Hello all,
Apologies if I sound like a broken record, but I want to raise the issue of
spam on the Wikimedia UK wiki again as it seems nothing has happened since
Sammy/TheresNoTime reported the issue a few weeks ago.
There are currently over 75,000 pages on the wiki, and I'd wager that about
95% of them are spam. Hundreds of pages of vacuous crap are created every
day.
[Warning - links contain adult text content]
The spam ranges from the bizarre
<https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Penis_goes_in._Penis_comes_out._Can%E2%80%99t_explain_that.>
to the offensive <https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Raise_your_dongers.>, and
includes links to services that may be illegal in the United Kingdom and
elsewhere (e.g. unregulated pharmacies
<https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/The_Secret_Guide_To_List_Of_Approved_Canadian_Pharmacies>,
cannabis products
<https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/How_To_THC_Edibles_The_Planet_Using_Just_Your_Blog>,
and supplements making medical claims
<https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Penis_Enlagment_And_Growth_Of_Hir_On_Penis_And_Real_Male_Enhancement>).
I found these examples with a *thirty second* search, and I do not doubt
that there are worse ones out there.
I realise & respect that most of the people involved with the running of
the site are volunteers or only employed by WMUK on a part-time basis, but
given that the initial actions Sammy proposed (preventing anonymous editing
and locking down account creation) would take about ten minutes maximum I
am befuddled as to why they've not been implemented.
I know that Sammy offered their help, and I am also happy to assist with
the fixes and clean-up. (I'm an administrator on the English Wikipedia and
have administered MediaWiki installations myself, if it helps.)
Thanks for reading,
Richard / (User:Firefly on Wikimedia projects)