Vandalism

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Famine

Famine

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I've just reverted the changes to the PAL Car List (by changes I mean "blanking") and main page made by a user known only by his IP - 62.172.176.249 (a Brit, I'm sorry to say). I don't have the power required to just go "click, reverted", so I did it the old-fashioned way... :D


Is it worth keeping a log of vandalism reversals here?

(I answered GT's cry for help, and did a little digging around to find out what else this chimp did - and PMed Jordan to let him know too)
 
Excuse my noob-ness, but I am not familiar with the world of editting Wiki pages yet... but am I right in saying that this could be a case of someone's lack of proficiency at page-editting, or merely a case of an interrupted editting session (i.e. details were to be re-added later) rather than a wilful act of vandalism?
 
Judging by whose IP that is, I would say that's its not vandalism
 
Check the mod forum TM. 👍

I think you may be on the right track about that though. :D
(hopefully)

This could have been an accident regarding the "new-ness" of the Wiki to the GTP.

None the less, it brings up security concerns and fittingly a Wiki Vandalism Log has been created in the Mod forum (no offenses have been logged as of yet). 👍

Thanks for pointing out the issue famine (regardless of the results to this incident).

:cheers:
 
Ah, I didn't know at the time you could look in the edit history and find the un-edited page that Jordan originally did. Shame people do that kind of thing, but it is to be expected. Great that it was sorted out. 👍
 
daan
Judging by whose IP that is, I would say that's its not vandalism
Click to expand...

That's exactly why I posted - I'm steering well clear of the wiki stuff for the time being, since I know I'd just kill it... thanks also for the heads up, Kent - good idea to keep a track of what's going on with the wiki project and changes made to it etc.
 
*shrugs*

All I know is that successive parts of the PAL Prize Car List were blanked, the "About the Project" sections on the Main Page was replaced with "La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la" (repeat ad naseum) and the Game Sections part was replaced with successive iterations of a game called "Gay Turismo", all by that user.

Doesn't look terribly accidental to me.

Edit: View all contributions by this user.
 
Very interesting development Famine.
Disturbing as well.

Mods will be working on it. 👍
I'm doing my best to get the higher-ups' attention.

Please keep us informed of any other findings.
 
Well, wiki spamming is quite common! I ban about 5 users a day on my Travian Wiki. It makes me mad, and sad, but it happens.

Personally, I would feel guilty breaking a wiki, but I guess others don't.

Because I am not big on blanking, I block those users for an infinite amount of time. If they just blank part of the page, I might ban for a few days or weeks.

If they make a small change, I might just change it back and post on their discussion page.

An easy way to change stuff back is to go into the history of the page and click on an old version. Next, hit edit, and then save that. It will then save the old version of the page to the database.

If I were Jordan, I would protect the main page so that at least looks good to newcomers, and then they can see the horrors of the spammers as they dig deeper into the depths of the wiki!

Overall, there really is no way to stop these spammers. You can require people to create an account to edit the wiki. This makes them think more before they act, but it still isn't spammer proof. Some people will still create accounts and get the account blocked. Your best bet is just to stay on the prowl. If you see an old page, revert it, or restore from the history. If you are a sysop or bureaucrat, you can also block/ban the user for a given amount of time.

EDIT:
Log into your wiki account

Next, click History on the left side
step19fy.gif


Next, choose an old version by clicking on the date
step25kc.gif


Next, hit edit
step36ny.gif


Then, hit save page
step43gs.gif


Your done!

Note: Sysops and Bureaucrats can do this quicker.
Note2: I did not actually perform this backup because I didn't want to mess up the homepage! This was only for demonstational purposes. I just did a mouseover of the save button, but did not actually click it. I clicked home instead, and then browsed back to GTP.

Also, for those of you that want to know who's banned, you can go here - https://www.gtplanet.net/guides/index.php/Special:Ipblocklist
 
Couldn't you just limit access to the Wiki to users who have a history at GTPlanet already?

Some people are just shyte-heads.
 
To counteract this problem faster, is it possible to elect another administrator for the wiki? Jordan isn't here 24/7 and it obviously requires a certain amount of privileges to ensure a smooth operation and greater moderation/cleanup power.

Give me a F, A, M...
 
Well, I intend to get up to speed regarding wiki when i have time, but I intend to take a hard line against malicious vandals. I dont have time for people out to ruin others work.
 
niky
Couldn't you just limit access to the Wiki to users who have a history at GTPlanet already?

Some people are just shyte-heads.
Click to expand...

Exactly, and if people without a history want to post, they have to contact an admin or mod, or whoever deals with the wiki.
 
I'm assuming this wont work due to the massive work load you will recieve, but.....

Have you thought about implementing something simillar to the GT4 Forum when it was moderated?
 
niky
Couldn't you just limit access to the Wiki to users who have a history at GTPlanet already?
Click to expand...
That's the way it should be, in my opinion.

It's too easy for anyone with a 3-year-old's mentality to erase a lot of hard work with little or no effort. We might be making more corrections than updates if users don't have to register. These are my feelings for any wiki, incidently.
 
With the amount of post-whorage possible on the rumble strip, that wouldn't be too hard for anyone who's really eager to contribute. And it would definitely discourage drive-by spammers.
 
There are four user levels on MediaWiki

Top (1st) - Bureaucrat
The owner of the wiki. They can do anything including running SQL queries from the wiki.

2nd - Sysop
They can do every but run an SQL query from the wiki. If more mods were added, they would be Sysops.

3rd - Bot
These are computer bots. They are just like a regular user, but their modifications don't show up on the Recent Changes page because they usually add masses of information at one time.

4 - Regular User
The regular old Joe that you and I are! We have no banning abilities or reverting abilities. We can't protect a page or modify a protected page.

New user registrations can be disabled, and wiki edits turned off to users that are unregistered, but it would be a lot of work for Jordan to manually create accounts by modifying the database manually.

Another option would be to turn off edits from an unregistered user and then users would think more before acting because they would have an account.

You can't have articles go into a moderation queue on a wiki. The either exist, or they dont!

If I were Jordan, I would just put a long ban on people that blank pages and hope to use those that have been banned as examples of what could happen if you do that! (There is actually something that many people don't realize about MediaWiki. They get their account banned, and then they try logging in a few days later to see if they can beat the system, but MediaWiki then resets the ban, so if you were blocked for 7 days, it resets the 7 days and you have to wait 7 more days. In a way, you could infinitely ban yourself by trying to log in each day you are blocked.)
 
Steady now. My country has given the world many wonderful things.

Unfortunately it also seems to have given the world "the tosspot".
 
This is only a passing remark; to me, an independant observer by proffession, it would seem that 'british' vandality is a non-meritorious response to 'perceived american vanity'. These sorts of difficulties & shadow oppositions only arise with detritus and baggage pre the net. Given time they will be overwhelmed by true values and true industry, this is with the concommitant that we have some of this 'time' stuff. Recommendation; sidestep nationality for now & bespeak only the securities.
 
I think it is odd that we find that Europeans are messing up the wiki. Everybody put the "dumb" label on Americans, and we can never get out from under it. Now we could label Europeans "spammers".

My wiki mostly has spammers from the Netherlands and France.
 
Sad, just sad...

If I did this, I would have made a back-up on MS word though that would take a while....


Anyways, shame to see people would go to such lengths to see 1 little thing changed and to ruin someone's work.
And it's even worse when they get banned. Why do something so stupid when you realize that what you did it just gonna go back to normal and you're going to be banned from doing it again.

And Gay Turismo? How original our internet fiends have become. At least we know their level of intelligence now.
 

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