Subject: Wiki Spam in our Wiki

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:48:04 +0200

Someone has spammed the front page of our wiki:

http://xrl.us/euzm

I eliminated the spam, and blocked this IP for 100 days.

It seems the wiki has become very inactive recently, but it still proved very 
helpful for the Welcome-to-Linux organization.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [email-masked]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

Knuth is not God! It took him two days to build the Roman Empire.

---

From: omer mussaev <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 23:51:06 -0800 (PST)

Can't you make this wiki to _just work_?

> helpful for the Welcome-to-Linux organization.

Hackers-IL != Linux, Welcome or "to". Maybe this 
wiki does not belong to this mailing list? 

> Knuth is not God! It took him two days to build the

=====
--
o.m.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com

---

From: "Elad Efrat" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:02:26 +0200

as a reminder, i suggested long ago that the spammer on
this list is shlomi fish. this is not the place for your stupid
linux propaganda, and as pathetic it is to think you find
some relation between 'hacking' and 'linux', there is
none; so take your OS elsewhere.

as for C syntax, may i *again* suggest to people on
this list to please read "the c programming language".

> Yahoo! Groups Links

---

From: omer mussaev <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:06:07 -0800 (PST)

> none; so take your OS elsewhere.

Elad, _most_ of the audience is Linux people. 

> this list to please read "the c programming

No. 

> > > I eliminated the spam, and blocked this IP for
> 100
> > > days.
> > > 
> > > It seems the wiki has become very inactive
> recently,
> > > but it still proved very 
> > > Knuth is not God! It took him two days to build
> the
> > > Roman Empire.
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > =====
> > --
> > o.m.
> > 

=====
--
o.m.

---

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 11:57:44 +0200 (EET)

Elad,
This list is 50% Shlomi Fish's list - he has been the most active
participant in terms of new ideas, discussions, etc.  In practice, a large
part of the definition of the list is by whatever topic Shlomi Fish
writes about.

Hackers-IL was spun off Linux-IL when some people objected to non-Linux
related (but of general hacker interest) topics, and ever since almost
everyone is happy with the distribution of topics between Linux-IL and
Hackers-IL.  This is so even though it is generally recognized that
'Hackers-IL' is a misnomer, which does not really denote the topics
actually discussed in this mailing list.

You are an exception, which sticks out like a sore nail out of a smelly
foot.

If you don't like his style then do all of us a big favor and unsubscribe
from this mailing list.  Obviously, it is not a forum which fits your
trivially imbecile interests, small mind, retarded brain and smelly feet.
                                                --- Omer

> none; so take your OS elsewhere.
                                             --- Omer
My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 12:25:06 +0200

> Can't you make this wiki to _just work_?

This Wiki indeed just works. Everyone can contribute to it by editing any of 
the page, history is recorded, etc. However, a Wiki being a world-editable 
resource is susceptible to people sabotaging it. There's nothing we can do 
about it except blocking everything by passwords, or removing the spam when 
it is noticed.

> wiki does not belong to this mailing list?

It was not my decision to set up a page for the Welcome-to-Linux coordination 
in the Wiki. Someone else set up such a page, and other contributors to the 
W2L filled it up with information, and we found it very helpful.

We can easily set up any number of different wikis on the eskimo.iglu.org.il 
web-server, if people here feel there should be a separation between the 
Hackers-IL endeavours to the Israeli Open-Source Activities. But note that 
the Wiki is currently hosted in a server of the Israeli open-source 
community, which is under the umbrella of Hamakor.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: "Tzahi Fadida" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:28:18 +0200

Maybe some kind of recommendation/reputation hierarchy or graph.
e.g. I am known not to be a spammer and I vouch for someone else
to not be a spammer. everything not vouched will be moderated.
or, after sending 3 good additions the person will no longer be
moderated.

Regards,
	tzahi.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shlomi Fish [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 12:25 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [hackers-il] Wiki Spam in our Wiki
> 
> 
>

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:05:16 +0200

> or, after sending 3 good additions the person will no longer be

Check out
http://www.google.com/googleblog/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html

It's a new way to deter spammers from spamming wikis. They will be able
to spam, but not to gain anything (namely Google ranking) from it, so
eventually they may quit doing it.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |   Wednesday, Jan 26 2005, 16 Shevat 5765
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Alarm clock: A device to wake people
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |without small kids.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 10:38:11 +0200

> eventually they may quit doing it.

Hmmm... this seems to be more oriented towards blog comments, rather than 
wikis. But it seems that Wikipedia uses it.

If we enable the rel="nofollow" attribute, then we won't increase Page Rank 
for sites we link to, which would be sub-optimal. But I can investigate how 
to enable it in MediaWiki.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Arik Baratz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:18:38 +0200

> to enable it in MediaWiki.

How about inserting rel=nofollow only for users who are not logged-in?
If the user registration process requires a valid email, you can root
out most spam.

-- Arik

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:01:43 +0200

On Tuesday 15 February 2005 12:18, Arik Baratz wrote:
> > If we enable the rel="nofollow" attribute, then we won't increase Page
> > Rank for sites we link to, which would be sub-optimal. But I can
> > investigate how to enable it in MediaWiki.
>

Right. But at the moment, MediaWiki does not send a confirmation for 
registration E-mails to users who register using it. (it accepts the 
registration automatically).

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Arik Baratz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:58:23 +0200

> registration automatically).

What would it take to make it do that?

-- Arik

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 16:40:25 +0200

On Wednesday 16 February 2005 15:58, Arik Baratz wrote:
> > > > If we enable the rel="nofollow" attribute, then we won't increase
> > > > Page Rank for sites we link to, which would be sub-optimal. But I can

Perhaps there's a setting somewhere that can do that. But it also may require 
patching the code.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish