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Bigred
04-09-2018, 01:00 AM
We are aware of the end of life for Recaptcha 1.0 and are finding a mediawiki developer currently to update all the vwikis to use the new 2.0 version.

The wikis will have to be updated to a more recent version of mediawiki to work with the new RECAPTCHA.

I will let you all know the status, but we are working on getting it done quickly.

-Larry

Inquisitor S.
04-09-2018, 03:38 AM
In what instances is Recaptcha used at the moment?

Ashendant
04-09-2018, 09:39 AM
In what instances is Recaptcha used at the moment?

I think it's only used in new account creation, to select the spammers from real editors.

Bigred
04-09-2018, 11:05 PM
It's on the new user registration page. I don't believe its anywhere else.

Also I have found a developer, who will start on the update this week.

-L

Ashendant
04-27-2018, 03:46 PM
It's on the new user registration page. I don't believe its anywhere else.

Also I have found a developer, who will start on the update this week.

-L

Any news on this and the other issues I mentioned before?

Inquisitor S.
04-30-2018, 11:06 AM
People seem to have problems. From the Discord-Channel:


Pixizz Little Loli Panda - heute um 13:34 Uhr
Hey any admin here ? The captcha site is down and so it's impossible to request an account ; even using the "reCaptacha v1 is shutdown" captcha, the error message is that my biography is less than 50 words when it's not.

Bigred
05-11-2018, 03:05 PM
OK, progess to report:

In order to update the RECAPCHA, we have to update each wiki's mediawiki version to 1.30. As we update each wiki we are doing both the version update and the Recaptcha.

WH40K English is UPDATED
WHFB English is UPDATED
WH40K German is UPDATED
WHFB German is UPDATED
WH40K French is UPDATED
WHFB French is UPDATED
WARMACHINE is UPDATED

Done! #whew

Ashendant
05-12-2018, 03:48 AM
Any news on the other three big problems that the Lexicanum has?

* The User Registration update that we were promised 6 months ago but never happened?
* The Category page in the Fantasy Lexi that was recently broken by an update and never fixed?
* The fact that the Fantasy Lexi needs to be split in two for both settings?

The lack of responses on these three issues(specially the last one) is frustrating and because of that I can't really find the motivation to do anything but basic maintenance.

Inquisitor S.
05-13-2018, 10:07 AM
I have the impression that the Last Changes special page now simultaneously uses two noticeably different fonts. I would hazard a guess that this could affect other pages, too. And I would say that the fonts used should be uniform?

Bigred
05-14-2018, 11:36 AM
We've just updated the registration pages for 40K, WHFB english and removed some fields.

19917

That should help increase new registrations.


Ashendant, can you give me more detail on these:

* The Category page in the Fantasy Lexi that was recently broken by an update and never fixed?
* The fact that the Fantasy Lexi needs to be split in two for both settings?

We didn't update anything on the wikis before this weekend for a while. So if either of those issues are recent we will have to do some digging to see what's going on.

In general all the Lexicanum wikis were really out of date, so there will be some teething issues we have to work through with such a large version update of botht he core wiki and the extensnions. But fundamentally the wikis work. We also got the series of Lexicanum articles rolling again with Games Workshop and they should be appearing regularly on Warhammer-community.com.

-Larry

Ashendant
05-14-2018, 12:35 PM
We've just updated the registration pages for 40K, WHFB english and removed some fields.

19917

That should help increase new registrations.


You need to put a Bolded (Optional) next to the "Real Name" part. That is the part that REALLY scares most people



Ashendant, can you give me more detail on these:

* The Category page in the Fantasy Lexi that was recently broken by an update and never fixed?

This is recent and has appeared roughly at the same time as the Recent Changes (http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Special:RecentChanges) gained dark brown boxes around each entry. The problem here is that the Category page (http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Special:Categories) is listing every deleted and typoed category(red links with 0 members) in it when it didn't used to. The 40K Category page (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special:Categories&offset=&limit=500) has no such problems. As this is a important tool I use to keep every category maintained it has become unusuable



* The fact that the Fantasy Lexi needs to be split in two for both settings?

We didn't update anything on the wikis before this weekend for a while. So if either of those issues are recent we will have to do some digging to see what's going on.

This is a very old issue that has been a problem since the 2015, but has been tolerable, with the problems becoming more egregious with time and new releases. The full list of problem can be found in this thread and there are many:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?95621-Fantasy-Lexicanum-needs-to-be-split-in-two

To be short about it: Two different settings sharing a wiki, that are extremely different in nature, but sharing many of their names results in a sub-standard wiki that needs to be split.

Using the Import and Export tool we can easily transplant most of the content from one wiki to the other. I already made a list of categories that can be put on that tool to transfer it. The only problem with this one is the images, but Morbus Iff linked me a tool that could be used for it.


In general all the Lexicanum wikis were really out of date, so there will be some teething issues we have to work through with such a large version update of botht he core wiki and the extensnions. But fundamentally the wikis work. We also got the series of Lexicanum articles rolling again with Games Workshop and they should be appearing regularly on Warhammer-community.com.

-Larry

I don't think the Fantasy Lexi is ready for that.

Bigred
05-14-2018, 04:26 PM
Ok,I did some digging:


You need to put a Bolded (Optional) next to the "Real Name" part. That is the part that REALLY scares most people

For now I want to just take off all the extraneous biography,CV, etc stuff and see what happens. I am very leery of letting people register anonymously and potential encourage vandalism. Anyone with a legitimate desire to add onto Lexicanum shouldn't have any issue leaving their real name privately for the admins. It's not revealed publicly. I want to leave things like this for a bit and monitor registrations.


* The Category page in the Fantasy Lexi that was recently broken by an update and never fixed?

The Mediawiki developers did some arguing about 2 years ago on this and decided that 0 member categories should exist and be visible on the special:category page.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/324486/

Before this update mediawiki used to not show zero member categories, but apparently there are some cases wher it's important to see them.

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T12915

Exactly why the 40K wiki isn't displaying them is a mystery as both wikis are using the most recent 1.30 version.


* The fact that the Fantasy Lexi needs to be split in two for both settings?

This is a major change as we have to set up an entirely different wiki, and update all the others to link into it. That is not an easy task. It is marked for consideration.

-Larry

Ashendant
05-14-2018, 04:40 PM
For now I want to just take off all the extraneous biography,CV, etc stuff and see what happens. I am very leery of letting people register anonymously and potential encourage vandalism. Anyone with a legitimate desire to add onto Lexicanum shouldn't have any issue leaving their real name privately for the admins. It's not revealed publicly. I want to leave things like this for a bit and monitor registrations.

It doesn't really matter since people can just remove it afterwards. The only thing it does is scare people from joining, since a lot of people don't want things associated with their real name.


The Mediawiki developers did some arguing about 2 years ago on this and decided that 0 member categories should exist and be visible on the special:category page.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/324486/

Before this update mediawiki used to not show zero member categories, but apparently there are some cases wher it's important to see them.

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T12915

Exactly why the 40K wiki isn't displaying them is a mystery as both wikis are using the most recent 1.30 version.

The problem is that it's listing deleted categories and categories that had a typo, which by default have 0 members.

The discussion you posted was about categories that have their own article but have 0 members in them. The 40k Lexi Categories lists 0 members categories correctly.


This is a major change as we have to set up an entirely different wiki, and update all the others to link into it. That is not an easy task. It is marked for consideration.

-Larry

Thank you. Something that is very hard to do is much better than something that's impossible to do.

Inquisitor S.
05-16-2018, 11:58 AM
Well, the bad news is that two (minimum) out of three account creation requests today were obvious spambots that managed to get around the Recaptcha...

Bigred
05-16-2018, 01:43 PM
That's interesting - Recaptcha 2.0 is considered to be un-broken as of now.

But then again, there is nothing that can be done about actual human spammers registering.


-Larry

Ashendant
05-16-2018, 04:35 PM
That's interesting - Recaptcha 2.0 is considered to be un-broken as of now.

But then again, there is nothing that can be done about actual human spammers registering.


-Larry

Well I accepted two accounts that seem like they could be spammers, but so far they haven't made a single edit.

Inquisitor S.
05-18-2018, 01:57 PM
It seems the toolbar in the edit mode has disappeared. Don't know what its proper name is, the one with the lots of buttons, for example for the signature...

Inquisitor S.
05-19-2018, 10:10 AM
Unusual accumulation of "users" tring to register with Russian e-mail adresses (.ru) --> Some of them turn up on spambot lists when I search for their e-mails. So I will only very reluctantly approve new Russian origin accounts.

Inquisitor S.
05-21-2018, 03:29 AM
Rejected six out of seven new account requests because some of their details turned up on spambot lists on google. Is this a new wave of spambot attacks or has this something to do with with the Recaptcha update?

AlphaRonin
05-22-2018, 10:37 AM
Where do you see these account requests ?
In the english lex ?

Because in the german wh40k-lex I have no account requests in the last 30 days. I can't take a look such long back, but I believe make it 60 days.

Inquisitor S.
05-23-2018, 11:53 AM
The English one, yes.

Ashendant
05-23-2018, 01:50 PM
I've been accepting most people even if I suspect they are spammers(rejected two that called themselves something like Payday Express or something). So far none of them made any kind of edit.

Ashendant
05-26-2018, 03:26 PM
Any news on how long it will take to fix the bugs?

Inquisitor S.
05-27-2018, 04:28 AM
Out of 9 new account requests I blocked 7 because they were spambots (all from Russian IPs and/ or Russian mail addresses), 1 is on hold because I can not read Chinese and it is potentially fishy and 1 was approved because it seemed legitimate.

Since BoLS is already blocking whole other countries from the Post-Soviet Space, why not block Russia, too, as (almost) all spam bots in the Lexicanum originate there?

Inquisitor S.
05-28-2018, 04:07 AM
Out of 6 new account requests 1 was approved, 4 spambots from Russia and 1 from Poland were blocked.

Ashendant
05-28-2018, 12:29 PM
Out of 9 new account requests I blocked 7 because they were spambots (all from Russian IPs and/ or Russian mail addresses), 1 is on hold because I can not read Chinese and it is potentially fishy and 1 was approved because it seemed legitimate.

Since BoLS is already blocking whole other countries from the Post-Soviet Space, why not block Russia, too, as (almost) all spam bots in the Lexicanum originate there?

I don't think we should block peoples from an entire country just because of a few spammers. Besides I've been accepting what are most likely spammers and they haven't done a single spam so far. There seems to be something that's blocking spammers from spamming, and whatever it is it works.

What I would like to know is when are the bugs are going to fixed?

Inquisitor S.
05-28-2018, 02:25 PM
I don't think we should block peoples from an entire country just because of a few spammers.
As it has been done before, I do not really see a reason why it should not be done again.


Besides I've been accepting what are most likely spammers and they haven't done a single spam so far. There seems to be something that's blocking spammers from spamming, and whatever it is it works.
Not necessarily. Spambots (much as other malicious hostile takeovers) can be dormant until activated. And then boom, you have a hurrican of destruction that is much more difficult to contain. Happened before.

Ashendant
05-28-2018, 04:46 PM
As it has been done before, I do not really see a reason why it should not be done again.


Not necessarily. Spambots (much as other malicious hostile takeovers) can be dormant until activated. And then boom, you have a hurrican of destruction that is much more difficult to contain. Happened before.

Wasn't that because of Sanctions? Still blocking entire countries because of spammers is not helpful. It would be far more helpful fixing everything else first.

I considered that possibility, but we really need more people. I was only banning the really obvious spammer.

Inquisitor S.
05-29-2018, 02:12 AM
Wasn't that because of Sanctions?
I wouldn't know what sanctions that would have been.


I considered that possibility, but we really need more people. I was only banning the really obvious spammer.
I always cross-check submitted e-mail adresses with google. If the name or adress turns up on spam warning websites, that is it for that account.

Ashendant
05-29-2018, 04:02 PM
I wouldn't know what sanctions that would have been.


I always cross-check submitted e-mail adresses with google. If the name or adress turns up on spam warning websites, that is it for that account.

People from Ukraine can't get in on Lexicanum because of Crimea-related sanctions or something.

I guess I could at least do that.

Any news on solutions for the bugs and the splitting of the Fantasy Lexicanum.

Inquisitor S.
11-02-2018, 11:39 AM
So since the Russki and Loanshark spamwave shows no sign of abating (95+ % of all account requests with a further couple of % at least more than questionable accounts) and the bots seem to have no problems to fool the recaptcha... Can we at least change the field "Additional notes" in the registration form to something like "State your interest in the Lexicanum" or "describe how you got into the hobby" and make it compuslory to fill out? I'd like to see a bot fabricate a convincing entry for that... Because honestly, I spent waaaaaay too much time on an often daily basis to try to verify request details to then decide if this could be a genuine request or just another bot! And tbh: why should I bother verifying users that can't be bothered to write a small sentence about why they should be granted access???

Ashendant
11-02-2018, 02:54 PM
So since the Russki and Loanshark spamwave shows no sign of abating (95+ % of all account requests with a further couple of % at least more than questionable accounts) and the bots seem to have no problems to fool the recaptcha... Can we at least change the field "Additional notes" in the registration form to something like "State your interest in the Lexicanum" or "describe how you got into the hobby" and make it compuslory to fill out? I'd like to see a bot fabricate a convincing entry for that... Because honestly, I spent waaaaaay too much time on an often daily basis to try to verify request details to then decide if this could be a genuine request or just another bot! And tbh: why should I bother verifying users that can't be bothered to write a small sentence about why they should be granted access???

I feel like that would just bring too many steps. It would be easier to add a setting relevant question when first trying to edit, which usually keeps them out for a while.

Inquisitor S.
11-03-2018, 12:20 PM
Why "too many steps"? The field is already in the registration form, it just has to be turned to "compulsory" instead of "optional". And since a setting relevant question would have to be chosen from a list one would a) have to invent a large enough pool of such questions to foil bots and b) implement a new technical function into the wiki software and c) you could not exclude that you have accumulating sleeper bots that one day strike at once.

Bigred
11-05-2018, 01:57 AM
I'll go back and see what the difficulty is to make that one field compulsory.

Some of the fields are easy to do that with and some aren't - mediawiki wierdness.

I find it sad how few people never ever put anything in the additional info field - even legitimate people...

-L

Ashendant
11-05-2018, 09:46 AM
Why "too many steps"? The field is already in the registration form, it just has to be turned to "compulsory" instead of "optional". And since a setting relevant question would have to be chosen from a list one would a) have to invent a large enough pool of such questions to foil bots and b) implement a new technical function into the wiki software and c) you could not exclude that you have accumulating sleeper bots that one day strike at once.

It's not as much of a issue for the 40k side which doesn't need as much people, while the fantasy is kinda desperate for more editors. The list wouldn't have to be large, just one for each lexi with an incredibly obvious answer to anyone that knows minimally about the setting. Most bots don't bother to pass through that hurdle.


I'll go back and see what the difficulty is to make that one field compulsory.

Some of the fields are easy to do that with and some aren't - mediawiki wierdness.

I find it sad how few people never ever put anything in the additional info field - even legitimate people...

-L

Most people, myself included, value their anonymity and don't want to see their information plastered all over the internet.

I've received complains on how the Lexicanum is much harder to sign up than wikia. Here's an example:

https://www.tga.community/forums/topic/19663-the-age-of-sigmar-wikis-could-use-your-help/

Inquisitor S.
11-05-2018, 11:39 AM
It's not as much of a issue for the 40k side which doesn't need as much people, while the fantasy is kinda desperate for more editors. The list wouldn't have to be large, just one for each lexi with an incredibly obvious answer to anyone that knows minimally about the setting. Most bots don't bother to pass through that hurdle.

A bot is a program that has no concept of "bothering". For them it makes no difference if they have to solve a recaptcha or answer a question about something they have no interest in apart from infiltrating it.


Most people, myself included, value their anonymity and don't want to see their information plastered all over the internet.
Who was talking about private information? What I want is that I see something about their favorite armies, how they got into the hobby, what specifics background area they are interested in or whatever as long as it is a personally formulated text that indicates they are a real person and not a bot. I couldn't care less about their CV or contact details or medical history or whatever dystopian nightmares this kind of people might have. I also couldn't care less if people prefer their real or made up names - not one single bit! I just want to see at first sight if somebody is a legitimate user without having to manually research their given data. I think that is more than reasonable.


I've received complains on how the Lexicanum is much harder to sign up than wikia. Here's an example:

https://www.tga.community/forums/topic/19663-the-age-of-sigmar-wikis-could-use-your-help/[/quote]

Sorry, but this is a totally useless "complaint" as it only says "is harder to sign up for" without actually saying WHY.

Ashendant
11-05-2018, 11:58 AM
A bot is a program that has no concept of "bothering". For them it makes no difference if they have to solve a recaptcha or answer a question about something they have no interest in apart from infiltrating it.

A bot can't figure out these kinds of answers by itself. The one how made the program will have to modify the bot itself for it to work. Most people often do not bother with this, and if they figure it out we can change the question again.

Also if these bots are coming from the same sources wouldn't it be easier to ban the IP?


Who was talking about private information? What I want is that I see something about their favorite armies, how they got into the hobby, what specifics background area they are interested in or whatever as long as it is a personally formulated text that indicates they are a real person and not a bot. I couldn't care less about their CV or contact details or medical history or whatever dystopian nightmares this kind of people might have. I also couldn't care less if people prefer their real or made up names - not one single bit! I just want to see at first sight if somebody is a legitimate user without having to manually research their given data. I think that is more than reasonable.

That's still alot of private information to some people. People that the fantasy lexicanum does need.


Sorry, but this is a totally useless "complaint" as it only says "is harder to sign up for" without actually saying WHY.

The complaint is that it is harder to sign up than when compared to wikia. It's an accurate complaint since wikia is extremely simplified, through i'm not aware how they deal with bots.

It's not a issue with a good solution, I prefer a easy setting question than making background compulsory, but that's just my opinion.

Inquisitor S.
11-06-2018, 01:46 PM
A bot can't figure out these kinds of answers by itself. The one how made the program will have to modify the bot itself for it to work. Most people often do not bother with this, and if they figure it out we can change the question again.

That is like doing a fire insurance AFTER the house is already burning. And I am not sure if algorithms by now are not clever enough to find out by themselves answers to questions like "Who is the chapter master of the Blood Angels?".


Also if these bots are coming from the same sources wouldn't it be easier to ban the IP?

No. Every self-respecting troll factory knows how to hide where it is operating from and to permutate IPs.




That's still alot of private information to some people. People that the fantasy lexicanum does need.
I utterly fail to see how "My favorite character is Commissar Yarrick" or "I collect Ultramarines and Dwarves" or "I just looooove Horus Heresy novel number 467 "xyz" is sensitive "private" information. ESPECIALLY as no one will check if it actually is true. And come on, with the amount of really private data people willingly hand over to any social network THAT up there really is no issue.




The complaint is that it is harder to sign up than when compared to wikia. It's an accurate complaint since wikia is extremely simplified, through i'm not aware how they deal with bots.
It has been very long since I signed up to a wikia, I can just say that the Lexicanum registration form is no more complicated than that of any other site.

Ashendant
11-06-2018, 02:58 PM
That is like doing a fire insurance AFTER the house is already burning. And I am not sure if algorithms by now are not clever enough to find out by themselves answers to questions like "Who is the chapter master of the Blood Angels?".

I honestly doubt it, but i'm not that aware on boting works.


No. Every self-respecting troll factory knows how to hide where it is operating from and to permutate IPs.

Figures.


It has been very long since I signed up to a wikia, I can just say that the Lexicanum registration form is no more complicated than that of any other site.

From what I understand it only requires Username, Password, Email and Birth Date.


I utterly fail to see how "My favorite character is Commissar Yarrick" or "I collect Ultramarines and Dwarves" or "I just looooove Horus Heresy novel number 467 "xyz" is sensitive "private" information. ESPECIALLY as no one will check if it actually is true. And come on, with the amount of really private data people willingly hand over to any social network THAT up there really is no issue.

It's really a matter of perspective. I'm a bit more touchy on putting extra hurdles as our side of the Lexicanum is not very active. I think this is also a problem because each lexicanum as it's own userlist that needs to be accepted by their own moderators. Uniforming this process is probably impossible without the Mediawiki expert.

I hope that the fantasy split atleast attracts more people so we can fix some of these problems(which i'm ready and eagerly waiting for it).

Inquisitor S.
11-07-2018, 10:20 AM
Well, my attitude says if the prospective user is not willing to accept such a small "hurdle", he won't be willing to learn the rules either, so no loss ;)

Ashendant
11-07-2018, 04:08 PM
Well, my attitude says if the prospective user is not willing to accept such a small "hurdle", he won't be willing to learn the rules either, so no loss ;)

I'm just going to point out that while the 40k doesn't really need new editors, the fantasy side really does need it.

Sorry.

Inquisitor S.
11-14-2018, 12:40 PM
Somebody who is not willing to put a minimal effort into a registration form will never be an editor worth bothering, not for Fantasy, not for anything else.

I just manually checked 40 (!) new account requests. And I approved ONE - ONE SINGLE ONE. And that one did not fill out the "additional notes" field, so even that one might be a spammer. So really why should I waste precious time if almost all these requests could have been stopped dead in their tracks and would not have made it onto my control board? There is really no reason.

Ashendant
11-14-2018, 02:11 PM
Somebody who is not willing to put a minimal effort into a registration form will never be an editor worth bothering, not for Fantasy, not for anything else.

I just manually checked 40 (!) new account requests. And I approved ONE - ONE SINGLE ONE. And that one did not fill out the "additional notes" field, so even that one might be a spammer. So really why should I waste precious time if almost all these requests could have been stopped dead in their tracks and would not have made it onto my control board? There is really no reason.

As I've mentioned before 40k Lexi and the Fantasy Lexi have different amounts of active users. The Fantasy side is much more desperate in need of editors than the 40k side.

Inquisitor S.
11-15-2018, 11:28 AM
As I've mentioned before 40k Lexi and the Fantasy Lexi have different amounts of active users. The Fantasy side is much more desperate in need of editors than the 40k side.

And as I said before: Somebody who is put off by a ridiculous "hurdle" the height of an anti-ant fence can never be an editor, no matter how desperate the need as they will never be able to withstand the ENORMOUS psychological pressure of actually having to follow Lexicanum rules. Just imagine the first time somebody points out to them they will have to *gasp* source an article or - Emperor forbids - point out a spelling mistake! They will immediately open their window and jump, hurling abuse at the world for how injust and ridiculously high the hurdles for editing are! We cannot possibly take that responsability ;)

Ashendant
11-16-2018, 03:04 PM
And as I said before: Somebody who is put off by a ridiculous "hurdle" the height of an anti-ant fence can never be an editor, no matter how desperate the need as they will never be able to withstand the ENORMOUS psychological pressure of actually having to follow Lexicanum rules. Just imagine the first time somebody points out to them they will have to *gasp* source an article or - Emperor forbids - point out a spelling mistake! They will immediately open their window and jump, hurling abuse at the world for how injust and ridiculously high the hurdles for editing are! We cannot possibly take that responsability ;)

The first hurdle is always the most off-putting and if people are already in they are usually more willing to learn.

Either way we are kinda arguing in circles. Big Red heard both sides of the arguments, now it's up to him to decide.

Inquisitor S.
12-18-2018, 02:28 PM
So today 166 open account requests waited for me (English 40K Lex only). Of these I blocked 155 as spambots (~93,4%). Of the blocked spambots 70 accounts had their e-mail addresses confirmed (~45%).

Of the 11 approved accounts I could verify NONE as genuine users with any degree of certainty due to lack of info. Only 5 of the 11 even had their e-mail addresses confirmed; a mere 3 had written ANYTHING into their info box of which 2 were number sequences (phone numbers?). ONE was maybe the name of a homebrew chapter. Or maybe not.

So how am I supposed to work with this?

Bigred
12-25-2018, 10:18 PM
Hey Inquisitor S.

I had a similar experience going through about 150 applications about 2 weeks back on the 40K english wiki - with about a dozen being legitimate. There is a LOT of Russian spam out there these days.

I consider the shortened application update from several months back to be a flawed implementation based on the results we are seeing.

I do like the shortened application and we had to do some updates no matter what, to move to the current version of mediawiki.

BUT...

I agree that we need to change the "Info Box" to mandatory, so they have put in something, anything in there we can use to gauge what type of applicant they are. Our programmer is out on holiday, but I will ask him to go in and change the field from optional to mandatory on all the wikis when he is back after the new year.

-Larry

Inquisitor S.
12-27-2018, 01:28 PM
Hi Bigred,

thanks for the feedback.

yeah, the really STRANGE thing though is that the last couple of days spambot registering is REALLY slow as compared to pre-Xmas-time. Did they cut off Russia from the internet? Is St Petersburg collectively too drunk? We'll never know ;)

I would also ask if e-mail-confirmation should not be mandatory. After all without a confirmed e-mail how could a legit user have an account?

Ashendant
12-27-2018, 08:10 PM
If you're going to make the other information section obligatory, you should atleast change what its request of the user. Currently it has:

"The following information is kept private and will only be used for this request. You may want to list contacts such a phone number to aid in identify confirmation"

Which basicly means "gives us your phone number" which will likely scare people off. Maybe change it to something like "Provides us with a basic background on yourself, so we can distinguish between a genuine user and a spam bot."

Inquisitor S.
12-28-2018, 12:14 PM
If you're going to make the other information section obligatory, you should atleast change what its request of the user

Obviously. Nobody is really interested in their phone numbers. Something like "Write something about you and the hobby" is what I had in mind (I thought I said that, if not, that's what I should have said).

Bigred
12-31-2018, 11:28 AM
Yeah - that's fine. We should be able to change the description text.

On confirmed being mandatory - I have seen some cases where an obviously real user (based on username/ description being background based) didn't have a confirmed email address. There can be lots of reasons that can happen - so I'd rather not make that mandatory.

A also agree that the spam registrations come in "waves" and things were really heavy in November-early December. Who knows? Fingers crossed!

Ashendant
12-31-2018, 03:26 PM
On confirmed being mandatory - I have seen some cases where an obviously real user (based on username/ description being background based) didn't have a confirmed email address. There can be lots of reasons that can happen - so I'd rather not make that mandatory.

Yeah same experience here. The Spam Filters does not like the Lexicanum mail.

Bigred
01-04-2019, 01:24 PM
Update guys,

I just gave the registration updates to the programmer. I will advise when he finishes them.

1) removing the "other info" field entirely
2) adding the "biography" field back in with the default 50 word minimum

This will give us a mandatory writing sample from each registrant.

-Larry

Bigred
01-06-2019, 11:44 PM
Done, all wikis updated:

1) removed the "other info" field entirely (there is no way in mediawiki to make filling it out mandatory)
2) adding the "biography" field back in with a 10 word minimum. It's short as people used to complain about the old 50 word one, but IS mandatory, and enough to give the admins something to go off of. It will be easy to spot legitimate applicants now.

Ashendant
01-07-2019, 11:29 AM
Done, all wikis updated:

1) removed the "other info" field entirely (there is no way in mediawiki to make filling it out mandatory)
2) adding the "biography" field back in with a 10 word minimum. It's short as people used to complain about the old 50 word one, but IS mandatory, and enough to give the admins something to go off of. It will be easy to spot legitimate applicants now.

Putting the minimum at 10 words might be for the best really. I hope that it doesn't hurt newcomers when the split happens.

Inquisitor S.
01-13-2019, 04:15 PM
Done, all wikis updated:

1) removed the "other info" field entirely (there is no way in mediawiki to make filling it out mandatory)
2) adding the "biography" field back in with a 10 word minimum. It's short as people used to complain about the old 50 word one, but IS mandatory, and enough to give the admins something to go off of. It will be easy to spot legitimate applicants now.

Sounds good. And THANKS! I have not (yet) seen it myself in action, but from checking the logs it seems there was only one account request since the implementation that got through (and which was rejected by you, Bigred), so I assume it does its job :)

Inquisitor S.
01-15-2019, 04:02 AM
So far works like a charm to me :)

Inquisitor S.
02-19-2019, 03:39 AM
Well, thank God (I mean the Emperor!) that those Spambots that manage to fill in the new field are programmed by people with poor language skills and even less pronounced fantasy...

"I am jerry johnson. i am living in Newyork City which located in the country USA"

Translation: "I am jerry johnson [and certainly not Yurij Reducewrinklespambotic]. i am living in Newyork City [so not in Ex-Leningrad at all] which located in the country USA [an not in grrrrrreatest and most glorrrrrious Spam&Troll-Motherland of all times, you filthy capitalist, imperialist swine I do not try at all to infiltrate]."

Seriously though:
Four account requests since yesterday, all spambots --> they have upped their game.