LeafLabs Garden

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1. 

   robodude666
   Member

   Created an account on the wiki for future edits I'll be making regarding new libraries & such. While visiting the wiki, I reverted/deleted some 40ish spam pages/changes. Someone tried to vandalize marti's page LOL.

   I feel that just about ALL wiki spam can be stopped with two changes:

   - Required Registration with Moderator account approval/email verification
   - reCAPTCHA on any change.

   It's too easy to modify an existing page, or create a new page filled with spam anonymously. I understand that required registration will deter small helpful changes by users, but it will greatly reduce the amount of spam making the wiki a more useful tool with information people can trust. While an open anonymous system works for the real wikipedia, because they have nearly an infinitely sized army of people watching for changes, it doesn't work very well on a small wiki with only a handful of moderators/good samaritans.

   Posted 4 years ago #
2. 

   robodude666
   Member

   User accounts Neombro and Tangene created on July 19th, 2011 at 13:56 and 14:13 respectively are posting spam in the wiki.

   IP address 109.73.78.98 has been posting spam since July 15th.

   Posted 4 years ago #
3. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   robodude666 -
   

   I feel that just about ALL wiki spam can be stopped with two changes:

   - Required Registration with Moderator account approval/email verification
   - reCAPTCHA on any change.

   I strongly agree with you.

   The one time I have needed to reference someone to the wiki it was vandalised. So I never refer anyone to it because it may get broken and put them off.

   I have not seen an analysis of who has made contributions to the wiki, and is not a member (probably impossible to do accurately), so I may be wrong, but I would be surprised if there are many folks who contribute and would be unwilling to be a member.

   Ideally, my forum membership would work on the wiki so that I don't have to register twice (and manage two identities).
   If this were the mechanism, it may be that most folks would find the need need for non-anonymous contribution invisible.

   Posted 4 years ago #
4. 

   robodude666
   Member

   User accounts Spimar and Onysarg, as well as Rechhare, Magrem have posted spam recently. Pages have been erased with "delete me" text.

   Posted 4 years ago #
5. 

   robodude666
   Member

   gbulmer, some people as I've pointed out, have registered accounts and are spamming, however it's very easy to register an account via a simple Python CURL script. Adding reCAPTCHA, email verification, and moderator account approval will stop or greatly slow down these scripts.

   Posted 4 years ago #
6. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   I am admin on some google-groups, and "moderator account approval" seems to reduce spam by a large amount.
   Always using some form of CAPTCHA before changing a page seems like a 'no brainer'.

   As becker pointed out here:
   http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=308&page=4
   allowing the spam to persist for a few hours may be enough to make it worthwhile for the spammer.
   So it pretty-much needs to be prevented rather than quickly tidied up.

   Posted 4 years ago #
7. 

   josiah47
   Member

   I agree get this fixed up so our efforts into the wiki are not in vain. I don't want to add anything and work for it if it is just going to get messed up.

   Posted 4 years ago #
8. 

   poslathian
   LeafLabs

   thanks for helping to tidy it up. The anon edits have been disabled. I think perhaps those that were arguing to keep it open to anon edits decrease the barrier to contribution were not the same people who were cleaning up the spam all the time... ;)

   Posted 4 years ago #
9. 

   robodude666
   Member

   Guess who's winning?

   http://i51.tinypic.com/24e2ob7.png

   Posted 4 years ago #

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