Category talk:Active administrators of this wiki/Archive 2012-13: Difference between revisions

:On a related note, WikiIndex's system administrators should '''really''' install the [[mw:Extension:CheckUser|CheckUser extension]] and give [[bureaucrat]]s/administrators/a new group access to the [[check user]] 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 check user extension installed & properly configured, administrators (or other privileged users) can get the user's underlying IP and ban it in case of persistent vandalism.

:: Thanks for your thoughts Jack.  I think I blocked the IP range OK ([[Special:Contributions/216.66.0.0/16|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?  [[mw:Extension:AbuseFilter|AbuseFilter]], as recommended by [[User talk:Elassint|Elassint]] [[User talk:Elassint#Spammers - and new account names|here]] looks promising, but it appears way to complicated for me :(  [[User:Hoof Hearted|Hoof Hearted]] • <small>[[User talk:Hoof Hearted|talk2HH]]</small> 07:29, 30 September 2012 (PDT)

: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 [[:Category:OpenEdit|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 [[mw:Manual:Combating vandalism|here]]), along with the front page and policy pages ''should'' have appropriate protection.

: [[mw:Help:Range blocks|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 [[check user]] right, which only those with [[bureaucrat]] rights can grant. [[User:Arcane|Arcane]] ([[User talk:Arcane|talk]]) 07:09, 1 March 2013 (PST)Arcane

I've been noticing this kind of behaviour on many different [[:Category:MediaWiki|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.

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.

[[RecentChanges]] is just looking like a spammed wiki! :( --[[YiFei]] | <small>[[User talk:Zhuyifei1999|talk]]</small>  11:21, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if Alexa.com has a window on the cause of our [[spam]] issue???  Open [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikiindex.org this link], then click on the 'Clickstream' tab.  It basically states the two most significant sites people were viewing <u>before</u> they visitied WikiIndex.org.  One of those was MediaWiki.org (no problems with that site), and the other was 'GasyMagnifik.com' - which is a [[:Category:France|French]] SEO site (look at its traffic analysis on [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gasymagnifik.com Alexa] - interesting to note the 'webmaster rank' and other [[:Category:Search engine optimisation|SEO]] sites - both upstream and downstream, and also its demographic).  Is there anything we can do to stop incoming traffic from gasymagnifik.com ???  [[User:Hoof Hearted|Sean, aka <small>Hoof Hearted</small>]] • _{[[:Category:Active administrators of this wiki|Admin]]} • <small>[[User talk:Hoof Hearted|talk2HH]]</small> 04:43, 8 March 2013 (PST)

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

: See [[WikiIndex:Upgrades needed#General housekeeping]] and there's why in [[mw:Extension:Translate]]. :( --[[YiFei]] | <small>[[User talk:Zhuyifei1999|talk]]</small>  14:24, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

:It's probably related to the way how articles are counted, i.e. what qualifies as a valid article. See [[mw:Manual:$wgUseCommaCount]] and its modern-day equivalent, [[mw:Manual:$wgArticleCountMethod]].  Simply put, in order for [[:Category:MediaWiki|MediaWiki]] to consider a page as a valid article, it has to have at least one ''internal'' [[wikilink]] (that is, with the default settings; you can change this behavior by changing the value of the globals I mentioned earlier). --[[User:Jack Phoenix|Jack Phoenix]] ([[User talk:Jack Phoenix|talk]]) 13:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

::: Well, I proposed the install of the [[mw:Extension:NoBogusUserPages|NoBogusUserPages extension]] on the [[WikiIndex:Upgrades needed]] page, which should cut the problem down by half according to Jack Phoenix, so we could try that first and see if it helps before doing anything more severe. [[User:Arcane|Arcane]] ([[User talk:Arcane|talk]]) 23:17, 13 June 2013 (PDT)Arcane

::::[[Abuse Filter]] is quite a geeky piece of software, but there is ''some'' documentatiion about using it on [[MediaWiki.org]]; see [[mw:Extension:AbuseFilter#Abuse filter management]] and the pages linked there. --[[User:Jack Phoenix|Jack Phoenix]] ([[User talk:Jack Phoenix|talk]]) 13:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I am unaware of any policy that is here at [[WikiIndex]] - I do know that several people who regularly patrol [[RecentChanges]] block these accounts.  I think this is a good discussion to have.  Best, [[MarkDilley]]

: Pre-emptively blocking all accounts registered at a given timeframe does seem outright wrong to me. Thankfully we have tools like [[mw:Extension:CheckUser|CheckUser]] and [[mw:Extension:LookupUser|LookupUser]] which can be used to determine who is and who isn't a spambot. Usually spambots share some/all [[IP address]]es, i.e. one IP can be used to register like 10+ user accounts at once. In addition to that, LookupUser (which can be used to view the real name and e-mail address of a registered user account) can help in spotting spambots as they very often use free services (like Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook.com or disposable, one-use mailboxes) with gibberish names; it's probably obvious that nobody's real name is "trbvpLR" and "ichualp5x@[some e-mail provider]" doesn't sound like the e-mail address of a real human being.

: Also, we probably should discuss about implementing [[mw:Manual:$wgEmailConfirmToEdit|Manual:$wgEmailConfirmToEdit]] (i.e. setting <code>$wgEmailConfirmToEdit = true;</code> in the wiki's LocalSettings.php). While spambots sadly can bypass this relatively easily, it would stop the most obvious and laziest spambots. But would it be too much of a nuisance for humans? Personally I think not, as most sites out there require an e-mail and also require you to confirm your e-mail address before the site can be fully used (say, before you can post on a forum, for example)...what are your thoughts on the matter? --[[User:Jack Phoenix|Jack Phoenix]] ([[User talk:Jack Phoenix|talk]]) 11:56, 30 June 2013 (UTC)