Save the Wiki NOW

boogerific · #1 08-30-2007, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Adams

Locking the Wiki really cannot be done, from what I understand, without again screwing the casual visitor who really wants to help out by updating it properly.

Seems to me it's time ask ourselves if keeping it totally open is worth the risk of losing the whole thing. It only takes one malicious spammer, and it's already happening on a small scale. I would think/hope that *any* casual visitor would understand the need to protect the data, some of which could be their own contribution.

John Adams · #2 08-31-2007, 10:17 AM

I do not know how this WakkaWikki thing works (I am a big MediaWiki fan and supporter). But if there were a way to lock down say, the core Wiki pages from being edited by anyone other than a dev/admin, that could help. But again, requires effort... which so far, only a few site visitors seem interested in doing.

**GeorgeS** · #3 08-31-2007, 10:30 AM

- perhaps have a script that checks what the user adds - like unusual links or typical BOT links, something that looks odd and then put that IP on the watch list. There has to be a more smart check that would work.

GeorgeS

**cavedude** · #4 08-31-2007, 10:50 AM

Fighting bots with bots... Why does that scare me a little?

John Adams · #5 08-31-2007, 10:51 AM

WOPR says, "Would you like to play a game?"

boogerific · #6 08-31-2007, 11:36 AM

I think more people would be interested in helping out the wiki if it was locked down to some reasonable point. People have stated that the reason they don't bother with it right now is because of the futility of the situation as is.

What if their was a block on passwords that are attempted to be reused after an account has been banned? I'd bet that the spammers' bots use the same one when they create a new account after being banned. A nice, vague message "the login information you have provided is invalid" could be displayed to dismay of the spammer, the idea being that the less you say about what didn't work means the more work they have to do to figure it out and get in. It might mean that at some point a valid user's password might not work, but what are the odds?

I'll bet that with all the programming talent around here that figuring out how to accomplish this would be cake.