The Veteran Posted March 21, 2007 Report Share Posted March 21, 2007 Yeah that's better BB cheers, looks like the old addy is shot. Very nice work I may try getting something new for the data canisters bit but I'll probably just stick em up here and ask someone to transfer them for me Quick thought though, I think I did one on Interceptors already... If that's still about that can get chucked on there for good measure too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted March 21, 2007 Report Share Posted March 21, 2007 Just sign up Veteren. That way you'll get full access to your work, and us terrible buggers can come along and mess it up for you! That's all part of the fun. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted August 16, 2007 Report Share Posted August 16, 2007 Battlestations! Purveyors of tinned spiced meat are ambling loose around the wiki! Man the tea cosies, chop down the mast and bring in the washing! Um, well, it's not an invasion. But I've had to deal with two such incidents of spam in a short amount of time. Just a word to fellow contributors to keep an eye out for these errant vandals. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted August 16, 2007 Report Share Posted August 16, 2007 Do we know if the software is up to date? I've not got any experience with Wiki software, but when I let the forum software here go a while without upgrading it we tend to get a fair amount of spam ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted August 17, 2007 Report Share Posted August 17, 2007 Unless there's been any updates behind the scenes, I think the last update was probably several months ago. I can't seem to access the site at the moment, but I had to deal with a few more this morning. There's so much good reference material there. I'm always fearful that all that work will be wasted or destroyed. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaughter Posted August 17, 2007 Report Share Posted August 17, 2007 But there are backups, right? Weren't we trying to have the Wiki hosted here so we can keep it under control? Zombie...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted August 18, 2007 Report Share Posted August 18, 2007 Of course there are backups, and frequent too. In the case where the database is directly attacked, we would still have a previous draft to revert to. The time frame is something like a day or two, so edits made during that period could be lost. That's not really a huge issue, but security is. It wouldn't matter how often the database is backed up if the backups were able to be deleted by a clever cracker. That would be a doomsday scenario for the contributors and the X-COM community as a whole. GazChap has been contacted though. We'll get this resolved yet. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaughter Posted August 18, 2007 Report Share Posted August 18, 2007 And there's not much help in the backups if they too are full of spam because of old software... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 True, the X-COM wiki's version is only 1.5.3. The current MediaWiki version is up to 1.10 or so (I think 1.11 is supposed to be out soon but haven't heard anything yet). Getting the newest version probably will not stop spamming though. Due to the nature of wiki software, anyone can make an edit. We took away the ability of anonymous edits long ago which seemed to help for a while. But spammers are now actually creating accounts to add their junk. There is noting we can do about this short of totally restricting edits for a while. And that is not an option really. Having a set of diligent admins to block spamming accounts will hopefully send the message that we mean business. But when I hear back from GazChap, I'll mention upgrading. It can't hurt. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 I've had an email from GazChap about a certian moving of the Wiki and am going to reply to im shortly. Alas, time this weekend has been tight and I've had to prioritise. With regards to keeping the software up to date though, I imagine the latest version may have something in the way of CAPTCHA (or a newer version of CAPTCHA if the current version has it already). That's stopped a lot of spam here. Anywho, I'll update wehn I've got more info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomb Bloke Posted August 20, 2007 Report Share Posted August 20, 2007 Is it possible to only allow "approved" accounts editing rights? That is to say, people would need to make "real" request (eg. on a seperate forum) to be allowed to mess with the wiki. At first it sounds like a lot of extra work for the admins and there's no way I'd recommend it in most circumstances, but the wiki is a niche kinda place. Most of the people editing on it also post here and/or on xcomufo anyway, so all we need to do is start a thread on each board and check it once a day (and link to said threads via the Wiki to make sure they can be found). We don't have many authors and we only seem to get a new one each fortnight (if that) - Anyone who wants to post in all seriousness most likely wouldn't mind a slightly slower sign-up process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted August 20, 2007 Report Share Posted August 20, 2007 One thing I've been wondering since the spam's come up is about the ability to link to images off site. A few of the spam pages did this. Granted, it was nothing obscene, but it still bothers me. All of the true content we've used so far hasn't used or had any need for off-site image linking, so I don't think we need it. Are the settings for Mediawiki robust enough to allow or disallow this? - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted August 20, 2007 Report Share Posted August 20, 2007 There is actually a bit of software which ties in the Wiki's member system with the forum member system - this could disallow anyone posting unless they're signed up here on our forums. It kind of takes away some of the accessibilitiy of a Wiki, so I'd rather see if the later versions of the software have some anti-spam measures first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted August 24, 2007 Report Share Posted August 24, 2007 I hate to suggest such draconian measures, but what does everyone think about the idea of suspending new member applications for the moment? We'll still have the sleeper accounts to contend with, but they'll be weeded out soon enough. It looks like the same bunch of bots (and probably real spammers) keep reapplying. The Wiki's smart enough to autoblock previously blocked IP's - but this isn't going to stop the ones with mutating IPs. It's the same format every time, to some Chinese websites or cut and pasting almost legitimate looking articles (not related to X-Com at all - which is the big clue that it's spam! ) and inserting false off-site links. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted August 25, 2007 Report Share Posted August 25, 2007 I don't know if we have to go to that extreme yet. According to the MediaWiki software, it should be able to create different user groups and assign them permissions just like in these forums. Although, that would require some specialized tweaking. For now, the best course of action would probably be to upgrade. The newest version has an updated "blacklist" of spam url's. Also, even the current version we are using supports a Captcha plugin. Doing those two things will probably slow spam down to a halt. Will have to contact GazChap about this. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomb Bloke Posted August 25, 2007 Report Share Posted August 25, 2007 Is it possible to block the use of open proxies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted September 1, 2007 Report Share Posted September 1, 2007 I'm not sure if the software can do this itself. However, there is an extension or plug-in which can be applied. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted September 5, 2007 Report Share Posted September 5, 2007 On the whole, I think we're faring well so far, at least compared to the horror I saw on other mediawiki site I wanted to check recently. I've been re-learning a bit of programming these last few days, and one of the resources I had bookmarked for the Allegro game programming library (UFO2000 uses this, if I'm not mistaken) was for a mediawiki magazine of sorts. It's completely and utterly infested with spam. The front page is just links, all the main links like the community portal, and worse still, all the talk pages for each page are nothing but spam links. This may be due to lack of attention by moderators, but it's a very frightening thought that good work will be indiscriminately vandalised like this. Anyway, keep it up folks. We're not going to let our hard work share this same fate, at least not easily! - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted September 5, 2007 Report Share Posted September 5, 2007 I'd just like to thank you NKF (also Hobbes) for catching the spam while I'm not around. You guys are great! I haven't received a reply from GazChap concerning a MediaWiki upgrade so I think I'll bug him again. The faster we upgrade the faster we can get back to normal operating conditions... hopefully. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ki-tat Chung Posted September 12, 2007 Report Share Posted September 12, 2007 Another suggestion would be personal requests on specified forums to gain access to a wiki account. Yes, very draconian and it means lots of effort for admin/mods, but just a suggestion. Or perhaps something similar to Gmail, with invites Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted September 30, 2007 Report Share Posted September 30, 2007 GazChap upgraded to the latest version of MediaWiki and also installed a Captcha plugin for account creation to stop automated bots. So far, it appears to have stopped the spam dead in its tracks. If anyone has a problem with account creation, please let me know. Thanks again to the other sysops who helped me deal with removing the spam and blocking the accounts promptly! - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danial Posted December 2, 2007 Report Share Posted December 2, 2007 Are there many people still actively updating the Wiki info, or has it kind of settled down now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted December 4, 2007 Report Share Posted December 4, 2007 There are bursts of activity where lots of updates suddenly happen, but not daily. It's always been like that, actually. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danial Posted December 4, 2007 Report Share Posted December 4, 2007 I've added a couple of things over the last few days (cuz I'm going through an "X-COM phase" again for some reason) but haven't contributed anything before that in a year or more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danial Posted December 4, 2007 Report Share Posted December 4, 2007 One little thing I was meaning to do that I can't now (due to Vista not running UFO) was upload a graphic example of what the Hyper-wave Decoder displays when a UFO is detected for the UFO Detection page, and was just wondering if someone else could? It's only small, I know, but I think the more images we can show, the more useful (and interesting) the site will ultimately become Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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