All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XVIII

[Bob Schroeck]

What.

Why does it even exist, then?

[robkelk]

I stumbled across something useful while looking for (and failing to find) something to slow down the spambot's creation of accounts.

We now have a new link under Maintenance reports on Special Pages: Orphaned talk pages. It lists talk pages that don't have associated articles.

[GethN7]

At least we activated Moderation in time.

EDIT:  Which raises a question that I've been wondering about for the last couple days.  It's obvious that Moderation doesn't use the Block functionality to ban anyone marked as a spammer; is it possible for it to do so?  I've poured through the documentation (such as it is) and there's no mention of what exactly tagging a spammer does except apparently auto-reject.

Moderation seems to operate like the "hellban" some forums had back in the day.

Essentially, the spammer has no clue no one will ever see their crap unless the spambot maker actually looks to see if their garbage actually shows up.

Since most spammers tend to fire and forget unless they keep getting notices their spambots got blocked by the software they use (I've seen some of it before on some tech sites analyzing it, some spam creation software will notify them if they aren't getting through or keep getting blocked out), this is likely to keep them from modifying their tactics.

[Bob Schroeck]

Thanks, Geth.

Rob, perhaps you and I should stop banning the bots as we have been for a couple days.

[robkelk]

Yeah - it might cut down on account creation if they can keep using the same accounts.

[Bob Schroeck]

We have a new trope candidate from a new user in the Workshop -- Lawyer Friendly Terminology. It is... inadequate. However, I just gave the guy some encouragement in the forum thread he created to bring our attention to it, so if someone else could be the stick to my carrot either there or on the candidate's talk page, I'd be very grateful.

[robkelk]

So, does this go onto Small Reference Pools, or is there a better trope for it to illustrate?

[Bob Schroeck]

Failing a better choice, Small Reference Pools would work, yes.

[robkelk]

I'm not seeing a better trope for it, either... and Small Reference Pools is as of this posting unadorned with an image. Up it goes.

[robkelk]

I was about to delete this page outright on the grounds that the Tropers voted to delete all examples of this trope and a set of image links is just a visual collection of examples.

Then realized I might be making an unwarranted assumption about the second half of that justification.

Debate on the talk page for that subpage, please...

[Bob Schroeck]

Honestly, kill it with fire. I don't think we should have anything left to attract the CM whackjobs.

[GethN7]

Honestly, kill it with fire.  I don't think we should have anything left to attract the CM whackjobs.

Yeah, aside from a locked main page and some quotes, I'd kill anything else.


Also, for admins and anyone else interested, here's a short version of how spam creation programs work.

First off, if you manage to track down the sites where these scum shill their garbage, they NEVER advertise it as spam software, but "advertisement software", and they all work using a series of automated steps.

1. The spam creator creates one or more templates for whatever they want to plaster all over the internet for the program.
2. The program is then fed a list of sites to attempt to sign up to for the spreading of spam.
3. Depending on the site, they will run a bot script that automates the basic process of entering the basic information for an account on the site (wikis are easy targets, and some of the more advanced spam creators have captcha guessing built in to defeat the less sophisticated captchas, which can be overcome with some automated practice to determine the captchas pattern of operation)
4. Once the account is verified to work, the bot script then plasters the spam however the target site accept data (for wikis, they will either plaster it on the userpage of the spam account or create a new page, or both)
5. To deter being shut down easily, these programs are routed through rotating proxies and VPNs to defy and defeat IP blocking, and some of the more determined will even spoof legit IPs to defeat IP blocklists.
6. The random usernames are generated by a script as well, generally defaulting to some combination of a random name and some numbers since those are less likely to be taken, and if they are, one can always change a few digits or characters via the automated scripting.


In short, the Moderation extension end runs around all the ways this garbage works and simply asks the admins to approve a new page or account edits before they get posted, as some spammers are clever enough to try burying spam links in existing content, and spammers have no defense against it because they get no warnings from their spam creator as their accounts are never truly blocked. Instead, since spammers rarely check to see if their spam is hitting a target, Moderation gulls them into thinking they are getting through even though the client side (user-visible end) will never show any of their spam unless it's allowed through manually.

[robkelk]

I just noticed something handy: the "Reject All" button in Moderation rejects all of that poster's posts, not just the ones that were awaiting moderation at the time the button was pressed.

So, yes, the log does say that I rejected a post while I was asleep last night.

I'm going to use Reject All as a matter of course from now on.

[robkelk]

Strike one more task off the list: Special:UnusedFiles is cleared (save for six files that aren't actually on the wiki, and one uploaded by Dartz that we really should make a page for Worldcon for it to illustrate).

[Bob Schroeck]

I just noticed... the icons on the various page header buttons aren't appearing today.

[robkelk]

Strike one more task off the list: Special:UnusedFiles is cleared (save for six files that aren't actually on the wiki, and one uploaded by Dartz that we really should make a page for Worldcon for it to illustrate).

I just noticed... the icons on the various page header buttons aren't appearing today.

I suspect these might be related. One of the files that I deleted was a strip of small-size icons that was not listed as being used by any page on the wiki. Of course I don't remember the name of the file - I deleted over a thousand files over the last week.

Who wrote the code for the page headers? If it was an admin, please undelete the file and add a big, bold note to the file description page saying "Don not delete this - it's used on every page of the wiki, despite what the built-in MediaWiki tools say"

[robkelk]

Does anybody mind if I split Defunct Web Comics into two categories?

I want to calve off Completed Web Comics (such as 8-Bit Theater), and leave this category for the ones where the stories are unfinished. It seems to me to be a bit unfair to the comics that actually reached the end of their stories to have them lumped in with the comics that were abandoned because the writers a) passed away, b) have something more important to do than tell jokes or stories, or c) just quit because of lack of motivation.

[Bob Schroeck]

As the creator of Defunct Web Comics, I wholly support this idea. I intended the category for those web comics that just died without warning, I never liked putting those which had finished their stories in it.

[robkelk]

Okay, let's do this. ... (does this) ... 28 comics moved from Defunct to Completed (including two that aren't listed on their websites as complete, but did end at the end of story arcs).

[robkelk]

New category on the Community Portal of things that need to be addressed - specifically, names that aren't specific.

[robkelk]

I needed to mark some poor spelling as what was originally present... so we now have Template:sic

[robkelk]

Are we getting a new type of spammer now that we have Moderation in place?

There have been two odd edits from new accounts so far today. The second one is of a type that justifies an admin asking about it, so I did - let's see whether I get a reply.

[Bob Schroeck]

Interesting. I'd like to see the answer to that, too.

[robkelk]

The other odd edit, I let through then immediately undid it with the edit comment "This page is about underwear, not fruit". We'll see whether the undo gets undone.

[Bob Schroeck]

Yeah, I saw that. Makes no sense for a spammer, might be a probe by a would-be vandal. Both might be.