[aprssig] Wiki pollution

[Tom Russo]

[This is a response to a really old posting, because it's once again 
becoming a problem]

I just referred a bunch of local folks to the wiki at info.aprs.net as a 
one-stop-shop for information and links to information about APRS.  At the 
moment it's in a bit of a sad state.

On Fri, Jun 23, 2006 at 04:12:59PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <scott at opentrac.org> flavor, containing:
> I just killed several hundred comments.  I started with a couple dozen spam
> keywords, and finally just deleted anything with http: in it.  I'm going to
> set up a script to do cleanup periodically (at least daily) and see if I can
> lock it down more.
> 

Once again, the info.aprs.net Wiki's comment section has been filling up with 
spam.  Some of it is pretty nasty.  A quick scan of the "RecentlyCommented" page
shows no legitimate comments in two months, and a couple of pages of spam in 
that time.

Also, it seems that some folks are using the comment form to correct or add
information to Wiki pages instead of just editing the page.  The whole value
of a wiki is if the community keeps it correct and honest by editing pages
directly, and anonymous comments aren't nearly as useful as page corrections 
--- especially when the comments are almost completely obscured by a steady 
influx of links to gambling sites and other sites of questionable value.

Perhaps the comment feature serves no real purpose --- if it were unavailable, 
it couldn't be spammed, and legitimate contributors could be encouraged to use 
the actual wiki-editing features instead.    

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org 
> > [mailto:aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org] On Behalf Of 
> > scott at opentrac.org
> > Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 3:45 PM
> > To: russo at bogodyn.org; 'TAPR APRS Mailing List'
> > Subject: RE: [aprssig] Wiki pollution
> > 
> > > Does the software runing the wiki allow for commentary to be 
> > > restricted to 
> > > registered users?  Is there anyone who can clean out the 
> > > dozens of pages
> > > of junk to make it more usable for the intended audience?
> > 
> > Not that I can figure out.  If anyone knows more about the 
> > software, let me
> > know.  I've cleaned out a bunch of spam, but I haven't 
> > checked in a while.
> > If it's all coming from specific IP addresses, I can block them.
> > 
> > Scott
> > N1VG
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > aprssig mailing list
> > aprssig at lists.tapr.org
> > https://lists.tapr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aprssig
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> aprssig mailing list
> aprssig at lists.tapr.org
> https://lists.tapr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aprssig

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick