Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Spamreport

The last three spambots registered were within 3 days of each other. Quietust dealt with them rather quickly, but it seems we should watch for more spam activity; apparently we've attracted some spamming system's attention. Calite 01:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

One should block the registration of new Accounts for a while and disallow editiong without registration. At the moment a bot is attacking the wikiw. There seem to be some more accounts registered not having done something by now, but the registration-log look suspicious. --Kami 08:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

If I could, I would, but I can't - you'll have to talk to Briess about that. --Quietust 20:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

SPAM: Some Suggestions & Observations

The latest example of SPAM here was titled "2006 Exploration In Job Oil State United". Compare that with the countless legitimate articles starting with "DF2010". And exploration is a large part of playing DF. That seems almost clever. Do computers learn and become smarter? This suggests to me that there might be a human who occasionally posts SPAM here and oversees his spambots.

All this SPAM and (Deletion log) / (Block log) really clutters up the Recent changes list, which makes it difficult to follow what's being changed. Perhaps the (Deletion log) and (Block log) could be reported in a separate list?

I do see that account creation uses ReCAPTCHA to (in theory) block spambots. But perhaps a more sophisticated form of CAPTCHA is needed? Some types of CAPTCHA combine words with background noise and multiple colors. And, in addition, perhaps the answer to a simple question could be required? (What color is the sky? What color is grass?) This Q&A requirement could even be randomized.

Finally, would it be possible to set up a list of websites which automatically blocks links from such sites from appearing? In theory, it should be possible to have such a list auto-trigger account suspension of a few days or something. (Sort of like how some forums and guest books are coded to automatically deal with profanity.) And perhaps new links to off-site content (aside from a short list of exceptions, including the official bay12 sites, dffd.wimbli dot com and wikipedia) should be forbidden/blocked for a few weeks or so? I just feel that dealing with SPAM with creative solutions might send the culprit a message and end the SPAM for a while.

BTW: It was my understanding that a majority of SPAM comes from 3rd world countries and other nations where labor is dirt cheap. They often have grammar and spelling errors as English may not be their first language. That, and it seems some types of bots combine words pseudo-randomly. --Thundercraft 09:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

You don't need a captcha, you just need the signup to ask an obvious Dwarf Fortress question. That would be 100% effective against any spambot, unless it was programmed and targeted specifically at us. --Devek 14:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC)