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M-Explorer Forum:Admin, Forum:Mod, bureaucrat, checkuser, sysop
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Forum Veteran
Wiki Edit 7721
Threads 133
Posts 870
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| 11:47:52 AM - Sat, Mar 17th 2012 |
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Howdy all,
Sadly it has come to this, but due to the heavy influx of spammers we've had to beef up some of our anti-spammer measures.
Basically to sum it up: someone in the spamming world created a new program that make spamming wiki's like ours far easier for the spammers. This program bypassed many of our anti-spam features. One reason why spammers want to spam wiki's is that Google and other search engines weighs wiki pages heavier then other types of web pages. Because of that we are a very tempting target for them.
So recently for the past couple of weeks we've been seeing a huge increase of spammers attacking our site and most other wikis. It was to the point that we had well over fifteen separate spam sign ups each day with each sign up creating two spam pages each. It was to the point that I and the other admin's spent more time dealing with them then editing the wiki.
(For those of you who are wondering: going over to anonymous IP editing did not cause this and even if we closed anonymous IP editing, it would have not stopped them.)
So we have changed one of our anti-spammer extensions to hopefully stop the spammers in their tracks both if they create accounts or if they try to create a page anonymously.
What this change will mean to you is that no matter whether you are logged in or not you will have to answer a simple question to prove that you are human. This will happen no matter if you are creating a page or just editing an existing page. It will also affect everyone no matter how long you have edited here.
Sorry if this inconveniences you a bit, but it's sadly come down to this.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please let us know.
M-Explorer
P.S. On a side note: sometimes our user database messes up and assigns brand new editors old account numbers associated with blocked spammers. This means that sometimes a person creates an account and then finds it's mysteriously blocked. If this has happened to you, alert me or Thomas and we can fix it for you. This is caused by an error in our mysql user database that assigns new users with old numbers.
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Edited On 12:02:10 PM - Sat, Mar 17th 2012 by M-Explorer
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| 1:12:17 PM - Mon, Mar 19th 2012 |
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| hey M- just as another thought to beef up security. Several of the other forums I'm on limit your ability to add links until you have made so many posts. Just a thought, but if they can't edit only add new posts or pages until they have say 5 posts, it might limit some of the spammers and make the site less of a target.
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Forum Regular
Wiki Edit 133
Threads 19
Posts 303
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| 1:13:03 PM - Mon, Mar 19th 2012 |
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| and that was me not logged in lol
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M-Explorer Forum:Admin, Forum:Mod, bureaucrat, checkuser, sysop
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Forum Veteran
Wiki Edit 7721
Threads 133
Posts 870
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| 1:41:37 PM - Mon, Mar 19th 2012 |
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Yea, I've seen a couple things that can limit what a person and add and edit until they've reached a certain amount of edits. I've been monitoring the spammer traffic and it seems the catchpa has stopped them dead in their tracks for now. I think as long as we can keep a successful working catchpa going then we won't need to limit the editors anymore.
On a side note: we are also blocking known spammer proxies. Each week I update this sites proxy list from a seven day list of spammer proxies that the guys over in Stop Forum Spam discover in their honey pot each day. That has also put a dent in their spamming actives.
If things get worse again and the spammers have found a way around the stuff we've added, then I think we may have to go with your idea.
On a side note: we can also use furry animals to stop them too. Yes there is something we can implement that actually does use furry animals! 
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Thomasp94 Forum:Admin, Forum:Mod, bureaucrat, checkuser, sysop
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Forum Veteran
Wiki Edit 2658
Threads 84
Posts 745
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| 1:54:52 PM - Mon, Mar 19th 2012 |
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| It will be nice to see recent updates that are not spam blocks!
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| 2:32:37 PM - Tue, Mar 20th 2012 |
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| I have several furry animals but I think they are the only things in my house that like spam...
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