Wiki spam help

[Sin Stalker]

So I've been able to get www.cohcomicindex.com up and running.


There is mainly one major thing in the way and thats spammers.

I wanted to ask a few questions.

1. How do you guys handle spammers with paragonwiki?


2. Is there a way to email notify myself and other mods when someone creates an account?
I was given this link but I am a bit confused on how to implement: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:New_User_Email_Notification


2.b. Is there also a way so that a new member can not do anything until we have recieved an email and "activated" or "unlocked" the account for their use?

[Aggelakis]

1. Delete/rollback their spam. Block them (and typically their IP). We hardly ever get spam... maybe one spammer every two to three months.

2./2b. No idea.

[eabrace]

When I see a spam link, I go in under Special Pages and click the Block User link.  I fill in username, expiry (infinite), reason (spamming links to external sites), a short description of what they were spamming ("essay writing site"), and usually check all five additional blocking options.

Usually spammers aren't a huge issue.  We don't tend to see them all that frequently.

I don't think anyone here gets an email message when new accounts are created.  That extension looks like it would do the trick for you, though.

(I assume you meant to link to the extension's page, not the discussion page for the extension.)

There might be a way to require admin authentication for new users, but I have no idea how you would go about setting that up.

[BattlerockX]

When I see a spam link, I go in under Special Pages and click the Block User link.  I fill in username, expiry (infinite), reason (spamming links to external sites), a short description of what they were spamming ("essay writing site"), and usually check all five additional blocking options.

Usually spammers aren't a huge issue.  We don't tend to see them all that frequently.

I don't think anyone here gets an email message when new accounts are created.  That extension looks like it would do the trick for you, though.

(I assume you meant to link to the extension's page, not the discussion page for the extension.)

There might be a way to require admin authentication for new users, but I have no idea how you would go about setting that up.

Well the reason why Sin asked is because I was having to block/ban and delete about ten spammers every day for almost two weeks.  Thankfully they stopped recently, but I can tell you it was a real pain for me to do that every day.

[eabrace]

Ick.

Do you have the option to block based on IP?  Or were the spammers hitting from different IP addresses?

[BattlerockX]

Ick.

Do you have the option to block based on IP?  Or were the spammers hitting from different IP addresses?

I made sure to hit the block IPs when doing the eternal bans.

[Sekoia]

I suspect that the single biggest factor towards deterring spam on the Paragon Wiki (and OuroPortol) is that we do not allow users to register on the wiki itself; instead, they have to register at the Titan Network. That alone may well foil all automated spammers. I bet the little spam we do get is manually done.

To answer your question: "Is there also a way so that a new member can not do anything until we have recieved an email and "activated" or "unlocked" the account for their use?" Sort of. You'll need to break this up into two parts: notification (by email, which that extension you linked to handles) and activation.

For activation, you'll have to reconfigure user rights and add a new group for your "activated" users. I haven't tested this, but here's a sense for what I would add to the LocalSettings.php file:

Code: [Select]

# Disable editing and uploading for non-activated users
$wgGroupPermissions['user']['edit'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user']['upload'] = false;
# Allow editing and uploading for activated users
$wgGroupPermissions['activated']['edit'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['activated']['upload'] = true;

Once you've done that, you can then go to Special:UserRights to manually add users to the "activated" group and activate their accounts.

One last recommendation: Make sure you keep your Mediawiki installation up to date. If you don't, then the spammers will use known exploits (that have been fixed in more recent versions) to spam you. Sometimes upgrading alone will cut back on spam. Your wiki's current version is 1.14.0; the most recent version released is 1.16.0.

[Sin Stalker]

How do I upgrade without messing up all our info on the site?


Also, with what you said to put into the local, do I simply just copy and past that?

[Sekoia]

How do I upgrade without messing up all our info on the site?

You'll have to follow the upgrade directions: Upgrading

Also, with what you said to put into the local, do I simply just copy and past that?

What I provided was an example, it may or may not work without tweaking. I wouldn't add it until you have read over User rights to get a sense for what it's doing so that you understand what you're putting in there. But yes, you would copy and paste that (and possibly modify it) into your LocalSettings.php file. You'll probably want to add it at the end of the file.

Make sure you backup the LocalSettings.php file first so that if it doesn't work or if something else gets thrown out of whack accidentally, you can easily restore to the previous version.