The wiki is locked down

[Husse]

On July 11 and 12 (09) someone destroyed the wiki by making tons of unwanted edits
We have restored the wiki but are forced to lock it from editing as it takes too much work to restore it after such attacks and in the worst case we can't
We have to think of some solution for this and we hope it is not for good

[Fred]

Husse,

That is indeed unfortunate. It is always the few that make life difficult for the many.

It appears that the Mint team has grown some in the last month or so. Would it be an undue burden on team members to require all wiki edits and articles to be vetted by a team member before posting?

If this was workable it would solve the vandalism problem and probably increase the quality of the edits/posts.

Just a thought.

Fred

[Husse]

Good thought but I don't think that's possible
Tried to check and now the site is down due to a sql error
Edit it was back again and I can't see the possibility for that
However I have suggested that the forum and the wiki should have a common log in - not that easy to do I'm afraid

[StephenH]

Why not have all potential edits to the wiki be Emailed to an editor who can then vet the proposed change? If the change is valid, the editor can then make the wiki modification. If not, then the proposed change can be sent to the bit bucket.

[Husse]

Well I am considering options, but it should be simple for the user
I might dive into this later today ....

[Jinnai]

Why not set certain pages more editable than others and assign someone to moderate those that aren't. FE: The main page might only be editable by project leaders, but the suggestions might be editable by any registered user. Those edits can be reviewed and if vandalism, the user banned from editing. Continusly creating sockpupets could ban the IP, but that's unlikely.

[DrHu]

Well I am considering options, but it should be simple for the user
I might dive into this later today ....

Probably the minimal should be semi-protection..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiprotection

Vandalism Policy shortcut: WP:NO-PREEMPT
Pre-emptive full protection of articles is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia. Brief periods of full protection are used in rare cases when a large number of autoconfirmed accounts are used to make a sustained vandalism attack on an article. Persistent vandalism, or the possibility of future vandalism for highly trafficked articles, rarely provides a basis for full-protection. Semi-protection is used for articles, such as Barack Obama, that have a pattern of heavy sustained vandalism.

Despite these wikipedia viewpoints, that a wiki is an open forum
--as a more or less private group within Linux Mint, using a Linux Mint hosted wiki page, there has to be some measures used to prevent vandalism, whether that is in the Wiki-like spirit or not..

[Pariah]

Hopefully said vandal was not malicious in intent but ignorant instead. Not an excuse but I hate to think of it being deliberate.

[Husse]

Oh - it was very deliberate.....
That's why I don't dare unlock it before we find a way to preview edits

[haruspexed]

maybe try an other engine than the wiki engine...

several other engines are worth thinking about. i dont know why most people use a wiki engine for stuff like that.

knowledge management isnt a wiki. =)

i will edit if i will find a really good proposal...

[GrayWizardLinux]

I am sorry to hear this - Hello Husse and my old friend Fred!!!


I suggested this back when I was active here and using Mint that at NeoOffice they have a very serious screening of who enters anything or contributes to the wiki. Just for this very reason. old timers and people who have earned their credibility are only allowed to contribute and edit. They are the wiki elves. and no one else can directly do anything. They have tight regimented control over their wiki.

works great!

[Kuja]

how about that? -> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

[Husse]

Hey Kuja
Nice to see you around
Thanks for the tip
I looked into that but we did not have the right version of mediawiki
Lately we have upgraded the forum and the blog, and it seems Clem did the wiki too, wasn't sure of that
I'll set him to work

[Kuja]

well that used version is actually one year old
its not supported by upstream anymore so it wouldn't hurt updating the wiki also (the extensions used should work when using updated versions)
mediawiki switched to a quarterly release schedule a while back

Release branches will continue to receive security updates for about a
year from first release, but nonessential bugfixes and feature
developments will be made on the development trunk and appear in the
next quarterly release.

since the year is over (and the wiki is on the initial 1.13 release) an update should be made (im running my wiki from an svn copy anyway so i don't really care, svn up, run the updater and be done with it )

[greenman]

The wiki is still locked down, but linked to from various parts of the site. The data on the wiki is very out of date now, and reflects poorly on the community. Either the wiki should be reactivated (there are ample ways to prevent MediaWiki spam), or removed entirely.

I can help with the MediaWiki setup if needs be.

[Husse]

Yes I know - it's in a bad condition and we are still getting spam on whatever page there is that's not protected
Any help is appreciated
I am sysop there but I don't have full access (like ftp)
I'll PM you I think further discussion should not be public