File talk:Breakable equipment.jpg

The Spam Saga Begins

Times this page has been spammed: 3

Now we know what happens when we protect the page that spambots like. This seems to be the new spambot page. ;) --Bale 21:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 5 --Bale 06:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 7 --Heeheehee 23:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 9 --Bale 19:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 10 --Heeheehee 04:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 11 (That's ridiculous. It's not even funny. Seriously it isn't)----Icon315♕ (☎|♤) 23:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

• You're right that it really isn't funny, but thanks to your "seriously it isn't" comment, I spit tea out my nose. So I guess it was funny after all. Either that or I just have a bad case of reverse-schadenfreude where I take delight in my own misery. --Bale 23:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 12. Ok first of all, why would you spam here? Secondly, should we block this page?----Icon315♕ (☎|♤) 19:54, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• NO! We should not block this page. There was another page on this wiki (whose name escapes me since it was weird) which was spammed exclusively. We didn't use that page for anything, so we deleted it every time the spambot created it. We finally decided to protect that page 3 days before this page became the new spam lightening rod. If we protected this page, the new spambot favorite page might be one that actually gets used. That would be BAD! --Bale 20:53, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
  • (ASHRM) String Handling Routines or something like that? But yeah, I had originally protected the page but was convinced to unprotect it because of the cool analogy (lightning rod!). It was eventually StD who reprotected it because he got sick of the spam problem. But since it's resurfaced, we really should learn to stop protecting pages. If it spreads to a new page while this one's still unprotected, then we might consider protecting pages en masse (alternative solution, pester Fewyn to restrict editing to logged-in users only, but we'd have to wait for him to respond). But okay, it's been hit 12 times in a row without any other targets coming into sight. Guess we'll have to wait another 25 before being really sure that spambots won't target any other pages. --Heeheehee 21:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Isn't there a way to make it so that only registered users can edit pages? That would keep away lots of spam bots----Icon315♕ (☎|♤) 22:00, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
    • It seems that only fewyn can change permissions. --Bale 23:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Yep. "(alternative solution, pester Fewyn to restrict editing to logged-in users only, but we'd have to wait for him to respond)" --Heeheehee 05:56, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
    • We try not to bother fewyn about the wiki as much as we can get away with. Not making fewyn work except for something important is one of our guiding principles. However I think that this may be important. But what does StDoodle think? --Bale 07:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry guys, been busy lately. Here's my take:

1. The original "protect this page" was equal parts frustration & experiment. The experiment was fruitful, in that we learned something, but unfortunately not what we wanted to. IE it didn't stop the spam, it just moved it. So unless anyone can think of something useful to add to that process, we should think carefully about that option. (Note: this does NOT apply if the spam moves on its own to a useful page).
2. As mentioned above, this page isn't all that useful. I mean, yeah, kinda, but it's easy to make a new one for the content, and just leave this one here as a spam honeypot. (Plus, it's name isn't one that represents what I was trying to move the wiki away from, as the ASHRM one did.)
3. Long-term solution would be to bug fewyn to make the changes mentioned above. I think I'm going to go ahead and do that, since we all seem to agree that it's the best idea. But I'm not going to pressure him to hurry; it looks like you guys have stayed on top of things fairly well, so no major need to have it done RIGHT NAOO.
4. I'm likely to be busy for the near-to-mid future with personal junk. (Possible divorce, ew.) From this point on, I'd like to designate Bale as being officially, 100% in charge of day-to-day operations (fewyn of course keeping the "final say," when he wants it). Thanks for all of your efforts!

-- StDoodle 07:27, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

oqNpkWoecHwzmsh

Isn't this cute? The spambot has created a new section with a nonsense name so that our discussion wasn't deleted. I don't know what to make of it. I'm leaving the section header here just 'cause I'm curious if future spambots will use it or create their own nonsense sections. I suspect the later.

Times this page has been spammed: 13 --Bale 20:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 14. Also, uh, what was up with the latest spam hit? --Heeheehee 23:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that WAS weird. It never crossed my mind that it might over-write only the first section, leaving this one untouched. Just puzzling. --Bale 00:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 15. Ridiculous. Just Ridiculous ----Icon315♕ (☎|♤) 02:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 16 --Bale 07:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 17 ----Icon315♕ (☎|♤) 13:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Times this page has been spammed: 18 ----Icon315♕ (☎|♤) 20:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

19! Fun! --Heeheehee 04:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Attempting to Stop Spam

Spammed 20 times! I'm quite hoping SOON fewyn does what StDoodle recently asked. --Bale 18:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh crap, I guess I did write that I'd do it. Any chance you can handle getting a hold of fewyn, Bale? I'm not sure I'll be able to handle any back-and-forth needed this week. Blech. --StDoodle (#1059825) 20:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• Okey-doke. I'll give him a poke and get the ball rolling. --Bale 00:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

• fewyn has changed some permissions. Hopefully this will solve our problems. Or at least slow it down. I just hope this doesn't mean we'll have a lot of spambots registering accounts to post... --Bale 21:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks as though unregistered users still have the ability to create talk pages though... so it's likely every single currently-non-existent talk page will get spammed at some point. Perhaps that should be disallowed as well? --StDoodle (#1059825) 20:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• I thought of that, so I logged out and tried to create the talk page. No problem. It's kinda amusing to me that I can only get half-way to creating the page since the wiki fails to let me edit. Try it for yourself. --Bale 21:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Stopping anonymous edits has worked quite well so far. I find myself surprised that the spambots don't create accounts, but we haven't had any spam for a week now. My fingers are still nervously crossed, but I'm feeling hopeful. I was sure that we'd have to ask fewyn to install a captcha extension to stop them from registering. Happy. --Bale 07:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)