Why Is There So Much Spam In Our Wiki?

June 4, 2006 11:40 PM

I know this has been brought up before, but I believe that it's frustrating enough to deserve being brought up again. Why is the wiki so spam-ridden?

Every time I go to look at it, at least 75% of the things I click on are spam or "DeletedPage: This page was WikiSpam. "

Seriously, If nobody's going to put in the effort to keep the wiki spam-free, why even bother to have it, especially now that we have a FAQ?
posted by Afroblanco to bugs at 11:40 PM (21 comments total)

I think that the wiki we have is actually worse then no wiki at all, since the wiki promises enjoyment and usefulness, and delivers only uselessness and disappointment.

Also, not that I care what the world thinks of us or anything, but any outsider would look at the wiki and think that we, as a community, clearly don't have our shit together.

Surely that must bother *somebody*
posted by Afroblanco at 11:42 PM on June 4, 2006

(and yes, I did include the "what the world thinks of us" stuff to give you guys something to riff on. So please, riff away, but try not to ignore the serious part of my question)
posted by Afroblanco at 11:49 PM on June 4, 2006

There was a long discussion about this not too long ago. CAPTCHAs were brought up, as was requiring people to create accounts to edit pages. I think the temporary solution was "Matt is working on the FAQ engine, so let that take its place."

Frankly I totally agree that a spammed to hell wiki is useless, and it should be upgraded to a more modern wiki software, and all kinds of edit restrictions should be put on there. I don't get what the big deal is with CAPTCHAs, I don't have any problem with them and it's not like there's a lot of editing to do anyway. But everyone objected to that before and I'm sure they'll object again for the same reasons.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:59 PM on June 4, 2006

Frankly I totally agree that a spammed to hell wiki is useless, and it should be upgraded to a more modern wiki software, and all kinds of edit restrictions should be put on there.

Welll, it should be hosted on the metafilter.com domain, under matt's control - surely it can't be too hard to key it into the existing login system so (a) only registered Metafilter users can edit it, and (b) we can see who's done the editing. wiki.metafilter.com. Surely that would be better? At the moment, I feel that as the wiki is hosted off site, it is as much its own entity as Metachat or ye olde Metafilter IRC.
posted by Jimbob at 12:18 AM on June 5, 2006

"Why is the wiki so spam-ridden?"

Because the guy who used to run the script that kept it spam-free abruptly quit running the script, said he'd start up again, proceeded to disappear into the night, and didn't release the script to anyone else to run in his stead.
posted by majick at 2:49 AM on June 5, 2006

The wiki is password-protected now, and has been for at least a month or two, so it's not getting spammed anymore except by spammers who are smart enough to figure out how to log in with the admin password, which is to say, very few.

If there are still a lot of "DeletedPage" pages though, I guess that means the "DeletedPage" auto-expiration thing isn't working. One could always try emailing Adrian, I suppose.
posted by Gator at 2:59 AM on June 5, 2006

The email to Adrian bounced when I tried a couple of weeks ago.
posted by peacay at 4:54 AM on June 5, 2006

The wiki is terrible. Why not start up wiki.metafilter.com?
posted by danb at 5:36 AM on June 5, 2006

As Gator says, the wiki is password-protected so there's essentially no new spam being added. I don't actually think the spam is that bad - certainly not '75% of links' - and spam is very easy to remove, if anyone could actually be bothered to do it instead of just complaining.

The problem with captchas is that they can be difficult to deal with for disabled people. Plus, they're a pain in the ass.

As for the DeletedPages thing, for some weird reason the maintenance script wasn't running automatically. I just forced it through manually, which means a lot of old crap has now been removed.

As I've always said, I am perfectly happy if someone else wants to set up another wiki - I will make all of the data that's currently on the one I host available for another one.
posted by adrianhon at 5:47 AM on June 5, 2006

Yeah, if someone else wants to set up a wiki with mediawiki (the wikipedia software) or whatever, it's completely trivial to do. Seems strange that no-one's just gone ahead and done it.
posted by reklaw at 5:53 AM on June 5, 2006

In the 15 minutes since my last post, I cleaned up every single page linked to from the Wiki Contents and from the Wiki front page. No doubt there's still some spam floating around, but the vast majority is gone from the important pages.

15 minutes - why, that's enough time to start up a new wiki, or clean up the current one, or alternatively just bitch about it.
posted by adrianhon at 6:06 AM on June 5, 2006

*cough* logins *cough*
posted by shmegegge at 6:28 AM on June 5, 2006

I'm still seeing a bunch of spam/deleted links/blank pages off of the "index" page, and nearly all of them are marked "read only."

Is there something to be done about these?
posted by Afroblanco at 6:33 AM on June 5, 2006

adrianhon will fix it.
posted by smackfu at 6:48 AM on June 5, 2006

Not sure why that's the case. Have you entered the admin password (see the wiki front page) allowing you to edit pages? The wiki is currently locked unless you put the password in.
posted by adrianhon at 6:54 AM on June 5, 2006

Ok, I see it. Thanks.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:04 AM on June 5, 2006

Rhomboid writes "I don't get what the big deal is with CAPTCHAs, I don't have any problem with them and it's not like there's a lot of editing to do anyway."

CAPTCHAS are a pain in the ass especially if you have a visual impairment.
posted by Mitheral at 8:02 AM on June 5, 2006

I don't think all CAPTCHAs are a pain. Some of them are really bad - you can't even read them if you have 20/20 vision. Others aren't bad at all - I never minded the one we had on MeFi. Furthermore, I've seen CAPTCHAs that had the option to "speak" the word via your soundcard. This should work out fine for the visually impaired.
posted by Afroblanco at 8:52 AM on June 5, 2006

How does wikipedia manage to stay spam free?
posted by delmoi at 1:10 PM on June 5, 2006

delmoi: Well, you could try spamming it to see. As far as I can tell, it's a combination of automated scripts for obvious cases and a bunch of nutters who are somehow watching every edit, even though there are hundreds every minute.
posted by reklaw at 1:16 PM on June 5, 2006

I've never done it before, not once, not even thought about it actually. Can I do it now, just this once and never again, I'll do a pinky swear and everything, please? Ok:


Metafilter: a bunch of nutters who are somehow watching every edit




Shit, that was worth it, I'm going to go make a sandwhich.
posted by Divine_Wino at 2:01 PM on June 5, 2006