On Wed, 31 May 2006 17:02:38 -0700, Jeff Lane wrote:
We do this, but I've still found that I'm wanting to delete spammer accounts for the following reasons:
- The spammer accounts are very old and dormant.
- The spammers continue to make new accounts.
- The user list needlessly grows with many banned accounts.
- The accounts often have usernames that are desired by real users.
This approach might be useful for you: a) add a 'spambot' group with restricted rights to LocalSettings.php: $wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['read'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['edit'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['move'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['spambot']['upload'] = false; ... any other rights that you need to block ... b) add the spam accounts to that group - manually or by sql c) apply a patch [*] to hide spam accounts from a default user listing, and enable it by adding to LocalSettings.php: $wgHiddenGroups = array('spambot');
This deals with 3 and slightly with 1; it assumes that mostly 1 can be ignored, and that 2 needs to be handled by other protective means - e.g. Rob Church's UsernameBlacklist.php extension. To handle 4 you'd need to rename the account e.g. using Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason's Renameuser.php extension, but you seem to have a handle on that part already.
If you capture a full enough set of restricted rights, there is also no longer a need to block the accounts (although you might consider it wise or appropriate to block them anyway).
[*] http://clc-test.flash-gordon.me.uk/wiki/clc-wiki:Config:Wiki#Spam_account_filtering_patch (draft article on the test site; might not end up as a permanent link)
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