wiki-l Mailing List: Re: Cohousing wiki hit with advertising edit

[Andrew Netherton (andrewnetherton]

Moderating a few of my own lists, I can sympathize with wanting to
keep things accessible, yet preventing spam or vandalism.  I'm all for
requiring registration, or requiring approval for unregistered edits.
If it's already getting spammed, we'd better get on that quickly
before our wiki become deluged.  Trust me, I had to deal with blog
comment spam not too long ago, and it gets out of hand VERY quickly.
I'd advise to make the change immediately, and debate the merits
later.  You don't want to have to spend a few hours a day undoing
malicious entires.

Regards,
Andrew

On 4/10/07, Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> The main page was edited to have most of screen full of advertising
> material:
> 23:27, 9 April 2007 200.238.102.162 (Talk) (Mobile phones get some amazing
> deals)
>
> I undid it.  I'm pondering setting the configuration to require
> registration to edit. At least on a trial basis to gain experience in that
> option. (Talk pages could still be edited without registration tho I'd
> like to see people leave some identification there too.  I like to knw who
> said what. And to require a valid email address and confirmation similar
> to cohousing-L subscriptions.
>
> I've just studied the details of how to do this a little so far:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Preventing_Access#Disable_anonymous_edits
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Preventing_Access#Questions (then search
> for "valid" )
>
> Cohousing-L posts from non subscribed addresses are held for my review
> ( I get email notice that there are messages to be reviewed. )
> I dont know details of how Media wiki handles attempts to edit by non
> registered people if it is configured to require registration.
> It would be nice to allow people to amke edits but they would not
> become accessaible till approved...
>
> Closely related conceptially but unrelated directly... the NPR segment
> Future Tense had an item on http://en.citizendium.org ( "CZ" ) a few days
> ago which is like Wikipedia (and uses Mediawiki software) but aims to
> improve on that model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring
> contributors to use their real names.
>
> Earlier this morning (before discovering the ads on cohowiki)
> I was exploring  CZ  (I'm generally sypathetic to the idea of encouraging
> use of real names and identifying the source of communications
> unless there is good reason not to, but I am undecided about the CZ
> as an alternative to Wikipedia.)
>
> BTW, I did finally get a no default logo on cohowiki tho it is just an
> image with text that I made with Gimp.  (I am not very adept with Gimp.)
>
> Fred
>
> --
> Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
> Communications for Justice -- Free, superior listserv's w/o ads:
> http://justcomm.org      My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org
> 612-588-9532 (7am-10pm CST/CDT)   Email: fholson at cohousing.org
>
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--
Andrew Netherton
Laurel Creek Commons
Waterloo, ON, Canada
http://andrewnetherton.wordpress.com