User talk:Macbeth/Archive3

Archive 1, Archive 2

Operation kick ass

Hi Macbeth. I sent you an email this morning, not sure if it is still an active email for you so I'm poking you here about it as well. If you don't receive the email, let me know with your new email and I will resend it. --Kym 19:12, 31 December 2010 (CST)

Yep, that e-mail address still works :). I've replied. --Macbeth 12:10, 5 January 2011 (CST)

Spam bots

There looks to be a lot of spam bot edits in Recent Changes lately - does there need to be some sort of CAPTCHA installed or changed? I'm not sure if we have much server access with which to do that, though.... AySz88 23:43, 28 January 2011 (CST)

Yes, there certainly has been! There are several captcha options we can look at - ConfirmEdit and ReCAPTCHA extensions - and certainly will do if this keeps up in the long term. I don't have server access myself, but I've e-mailed Kym about disabling account creations temporarily. I might ask him if I could have server access to /neodex to speed up dealing with this sort of thing in the future, though. --Macbeth 07:37, 29 January 2011 (CST)

Looks like we might need that CAPTCHA solution soon, since now they're just editing anonymously. We'd need one on anonymous edits and one on account creations. AySz88 18:00, 8 March 2011 (CST)

No account creation?

Maybe I'm being silly and missed something but is there anyway to create an account here? I don't mind too much editing under an IP but it's nice to have a name. I figured I'd ask you as you're on the staff list and seem to be fairly active :P (Crimsonfox) 80.2.185.71 21:03, 13 August 2011 (CDT)

According to the Current Events Page, account creation is temporarily discontinued due to some spam attack issues. I'm not sure when that happened or how long it will remain -Cath 21:50, 13 August 2011 (CDT)

As Cath says, account creation was disabled because of automated spam. Any sysop can still make an account for you, though. If you send your desired username in an email to neodexhelp@gmail.com I'll set it up for you and reply with your password (which you'll be able to change as soon as you log on). Looking forward to having you with us! --Macbeth 05:09, 14 August 2011 (CDT)

Cheers guys, email sent. =) 80.2.185.71 19:11, 14 August 2011 (CDT)

Images

Apologies for another question but is the image stuff pretty much completely broken or is there something I am missing? I can't seem to edit, resize, use "thumb" or upload over images. Are things just being worked on at the moment or is there another method on this wiki? Cheers, CrimsonFox ^talk 19:41, 18 August 2011 (CDT)

Viewing an image's page throws up an mysql error (that's being worked on looked at imploringly) but they can still be placed in articles. Thumbs and resizing should be working, though? For example,

[[Image:Moncer.gif|thumb|left]] [[Image:Moncer.gif]] [[Image:Moncer.gif|80px]]

produces

The upright attribute with thumbnails only works for users signed in, which is a bit weird. You can still resize normally, though. I'm not sure about uploading over other images, I thought that was working to be honest! --Macbeth 19:52, 18 August 2011 (CDT)

Ah when I tried to overwrite a file I got an error along the lines of "Cannot rename file xxxxx to xxxxx". And I just figured out hat I was doing wrong with the image resizing, stupid typos. :P Thanks for the help again! CrimsonFox ^talk 20:01, 18 August 2011 (CDT)

Block editing of User Pages?

Hey, I've been noticing a recent rash of vandalism by people creating fake user pages... is there any way to block the editing of a user page by anyone who doesn't have an account? Honestly, other than a legitimate user, no one should be editing these pages and it'd make less for us to clean up. -Cath 11:50, 25 February 2012 (CST)

As always, Cath, you have penetrated to the heart of the issue, but are this time quite ahead of the Mediawiki developers - I do not believe there is a way to do that per se. I think there might be something we can do to stop anonymous editors to make new pages whatsoever, though.

However, when the spammers were creating hoards of automated accounts to spam, we retaliated by blocking account creation, and the spammers moved on to anonymous accounts. Stopping anonymous editors creating pages will probably just drive them to existing pages. To plagiarise Stanley Baldwin, 'The spammer will always get through.'

Still, perhaps it is worth a go! I will look into it. Perhaps I can get range blocking working. In the mean time, I recommend we use infinite time blocks instead. --Macbeth 12:58, 2 March 2012 (CST)

I certainly don't mind switching to infinite time blocks for users who are obviously just here to spam. They don't always come back but I've seen several back for a second strike after the first month elapses... it's not like they're ever likely to actually help.

I agree that you may be right about the blocking of all new page creation and it'd be horrid to have them actually mucking with real pages. The range blocking would be great, actually... they often seem to post in very narrow bands, so it would definitely help, I just worry about being a bit too free with the range blocking and inadvertently blocking legitimate users.

I mean, the simplest way to prevent them entirely would be to block both account creation and all editing by anything other than a legitimate user... but that might (or likely would) dissuade someone with real knowledge from ever helping out.

Sigh... Lame spammers and their junky posts. :K -Cath 16:31, 2 March 2012 (CST)