Spammers on TWCwiki - Help guys!

[Ishan]

Hey guys,

Since the past year our TWC wiki is being regularly spammed with pointless external ad links and stuff similar like we get on forums. But it wasn't really a problem, makanyane, tango and me have been blocking them and deleting any stuff they create but now it's getting really annoying as the attacks have increased and it's a bit over the top for just 3 people to manage.

Now the minor problem with this is that it screws with the recent edits page and it becomes cumbersome for me to spot pertinent changes related to TW games, it's tough to spot changes or new pages created by legit wiki users as when we deal with spambots our own actions are logged and then it buries the relevant edits.

And up till now it wasn't an issue for something i would bother you guys but today i saw 3 images uploaded on our wiki which were from 4-8 Megabytes in filesize. This is a somewhat massive wastage of our diskspace and if not controlled it will only take unnecessary HDD space on our servers.

So i'm here to seek help and ask for some sort of modification\extension that will block these idiotic spammers. I read this page:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Combating_spam

And have learned that we can install CAPTCHA option for new accounts, which isn't the case right now. Perhaps this will discourage spammers to make accounts if they're automated. Earlier we could edit wiki without even needing to create an account but Sim changed that for the obvious reason being discussed.

One year ago, there was no such problem and it was quite convenient to manage it. So is there something we can do about it? I'm crippled in this area so i need some sort of advice if there are some tools already at my disposal.

Right now i can block users and their IP addresses. They don't edit pages, that is vandalism of wiki pages so far, thus i don't have to protect pages from new users\spammers.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I have no problem installing a CAPTCHA tool, just dont think that it is going to solve the problem of humans posting stuff. I will take a look at that one and see what it requires. Since our current Wiki database ties into the site database with a custom hack I dont want to hose that up.

On the plus side, as you know once in a while I go off and start tracking various crap like this down. Today I did that. The user rachellewis on the Wiki created a page with a bunch of links to various sites, one of them was Sage Audio.

So I just called them, and spent about 30 minutes talking with a guy named John who happens to own the place. And he was quite pissed when he found out why I called. Not at me, at his new SEO company that he signed a contract with last month.

It appears that he switched SEO companies, and one of his concerns was this very thing. He doesnt want his business to get a bad name because of internet spam and he specifically mentioned it when he signed this contract. The interesting part is that the other links posted by this spammer were all to businesses in Tuscon, AZ. This happens to be where his new SEO company is located, and we are fairly certain this is where the spam originated from as noone else stands to gain anything by spamming his site out there.

John was very cool on the phone, his immediate response was that he was firing the SEO company even though he had a signed contract with them for a specific amount of time. I told him if they gave him any crap about it I would provide server logs and even a signed statement of what they had done, so that he could prove a breach of contract on their side.

I am now calling some of the other businesses that this person linked to, and informing them of the situation. I am not posting a link to this SEO company as they do not deserve to be named on this site.

However Sage Audio is run by a great guy, who cares about the reputation of his business, so he gets 2 links from me. Maybe someone here needs his services.

[Ishan]

LOL that's like the ultimate showdown.

And thanks Sir GED, personally i have spotted like 4-5 outsiders (meaning guests) who made the account on TWC Wiki to edit it, so i don't think CAPTCHA will bother anyone and don't stress yourself over this and wait for Squid's opinion, if these things aren't automated then you're right it won't make a difference and thus no need to bother installing it.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Ok that hosed things up.

[Ishan]

Squid is going to kill us.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Me, not you lol

[Bolkonsky]

Can't we just disable registration unless it's tied to a forum account?

Sent from my SGH-T499

[Major Darling]

You could always have account approval?

[Mangerman]

Yeah, wouldn't account requests work? There were a lot of spammers on the TWC Minecraft wiki, until I got fed up with deleting 12 accounts+pages on a bad day and we decided set account creation to request only. Haven't had any account requests from spammers over the past 4 months or so.

[Ishan]

Yeah if something like that can be done then it would be swell.

[Major Darling]

I seem to remember when I ran the Wiki, I discussed it with Augustus Lucifer.. Maybe I can find the conversation

[GrnEyedDvl]

I think I have restored normal Wiki function. Squid is gone for a couple of days, will talk with him about it when he gets back.