Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by George Kao -
Number of replies: 17

I'm trying to create a place for our school administrators to go whenever they need to see the most updated email list.  I would also like to give them the ability to update the list if they wish. 

I tried doing this in wiki, but noticed that it turned all the "@" in the email addresses into "»".

How do I get around that?

If Wiki is not the place for storing a collaboratively-updated email list in Moodle, any other recommendations?

Thank you.

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In reply to George Kao

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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At present, this wiki has a plugin activated that is designed to prevent spambots from harvesting email addresses. This plugin hides real email addresses by encoding them with other characters (the '>>', in this case).

You can prevent the hiding by putting an '!' in front of every email address. If people don't want this plugin active, it may be possible to make it a configurable item.

mike
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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Gustav W Delius -
Could the wiki be changed to use moodle's obfuscate_email() function which achieves the same aim by inserting the character codes for some of the characters. That doesn't mess up the display but still makes it difficult to harvest.
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In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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Hi Gustav -

I noticed you diasabled the wiki email protect plugin. Is this wise?

Did you come up with a way of using the obfuscate_email() function?

mike
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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Gustav W Delius -

I disabled that for a different reason, see bug 1775. If you think that Moodle needs such an email filtering then it should be implemented as a moodle filter.

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In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Nic McPhee -
I would really like to see some sort of e-mail filtering implemented in Moodle.  There's evidence that such things can reduce the amount of harvesting, and I know that the lack of obfuscation will hinder adoption at my institution.
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In reply to Nic McPhee

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Note that all the emails displayed by Moodle are already obfuscated to robots ... we are ony talking about addresses that have been typed by users within wiki pages, forum posts, glossary entries etc.

Still, a Filter to do this would be a great addition to the arsenal.  Someone want to send me one?  It just takes a clever regular expression.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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Hi Martin -

Here's a filter that changes the text of the '@' and '.' in email addresses to their word equivalents. That way, they can still be read. The 'obfuscate_email' made it to difficult to read.

So, an address like first.last@mydomain.com becomes "first dot last at mydomain dot com".

I created it as an entry in '/filter/hideemail'.

mike
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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Thanks, Mike.

I'm not against that format, but what do you mean by obfuscate_email making it difficult to read? It should come out looking like an ordinary email address, just like this one: martin@moodle.org

The source for that was actually: 
mar&#116&#105n@&#109&#111&#111&#100&#108e&#46&#111&#114&#103
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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When I used obfuscate_email, the address that was displayed was what you put for the source (i.e. mar&#116&#105n@&#109&#111&#111&#100&#108e&#46&#111&#114&#103).


When I do a 'view source' for your post, the martin@moodle.org is clearly visible as is (not obfuscated). Am I missing something?

mike
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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Doh! The editor must have converted it on a re-edit! smile

See this: martin@moodle.org
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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Okay. I'll try it again. For some reason, when I used obfuscate_email in the filter, I was getting the former display.

mike
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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Hi Martin -

I tried it again, but this is what I get from obfuscate_email for  mike@churchward.ca:

m%69%6be%40c%68%75r%63h%77%61%72%64%2e%63%61

When I look at the code for obfuscate_email, it returns a hex value prefixed by '%'. Should I use the 'obfuscate_text' function instead?

mike
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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Okay. Take 2.

Here's a new version of the filter that munges both plain text email addresses and 'mailto' links.

mike
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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Thanks, Mike, nice prophylactic!

I renamed it to "Email protection", added a quick strpos check for "@" at the start to save processing time, and added it to CVS HEAD for testing.

I've also installed it here on moodle.org! See source for these addresses which I just typed in with no fancy tricks (please spam these people anyway!):

john.howard@mp.gov.au (plain text)

dubya@whitehouse.gov (linked with mailto)
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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>>  Thanks, Mike, nice prophylactic!

Huh? mixed
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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Martin Dougiamas -
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Prophylactic: acting to defend against or prevent something; protective.  In this case, to prevent spammers harvesting addresses.

Sorry, didn't mean to throw you!  It's a good addition - thank you!
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In reply to George Kao

Re: Using Wiki as a place to store collaboratively-upda ted email list...

by Mike Churchward -
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George -

The current version of the wiki leaves email addresses alone. If you update your system you should no longer have that problem.

There is also a filter in development that can be applied as a Moodle filter that will obfuscate the email addresses it finds in any Moodle text (including wikis) leaving them readable to humans but not to spam bots.

mike
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