Maybe we could use rate control to reduce spam. phpBB has a similar
control I believe. I don't know how effective these schemes are but it
might help ease the pain of reverting everything back. This probably
requires a new table with ip addresses/user-ids and the time of last
update. Whenever a new update is submitted:
. check the time of previous update attempt if exists in the table from
this user or ip
. if the time between these two requests is too short, show a warning
that the user has to wait a minute or whatever to send a new update
How long the program should wait can be determined empirically. It
should be made sure that whenever a warning is shown, user's
contributions are not lost. it would be really frustrating to lose it
because of a stupid software thinking you're a bot. And this table can
be cleared periodically, say every hour, to remove old records.
Mike Valstar wrote:
you could:
1. enable blocking of ip blocks (see defaultsettings.php) then block
69.50.0.0/16
2. change your settings to only allow people who are logged in to edit
3. run a wiki bot, give that bot the ability to block suspected spammers
(this is what i do)
The first will only help for a short while, there are many spammers,
with all the wiki-mania going on on the web spammers see a great
opertunity to increase their google rank
the second works pretty well (there are a few bots that get through, but
no plan is perfect), but for a wiki that is starting out i concider
this an early death to the wiki unless you already have a good
readership and editorship
the 3rd works, but there are no public bots specifically made for this
that i know of off hand, I am currently building mine by hand and will
be releaseing it to the public when i feel its ready, if you want a
preview copy .. mail me and i'll see what i can do (my current version
is very rudimentary but blocks 95% of spammers, it still dosent auto
revert)
Mike Valstar
http://gentoo-wiki.com
Andy Roberts wrote:
Hi all, This is my first contribution, I have a
few queries and I hope
somebody can help me find the solutions or information I need.
Problem:
I have a mediawiki running on a hosted web server ( ie not on my own
computer ) which is being repeatedly spammed by a bot or bots which
not only edits multiple pages inserting hundreds of porn links and so
on, but also creates lots of new pages and talk pages.
according to the version page, the wiki is running on
MediaWiki (
http://wikipedia.sf.net/): 1.3.5 PHP
(
http://www.php.net/): 4.3.10 (apache) MySQL
(
http://www.mysql.com/): 4.0.24-standard-log
I can access the database using phpMyAdmin 2.6.3
The spammer(s) use IP addresses which vary, but always begin with
69.50.
So what I can do for now, after a spam attack, is to log in as
WikiSysop, block the individual IP number, go through reverting all
the pages and deleting the newly created ones.
Then I go to the phpMyAdmin page and run a few stored scripts which
delete all the unwanted edits from both 'old' and 'recentchanges' ,
empty archive , and then the database is back to normal without
expanding unmanageably.
My main question is :
How can I block the entire range of IP addresses like 69.50.* ??
Any help much appreciated, as I am determined to try and keep this
wiki open to all and not concede to the spambots.
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