RISC OS talk:Current events

Vandalism

Given the current spate of vandalism, and the surprisingly long list of | dodgy-looking users that seems to be growing as I write - 155 users at 22:57 11/04/2007 had grown to 156 in the time it took me to write this - may I suggest some of the following measures, to be implemented as a matter of urgency:

• Pre-emptive blocking of suspicious users. Are older user lists available so we can filter out the newly-added suspect ones?
• Edit the login and/or new user pages to thwart/confuse bots - rename the fields or something, or move the page.
• Add a field to the login system only a human could understand and enter correctly. e.g. 'Please enter Peter Naulls' initials.'
• Consider temporarily suspending new accounts.

Simon Smith 01:02, 12 Apr 2007 (BST)

I think some sort of bot-trap on the create users page is the most obvious and sensible, such as a graphical check e.g: "Enter the letters in the graphic below". There is probably also a mediawiki system in place to do it, but 2330 is not the time to start hunting, I feel.

I haven't checked, but I believe each 'dodgy user' is only performing one edit, so it does seem to be a system that can be stopped at the login page.

Another option is to moderate who becomes a user, but this would be frustrating from the viewpoint of a genuine new user who really wants to make the changes then and there.Jymbob 01:59, 12 Apr 2007 (BST)

CAPTCHA login information

found here: http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/MediaWiki:Captcha

I recommend this being implemented as soon as possible, and would be happy to do it and test it, given FTP access, but I understand if that's not wanted. Jymbob 16:03, 12 Apr 2007 (BST)

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Yes, I agree. In the mean time, can I point out a quick(er) way of neatly reverting the changes (for sysops):

• Click [block] on the recent changes page
• Click IP block list on the Block succeeded page
• Click contribs for the user you blocked
• Click [Rollback]

That reverts the user's changes and puts a standard description in the change log.
Adamr 00:11, 13 Apr 2007 (BST)