Editing OrbiterWiki:Village pump

Just a page for general OrbiterWiki discussions (for keeping the [[Talk:Main Page]] related to the main page). 

View archived discussions for [[OrbiterWiki:Village pump/Archive 2005-2007|2005-2007]], [[OrbiterWiki:Village pump/Archive 2008-2010|2008-2010]].

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== Server move and stuff ==

* OrbiterWiki has moved servers. Please report any and all issues you observe, preferably by email.
* I am planning to upgrade to the most recent MediaWiki version shortly. Will notify when that's done.
* I'd like to try out the new default MediaWiki skin, which is the skin Wikipedia uses now. Any objections should be expressed here.
* I'm still hoping to switch case-insensitivity for titles back on. One day...
--[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 12:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

: Updated to MediaWiki v1.16.2; a couple of extensions got upgraded too. --[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 03:54, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
: Enabled Vector skin. [[Media:SkinOld.png|Old skin]] vs [[Media:SkinNew.png|New skin]]. Hope you like! --[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 18:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

== Loose gun policy for bans from a special subnet ==

I just noticed some more similarities among the recent spambot activity here: Ten spambot accounts with two name patterns since December came from 118.101.0.0/16, one half of the Internet provider "TELEKOM MALAYSIA BERHAD" (There is no spam from the other /16 of this provider). I suspect that we have a single source behind varying IP addresses there. Since this still means a 640/650 chance that somebody is not a spammer from this network, I would propose the following guideline for next 3 months: All new user accounts that are registered from this network with the pattern 

<Letter> + <Random First Name> + <Random Common Family Name> + <Letter> 

should be banned instantly and for infinite time. IP-Bans should be avoided, since a /16 network of DHCP addresses seems like a poor target for IP-bans. Better target the business model and prevent search engine optimization. I don't see any reason to use this user name pattern here anyway. Another pattern had been the "-Steamer" type, but I don't think this alone is a good way to identify a spammer. If it comes from the same subnet though, it would be with very high certainty a spammer. We have no legal edits from the whole /16 subnet (Booo!). 

[[User:Urwumpe|Urwumpe]] 18:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

PS: Yes, that means that new users should better not use this name pattern, if they would like to prevent getting under general suspicion here. It is not nice, but since 2 hours of reaction time is enough to infect a few thousand PCs with malware, a fair price IMHO. "JohnSmith" would still be legal. "GJohnSmithj" would be dubious.

: I suppose this sounds reasonable. No problem with this. Good effort noticing this! [[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 13:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)


==Increase Autoblock time==

I just noticed that the automatic IP block when blocking a registered user and his IP is just 24 hours, which explains why it was so ineffective against spambots in the past. I would suggest increasing this timespan to a week. That is still pretty short for our cases, and should also work against retries from dedicated hosts. [[User:Urwumpe|Urwumpe]] 17:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 Just a page for general OrbiterWiki discussions (for keeping the [[Talk:Main Page]] related to the main page).
-View archived discussions for [[OrbiterWiki:Village pump/Archive 2005-2007|2005-2007]], [[OrbiterWiki:Village pump/Archive 2008-2010|2008-2010]], [[OrbiterWiki:Village pump/Archive 2011-2013|2011-2013]].
+View archived discussions for [[OrbiterWiki:Village pump/Archive 2005-2007|2005-2007]], [[OrbiterWiki:Village pump/Archive 2008-2010|2008-2010]].
 <span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:OrbiterWiki:Village pump|action=edit&section=new}} Add a new thread]</span>
-== Recent updates ==
+== Server move and stuff ==
-Hi! OrbiterWiki is on a new server again, and should be a bit faster now. It's also running the latest software now. Among notable improvements is improved support for high-DPI screens (or zooms above 100% on any screen). In particular, thumbnails will now be sharp as long as the source image is large enough, and MediaWiki Math equations are rendered nicely for such devices.
+* OrbiterWiki has moved servers. Please report any and all issues you observe, preferably by email.
+* I am planning to upgrade to the most recent MediaWiki version shortly. Will notify when that's done.
+* I'd like to try out the new default MediaWiki skin, which is the skin Wikipedia uses now. Any objections should be expressed here.
+* I'm still hoping to switch case-insensitivity for titles back on. One day...
+--[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 12:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
-I've modified the main page slightly; if anyone wishes to trim down the list of links, suggestions are welcome.
+: Updated to MediaWiki v1.16.2; a couple of extensions got upgraded too. --[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 03:54, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
+: Enabled Vector skin. [[Media:SkinOld.png|Old skin]] vs [[Media:SkinNew.png|New skin]]. Hope you like! --[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 18:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
-Finally, I'm thinking about switching the default font for the entire site; if done, the site will look like this: [http://i.imgur.com/YY8bii9.png low DPI] [http://i.imgur.com/DDVtRS3.png high DPI]. Speak up now if you have objections!
+== Loose gun policy for bans from a special subnet ==
---[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] ([[User talk:RaMan|talk]]) 17:52, 20 October 2014 (IST)
+I just noticed some more similarities among the recent spambot activity here: Ten spambot accounts with two name patterns since December came from 118.101.0.0/16, one half of the Internet provider "TELEKOM MALAYSIA BERHAD" (There is no spam from the other /16 of this provider). I suspect that we have a single source behind varying IP addresses there. Since this still means a 640/650 chance that somebody is not a spammer from this network, I would propose the following guideline for next 3 months: All new user accounts that are registered from this network with the pattern
-== Fighting the spam ==
+<Letter> + <Random First Name> + <Random Common Family Name> + <Letter>
-Can we enable the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit ConfirmEdit] extension of Mediawiki? I am overwhelmed with the amount of spam we get and if this is properly configured, it might reduce this a lot. --[[User:Urwumpe|Urwumpe]] ([[User talk:Urwumpe|talk]]) 10:03, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
+should be banned instantly and for infinite time. IP-Bans should be avoided, since a /16 network of DHCP addresses seems like a poor target for IP-bans. Better target the business model and prevent search engine optimization. I don't see any reason to use this user name pattern here anyway. Another pattern had been the "-Steamer" type, but I don't think this alone is a good way to identify a spammer. If it comes from the same subnet though, it would be with very high certainty a spammer. We have no legal edits from the whole /16 subnet (Booo!).
-: It's done! --[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] ([[User talk:RaMan|talk]]) 23:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
-== Maintenance ==
+[[User:Urwumpe|Urwumpe]] 18:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
-Last year we moved to a new server and upgraded MediaWiki, and a bunch of extensions got disabled in the process, and the move was generally left unfinished.
-It is finally finished, I've done some much needed maintenance, everything is looking much happier now!
+PS: Yes, that means that new users should better not use this name pattern, if they would like to prevent getting under general suspicion here. It is not nice, but since 2 hours of reaction time is enough to infect a few thousand PCs with malware, a fair price IMHO. "JohnSmith" would still be legal. "GJohnSmithj" would be dubious.
-* Burninated all of the spam. If anything's gone that shouldn't be, let me know, I have backups.
+: I suppose this sounds reasonable. No problem with this. Good effort noticing this! [[User:RaMan|RaMan]] 13:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
-* Fixed all of the anti-spam extensions that were disabled during 1.34 upgrade. We now have: AbuseFilter, SpamBlacklist/TitleBlacklist, hcaptcha for signups, Nuke, CheckUser.
-* Fixed the caching settings; everything is faster.
-* Fixed email
-* Fixed rendering of SVG previews
-* Fixed rendering of MathML
-* Installed the Citizen skin, though it's less amazing than I hoped - check it out in your user preferences. It has a dark mode.
---[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] ([[User talk:RaMan|talk]]) 23:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
-::I can't log-in anymore, there seem to be some problems with the CSRF tokens. -- Urwumpe
-::: Could you try again? I have seen it a few times but never consistently. I think it may only be an issue the first time. If it's still not working please try clearing your cookies? After that, if it ever returns please let me know. --[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] ([[User talk:RaMan|talk]]) 13:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
-::::Same problem, despite erasing all cookies and restarting the browser session, in case there is a bad CSRF token hanging around. Happens also when using different browsers. Tried Edge, Chrome and Firefox now. It complains about the CSRF protection in a red box, maybe that is a hint. --Urwumpe
-::I've tweaked the settings again. It was weird: worked for a day before breaking; any time I touch the settings, it starts working again - and then breaks again later. User sessions are now stored in the DB instead of the PHP cache so hopefully this is now fixed for good? --[[User:RaMan|RaMan]] ([[User talk:RaMan|talk]]) 17:59, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
-It worked, I’m in. So far so good. RaMan and Urwumpe, thanks for all the work you’ve done to get this fixed. Hopefully, it stays.[[User:Arvil|Arvil]] ([[User talk:Arvil|talk]]) 20:52, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
+==Increase Autoblock time==
-I am back again as well, looks fine now :) [[User:Urwumpe|Urwumpe]] ([[User talk:Urwumpe|talk]]) 09:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
+I just noticed that the automatic IP block when blocking a registered user and his IP is just 24 hours, which explains why it was so ineffective against spambots in the past. I would suggest increasing this timespan to a week. That is still pretty short for our cases, and should also work against retries from dedicated hosts. [[User:Urwumpe|Urwumpe]] 17:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
-== More spam pages ==
-Next time one of you guys happen to stop in, there are a number of spam pages I added spam categories to, if you could take a look at.
-And the one titled [[10 Best NFT Games To Play In 2022 - Tezro Blog]], I added the categories and another undid that, so I reinstated it. We'll see how long that lasts. Thanks. [[User:Arvil|Arvil]] ([[User talk:Arvil|talk]]) 04:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
-Hey, another question. If I browse this wiki as a guest, not logged in, and follow this to [[Special:Categories]], and scroll down to List Pages, it says there are 670 or so pages, but, if I click on the link and go to the page <nowiki>Category:List pages<nowiki>, there is only Dwarf planets listed. But, if I log in as my user, I can see all the pages. Any idea why?[[User:Arvil|Arvil]] ([[User talk:Arvil|talk]]) 02:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)