Andre-John Mas schreef:
The first thing to do is find out how to block the user account causing issue. Is there any way to do this without having to open up the database?
Of course. Go to the [[Special:Blockip]] page and fill out the form. Blocking users requires sysop rights.
The main anti-spammer solution I am looking at it adding a captcha, but I would also be interested in other solutions. Additionally I want to ensure that the text from the spammers is removed from the database, so that they don't get the benefit of having their links indexed by search engines, via our site. Any suggestions for this?
Well old revisions are not indexed by search engines, so simply reverting vandalism edits should be enough. If a vandalism edit contains stuff you don't want to be accessible, not even through the page history, try Oversight [1]. Adding a CAPTCHA can be done easily with ConfirmEdit [2].
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
[1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Oversight [2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit