Orbiter Wiki

[N_Molson]

I never really looked into it until I saw this thread. It seems really precious to me to have a place like that were all the compatible add-ons are listed (which version of Orbiter), their development status, a contact to their authors etc...

 

[Sbb1413]

Excluding this, we have spammy pages, where you will be blocked if you try to edit them. I don't know why spammers attack our wiki instead of other wikis.

 

[Urwumpe]

Excluding this, we have spammy pages, where you will be blocked if you try to edit them. I don't know why spammers attack our wiki instead of other wikis.

Its a Mediawiki installation with default settings. You can use google for finding those. Its no intentional choice to target us, its just robots doing what their programming tells them to do.

They even do SEO spam, despite all external links in our wiki being nofollow, so that Google and other search engines will always exclude them from their page rankings.

 

[Arvil]

Well, again, it would be pretty bad in terms of security. If the security of Orbiterwiki would be breached, both O-F and Orbithangar would be compromised, too.

For O-F and OH, its tolerable, since both are more or less maintained by the same admin team now. But Orbiterwiki isn't, and the recent trouble tells me, that we would be a rather poor partner right now. Our monitoring was poor, I have to admit there, I also did not pay proper attention to things after Roman updated the server. Thus, its my punishment now, to fix this mess, as good as I can.

Yep, for the same reason one should not use the same password in multiple sites, they get in one, they will be in them all. Also, not all forum members should be wiki editors, pardon me, guys and gals.

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, not all forum members should be wiki editors, pardon me, guys and gals.

They are - I encourage anyone to use this wiki, as long as it is about Orbiter and Spaceflight. I don't want too high standards for contributing, if you have 5 minutes for explaining people how to run an old add-on from 2005, its better to get those 5 minutes into the wiki, than none.

If you want to publish space-themed science fiction stories there, I can sure tolerate this, it isn't exactly what we had in mind for the wiki, but it won't harm us, quite contrary. Same for stories about building sim-pits at home or other DIY projects using Orbiter. You teach children spaceflight with Orbiter? Please share what you do, I am sure many others want to know.

You aren't member of O-F yet, but still could contribute a lot of insight into an historic spaceflight project, I sure won't slam the door for you.

I think with more proper use of the wiki, other than hosting spam, it also makes sense to have more bureaucrats and other special users.

 

[Arvil]

I stand corrected, thanks.

 

[Arvil]

I tried that. They show up in Special Pages\Uncategorized pages. I moved a few into Category: Spam. I got banned by the autofilter, presumably because I edited spam pages. Since then I keep getting warnings that I'm banned because someone is using my IP address to create spam. I changed my IP address and stayed away for a couple of weeks until after the expiration of the ban date, went back on tonight, got the same message with a new date. Urwumpe hasn't been able to help. Sure would like to know how this is happening when I'm not even there and not even the same IP address. Don't touch spam pages (12,900 of them), you may be banned also.
Message looks something like
You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason:


Your IP address has been automatically blocked because it was used by another user, who was blocked by ‪Urwumpe‬. The reason given is:
Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "JaunitaWoodriff".
The reason given for JaunitaWoodriff's block is "Spammer"

• Start of block: 00:01, 31 December 2020
• Expiration of block: 00:01, 20 January 2021
• Intended blockee: 173.245.54.92

You may contact ‪Urwumpe‬ or one of the other administrators to discuss the block.
Note that you may not use the "Email this user" feature unless you have a valid email address registered in your user preferences and you have not been blocked from using it.
Your current IP address is 173.245.54.92, and the block ID is #38794. Please include all above details in any queries you make.

That's not my IP nor is that me. I wasn't there on 31 December. Each time I try it's different people, IP, etc.

I have run CCleaner, AVG and Avast antivirus (didn't realize they were the same company now), Superantispyware and Malwarebytes, all say I'm clean. On my third IPA at Verizon. Got banned using several browsers. Thinking there was something on my PC, tried with my iPad, same ban. Went to the firehouse, different ISP there (Comcast cable), also got banned. Just got a brand new cellphone (Tracfone, completely different ISP), never been to the wiki, got banned there. So, it seems it's not a Verizon problem.
I was also browsing the user list a few weeks ago to see if any of those banned users listed by the filter showed up. I found an old user I had I completely forgot about (are171887) back in '16, and it seemed to have generated about 30 spam pages. I did not know that, and did not generate them myself, must've been some malware I had at that time. Maybe the ban connects that user and my current user. Could that user be deleted or archived in some way and the spam pages deleted so that the ban doesn't hit me for it? Don't know where else to go from here. Thanks

 

[Urwumpe]

It isn't just on your side, the problem is, that Orbiterwiki is also behind Cloudflare now, without having the needed cloudflare module for Apache installed. So, the IP bans will fail for a while to hit the right people - not using any IP bans would mean I can't keep the amount of new spam at the end of the day to zero or less.

Sadly, the email our administrator function is also broken and he does not seem to read his talkpage....

 

[Arvil]

Well, that makes me feel much better that it’s not just me. I’ll be patient. Urwumpe, I thank you very much for your help. I definitely agree with protecting the site. The bad guys are giving you enough trouble so as it is.

 

[Arvil]

@Urwumpe: If you haven't been there yet, may want to stop by the wiki, I think your spam filter broke. In about 15 hours, about 160 spams were created. I was even able to log in an do an edit to my Sandbox. Wish RaMan would stop by so he can help you get that Apache on board. Good luck!

 

[Urwumpe]

@Urwumpe: If you haven't been there yet, may want to stop by the wiki, I think your spam filter broke. In about 15 hours, about 160 spams were created. I was even able to log in an do an edit to my Sandbox. Wish RaMan would stop by so he can help you get that Apache on board. Good luck!

Thats normal, about every 10 days is a peak with multiple spam edits per minute. I thought I deleted some lot of it before going to bed, maybe I had forgotten it.

Damn false sense of duty. Can't I just kill some of the bad guys who configure the spam bots in combat, so they have a chance to regain their honor?

 

[Urwumpe]

The first 234 pages are deleted, 136 accounts blocked, I'll do the second batch later, I have to do some taxi duty now...

 

[Urwumpe]

And the next batch is done now, 279 deletes, 168 blocked accounts.... likely still some more now hidden by the administrative events..

 

[Arvil]

Thats normal, about every 10 days is a peak with multiple spam edits per minute. I thought I deleted some lot of it before going to bed, maybe I had forgotten it.

Damn false sense of duty. Can't I just kill some of the bad guys who configure the spam bots in combat, so they have a chance to regain their honor?

Yeah, wouldn’t it be cool to just be able to reach through the Ethernet and just break their legs, or somethin’?

 

[Urwumpe]

And done now... a few hours later. The Wiki is at least superficially clean again.

And if there is no suitable robot around for the task of keeping the Wiki clean since all other wikis don't need it...well, I will have to write my own.

 

[Arvil]

What makes O-W special that the bots like it more so than the others? But, then, theaquariumwiki.com is broken right now . . . Seems nobody can log on since the 28th and the wiki just seems a little off like a data overflow or somethingornother.

 

[N_Molson]

.well, I will have to write my own.

Given the time you spend doing that cleaning stuff, I'd say its worth the time investment writing an anti-spam-bot. Well, lets say that time spent on coding will be quickly repaid. Also you might have more fun writing code rather than deleting spam.

 

[Arvil]

Would that then allow some of us who have been falsely banned by filter back in again?

 

[Urwumpe]

Would that then allow some of us who have been falsely banned by filter back in again?

No, for that we need the Cloudflare module installed into the web server of OrbiterWiki. right now, the mediawiki software, can't look beyond Cloudflare and bans the proxy servers, not the users of that proxy.

 

[Urwumpe]

What makes O-W special that the bots like it more so than the others? But, then, theaquariumwiki.com is broken right now . . . Seems nobody can log on since the 28th and the wiki just seems a little off like a data overflow or somethingornother.

And no, we are not special at all. Spamming wikis and blogs by bots is just incredibly cheap, we only get a tiny fraction of the full bot traffic of the internet right now. It only costs a little bit of money to let millions of bots spam the world with your content.