Wiki spam

http://tech-artists.org/wiki/Talking_About_Light_Transport

To combat this maybe require forum membership first? Or maybe require mod approval of new users.

Indeed.

Also, for the rest of the page, may I add that a listing of urls pointing to Wikipedia doesn’t quite make it a wiki.

But I understand it’s a start : perhaps once there’ll be a consistent article properly written in a technical-artist-understandable language these references should be listed only at bottom of the page. (as “notes”)

There’s no need to restrict access to stop vandalism. The whole point of a wiki is that anyone can contribute, and likewise anyone can undo vandalism. To undo vandalism,

[ol]
[li]Go to the “history” tab at the top of the page.[/li][li]Click the “last” link near the left of the line that looks like it might be the revision that introduced the vandalism.[/li][li]If the difference shows that it is indeed the correct one to revert, click the “undo” link on the upper left, enter a reason (optionally), and save like any edit. If the change was not the most recent one, this might fail due to intervening edits to the same lines, in which case you have to manually undo the changes by editing the article.[/li][/ol]
I’ve found the offending revision and undone it.

Experience on Wikipedia shows that requiring registration doesn’t stop all vandalism, but it does stop a lot of useful contributions from people who aren’t ready to make the leap to signing up.

[QUOTE=sebddd;1948]Indeed.

Also, for the rest of the page, may I add that a listing of urls pointing to Wikipedia doesn’t quite make it a wiki.

But I understand it’s a start : perhaps once there’ll be a consistent article properly written in a technical-artist-understandable language these references should be listed only at bottom of the page. (as “notes”)[/QUOTE]

Indeed. I had hoped to do a major overhaul of the Wiki and launch the community scripts over this weekend and next, amongst some other things… but instead I had to fly out on a few hours notice for a family emergency and won’t be back till Saturday QQ. So I don’t have the time or the ability to do much, hunched over my family’s laptop, leeching wireless as I sleep at my grandpa’s.

So yeah there have been lots of things cooking- how to get the Wiki to a better state than just a couple people adding useful stuff will be a big question- it has been at the back of my mind and once some other things closer to completion (re: script repo) are taken care of, it’ll be at the front of my plate as well.

[QUOTE=Aryeh Gregor;1949]There’s no need to restrict access to stop vandalism. The whole point of a wiki is that anyone can contribute, and likewise anyone can undo vandalism.

Experience on Wikipedia shows that requiring registration doesn’t stop all vandalism, but it does stop a lot of useful contributions from people who aren’t ready to make the leap to signing up.[/QUOTE]

Possible, so what about “captcha” at least to block spambots ?

Until this becomes a significant problem, I’d rather not make any restrictions or obstacles.

Um, interesting. Not sure how this fits into light transport…
http://tech-artists.org/wiki/Talk:Talking_About_Light_Transport

Sigh… Alright I’m going to place that page under protection, it has been hit hard repeatedly, even before this thread was created.

Alright I think all vandalism has been fixed. Have been slacking on the Wiki as of late.

More fun stuff.
http://tech-artists.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges

I try to check it every couple days, but have lasped due to a little bit over overtime at work. Whenever I see a page get bombed, I protect it so only registered users can edit it… it normally takes a while before a new one is bombed.

Aryeh, is there anything we can do to cut down on the spam? It is becoming annoying.

I’ve installed the ConfirmEdit extension. I’ve configured it to show a simple captcha when anonymous users try to add a URL to a page. If this is insufficient, it can be ramped up a bit (fancier or more captchas).

That’s great, thanks guys!

Random Numbers keeps getting griefed (and I keep undoing it)
http://tech-artists.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges

Captcha doesn’t seem to be enabled. If I log off, I can submit edits for user pages and their discussion pages, without any hoops to go thru.

No biggie though, it’s kind of lonely in there anyhow. :zzz: