lmstearn Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 Anyone notice this kind of thing happening on other Wiki pages? looks like they will want SSL or something to make the site more secure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 SSL wouldn't stop that at all. What they need is to install a proper spam filtering module into their wiki software. I'm sure wikimedia must have some kind of plugin to run Akismet or something else like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmstearn Posted August 21, 2017 Author Share Posted August 21, 2017 That's interesting- more info here, here and here where email verification is a good idea. Heck that last link is more than seven years old, what's changed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 What's changed is bots have been written to be even more intelligent. Security forum posts from 7 and 9 years ago are meaningless today because the bots all use much more sophisticated methods. They're taking advantage of the fact that most free open source code for web apps isn't written very well and has no protection against more recent methods. IMO, the wiki software is among those packages even with a properly updated setup. Bethesda has not updated theirs in years so that's compounding things. In contrast, look at us here. We're using bog standard IPB 4.2.x software, but that license comes with a powerful spam filtering service that catches bots before they get anywhere. I don't think we've had to remove a spam account here since 2014 or so, and it's a filtering service that learns as it's used by more and more people. I'd say IPB's antispam system easily rivals what Akismet has done for blogs. All it really takes is someone to give half a shit about the site they're running and be aware of how outdated the software is that's running it. VaultDuke 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndalayBay Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 I set up our wikis to require registration via confirmed email. I keep the wiki software up to date and they do use the new recaptcha and they do have a spam blacklist extension, but I've never trusted that, so I set up the confirmed registration. Unfortunately it stops people from contributing, but I don't need to go in and remove spam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RavenMind Posted August 26, 2017 Share Posted August 26, 2017 IMO, confirmed registration for wiki contribution should be mandatory. I signed up & confirmed just so I could post a small update to the TESCOSI wiki and didn't mind a bit. If someone's sincere about wanting to contribute to communal knowledge then confirmed registration shouldn't deter them. I don't know much of anything about spam filters, but I've got to say that I'm tired of fighting with Akismet over on Bethesda's official forums. Maybe it's just a problem with lack of configuration, I don't know, but I do know it's driving away some good people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthmoor Posted August 26, 2017 Share Posted August 26, 2017 Bethesda's forum is doing something weird because Akismet is well known and supported across a huge variety of packages and doesn't cause the kinds of problems people have talked about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmstearn Posted October 17, 2017 Author Share Posted October 17, 2017 Looks like they have come up with some kind of solution. Looks robust enough... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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