User:Bicycle Wheel/RationalWikiWiki Treehouse archive 1

Root

I hereby christen this here treehouse as RationalWikiWiki's official community meeting and discussing place. Whereas RationalWiki has the Saloon Bar, we are too small to make any money. Instead, we have this here treehouse as a place to hang out and talk about both RWW and non-RWW stuff. I shall even create a treehouse header template here once I've grasped how to do it (I'm reading the Idiot's Guides to Javascript and PHP right now). Punky McPunkersen 23:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm in! :-D Refugee 23:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Sweet! Let's play cards or something. Punky McPunkersen 23:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I have "Battleship" and "Risk" for those interested. Conficker 23:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Which Risk? Tyrannis 23:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Regular Risk. Conficker 23:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Good. I'm sick of LOTR risk. Tyrannis 00:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I can just rip the saloon bar-top and tear it to peices, taking what we want. Do you want me to steal the juke-box as well, as no-one uses it?Tyrannis 00:05, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, but we should try to make it something of our own as well. And, since this is a treehouse, the jukebox isn't needed, IMO. Conficker 00:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Balance is important. We do not want to tip over. Tyrannis 00:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Ta da.... I am incredible. We can vandalize it later.Tyrannis 00:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Test

This is a test. And it works. :D Tyrannis 03:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the test. It worked. This site is growing rapidly! Punky McPunkersen 03:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Allow me to confirm, gentlemen. Liveware Problem 03:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

As I was testing the add section button I had just added... thanks? Tyrannis 16:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

500 internal server errors

Anyone else getting them? Trent got rid of them for me, but in the past few days they have been occurring again. Tyrannis 16:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I have yet to experience them since Trent applied the fix. Liveware Problem 16:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, you also don't spend 3 hours a day here hitting refresh on RC :) They crop up every 30 refreshes or so. Tyrannis 16:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Come to think of it, this site often acts weird in my browser. RW as well. Tyrannis 17:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I've had intermittent problems with both RW and RWW all day. SuspectedReplicant 17:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

As of 5 minutes ago, RW isn't working for me. I may go complain on the blog shortly. Tyrannis 17:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

33 minutes ago the server went down apparently. It is back up again. 174.69.158.147 18:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikifauna

[1] discuss. Tyrannis 14:19, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

To elaborate, should we add the ones we have to this wiki? Tyrannis 14:22, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure. If I remember correctly, the Cunning Log of Mei (back in the day) had a couple of Mei's commentaries on various WIkifauna. I'll look for it and post a link. Punky McPunkersen 15:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikifauna, with short descriptions and preliminary examples are up here feel free to edit, add, remove, complain, etc. Tyrannis 19:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm. Why not add it? Or we could always make our own. Liveware Problem 22:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Category maybe?Tyrannis 22:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Category and our own verisions and articles regarding Wikifauna and Wikiflora would be the way to go, in my opinion. Doing our own articles would be fun and help this site grow. Conficker 00:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright. Suggestions? Tyrannis 00:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Category created. As far as suggestions, just come up with whatever you think is a type of RationalWiki's fauna, and make an article. Worst that happens is it gets deleted or something. Conficker 00:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Right, right. Tyrannis 00:11, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The current CP boycott....

....Has NOTHING to do with any rumored cabals here or on RationalWiki. Punky McPunkersen 22:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Certainly not. Tyrannis 22:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Boycott of what? Armondikov 16:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't even know what a boycott is. Quaru 16:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm boycotting this thread. Bugger. SuspectedReplicant 16:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

When I was a child, I thought boycotting was a method of cooking. Hans Johnson as in "keep ya hans off my" ^{(cover your eyes!)} 19:10, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

The boycott might be an interesting sex position. Liveware Problem 20:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Involves boys and cots. Ty 23:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Boycott: 1. Place male on flat surface. 2. Male crosses arms to simulate bars of cot. 3. Female must arrange herself on male so as to experience maximum comfort on "cot." 4. Male folds at the waist, sliding female's canoodler onto his magic wand. 5. Repeat; stability provided by male's forearms, the bars, which now bind female on him.

Playing it out in my head, it seems rather ridiculous, but still functional. So there you have it, right from the scary cave of Blue's mind. :D Liveware Problem 03:34, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

eh. I'm in good shape. Heard worse. Ty 12:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Wait, I actually wrote that? I thought the buffer kicked in... Liveware Problem 12:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

No, you wrote it. Hahahaha. Ty 13:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Wait, like I would be supporting using my upper arm perpendicular and the lower are parallel? Ty 02:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

There is room for interpretation. Liveware Problem 03:03, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Ew. I bet you're a petophile, too. Quaru 00:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

2 cats, a dog, and a gecko. Ty 01:40, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Big Block

I engaged in a block war, I know. However, I believe that I was blocked to long. Thus, this is proof that RationalWiki secretly loves RationalWikiWiki. ^{— Unsigned, by: ColbertFan / talk / contribs}

What? Ty 20:16, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Erm..... Conficker 01:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Spam

WTF is with all this spam? Conficker 01:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Lumeniki got hit as well. They seem to come in twos. Ty 04:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

And the Oblivion Mod Wiki. It's been going on for a couple of months now and is beginning to really piss me off. SuspectedReplicant 09:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

When the server becomes independent again, maybe we can make an article blacklist containing the word money, and every car brand.Ty 13:53, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I've already done that. Based on past experience, it'll probably work for a couple of days before they move on to other topics. SuspectedReplicant 14:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I know we have a username blacklist here. I'll see if I can extend it to articles. Ty 15:03, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

can we disable account creation for a couple of weeks? Rrose Selavy 10:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is it's been going on for more than a couple of weeks. On OMW I first started editing the title blacklist on 27 January, and the spam had already been going a couple of days. Since then there haven't been many days without spam, so an extra couple of weeks probably isn't going to make a difference. Banning all external links (except to, say, RW and CP) might be the way to go? SuspectedReplicant 11:16, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Nx had something like that in place, does anyone know if it still exists? If so, does anyone know how to re-enable it? Ty 15:11, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Test [2]Ty 15:24, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Did it work as IP? Ty 15:27, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

It forced me to use the captcha for UESP but let RationalWiki through. OTOH, I dunno whether you got a captcha before or not. SuspectedReplicant 15:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

And thinking about it, they've obviously been able to get around the captcha to create new accounts, so I'm not sure that this will be much good :/ SuspectedReplicant 15:30, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, looks like we are going to have to do it the old-fashioned way for now. Ty 15:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Sharing CheckUser Info

It's not installed here, but it is on Oblivion Mod Wiki. Since both wikis (along with loads of others) are under the same kind of irritating flood at the moment, would you like me to block any IPs here that I find from OMW?

For the privacy conscious (and technologically inept), this doesn't mean I can find out your IP if you're logged in: it's just that (for instance) we had a spammer called "Julidill" editing from 94.112.246.234 and 87.117.135.86. If I blocked those two IPs when then came up on OMW, it means they couldn't bother RWW.

I know this is very anti-RWW ethos, but there's been such a problem with spam that exceptional responses appear necessary. It's also worth mentioning that checking with a certain search engine beginning with G always shows these IPs to be linked with spam.

Let me know if this is something people could accept. SuspectedReplicant 21:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I refer you to RationalWikiWiki:Checkuser. Anything that major would need approval from higher up. Or maybe higher. Ty 21:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's my point. It wouldn't be revealing anything about users here - only vandals at OMW. SuspectedReplicant 22:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean using information from OMW on RWW, but not the other way round? Or do you mean using CheckUser on RWW to help OMW, too? Dalek 22:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

(EC)I would say go ahead, SR, all the power to you. Liveware Problem 22:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Well there you go. Ty 22:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Purely OMW info being used here... especially since this place doesn't have the CheckUser extension installed. It's purely a case of "I can do this if it's helpful and not considered a bit creepy"... although I can add "Mwah! ha! ha! ha!" to the block reasons if creepy is desired...

That had too many "purely" in it. I'm purely trying to be pure! I've stopped reading Karajou's blog! And I wash every hour! With wire! HELP! SuspectedReplicant 22:50, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Patrolling

I'm going camping and will not be back for at least a day, can someone please watch the wiki when it is daylight in the Western Hemisphere? Ty 19:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I should be able to do that. SuspectedReplicant 19:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to be back by 8pm your time tomorrow. Ty 19:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't stay out too late. And make sure you're wearing clean underwear. And don't eat any foreign food. And don't trust the water. SuspectedReplicant 19:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm more worried about the damn bear and whether or not my paltry .270 will keep it of me if it decides to get frisky. Cheers. Ty 19:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow RW is slow today

5 minutes for saloon bar to load. Good thing I don't have much free time right now. Ty 17:06, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I've had the odd slow page but it's been fine for most of the day. SuspectedReplicant 17:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe LSU has screwed up their wireless again. I'll check when I get home. Until then... I've got a OS test to study for. Ty 17:27, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

....aaaaand typically, RW dies on me during this conversation. SuspectedReplicant 17:32, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, everything else is working perfectly here. Ty 17:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Really slow again today. :< Ty 15:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, me too. Liveware Problem 16:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Getting rid of most of my vector.js file sped it up a bit, but still slow. Ty 16:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I've found the problem to be mostly server side, actually. Liveware Problem 16:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Most likely, but loading RC with HotBan takes longer than RC without HB. Still the difference is relatively low. :/ Also, as RWW is smoothly running... Ty 16:18, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup/Projects

I quite like this place, and feel like getting involved. Are there any cleanup or project tasks that need taking on, or is it just articles about RWians right now? Dalek 22:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Lawlz. If you feel helpful, feel free to rewrite my article. (: Liveware Problem 23:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

But RWW articles should be quite mean, and I just don't think I could bring myself to be nasty about yourself, Armondikov or Tyrannis, you're beacons of sanity and hope who I actually like not all bad. Dalek 23:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I think LWP/LB/LS/BvM/MvE is referring to the fact that I confused a friendster of a fictional character with her and completely screwed up her article, plus it is out of date. Hence the {{mess}} on it. Ty 23:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll happily be mean about you if you want to trade slagging duties! Armondikov 03:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Ooh, that sounds excellent. Liveware Problem 07:14, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I tried writing nasty things about you but wound up writing nasty things about myself and nice things about you! Curse you Southern gentry upbringing! Ty 19:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Let's see. Who has pissed me off the most... Ty 02:59, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Preventive blocks

A better alternative is setting $wgAutoConfirmAge to one day and letting only auto-confirmed users to create pages.--Burzum 17:54, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The only problem with that is that the people who actually have access to the MediaWiki software and server here are never around. Until/unless this place finally gets transferred over to Goonie, we can only action on a sysop and 'crat level. Conficker 18:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I might still have server access. Let me check, and if I do I'll change the AutoConfirmAge. Hans Johnson as in "keep ya hans off my" ^{(cover your eyes!)} 23:37, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Ty 23:39, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry that took a while—I finished up finals week, then, uh, forgot—but it turns out I do not have server access. Apparently the password was changed at some point. Hans Johnson as in "keep ya hans off my" ^{(cover your eyes!)} 22:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Not Working

We just had a rush of about 12 spammers who had been preventatively blocked coming back and spamming for real. The 1-day blocks just aren't working, but I'm out of ideas for what else to try with no server access. SuspectedReplicant 16:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I know it's not at all perfect, but it's the best we can do for now. I'm trying to get into contact with the RW Foundation and Trent and see what can be done about the server access here. Punky McPunkersen 14:19, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

If we can just change $wgBlockAllowsUTEdit to true so people can edit their own talk pages it'd be a start. I think we've seen enough of these spammers to be able to block them indefinitely on sight with only a tiny margin of error, and editable talk pages would take care of the remaining couple. SuspectedReplicant 14:44, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

So.....

Who wants to play "Go Fish" ? Punky McPunkersen 12:13, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Got any threes? Ty 12:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I caught a haddock! Crundy 09:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

So, how are you going to cook it? Ty 12:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Fried with chips? 69.119.100.86 20:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Mmmmm, haddock and chips sounds good right now! Punky McPunkersen 00:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd kill for some seafood. Ty 01:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

What, don't you like to feel it wriggle on the way down? Rrose Selavy 09:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Nah, I'd probably choke.Ty 12:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Stopping the spam

Make "create article" -- if media wiki lets you -- a right that users don't get upon signing up. RationalwikiwikiUndergroundResistor 20:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Nobody here has server access. That's our problem. 69.119.100.86 22:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

When is the next board meeting? Ty 23:35, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The next board meeting will be within a couple weeks. When we have a meeting, I will certainly discuss RWW and its future, my intent to purchase RWW from RationalWiki, and will try to, as a result, gain some server access in the interim as well. Punky McPunkersen 14:05, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I just asked Trent for the server password. Hopefully my history as ex-owner of the domain name and ex-main admin can get me that much. Hans Johnson as in "keep ya hans off my" ^{(cover your eyes!)} 22:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

New challenge

If Goonie can make challenges, so can I. So here goes:

We have our 50 new articles. Great job to all that helped. Just one problem: this place is full of stub and articles that lack lots of good information. So, my challenge for April is for us all to spend time expanding articles that need it. And, as a bonus to me, I'll have more time in April to help out, since I will have home internet again. Let's all make it happen! Conficker 17:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright. And it will be good to see you again.Ty 17:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. There are too many articles that are two lines and a stalkbox. Rrose Selavy 17:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

site down?

Loading RW for me is either incredibly slow or impossible. Anyone else have issues? Thisd wouldn't be a problem except that I've become addicted to WIGO as well as reading our quite excellent articles--Brxbrx 19:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Same problem. I'm going to yell at the tech blog in a few minutes. Ty 19:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I've had the same problem a few times. Now, though, we can't make those "Trent spilled beer on the server" jokes anymore. Shame. Rrose Selavy 19:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Only when this site is down. I'm commenting on the blog now, but Punky told me this morning that he was having trouble contacting Trent so... :( Ty 19:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Down for me, but this says it's up for most people. The blog says site load is "Very high", rating it as 26.75 Toulouses. SuspectedReplicant 19:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I have written a comment on the blog. Let's see if anything happens. Ty 20:00, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Really effing slow, but back up for me. up to 27.56Toulouses, wtf is going on? Ty 20:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

31T, capn I'm not sure she'll make it! Ty 20:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

apart from being my city of birth, what's a toulouse? also, that site you posted above tells me it's down for everyone--Brxbrx 20:10, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

DFEOJM says it is down. Ty 20:10, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Trent's last name. Ty 20:11, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I assume it's also a gauge of traffic?--Brxbrx 20:15, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Most likely. Ty 20:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be back. Ty 20:33, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Not really. When there is high traffic, usually the server just clogs up and can't process requests for content. The server then becomes remarkably quite un-busy as there's nothing for it to do (the requests simply can't get through to cause it a problem). The indicator on the blog is what the server is doing. This is highest when Media Wiki is doing something complicated like working through the job queue, messing with a huge page, suffered a BigDelete and so on. It usually goes (or at least did do when it was back under Trent's desk) up to the max when backing up. Traffic spikes cause a problem, but we usually notice it because it's trending on Facebook, Digg, Twitter and all that jazz. In this case, it doesn't seem to so it's probably just a glitch server side. Armondikov 21:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I know how a server works, but thank you. Ty 21:17, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm just saying it's not the best proxy for traffic spikes. Usually Trent will say if something is getting hit repeatedly. Armondikov 21:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright. I just use it to see if something has gone wrong again. Ty 21:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Both down again for me. SuspectedReplicant 22:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm good, little sluggish. Ty 22:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah fuck. There it goes again. Ty 22:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Though it occurs to me that now RW and RWW aren't on the same physical machine, we can get one if the other dies. It used to be that RW, RWW and the forums were taken out. Armondikov 00:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

RWW and RW (and not forgetting RWWW) do share an internet connection though don't they? So it's not the connection that's overwhelmed, rather, the server (or more precisely, MediaWiki) right? I don't know why I bothered even saying that, but am I barking up the right bush there? 62.189.78.109 10:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

RW and RWWW are on a commercial server, RWW is apparently still on Trent's computer. Thus when one is down, the other isn't. Ty 12:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I did not know that. But that makes some sense. Armondikov 12:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know the exact hardware setup, but RW and RWW are on different IP addresses. That could mean that the machine is capable of handling traffic for one IP even if the other is overwhelmed. SuspectedReplicant 11:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Even if it's the same company hosting under the same contract, it doesn't mean it would place both sites in the same situation as one computer on Trent's internet connection. It could be a bug specifically in MW, it could be a DoS effect, intentional or otherwise. Alexa isn't showing a localised spike at the moment, although traffic has climbed in the last week to quite a high, although this is just the normal ebb and flow after a fairly quiet period. Still, until Trent posts on the tech blog, we're in the dark about what the cause is. Armondikov 12:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Alexa wouldn't necessarily see a spike from a DDOS attack. It runs as an IE plugin, and DDOSs are usually done with special programs, and not a browser. The news that RW & RWW are on different servers explains the one up/one down though. SuspectedReplicant 14:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Also, it also means that if something goes wrong here, we have no dedicated tech support. We can only complain to Trent and hope he fixes it. Ty 14:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

But it does tend to show legit hits, e.g, the Facebook thing. It doesn't necessarily need to be a malicious attack to seriously bork the server. Armondikov 15:13, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Wiki-fu

I'm installing mediawiki to my machine so I can test it so when we finally get the {{expletive deleted}} server access I can talk Punky through it. I wish I could host it, but I think this site is larger than my college's 50MB hosting limit.Ty 18:47, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yay MW installed! Time to learn to be sysadmin the hard way! Ty 18:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Have fun. Also, because I'm evil: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:All_extensions --Burzum 19:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, fun times. Ty 19:01, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Whee! this is fun! Ty 21:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Fun! Ha ha ha ha ha! Fun! Fun! Fun! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! FUN! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! FUN!HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! FUN! NURSE! SuspectedReplicant 21:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

PHP makes me feel dirty. It is a horrible crappy language. Ty 21:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

User rights

I know people have talked about merging police with janitor. Do we want holy rollers to be auto patrolled? Ty 20:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Liveware Problem 21:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright. I'm using my wiki as a test bed, and I got the holyroller to be auto patrolled. Huzzah. Hopefully when we get server access I can point Punky or whoever in the right direction. Ty 21:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

File:Funwithwikis.png

fun!

The user rights on RWW confuddles the crap out of me. Armondikov 17:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Sysop is split between Janitor and Police, Holyroller can rollback, and access is so Trent can edit MW files without letting him have any "real" powers. Ty 17:05, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

is there a need for the different rights groups? To me it always smelt of distrust, with rights carefully trickled out one by one. I think we all know each other by now, anyone using their RW username should be a sysop if they're a RW sysop, and people like me should be sysopped when they're demonstrably trustworthy. Rrose Selavy 18:16, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Hell if I know, but I like that idea. Item #5732 on the to do list. Ty 18:28, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Anti-spam

Because Ty(rannis) asked:

• Extension:SpamBlacklist allows you to maintain black- and white-lists of URLs with regular expressions. You can also include external links, such as the master blacklist of all Wikimedia projects.[3]
• Extension:TitleBlacklist is almost the same, but with page titles.
• Extension:ReCAPTCHA adds a captcha in several places. Doesn't work if the spammers are not bots, but humans in a digital sweatshop somewhere.

There's also a built-in open-proxy blacklist, but according to the documentation it may have false positives: $wgEnableDnsBlacklist. See Manual:Combating spam.--Burzum 07:55, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The TitleBlacklist one is great, but doesn't help with the current spam explosion. We have it on OMW but there are so many different titles being used that it's impossible to keep everything covered. Ditto the SpamBlacklist - too many different URLs.

Both RWW and OMW use ConfirmEdit, but maybe ReCAPTCHA does a better job... I dunno. SuspectedReplicant 08:06, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Well this is all hypothetical, but Spamblacklist and ReCAPTCHA are probably best bet. The spam titles are all over the damn place. Frontal Lobes, pregnancy, car, spectroscopy... Ty 12:10, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Update from OMW

The owner of the Oblivion Mod Wiki, Vhaeos, has tried using a different simple captcha system (which didn't work) and is now planning to install a complex version. In the meantime all account creation has been turned off on OMW.

Turning account creation off on OMW isn't a big deal, since it's never been a particularly active site, but obviously it's not an option here. I'll keep y'all up to date with how the new captcha system works. SuspectedReplicant 23:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

April Fool's Day

Anybody play any good pranks today? Conficker 23:15, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I retired, created a don't feed Ace template, and argued with my sockpuppet. LP did more subtle, still mostly undetected stuff. Ty 23:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Today, I put up a trip line going into one of my classes and watched some of my classmates trip over it. That's about the funniest April Fool's prank I've ever pulled. Conficker 23:33, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Nice. Manged to avoid reprisal?Ty 23:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Yep. I'm too cute for the guys to want revenge. Conficker 23:41, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

What was the name of that ancient greek lady who, when brought to trial, stripped naked and said something to effect of "screw the rules I'm beautiful"? Ty 23:43, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

My work prank was pretty funny. After our project manager told us a machine had "to keep running," I waited about an hour, and then told him that it was down for maintenance. He then re-scheduled everything that had to go through that machine and posted it amid much swearing. Immediately afterward, I said "April Fool's" and he, literally, ran to the room to make sure it was running. He then whacked me in the shoulder with his clip board. Punky McPunkersen 23:47, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

College newspaper: "Jindal sells state capital", "Student body president: I did not have sex with that woman" Ty 23:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what ancient Greek story that was, but your student newspaper sounds like it took a page right out of The Onion for that one. Conficker 23:50, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

One of the few things other than sports LSU is known for is our paper. Ty 23:51, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if my college is known for much. Conficker 23:53, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, you for one. Ty 23:55, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm not very important. Conficker 23:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

You'd think they'd at least gain infamy for creating you. Ty 00:00, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but they haven't figured out my school created me yet. Go figure! Conficker 00:07, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

See, all I've made by myself is some crappy text-based games. Ty 00:09, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Lol. On a more serious note, though, I love my school. I just think that, since it's one of a zillion other IT-specialty schools around, it's not really known for much. Conficker 00:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Good for you. Ty 00:12, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The only thing my school is known for is being the only gay-friendly place in a town dominated by hicks and white trash. Hans Johnson as in "keep ya hans off my" ^{(cover your eyes!)} 01:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

What is your major anyway Hans?Ty 01:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Accounting. Hans Johnson as in "keep ya hans off my" ^{(cover your eyes!)} 05:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)