Forum:Anti-spam measures

Forums: Index → General discussion

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I'd like to ask for people's reviews on what we are doing here at Orain to stop spammers. Tau Ceti (talk) 22:34, 24 February 2015 (GMT)

On a matter of principle ("innocent until proven guilty"), I believe that Orain shouldn't assume that any user attempting to submit a link to an external webpage must be a spambot. Statements submitted to Forum:Annule_blocking_ip_address show that the filter is having an adverse effect on the experiences of new users. I also believe that Orain should prioritize new user experience above anti-spam measures.

Orain should also improve its interactions with new and inexperienced users. At Forum:Annule_blocking_ip_address, Orain staff spend more time criticizing or nagging new or inexperienced users instead of helping with the problems being mentioned. I see Orain staff spending more time nagging inexperienced users to log-in or sign their posts or looking into the edit histories of critics than resolving the problem that the inexperienced user wants solved.

The filter should be made accessible to the public on a matter of principle ("security through obscurity" is wrong) and to aid in the constructive criticism of the filter. In addition, if the filter is to remain, then a message should be adopted in order to enhance the new user experience. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:43, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

I think the discussion at the other forum topic should continue here. Tau Ceti (talk) 03:40, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

I just had to deal with some spam. It's a shame only stewards can globally lock accounts. Tau Ceti (talk) 06:50, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

(I am a 'staffer' (system administrator), but this comment should in general not been seen as the view of them) Hi Michaeldsuarez, I have been reading the discussions for a few days now, and now I feel that I can comment on it, so I will do that.

As first you accuse Orain staff of nagging you/inexperienced users at Forum:Annule blocking ip address. The users who are involved in the discussion there (mainly Cyberpower678 and Joe G), are not stewards (list) or sysadmins (list) and as such can't be seen as staff (oh, and a comment from any staff member might also just be made in their role as a community member, unless they've made it clear that's not really the case). So I guess you might have been confused who are staff and who aren't.

At the request of Dusti I've been testing a new reCaptcha (one that only works during user registration, which hopefully is a great asset) on all wikis. Unfortunately, it only caused issues on those wikis so we had to immediately disable this Captcha, and use the old one again. We surely can look if it works if we make some changes to the extension, but that will take some time I guess (and, to be very honest, I don't know if we can remove the abuse filters you're complaining about - I hope we can, but I can't guarantee it).

Recent technical issues distracted me from working on better anti-spam measures too. Some problems (This list describes the most important ones, but that list is not complete) with out servers needed my attention first, as it is my responsibility to keep all servers running normally.

Instead of just saying that we /all/ are doing wrong things, please let us know how we can improve our anti-spam setup - because I'm sure that if people do so, we can make everyone happy. All configuration for all services on all servers is public at GitHub, and the anti-spam settings of the anti-spam extensions can all be found here. Southparkfan (talk) 09:31, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

Thanks for the information. It's nice to finally hear that someone within Orain is actually interested in removing the filter, even if they can't guarantee its removal. Keep up the good work. Aside from what I've already suggested ([1], [2], [3]), I don't have anything else specific to suggest. Thanks for the help. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:18, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

I'm no fan of the filter myself, but I can't just arbitrarily disable it. But I have modified it to throw a message at the user, with the option to submit by clicking save again. I hope that solves the problem a little bit.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:31, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

A nicer message is now thrown (the message Cyberpower678 is not really user-friendly), and autoconfirmed users (users who are registered at Orain Meta for at least 4 days) can add external links in their edits now without being blocked by the filter. Oh, and autoconfirmed users should now have the skipcaptcha right, well I hope so, as stuff seems broken at the moment.. Southparkfan (talk) 17:17, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

I'm a total NOOB with abuse filters. I didn't want to break anything.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 17:22, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

Oh, cool. Thanks, everyone. Sorry for being as ass earlier. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 19:31, 25 February 2015 (GMT)

It's quite alright, but just remember, we're more likely to listen, and respond, if you approach us in a nice in civil manner.  :-)—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 22:16, 25 February 2015 (GMT)