There's a lot of spam in the Installing Moodle wiki.
I've fixed several pages by rolling them back to a non-spammed version, but there are still some spam pages in there. I'll try to fix 'em later if I get time, but I thought I'd post here in case others want to join in.
Please forgive my ignorance, but two quick questions:
1. Please could someone explain exactly what a Wikki is.... sorry
2. How do I know what is Spam within the Wikki?
Just had a quick look and there seems to be quite a lot of garbage
Sorry
Hi, Julian.
1. What is wiki?.
2. Depending on how you set it up, anyone may be able to edit the wiki. That's good, because anyone can contribute stuff. The drawback is that (like many other things that are open to the net public) open wikis will sometimes attract spammers. Fortunately, every wiki that I've seen saves old versions of the page, so it's easy to restore a spammed page to its original state.
You'll know spam if you see it.
For instance, this is not spam, while this is.
1. What is wiki?.
2. Depending on how you set it up, anyone may be able to edit the wiki. That's good, because anyone can contribute stuff. The drawback is that (like many other things that are open to the net public) open wikis will sometimes attract spammers. Fortunately, every wiki that I've seen saves old versions of the page, so it's easy to restore a spammed page to its original state.
You'll know spam if you see it.
Julian-
check out wikipedia.org to get a good definition. Basically it's a way for anyone to contribute to some text on a site (could be everything from definitions to poetry) and i believe the theory is that the best will filter to be the last version over time. So it's a sort of anarchy that depends on the best intentions of the greater number (since anyone can screw it up, but anyeone else can fix it- one hopes more will fix than break).
d.i.
Wow!
No kidding. I went and fixed a page, but it looks like someone else had already fixed it.. and it got respammed. This is actually a real bummer, be4cause if someone got it set up to automate the spam, no matter how much we work we won't be able to keep it clean. Anybody know how to tell if it's automated? I imagine some smart sleazeball has figured out a bot that'll do this, and we're now a victim.
Anybody got any ideas?
d.i.
I imagine some smart sleazeball has figured out a bot that'll do this
I think such things do exist. I know that for a while our wiki seemed to be getting spammed every Friday evening (which I guess would be an optimal strategy for many wikis; spam it on Friday night and maybe no one will notice until Monday morning). I don't know if if was in fact a bot or just someone with too much time on his hands.
That guy seems to have disappeared, though. Maybe his ISP finally cracked down on him.
People sometimes argue about the definition of social software. I saw an amusing definition from Clay Shirky a while back: "Social software is stuff that gets spammed.
I think such things do exist. I know that for a while our wiki seemed to be getting spammed every Friday evening (which I guess would be an optimal strategy for many wikis; spam it on Friday night and maybe no one will notice until Monday morning). I don't know if if was in fact a bot or just someone with too much time on his hands.
That guy seems to have disappeared, though. Maybe his ISP finally cracked down on him.
People sometimes argue about the definition of social software. I saw an amusing definition from Clay Shirky a while back: "Social software is stuff that gets spammed.
OK- but how do we keep it clean?
d.i.
I suppose thats the 64,000 Euro/dollar/pound (insert own equivalent value currency here) question!
Jools
Its got to be a bot looking at the history. I suggest we limit the wiki to certain users, if people want a go they will need to ask for access but at least the it will keep the slime at bay
Richard
Richard
It's awful to have to do that, but probably worth it if there's no other (easy) way... contributors are probably small numbers anyway. I don't want to go clean up if it's gonna get spammed again every week. I wonder if there's a way to just limit it to the moodle.org community? That would include 4400 people, and require a bit more gumption from a bot...
another option would be one of those things where you have to enter a number from a graphic (usually some convoluted text to prove it's a real person) but that probably requires some development.
Does Przemyslaw run this now?
d.i.
I guess you're both right that write access to that wiki should be limited to avoid spamming it. However, that particular wiki is not 'under my command' - I'll contact Martin about this.