User talk:Boring Manager Rob

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Revision as of 20:24, 27 September 2011 by Boring Manager Rob (talk | contribs) (Reply for Apollo)
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A note of appreciation

Thank you for cleaning up all this crazy bot spam. I had totally forgotten about it after the couple days I tried (and failed) to stem the tide. ConspicuousCompiler 20:29, 20 September 2011 (EDT)

Hey, it's the least I can do for JoCo. It's not like I have a life or anything. Hopefully a permanent solution to this spam will present itself soon. Boring Manager Rob 20:35, 20 September 2011 (EDT)
I happen to have solved this problem over in a wiki I manage, but only by literally turning off the ability to add links in pages. Spam pages always contain links, so their spambot submissions get rejected and the bots don't return. But the cost is not being able to add (new) links yourself to other sites. You could, of course, create a template prior to the blocking which allows for URLs, then invoke the template, if you don't feel that's too limiting. This fix requires enhancing the wgSpamRegexp setting in LocalSettings.php to include any attempt at http links: "https?:" 99.46.136.183 00:42, 26 September 2011 (EDT)
Well...while that might cut some of the spam, the majority of the recent attacks have nothing to do with links at all, instead replacing pages with random nonsense (example) so it seems a bit unnecessary to disable links. The hardest-hit pages have been temporarily protected, but there's nothing I can do about new pages being created other than deleting them. The man who has the power to do something major about this such as disabling anonymous editing (just an example, not saying this is a good idea) and knows more about this than I do is Bry but he hasn't been around that much. Boring Manager Rob 16:34, 26 September 2011 (EDT)
Over at TMBW, anonymous edits trigger a CAPTCHA, maybe that could be a solution? I notice there's no such protection on here. It seems like a good idea. -Apollo (colloquia!) 18:51, 27 September 2011 (EDT)
CAPTCHA was apparently ineffective. Boring Manager Rob 20:24, 27 September 2011 (EDT)