Wiki is being used to host and link to irrelevant content

[Jimjam]

https://wiki.project1999.com/index.p...ulltext=Search

For example:
Searching fashion pulls up lots of irl fashion articles containing youtube links.

[loramin]

Short answer: The best thing players can do to fight that is to edit those pages and delete their content. In theory if we keep denying the spammer his links, he'll stop bothering to make them. He's spamming many wikis across the web (in a misguided effort to increase his Google rank), so if our's starts being too much trouble, he'll just skip it.

Longer answer: The better way to stop him would be to make it harder for him to create the links in the first place. Right now he's using automated software that signs up for a new wiki account every time he makes a page, and that software has learned our questions ("what's the dwarf city?")

I asked Rahvin to switch to a new set of questions back in December but ... the dude doesn't even play here anymore (and hasn't for years), so I really can't fault him for not updating them yet. And even if he did, the spammer might just learn the new set (at some point if we keep changing questions he'll give up, but who knows when that will be?)

The more common solution to this problem is to use a "CAPTCHA", because those screw up automated signups. In theory the extension we use to ask the questions could instead be configured to do a CAPTCHA check ... but guess who would have to edit the config? Rahvin (or Rogean), and neither has the bandwidth ... so the best we can do for now is delete the content.

[loramin]

P.S I deleted all the garbage in the "fashion" search.

BTW, one other minor benefit of deleting spam links in the wiki is that you hurt the rankings of this guy's websites. Google isn't stupid, and when they see a link on a wiki one week that's gone the next, they know it was a spam link, so it actually hurts the site.

This guy might be too clueless to realize it (so this may not stop him the way a CAPTCHA would), but it still gives me a little warm fuzzy feeling to hurt his SEO.

[WarpathEQ]

Now we just need an automated program to find similar links on other wiki pages and remove them therby completing the circle and letting bots do what bots do best....battlebot!

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

P.S I deleted all the garbage in the "fashion" search.

BTW, one other minor benefit of deleting spam links in the wiki is that you hurt the rankings of this guy's websites. Google isn't stupid, and when they see a link on a wiki one week that's gone the next, they know it was a spam link, so it actually hurts the site.

This guy might be too clueless to realize it (so this may not stop him the way a CAPTCHA would), but it still gives me a little warm fuzzy feeling to hurt his SEO.

Oh okay, this is actually a compelling argument for proactivity policing (if true)!

[loramin]

Originally Posted by WarpathEQ [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Now we just need an automated program to find similar links on other wiki pages and remove them therby completing the circle and letting bots do what bots do best....battlebot!

Heh, that's an option [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] But "flipping a switch" (essentially) to turn on CAPTCHAs would be a lot easier.

[shovelquest]

Nice work loramin!

[MageBlue]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Short answer: The best thing players can do to fight that is to edit those pages and delete their content. In theory if we keep denying the spammer his links, he'll stop bothering to make them. He's spamming many wikis across the web (in a misguided effort to increase his Google rank), so if our's starts being too much trouble, he'll just skip it.

Longer answer: The better way to stop him would be to make it harder for him to create the links in the first place. Right now he's using automated software that signs up for a new wiki account every time he makes a page, and that software has learned our questions ("what's the dwarf city?")

I asked Rahvin to switch to a new set of questions back in December but ... the dude doesn't even play here anymore (and hasn't for years), so I really can't fault him for not updating them yet. And even if he did, the spammer might just learn the new set (at some point if we keep changing questions he'll give up, but who knows when that will be?)

The more common solution to this problem is to use a "CAPTCHA", because those screw up automated signups. In theory the extension we use to ask the questions could instead be configured to do a CAPTCHA check ... but guess who would have to edit the config? Rahvin (or Rogean), and neither has the bandwidth ... so the best we can do for now is delete the content.

Can we setup sign up to require bitcoin payment ?

Can be smallest amount

[loramin]

Again, that's an option, but A) that would exclude anyone who couldn't pay bitcoin from improving the wiki, and B) it almost certainly wouldn't be necessary. A simple CAPTCHA would still let anyone join (for free) but would (probably) be enough of a hassle to prevent this spammer from doing his automation.