[WikiEN-l] "Doomsday" threat?

[MacGyverMagic/Mgm]

On 10/11/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What if one of these people wrote a script and installed it on all of
> their bots so that they register an account and then randomly attack
> and vandalise articles? I mean, there could be literally thousands of
> edits flowing in every minute. Not only would this probably make the
> servers screech to a grinding halt, it would cause huge damage to the
> content of the site.
>
> In such an event, what would we do? Semi-protect the entire
> encyclopedia? Lock the database and quickly install a version control
> thing, like the germans? Is there anything else? Let's face it,
> wikipedia is a high-profile target, we need to consider such things.
>
> --Oskar


If such a thing became a problem, we could have a developer do an emergency
shutdown of the database while the damage is assessed and a more permanent
solution is sough to avoid further damage.

Mgm