The TF Wiki

[TheDirtyDigger]

Digger, You realise all those femme myspace friends are actually guys?

....and......

[FFN]

The attack went on for about 7 hours, and basically it was all hands on deck for the available staff and actual users to revert and repair articles.

Hopefully we'll be able to install more security software plugins for the server, but with Thanksgiving, our American staffers may not have time to do so until after the holiday.

What I consider to be a last resort is restricting editing only to registered users (meaning you need to make an account to do any editing). I personally feel this makes the site unfriendly to people who wander in and might want to fix small things like spelling errors or minor mistakes, like I sometimes do when wandering around Wikis I don't really contribute to. Spambots would get around registration eventually.


If spambots weren't enough of a problem, we also have a serial pest who attacks the wiki every now and then. He was a serial pest across Wikia's wikis and when we moved to our own server, he followed. Ever since one of our regular users reverted his spam and vandalism edits, the pest became obessessed by him, and registers dozens of accounts insulting that particular user, his heritage and making allegations about his sexuality.

Oy.

[GoktimusPrime]

No chance of IP banning such individuals? Or perhaps frequently vandalised pages will need to be locked so that only registered users can edit them - that way you can track precisely who the offenders are and possibly ban them if you know who's doing it. I'm not sure how wikis work so I'm just assuming this based on what happens with message boards. The problem with IP banning are those really annoying pests who will move between internet cafés and troll from changing IP addresses (Japanese board trolls are notorious for doing this (-_-)).

[jaydisc]

IP banning is typically ineffective as mostly only business grade internet connections have static (consistent) IPs. A simple restart of your broadband modem will usually give you a new address.

[FFN]

We've done all of that. The bots switch IPs so rapidly that when one is banned, another one pops up. As for tracking them, somebody suggested that the bots are piggybacking off of heavily-infected systems, unbeknownst to their owners.


Geez, half a day of editing was wasted, no significant work was done during that 7-hour period.

[GoktimusPrime]

What about locking TFwiki so that only registered users can edit? I know wikipedia does that with heavily vandalised pages. It's not ideal, but you could do it as a temporary measure to give you guys time to undo the damage and then consider unlocking afterwards. *shrug*

[Paulbot]

Kind of like transforming Autobot City, but hopefully locking the Wiki doesn't require two people running around pushing buttons, levers and knobs

(Reminds me of that fanfic I did when the Ozformers board was attacked by Spam.)

[FFN]

What about locking TFwiki so that only registered users can edit? I know wikipedia does that with heavily vandalised pages. It's not ideal, but you could do it as a temporary measure to give you guys time to undo the damage and then consider unlocking afterwards. *shrug*

If the attacks continue and/or get worse that may be considered, but I fear that would turn off readers who may simply wish to fix our spelling mistakes and minor issues (like forgetting a square bracket in a wikilink.)

Hopefully new security measures will be installed so we don't need to do this.

[GoktimusPrime]

It might be needed just as a temporary measure - you could put a notice up on the locked pages or on the main page to let people know why it's in place.