User talk:ConRunnerAdmin

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Questions about how the site is being administered? Put them here.

Please look at the discussion here:

http://www.conrunner.net/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:ConChair

It comes down to the fact that I think it would be great to update conrunner to mediawiki 1.9 to take advantage of sortable tables. --Tbmorgan74 15:35, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Done last weekend. I see you;ve made use of it already! --ConRunnerAdmin 08:45, 22 February 2007 (PST)

I think it's time to restrict the privileges of newly created accounts. --phi 13:48, 12 June 2007 (PDT)

Yeah. I was looking at the newest version of MediaWiki, to see if it has Captcha or something like it. --ConRunnerAdmin 16:16, 12 June 2007 (PDT)
It's called ConfirmEdit. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit --phi 09:29, 2 July 2007 (PDT)
Even better, you can blacklist usernames of the form this particular spammer uses. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Username_Blacklist --phi 09:35, 2 July 2007 (PDT)
I suppose it is time to deal with this. Running guard duty every day is getting annoying. I'll look at it when I get back. --Bill Taylor 17:29, 2 July 2007 (PDT)
After much laboring with Windows Linux FTP and PHP, I think I have FancyCaptcha running. That should slow them down a bit. --Bill Taylor 16:29, 19 August 2007 (PDT)
"A bit" seems to have been about three years. That's pretty good... but maybe user creation approval or simply blocking China IP addresses is the next step? phi 16:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes the attacks seem to be breaching the defenses better lately. We need to fall back to a more defensible position. This is like an old movie.
Since we haven't had a lot of legitimate users joining lately, I could go to approval method. Its just that I don't always get to check email everyday, and they change access rules from work pretty much weekly, so I'll need to spread the duties around. You've done a great job of policing (thanks!), I just didn't want to burden people with a silly task like that. --Bill Taylor 00:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm happy to take on additional duties, such as helping with user approval. --phi 10:41, 8 February 2011 (PST)

conrunner.net as a conrunning resource

Bill, Lets suppose that a non profit con X had need of mediawiki enviroment. Instead of setting one up themselves, they could use a corner of conrunner.net to create some pages. They might use it for their program line up for example. Anyone with a conrunner account could contribute to their ideas, and that may not be a bad idea. But lets suppose they wanted to restrict read or read/write access. Can you grant admin type privileges to certain users so that they can then in turn grant permissions to their staff to execute their ideas. Or Would you personally have to directly set up each permission manually? --Tbmorgan74 10:09, 13 July 2007 (PDT)

Mediawiki only allows for three levels. Owner, admin and regular user. I can retain owner, but once I set admin privs, that person has the run of the whole board. They can turn anyone on and off. Users can read and write to anywhere too. There is very little that they can't do, except set other user privs and protect or delete pages. I don't know of a way to individually set read/write privs on individual pages for individual users. Either everyone has it or no one does.
I could see people setting up a category and running their own little show in their own little corner. I don't mind the activity or the disk space. But there is no way to strictly control access. Any visitor could see it if they knew where to look. Mediawiki can control that, but again it is an all or nothing thing.
On the other hand, Mediawiki is easy to set up in general. They have well developed packages and good instructions. The first few days suck, setting all the parameters to fine tune things, but if all you want is a bare bones site, you can have one in a few minutes to a few hours, depending on your ISP, then set up whatever limited privs are needed for the small group working the project. Dreamhost.com is quite good. Pair.com as well. And a ton of others. The longest delay is getting your new domain to propagate to local DNSs. --ConRunnerAdmin 10:56, 13 July 2007 (PDT)

uploading files

Time to turn that off for newly created users, I guess. I don't have permissions to delete the spam files, or I would. -- phi 12:05, 6 December 2010 (PST)

OK, uploads are temporarily disabled. I'll bring them back this evening, when I have a chance to go over the user list. --ConRunnerAdmin 09:22, 7 December 2010 (PST)

Recent spam modus operandi

Looks like it's a script that tries to create a user, and if that succeeds immediately tries to create a spam page with that user. Whether or not the page creation succeeds, the user is never used again. The script has some ability to defeat a CAPTCHA but not always. Can we put some kind of manual intervention into the user creation process? Even something that just made new users wait an hour would defeat this script. --phi 10:37, 8 February 2011 (PST)

  • I'll definitely look into a better CAPTCHA. The ones in use now were self- generated. Maybe I need some new ones. The delay is a good idea too. You've been doing a great job at patrolling and catching this stuff. I just don't always have to time to get back here every day. --ConRunnerAdmin 22:30, 8 February 2011 (PST)
In the meantime, maybe don't include the spam links in "content before deletion was"? The links are there to increase the targets' Google pagerank. Including the spam in the log message immortalizes the spam, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid. --phi 15:37, 24 February 2011 (PST)

bogus users

I just joined. The following new users are almost certainly bogus (edited from Special:RecentChanges):

9 September 2012

  • (User creation log); 23:20 . . KevenzpchnfvwlwSwarts
  • (User creation log); 22:45 . . MathildeihazidjquiStlucien
  • (User creation log); 19:32 . . KelvinjnftwahxlmDigiorgio
  • (User creation log); 18:47 . . LakishaovljolduzuSchoepfer
  • (User creation log); 17:53 . . TristanfohfgqubtqGersch
  • (User creation log); 15:34 . . ArnoldavmigvtnedHadaway
  • (User creation log); 13:00 . . WoodrowsbfnferuupKlute
  • (User creation log); 11:11 . . DanggumybynhxLaher
  • (User creation log); 08:06 . . StanleyjmssqpahupGerczak
  • (User creation log); 06:12 . . BlythembrgjyqxebKachelmeyer
  • (User creation log); 04:58 . . GrantjskvggmymfBenham
  • (User creation log); 02:09 . . AllancnnitjzlhxGribben
  • (User creation log); 00:48 . . PorfiriowxqeokofxdWashko

8 September 2012

  • (User creation log); 18:29 . . SharylhcvnqhxlzrEdgman
  • (User creation log); 16:23 . . MikaixlekyoygrSall
  • (User creation log); 15:21 . . EliaeyzboakigwHymas
  • (User creation log); 12:30 . . JovitadmmgwrykfsDench
  • (User creation log); 09:28 . . TeddyesqutfngebMoyler
  • (User creation log); 08:17 . . DenitascouxkcbnaHyneman
  • (User creation log); 02:42 . . MiquelxpihodjvlcHelmert
  • (User creation log); 01:34 . . ShamikabhxfcrpbfiZabka

7 September 2012

  • (User creation log); 22:29 . . CandidaeoyvxsbmfdMirabile
  • (User creation log); 22:12 . . BambirfgolvoqpuRatchford
  • (User creation log); 22:11 . . LonwxvyypvqpcGaglione

--Thnidu 21:37, 9 September 2012 (PDT)

    • a lot of fake accounts get created. there is no simple way for me to stop it unless I personally review every person that comes along. So I just kill the bogus edits when they make them. Much easier. Most bots cant do it and only a few per day get through. --ConRunnerAdmin 20:08, 10 September 2012 (PDT)
Have suggestion for cutting down on fake accounts getting created (they clutter up Special:RecentChanges etc). Add "CheckUser" extension and use in combination with MediaWiki blocking (specifically "Block account creation"). If spammer creates a spam page, use CheckUser to figure out spamer's IP and then block that IP from creating additional accounts. --EarthFurst (talk) 17:57, 1 December 2013 (PST)

Access

Hello. I have been tweaking and expanding the access services portions of the website. May I write an article for the front page, since access is a hot topic right now, post worldcon? -Selkiechick

  • You can expand the Access article, or add other articles that might be of interest. I'm definitely interested in as much breadth and detail as we can get, and obviously handicapped services and access to panels and such comes up at every con. I can add them to the front page, if they seem comprehensive enough and something a casual browser would be interested in. More important is that the articles be complete, and have links to other relevant bits of the wiki (e.g. Programming, hospitality, hotel liaison, party maven, etc), so people can find the information. --ConRunnerAdmin 16:30, 11 September 2012 (PDT)

Uploading a file

I'd like to upload a .doc file. It's a formatted outline of some standard questions info desks get, with the intention that a con can download it, fill in the appropriate information, modify and extend it, in order to use it at their info desk. I would write a wiki article to accompany it.

I figure to upload it, tell SMOFs and ACML about it, take comments for a week or so, and then upload a revised version, after which it will probably never get any more changes. If you'd rather handle this by having me send it to you and uploading it yourself, that would be fine.

Petréa Mitchell (talk) 11:06, 11 August 2013 (PDT)

  • Oh, its perfectly fine for you to do it. I can help if you hit a snag, but the wiki could use some outside flavor. Be sure to link to other pages in the wiki. that helps other people find it. --ConRunnerAdmin (talk) 13:33, 11 August 2013 (PDT)
    • May I have the appropriate permission set so I can upload, then?

Petréa Mitchell (talk) 18:53, 11 August 2013 (PDT)

    • OK, you should be able to Upload now --ConRunnerAdmin (talk) 07:30, 15 August 2013 (PDT)

spam created 2013 December or late Nov

please block Sindy785 and delete their spam

13 spam pages created Sep25 to Oct 1 by Sindy785. Hope that helps. --EarthFurst (talk) 23:47, 1 October 2014 (PDT)

please block Lewis788 and delete their spam (more than 150 spams)

More than 150 spam pages created Sep24 to Oct 1 by Lewis788. Plan to be online for another hour or two if you need assist. Hope that helps. --EarthFurst (talk) 23:54, 1 October 2014 (PDT)

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