stop spamming tinwiki articles!!!, page 1

I was interested and decided to look at the recent changes page on tinwiki.org today. Did you know what I found out? I found out that most changes to tinwiki articles are, correct me if I am wrong, spam-related. This means that tinwiki editors, such as WilliamOneSac who, it seems, does the most of the changing, are wasting their time simply deleting spam from articles . To me, at least, I think that the jobs of the tinwiki editors are to, well, edit the content of the articles (and not to merely waste time on getting rid of spam). I know it's a dirty job, but still . So what are the consequences of spamming tinwiki that can/is helping the problem of spamming? Take a look at the recent changes page and one will find out. The IP address of the spammer will be banned for one year (I wonder if this ban applies to ATS/BTS/PTS/etc. as well, as this would be great). So, in conclusion, stop spamming tinwiki so editors like WilliamOneSac (and the rest of the crew) can get to what I think are the real aspects of their jobs . Thank you. ( I wonder how many spammers will see this thread ).

reply to post by they see ALL

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I do not believe that the ip's are blocked here. And to be honest, blocking these ip's is almost useless as the spammers use rotating ip addresses. It's like playing whack-a-mole deleting the garbage on a daily basis. But it is the only thing we can do at this point in time, until SkepticOverlord figures out how to install CAPTCHA or another anti-spam method on the website. Somebody commented on one of the talk pages that the reason that we get so much spam is because we are using an antiquated version of the Wiki. But it would be nice if more editors took an interest in maintaining the website. As of now it is just Optimist and myself deleting the spam.

Originally posted by William One Sac
reply to post by they see ALL

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I do not believe that the ip's are blocked here. And to be honest, blocking these ip's is almost useless as the spammers use rotating ip addresses. It's like playing whack-a-mole deleting the garbage on a daily basis. But it is the only thing we can do at this point in time, until SkepticOverlord figures out how to install CAPTCHA or another anti-spam method on the website.

Yeah, that sucks. I didn't think this would work, as I thought that spammers wouldn't care if there banned from ATS/BTS/PTS/etc. .

But it would be nice if more editors took an interest in maintaining the website. As of now it is just Optimist and myself deleting the spam.

Yes, it would be nice . I should have more of a concern for maintaining the site myself .

The reason why the attempt at installing the CAPTCHA spam fighting feature in tinWiki failed, may be something I came across now while looking briefly at info on this subject:

• The ConfirmEdit extension requires MediaWiki 1.6.0+.
  
  
• tinWiki currently uses MediaWiki: 1.5.7

I have created a little space on my tinWiki user page where I can collect information about spam fighting in MediaWiki wikis, so little by little I may be able to contribute at least some clues so how one can go about it when installing CAPTCHA and/or other spam fighting measures in tinWiki. But if I've understood this correctly, it seems the ConfirmEdit Extension is the basic extension that gives the CAPTCHA feature (one can seemingly add on more advanced versions of this sort of "are you human?" test once the ConfirmEdit Extension is already installed). If that's the case, then it seems tinWiki needs to get upgraded from version 1.5.7 to version 1.6.0 before CAPTCHA can be installed...

The search for answers continues. :-) "Deny ignorance."

Optimist

Trance Optic,

Yes, if I understand you correctly, it is possible to install a black-list feature that prevents posting from known spam IP addresses. How that feature is installed, I don't know (but I may come across the exact instructions in my little project of finding out about spam fighting methods).

As to the problems with CAPTCHA, I notice that the feature is in fact registered as being installed -- but it is not working properly... The reason why it is not working, is, I guess, that the MediaWiki version currently used by tinWiki does not properly support the ConfirmEdit Extension. I believe what is supposed to happen, is one should not be able to post external links without passing the CAPTCHA test. I may have gotten it a bit wrong, though, and that there are settings that might be wrongly set, and that that's why it doesn't work. But for now it seems to me version 1.6.0 is required, and tinWiki uses version 1.5.7, which is obviously an earlier version.

Optimist