special and very small town, but known worldwide, thx, amalie

But that's not a wiki, not on it's own, so why is it here when this is supposed to be an index of Wikis and not a Wiki page? TeraS 11:24, 14 June 2011 (PDT)

Holzminden page 2

Hello, I've problems to understand, why my page should be deleted. Am I not alowwed to make a page or is something wrong with it? pls let me know and thanks for answering. amalie

WikiIndex is supposed to be a index of wikis. In order to create a page here, it must be about an wiki. The page you previously linked to was just an article on the German Wikipedia, and I don't think http://www.holzminden.de is a wiki either, since I can't seem to edit any pages.
If you feel that this city deserves its own wiki, I recommended you create it at this site, then you can list it here. Creating a wiki is a great way to share information about any subject of interest. Elassint, 06 17 2011

Some suggestions

Community Portal — would it be worthwhile adding Category:Active administrators of this wiki onto the Community Portal page? Maybe in the pink section on the right under 'Community information'. Sometimes it is handy to have a direct link to the Admins which is clearly visible from some of the 'main' or 'front pages'.

Great idea! ~~ MarkDilley

OK, now done. Hoof Hearted 12:35, 21 June 2011 (PDT)

Spam — I've searched through the two main documents on the issue: WikiIndex:Spam Control Policy and WikiIndex:AntiSpamMeasures – and I'm struggling to find a definative spam control 'method' (or maybe I'm having a 'senior moment' . . .). I noticed under the 'Spamming the spammers' heading that a template was considered – I went ahead and created a template for spammer users (Template:Spammer) – but I also think we need a similar template to place on actual articles that individuals think may be spam.

Your thoughts please . . . Hoof Hearted 07:33, 20 June 2011 (PDT)

I am not sure how much this is needed here at WikiIndex. Can you say how you would use it this? ~~ MarkDilley

OK, I'm thinking of a kind of warning header banner, like say the 'unreferenced' on Wikipedia. If we have a spam banner for actual wiki entry articles, then an editor may place said spam banner on article if he/she thinks the article is spam (but isn't 100% sure) – and this would then promt other editors, or even the original poster to weigh in with a discussion (on its talk page). Sometimes, it isn't obvious that you've been spammed, especially on an indexing site such as this. Hoof Hearted 12:35, 21 June 2011 (PDT)

Change from reCaptcha to FancyCaptcha for blocking spam?

Hi guys. I've noticed several reports that reCaptcha has been (at least partially) broken. There is also a note to this effect on the page for the ConfirmEdit Extension. From the reports I've seen on the MWusers.com forums (I'm a moderator there, so I see almost every post, but these are anecdotal, so take with a grain of salt), FancyCaptcha still seems to work. -Gwsuperfan 23:48, 4 July 2011 (PDT)

Proposal to end anonymous editing

We have been hammered with spam in the past day. Well over 100+ edits of spam and garbage have occurred from anonymous editors. Should we end the allowance for anonymous editing? Just a thought, but if this continues we will be dealing with spam and not improving our wiki I think. Thoughts? TeraS 07:56, 29 July 2011 (PDT)

Wiki1001 under resources?

Is there any reason the now defunct Wiki1001 is listed as a resource? That's my sarcastic way of suggesting its removal from the sidebar be considered.  :) --GregVarnum | talk 04:17, 30 July 2011 (PDT)

Image spam

Can anyone tell me how to protect an image page and then remove the spammy image on it? Seems to be a new issue for us. Or it is possible to redirect an attempted image upload to a single protected page? Vague thoughts... TeraS 10:13, 19 August 2011 (PDT)

Possible spam solution?

A thought about all of the spammers creating the same pages over and over again. Would it work to redirect or rename those pages to a single admin edit only page thus making it impossible for them to actually post those pages? For example Talk:ABCWiki -> Redirect to -> Spammer Trap (Admin Only Edit Page) TeraS 09:51, 8 September 2011 (PDT)

Hi Tera. Thanks for the hard work you've been putting in. We'd been discussing it a bit on Elassint's talk page, although this is probably a more logical place for it. There may be some MediaWiki extensions we can use to prevent this from happening. I have noticed that some pages get hit more than others, but at other times, it seems like the bot is using the "Random Page" link. If the pages they hit are not random, then protecting the pages would work. If they are random, we'll need to have a system-wide solution. --MarvelZuvembie 16:02, 8 September 2011 (PDT)

Well, it's worth a try to see at least... Would like to add a spam blacklist, best one I have seen is one I suggested a while back if you recall? TeraS 17:41, 8 September 2011 (PDT)

Need someone to check a few Templates for possible errors

I removed a ton of spam today, but some of it was directed at Template pages... Can someone please check the following to be sure there are no errors?

Template:Tag, Template:Wiktionary, Template:SizeCat‎, Template:RightTOC

I haven't a clue how the Templates are supposed to look or work... Thank you! TeraS 09:57, 18 October 2011 (PDT)

New account creation spambots

how are they getting past the captcha system? or is there a captcha in place for new accounts creation ?--Comets 23:15, 31 October 2011 (PDT)

how about using the SimpleAntiSpam Extension? Escyos 04:13, 1 November 2011 (PDT)

for now, add spamlinks which gets added all the time here > MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist..--Comets 05:46, 1 November 2011 (PDT)

something needs to be done about this ? ConfirmEdit is just not working ..how about AntiBot and AntiSpoof for the next update ?--Comets 17:51, 6 November 2011 (PST)

ConfirmEdit is working if you activate the best module for the job. So far it seems that only QuestyCAPTCHA is doing the job. After it was enabled spam decreased by > 95% on e.g. semantic-mediawiki.org. I guess Mark should organise the change asap. Cheers --[[kgh]] 09:28, 1 December 2011 (PST)

I have asked Raymond King to add this extension a few weeks ago, I am not sure what is next for it. Best, MarkDilley

he emailed today to say: "Changed it to FancyCaptcha for both creation of login and making edits that include external links (but the later does not apply to logged in people)."

Might need a IP range block

There is an anonymous user that is vandalizing the site. They have done so from two IP addresses in this range:  216.66.128.0 - 216.66.207.255 Is it possible to place a range ban on these IPs? TeraS 21:08, 16 April 2012 (PDT)

Okay, I've had enough and I used the nuclear option on the anonymous user that has been causing mass attacks on the site. I've banned their IP range for one year as a temporary measure. Further action or modification I leave for Mark to decide on. TeraS 15:04, 17 April 2012 (PDT)

Universal Edit Button on mainpage

The main page features the Universal Edit Button for Firefox, but that extension is no longer supported (it was unsupported more than 1 year ago). You may want to remove it from the main page. --Ciencia Al Poder 13:11, 13 April 2012 (PDT)

I'll leave Mark to decide on this happening or not. TeraS 12:05, 4 May 2012 (PDT)

Firefox has been changing so rapidly that I have not put the effort to find someone to upgrade the button. Chrome button is working - so maybe just highlight that for now? Best, MarkDilley

Recentchanges accesskey

A sysop should edit MediaWiki:Sidebar and change this:

• recentchanges-url|RecentChanges

to this:

• recentchanges-url|recentchanges

That way it uses MediaWiki:Recentchanges, so it will display the proper localized text for every language and the link will automagically have the accesskey (r). Edit MediaWiki:Recentchanges if you want the link title to remain "RecentChanges". Thanks! --Ciencia Al Poder 13:17, 13 April 2012 (PDT)

So done. TeraS 12:02, 4 May 2012 (PDT)

Thanks! ~~ MarkDilley

split resources into two sections in the sidebar

I just split the resources sections into two sections. Hope this is ok. If not - just revert. Cheers --[[kgh]] (talk) 12:03, 25 September 2012 (PDT)

Great! Love the separate section for the help pages (and thanks for fixing my help language errors). Should the 'Recent Changes' be in the toolbox section rather than the community section. And can the orange 'refresh' be toned down a little - I feel it is a little overpowering at the moment. :-/ Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 07:10, 26 September 2012 (PDT)

Cool that you like it. I think that Mark wants to have "Recent changes" in that spot. That's why I did not change this. I just changed the colour of the purge button to something less striking. However, if you feel that it still should be changed you may adjust the background colour. Cheers --[[kgh]] (talk) 07:26, 26 September 2012 (PDT)

For me, Recent Changes is where community has grown. To see what everyone is doing, it is pretty inspiring. Ultimately, I would like to talk via Recent Changes, using the summary affordance. Best, MarkDilley

It's happening again

Well, it appears that the individual who was vandalizing the site in March of this year is at it again. I've blocked their user account, but I suggest that Admins watch for the next while as I am sure they will return again. TeraS (talk) 18:43, 29 September 2012 (PDT)

And again it happened. I have protected several critical pages to stop editing as a result. Is it possible to restrict editing by new users? Say max of 10 pages or something? Just an idea... TeraS (talk) 22:52, 29 September 2012 (PDT)

I think no. But MediaWiki contains the option to add them manually to the editors group (this is currently - and by default - done automatically). But then, some admins have to observe the RSS feed for newly registered users and then, just after enabling them (for editing), watch them... It's also just an idea... --Wolf | talk 05:42, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

Actually, I've seen wikis implement edit throttles for non-autoconfirmed (new) users, the user is only allowed to make a certain amount of edits within a certain period of time. I think that would be a better idea then having the admins manually authorize each and every new account created. Elassint 30 September 2012

This makes me curious. Is it done by a regular MediaWiki extension? Can you point on this example wiki, any further description? --Wolf | talk 06:44, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

I liked EditThrottling - will see if I can dig up anything on it. (Thanks for pinging me on this Wolf Best, MarkDilley

I really think that we need to look at appropriate MediaWiki keyword filter extensions. I briefly raised this issue here. Personally, I'm not sure that total 'open editing' is compatible with our current protection against spammers/vandals - in our current software config. Yes, we do have active sysops who can help out - but I'm sure that after our latest bombardment, and the gallant efforts of TeraS - this is likely to lead to grumpy sysops . . . because we seem to be constantly 'fire-fighting', rather than letting the software do the work for us. WikiIndex should not be used for blatant promotion of religious opinions, sexual disfunction drugs, or financial help products (unless they are clearly referring to an established and fuctional wiki). Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 06:49, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

On a related note, WikiIndex's system administrators should really install the CheckUser extension and give bureaucrats/administrators/a new group access to the CheckUser special page (the privacy policy may need to be adjusted), because right now, it's all too easy for a vandal to register multiple accounts from the same IP address and vandalize. With the CheckUser extension installed & properly configured, administrators (or other privileged users) can get the user's underlying IP and ban it in case of persistent vandalism.

For this particular vandal, blocking the IP range 216.66.0.0/16 might help. --Jack Phoenix (talk) 06:59, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

Thanks for your thoughts Jack. I think I blocked the IP range OK (here - did I do it correctly?). I'm only a sysop, so I don't think I can access the relevant IP tools to check these types of features. Can you recommend any specific MW extensions we can use to block specific words or phrases - for both username creation, and body text editing? AbuseFilter, as recommended by Elassint here looks promising, but it appears way to complicated for me :( Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 07:29, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

I think words / phrases / websites can be blacklisted, will that help right now? MarkDilley

Our current system is 'reactive', and relies on crats with specific expertise on editing said blacklist AFTER we have been bombarded (of which I have no expertise, and other sysops which do appear to have, arn't crats). But as we are at the moment, I don't see how we can blacklist 'usernames' . . . . JugglingTooManyBalls.com :p Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 08:49, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

I agree, but that is the system we have now. Look forward if we can come up with a plan of action - preferably Meatball:SoftSecurity. (I still don't know what the difference is between a bureaucrat and sysop - much prefer flat wiki with way less the control being wielded with MediaWiki) - Best, MarkDilley

On MediaWiki, it is detailed at Special:ListGroupRights. Basically, a bureaucrat is basically the top-tier level of management - and obviously have by far the greatest range of controls of the wiki site. Sysops are the next level down, and obviously have less controls (sysops can protect pages, delete pages, block users, and edit the MediaWiki namespace - but not much more). Sysops have no way of interrogating say blocks of IP users, sysops can't say re-name user accounts, and sysops have no way of installing software extensions. We really DO need a couple more bureaucrats here . . . my nominations are still for TeraS, emijrp and Jack Phoenix. :-)

Meatball:SoftSecurity goes over my head . . . I'm only experienced in MediaWiki, whereas I suppose 'wiki old-timers' might be more experienced in other wiki engines. OK, I've just re-read the Meatball article. I agree in principle with its sentiments . . . we already AssumeGoodFaith, along with all the other related values, and we also work 'UnlockedDoors' principle. But they leave us very vulnerable. OK, we have different sysops who operate in different timezones, but if a determined spammer/vandal wishes to flood WikiIndex, a lone sysop can be easily overwealmed (and will often 'spoil' an otherwise constructive editing session for said sysop). 'Peer Pressure' wont stop religious vandals or online loan spammers - they have NO consience! Best, Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 15:37, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

The religious vandal RETURNS again!

It's back - check the Special:Log/newusers - look at 21:48, 29 September 2012 - so dispite me blocking an entire IP range as above, they return yet again. Tera has already blocked the latest creations - but this isn't really acceptable. PLEASE, consider urgently installing an appropriate MW extension to automatically prohibit username creation for specific terms. Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 00:23, 1 October 2012 (PDT)

Just looked at the "spam"

I don't think it is spam. I think it is an attack on the wiki because so many pages are being protected (previous to the "attack"). I agree with the sentiment - obviously not the methods of voice being chosen. Best, MarkDilley

I call it vandalism, repeatedly so Mark, not spam but regardless of that, it was disruptive to the purposes and goals of WikiIndex. It attacked pages that were important to the functioning of the site in several instances as well. The time spent in fixing their attack was substantial and in the end, this sort of action should never occur. Setting that all aside, and yes I understand the desire for an OpenWiki, there has to be a point where some protections are needed. At the minimum we should all understand the function and use of BlackList which can limit the damage. Sorry for this mess Mark and all, at least it was less than it was earlier this year. One other thing that I do not understand, just how do you figure out the IP of a user here? That would be something useful for me to have knowledge of. Anyway, thanks for the support all, best always... TeraS (talk) 10:08, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

'Spam' or 'vandalism' - pedantic, but whatever name-tag you wish to give it, that last episode was forcibly destructive to WikiIndex. And I don't agree at all that "so many pages are being protected" - yes, OK, I personally have protected most of the high-importance templates (but most of the lesser templates have no edit protection). But for the namespace articles, with the exception of the WikiIndex front page, you can probably count on one hand the number of namespace articles which are protected. And I also don't see how protecting pages can increase an attack of spam or vandalism! Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 08:56, 1 October 2012 (PDT)

We need to have a very clear look at this. If you look correctly at the RecentChanges (the 'Recent changes options' days may need to be manually increased in the url to view the full history) - along with the Special:Log/newusers, on 29 September 2012 at 21:48, the prolific religious vandal/spammer created FOUR user accounts within a minute! Surely, that in itself shouldn't be possible with correctly configured MediaWiki software. This user then appeared to lay dormant for four hours - presumably regularly checking the Special:RecentChanges and Special:WhosOnline, and when I had finished for the evening - at 01:54 (UTC) on 30 September 2012, this evil vandal spammed 93 separate pages (some twice), the last one at 06:24 (UTC) - under two different usernames. If you check Special:Log/block, you will see that Tera blocked the first of their usernames - User:ABIDEEN0 at 02:18 (UTC), 30 September 2012 - and there was a brief respite in the spamming. Then at 06:07 (UTC), 30 September 2012 - User:ABIDEEN1 continued spamming in the same prolific manner, until they were blocked by Tera at 06:25 (UTC), 30 September 2012. Two further accounts were blocked by Tera User:ABIDEEN01 (06:57, 30 September 2012) and User:ABIDEEN10 (06:58, 30 September 2012). As a result - a WikiIndex sysop is going to have to manually revert 93 separate articles/talk pages, then apply appropriate protection. Is that really how you want the sysops here to be working ... reverting 93 edits? Tera deserves a medal for battling with that! Sysops have RealLives, and shouldn't be railroaded into all this firefighting - when the software can be configured to do the job for us automatically! Frustratedly yours! Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 08:56, 1 October 2012 (PDT)

Maybe we take down the who is online function. Please start a page called Upgrades needed or something to clearly state what you think needs to happen, in terms of software mods / additions. Once we have a plan we can get it implemented. As far as an OpenWiki - what I think may be happening is that a person is vandalizing the wiki because any pages are being protected. So, do we have a fight with that person, who can create accounts as much as they want, or do we put a wet blanket on them? ~~ MarkDilley

I'm not sure taking down the WhosOnline would work in isolation. Anyway, I quite like using that function. Maybe we can restrict it to say Sysops and Autoconfirmed users? Maybe another tweak would be to change the 'Autoconfirmed' to a manual authorisation by a Sysop (or does that need Crat rights?) - can this be changed?

I've created WikiIndex:Upgrades needed - it is only a 'skeleton' at the moment, but from small acorns . . . . :p

OpenWiki - I don't think anyone is doubting or questioning your desire for an open wiki - I think the fact that we are all sticking around and continuing to help grow WikiIndex sorta vouches for our general support to your founding principles. But I'm still failing to understand your logic that protecting pages attracts vandals. That kinda logic may apply to say . . . telling your 13 or 14 year old kids not to take a swig of vodka from the bottle at the back of the parents cocktail cabinet when they are left alone! The recent vandalism is simply a fanatical religious extremist (probably a muslim), who will attack any easy target - such as open edit wikis. As far as protection standards, 'talk' pages should never be protected (at all, IMVHO), namespace pages should never be protected - unless specific pages are actual targets. But high-use or high-importance templates (as recommended here), along with the front page and policy pages should have appropriate protection.

And I'm not sure I understand your wet blanket analogy! But surely, we should be 'one person - one account' (apart from bot accounts). So basically only one username can be created from one IP address. Best, Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 12:23, 2 October 2012 (PDT)

vandalism strategies

Please text me at 313-942-9454 and I can jump in to help ~~ MarkDilley

WikiNode Sidebar link broken

FYI, it's currently pointing at 'INVALID-TITLE' Chris Garner (talk) 08:51, 7 October 2012 (PDT)

Thanks for flagging this up - should be fixed now. Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 09:13, 7 October 2012 (PDT)

Wikis visible only when logged in.

I notice that some Wikis (including LGBT History UK) don't show up in the list of pages for a particular category/tag when I'm logged out, but do when I 'm logged in. Can you explain this, please? --Ross Burgess (talk) 15:42, 31 October 2012 (PDT)

Which category are you specifically referring to, I am trying to recreate this bug. Best, MarkDilley

Mark, I think Ross was referring to the LGBT History UK article, and probably one of the categories relating to it - maybe Category:LGBT. From my own perspective, I also notice WikiIndex looks very different between when I'm logged in and logged out - a specific example, when logged out, the sidebar reverts to the basic 'default' MediaWiki sidebar (looses the resources and help pages sections). Also the position of the search box changes. Maybe something to do with CSS pages . . . or maybe our local spam whitelist only works when logged in, but when logged out, the blacklist takes over . . . though I am not a programmer, so am just clutching at straws. Best, Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 08:10, 1 November 2012 (PDT)

Weird, I log out and get the same sidebar as logged in... We should try to track the bugs WikiIndex Bugs. MarkDilley

Massive Spam User Creation

I blocked a huge number of spam accounts that were all added within two minutes here. I am wondering if there is a means to stop multiple user creations from the same IP which appears to have happened.TeraS (talk) 06:38, 1 March 2013 (PST)

Here is some information on range blocks. If we can confirm it is the same IP, then we'd have to apply a range block. Unfortunately, we'd need the checkuser right, which only those with bureaucrat rights can grant. Arcane (talk) 07:09, 1 March 2013 (PST)Arcane

Spamfilter some in mediawiki, something that helps. Regards.- --Csuarezllosa (talk) 08:36, 1 March 2013 (PST)

Is there a way to put a limit on the number of accounts thst can be created during a certian time period from a certian IP? That might help. -ela —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.228.228.150 (talk) 18:25, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

This would be great ~~ MarkDilley

I've been noticing this kind of behaviour on many different MediaWiki sites - and whilst I think the spam-bots have cracked the mw:Extension:SpamBlacklist - I don't think that is our problem. Our MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (along with MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist and our local My spam blacklist) works only when someone creates or edits an article whereby their edit contains a URL - this does nothing to prevent account creation.

We really need a couple more extensions specific to account creation, namely mw:Extension:TitleBlacklist, mw:Extension:Bad Behavior and mw:Extension:Check Spambots - but sadly, Mark seems very reluctant to implement any upgrades (and I'm not really sure why) :-( And we also need mw:Extension:Nuke to mass-delete these rogue accounts in one click.

these are discussed on Upgrades page right? ~~ MarkDilley

Not very reluctant, very busy and we at WikiIndex don't have a dedicated developer type person to do it, so to upgrade or do anything under the hood, we have to find that person, anyone out there? hint, hint. ~~ MarkDilley

Ahh - OK - sorry :( - wasn't aware that we didn't have any devs :( I'm certainly not a dev or programmer (just an enthusiastic MediaWiki user!), so I personally can't help. But I can suggest two or three folks here whom are very proficient MW devs, whom all three should be promoted to bureaucrat status here (as a minima) - kghbln, Yaron Koren (thou Yaron seems to be a little dormant recently) and Jack Phoenix (I'm shocked to find that Jack isn't even a Sysop on here!). And I also think that Emijrp should also be prompted to crat (I'm not sure if he is a MW dev per se, but he is simply awesome with his MW bot work and other work such as backup stuff). Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 03:20, 15 April 2013 (PDT)

Many thanks for these ideas. ~~ MarkDilley

On the subject of bureaucrats - I'm not sure why Emufarmers is a crat here, as he isn't exactly contributing to WikiIndex in any meaningful manner at all - see here (click on 'diff' to see exactly what he has contributed - or the lack of!) ... Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 03:20, 15 April 2013 (PDT) (me neither ~~ MarkDilley)

18:09, 22 April 2013 MarkDilley (Talk | contribs | block) changed group membership for User:Emufarmers from bureaucrat and administrator to (none) (not sure what happened here, looks like a breach in security - Emufarmers2 gave the bureaucrat status, but how?

Arcane is correct when he states only bureaucrats can examine checkuser - which is whats needed to examine IP ranges. And it has been mentioned on a few previous occasions that we need more ACTIVE bureaucrats on this wiki - ideally a bureaucrat for each major timezone (so one from US timezones, one from European timezones, and one from Russian/Asian/Australian timezones) - so for example, whilst the US is asleep, an Aussie or European crat can be on guard. We need crats who are here virtually every day - which is why in the past, I've pushed for TeraS being a crat, Wolf used to be our European crat (but seems to be on a sabatical), and I'm not sure if we have any regular users from Russia/Asia/Aus/NZ.

I am still really fuzzy on what things I can do as a bureaucrat rather than a sysop. ~~ MarkDilley

Another suggestion would be to make registration under real names (without CamelCase) compulsory. I accept that may deter folks, but as it stands at the moment, I have great difficulty in trying to determine the difference between an 'acceptable alias' username, and that of a pure spambot. If forcing real names is not an option, then just ban CamelCase name registration, ban underscore, special characters and numbers in username registration - if someone desparately wants to be known by fancy characters and the likes, they can overcome that by creating a signature in their profile, or even creating a new user page with an incoming redirect. Maybe if we had mw:Extension:Renameuser, then any accounts created could be then subsequently changed to something more preferable to the individual.

I like for people to use Real Names, however I don't like to force people to do that. ~~ MarkDilley

A final suggestion is to enable confirm e-mail for account creation. Ha-ha . . . I hear my ears burning with Mark's ethos of open editing! Well, we will still have open editing from IP editors (and those have to go through Captcha on every edit they make) - the whole reason spambots create accounts is so that they bypass the edit Captcha. Having to confirm e-mail will virtually eliminate spambot account creation. One big problem with this - something is wrong with the whole WikiIndex e-mail system . . . I've never been able to get e-mail working, and others have also reported this . . .

(-; ~~ MarkDilley

At the end of the day, if the status quo remains, then all of us sysops are effectively just janitors clearing up the crap on a day-to-day basis. My $0.02 / £0.02 worth. Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 14:11, 7 March 2013 (PST)

obviously we don't want to burn people out (more than has already happened) - so will put thoughts on Upgrades page. ~~ MarkDilley

Incoming traffic

I don't know if Alexa.com has a window on the cause of our spam issue??? Open this link, then click on the 'Clickstream' tab. It basically states the two most significant sites people were viewing before they visitied WikiIndex.org. One of those was MediaWiki.org (no problems with that site), and the other was 'GasyMagnifik.com' - which is a French SEO site (look at its traffic analysis on Alexa - interesting to note the 'webmaster rank' and other SEO sites - both upstream and downstream, and also its demographic). Is there anything we can do to stop incoming traffic from gasymagnifik.com ??? Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 04:43, 8 March 2013 (PST)

Looks like their post www.GasyMagnifik.com/des-wiki-et-des-backlinks-une-histoire-de-seo.html – "The wiki backlinks: A History of SEO" – has a link to us... ~~ MarkDilley

Interesting .... is there any way to add something like "nofollow from gasymagnifik.com" (or similar)? It's also interesting that they link to us via a hyperlink, yet for WikiMatrix they just have a plain-text (non-hyperlink) url – and WikiMatrix get considerably less spam than us. Oh, I removed the above hyperlink - don't want any more potential spam from them! Template:HoofHearted

MediaWiki:Monobook.css and .js

Do you think MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki:Monobook.js necessary? Now, the default skin is Vector, not Monobook. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 17:46, 13 April 2013 (PDT)

Of course. It's not like either of those pages are doing any harm by sitting there. Besides, I use MonoBook. Elassint 16 April 2013

Then I think it is a good idea to move them to pages like MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Common.js since some of us use Vector.--Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 19:45, 16 April 2013 (PDT)

NAMESPACENUMBER

This is better for Template:NAMESPACENUMBER (with more existing namespaces, info from mw:Extension default namespaces):

15

--Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 22:14, 13 April 2013 (PDT)

Noarticletext

This works (the first link originally broken):

There is currently no text in this page, you can search for this page title in other pages or edit this page.

Or try if there's any similar titled page: no page(s) found

--Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 22:46, 13 April 2013 (PDT)