Third parties using our software are responsible for being competent enough to run their own wikis. It's not our fault, nor our responsibility, if they're clueless and don't do anything about spam.
Rob Church
On 12/02/06, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
I have started a few wikis (using Mediawiki, and kept up to date) and I have found that we are being spammed, about once every ten days. Usually links to drug (pharmaceuticals) sales sites in hidden text. These wikis are very low traffic but are linked from Metawiki at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sites_using_MediaWiki
I have also noticed a wiki that has been set up and the WikiSysop has no idea how to actually build content in the site. So, what does he get? Spam! No content, nothing. Just spam.
It would seem WikiSysops should be made aware of their responsibilities, when Mediawiki software is installed. Should theyt have to pass a test? It is great that installation is so easy, but that lowers the threshold of a potential WikiSysop admin to be verging on the almost clueless.
Another effect. Users are registering email in the domains that I own, in which the Mediaiki wikis live. Hence, I see all the email confirmation emails (to addresses such as anythinggoes1234 @ mylittlehouse.org.uk). This is a relatively new feature, suggesting again increasingly clueless spammers are getting in on the act, perhaps?
Is there a message here?
-- Gordo (aka LoopZilla) gordon.joly@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~gordo/ http://www.loopzilla.org/ _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
At 13:44 +0000 12/2/06, Rob Church wrote:
Third parties using our software are responsible for being competent enough to run their own wikis. It's not our fault, nor our responsibility, if they're clueless and don't do anything about spam.
Rob Church
I agree in the sense that software can be misapplied. But Netcraft reports...
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/01/31/php_apps_a_growing_target_for_h...
Posted by Rich Miller at January 31, 2006 03:50 PM
*****quote begins
The growth of PHP-based content management systems is a testimony to the success of the open source movement, which has created a lengthy list of powerful, user-friendly applications that can be installed by web site operators with little or no PHP coding experience. Active support communities for these projects offer templates and mods for easy customization, and mobilize to deploy fixes for security holes.
*****quote ends
Related issue: need to upgrade as security patches come out for MediaWIki, keep tabs on spoof accounts, etc etc.
Gordo
mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org