Difference between revisions of "Admin:Link Spam"
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We have had a significant problem with [http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/LinkSpam Link Spam] on this wiki in recent months (late 2011). We do not wish to prevent public contributions altogether, as any corrections to the [[Symbian OS Platform Security]] book are still very welcome and some new material is about to be added to the site which we hope will promote some public participation. | We have had a significant problem with [http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/LinkSpam Link Spam] on this wiki in recent months (late 2011). We do not wish to prevent public contributions altogether, as any corrections to the [[Symbian OS Platform Security]] book are still very welcome and some new material is about to be added to the site which we hope will promote some public participation. | ||
| − | A while back we disabled anonymous | + | A while back we disabled anonymous article creation and added a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA CAPTCHA] to anonymous article edits, but that hasn't reduced the quantity of spam; it has continued to increase until we're deleting spam articles on an almost daily basis. We are now taking the following steps: |
| − | ;Disabling indexing of link spam | + | ;Disabling indexing and ranking of link spam |
:On the basis that the motivation for link spam is to increase the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank PageRank™] of the spammers' sites, we aim to make that ineffective by ensuring that the edits are not indexed by Google. We have disabled indexing of all pages in the "Special:" name space, which includes the change history, using a [http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html site robots policy]. External links from this wiki are ignored for ranking due to the inclusion of the <code>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow nofollow]</code> attribute. Indexing of deleted content from page histories is disabled using the [http://www.robotstxt.org/meta.html robots meta tag] with <code>noindex</code> and <code>nofollow</code>. | :On the basis that the motivation for link spam is to increase the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank PageRank™] of the spammers' sites, we aim to make that ineffective by ensuring that the edits are not indexed by Google. We have disabled indexing of all pages in the "Special:" name space, which includes the change history, using a [http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html site robots policy]. External links from this wiki are ignored for ranking due to the inclusion of the <code>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow nofollow]</code> attribute. Indexing of deleted content from page histories is disabled using the [http://www.robotstxt.org/meta.html robots meta tag] with <code>noindex</code> and <code>nofollow</code>. | ||
| + | ;Blocking references to known spam sites | ||
| + | :We have installed the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SpamBlacklist SpamBlacklist] MediaWiki extension. This uses an [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist actively maintained blacklist] to block edits containing URLs of sites included in spammed content. | ||
| + | ;Looking for patterns in IP addresses used | ||
| + | :We have installed the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CheckUser CheckUser] MediaWiki extension. This allows us to see the IP addresses used for page edits from logged-in users as well as anonymous users. We intend to block IP addresses that are the source of repeated spam for much longer than the default autoblock period of 1 day. | ||
| + | |||
| + | The above measures have sadly not stemmed the rising tide of spam; we have now also disabled anonymous article edits, and new user accounts will require confirmation from an administrator. | ||
Latest revision as of 20:12, 3 March 2012
We have had a significant problem with Link Spam on this wiki in recent months (late 2011). We do not wish to prevent public contributions altogether, as any corrections to the Symbian OS Platform Security book are still very welcome and some new material is about to be added to the site which we hope will promote some public participation.
A while back we disabled anonymous article creation and added a CAPTCHA to anonymous article edits, but that hasn't reduced the quantity of spam; it has continued to increase until we're deleting spam articles on an almost daily basis. We are now taking the following steps:
- Disabling indexing and ranking of link spam
- On the basis that the motivation for link spam is to increase the PageRank™ of the spammers' sites, we aim to make that ineffective by ensuring that the edits are not indexed by Google. We have disabled indexing of all pages in the "Special:" name space, which includes the change history, using a site robots policy. External links from this wiki are ignored for ranking due to the inclusion of the
nofollowattribute. Indexing of deleted content from page histories is disabled using the robots meta tag withnoindexandnofollow. - Blocking references to known spam sites
- We have installed the SpamBlacklist MediaWiki extension. This uses an actively maintained blacklist to block edits containing URLs of sites included in spammed content.
- Looking for patterns in IP addresses used
- We have installed the CheckUser MediaWiki extension. This allows us to see the IP addresses used for page edits from logged-in users as well as anonymous users. We intend to block IP addresses that are the source of repeated spam for much longer than the default autoblock period of 1 day.
The above measures have sadly not stemmed the rising tide of spam; we have now also disabled anonymous article edits, and new user accounts will require confirmation from an administrator.
