User talk:Rbos

Creation protection

Hello rbos. A couple pages was used for spam several times, so I've protected those pages from further use. --ChallengeSpaceYard 19:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Something drastic may be required. :(

There has been like 5-6 spam pages per day, sometimes more. What CAPTCHA do you use for external links (if any)? Any related extensions installed? --ChallengeSpaceYard 02:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Lack of CAPTCHA resources

Lack of resources is preventing new registrations from occuring. I received a message from a fellow planets player that he wants to register and edit, but can't. --CSY 06:22, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

It turns out I can still make accounts. Still, it is up to you to fix the source of the problem. --CSY 06:33, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

In the server move a couple of months ago, I apparently did not generate a captcha word set. Generating now. And the folder is added to my backup list. Rbos 15:18, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Seems fixed. Was able to register a new account. Sorry. >_< Rbos 15:19, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed. Testtest 16:32, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks, rbos. Now new accounts can be made in the future. --CSY 16:47, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear... Looks like the spammers have been waiting for this opportunity, and they have returned to vandalize the wiki. I've already deleted four pages and blocked the users that made those pages.

A proposal I have (if this is even possible) is to block new users from making new pages until they've established themselves with a few edits on existing pages, and are a few days old. --CSY 21:35, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Here, I'm using a different CAPTCHA now, with a couple of custom questions. Bots shouldn't be able to guess the answers. Testtest2 22:14, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

This approach works very well on a phpbb3 board I use. It won't work against humans, though. Testtest2 22:14, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I feel pretty good about this. The questions right now are:

$wgCaptchaQuestions[] = array( 'question' => "What orange gourd is commonly used to commemorate October 31st in North America??", 'answer' => "pumpkin" ); $wgCaptchaQuestions[] = array( 'question' => "What game is this wiki for?", 'answer' => "VGA Planets" );

and they are case insensitive.

More questions might be a good idea, but really that should be enough. Rbos 22:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

The main element is that when you make something (relatively) unique to your CAPTCHA (such as an addition question), then the bot designers will not take the time to actually break your CAPTCHA because they cannot capitalize on the damage it can do.

I have a phpBB3 forum as well that was also suffering spam problems. A simple addition question was all it took to put an end to the spam. Even without a visual confirmation to accompany it, the board has never been cracked. --CSY 22:30, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

--- Greetings rhos and thank you for having me, do we have a list of links that have not been written or need developing? such as "Wanted pages?" these are derived from pages that have links to a page that has not yet been made. --Protomatter 05:13, 15 June 2012 (UTC)