[wiki]: Spammers on FIRSTwiki

[Joe Ross]

It looks like over the past month (or more) spammers have been using user pages for posting spam on FIRSTwiki. Are there still any admins around that can clean it up?

See this page: http://www.firstwiki.net/index.php?t...=1&namespace=2

[bobwrit]

All right, all the pages should be tagged for deletion now(there's a lot of them).

[Joe Ross]

It's been a month and there's many more of the same type of spam. If all the admins aren't paying attention any more, I think it would be better to lock it down rather then let it become a spammers paradise.

[lynca]

I second that motion,

How many admins of FIRST wiki exist ?

[synth3tk]

I agree that it should be locked, or at least more admins appointed.

[cbale2000]

Oh my...



I have Moderator access to remove the pages and block the individual usernames, however I can't do anything to prevent people like this from registering and just posting again.

If someone has access to view the IPs they register with we could probably IP block this.


EDIT: Wow, I just looked at the history, this has been going on every day throughout July! Time to PM Brandon Martus. Maybe we can get some better security filters installed after this gets delt with too.

[DonRotolo]

I wonder: If a spammer spams an unwatched wiki, does it matter? Would they be spamming themselves?

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

I wonder: If a spammer spams an unwatched wiki, does it matter? Would they be spamming themselves?

Only if the wiki was completely unwatched. Unfortunately, search engines do watch, and that's why the spammers do it. The more sites that link to your own site, the higher your site will be in the search engines. By allowing the spammers free reign, we only help them.

[bobwrit]

Sigh.... I think that either lock the wiki down for a while or appoint more admins is the way to go with this as well.

[Scott L.]

It appears that every post starts with the word 'buy', so block all post starting with that word, that would atleast slow down the spammers.
Maybe adding a CAPTCHA requirement for posts would help.

[R.C.]

An idea that I always had would be to incorporate CD's database of users and make it global. Like an official FIRST profile that can allow you to login in to multiple FIRST related sites. I don't know how practical this is: But,

An example of this would be: In order to post on First Wiki, you would have to be on CD's Database of users.

Just an Idea...

-RC

[cbale2000]

*sighs*

Well, there's about 80 fewer of those things, it's a shame the wiki doesn't have a mass delete/ban option, it would make this a lot faster.

It looks as though the spam started in June, so there shouldn't be... too many more to get rid of. Guess I'll pick off some more of these tomorrow.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by rc_cola1323

An idea that I always had would be to incorporate CD's database of users and make it global. Like an official FIRST profile that can allow you to login in to multiple FIRST related sites. I don't know how practical this is: But,

An example of this would be: In order to post on First Wiki, you would have to be on CD's Database of users.

Just an Idea...

-RC

I like that idea, and I'm positive that there's a vB-to-Mediawiki bridge out there, but the fact of the matter is, it's all up to Brandon. I would love to see this implemented, though. It might make things a lot easier to manage, too.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by synth3tk

I like that idea, and I'm positive that there's a vB-to-Mediawiki bridge out there, but the fact of the matter is, it's all up to Brandon. I would love to see this implemented, though. It might make things a lot easier to manage, too.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extens...rs_Integration