User talk:Simetrical

Blocking / Protecting Query

Sim - noticed you were unblocking IP's and unprotecting some stuff - we had been having a little problem with a couple of vandalism attempts against The Long Road's page - what's correct procedure if that persists? I see Manstein's page is protected so it can only be changed by registered users! that seems a bit odd on that page but might work for TLR if problem recurs but that system doesn't seem very clear to user - if you are registered and go to edit you get Note: This page has been locked so that only registered users can edit it message - but if you aren't registered (or logged in) it just appears totally locked - should that have other explanation to say it can be edited by registered user?

Also what is correct procedure if you get a total spam /porn attempt from an IP? --Makanyane 00:46, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

• It's fine to block IP addresses, but use short block durations to start with, say a day. If it persists, escalate, but never block it for more than maybe a month straight. Many IP addresses are dynamic, and even static IP addresses won't belong to the same person forever.
• You can go ahead and protect pages that are getting vandalized by anonymous users so that they can only be edited by registered users. Again, these protections probably shouldn't be indefinite. By some estimates a majority of Wikipedia's content comes from anonymous users; that's much of the advantage of wikis.
• I'll look into the protection message for semiprotected pages.
• Block spamming IPs for a day or so on the first time, maybe a week on the second and a month on the third. I'll add messages to the block and protect pages to clarify all this, I guess. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 10:08, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

.png image query

Umm .png images don't seem to be displaying on Wiki anymore. See Lycan_Rising and , at least for me, is there any reason for that? --Makanyane 00:29, 3 September 2007 (CDT)

Okay, it seems I've fixed it. You might have to regenerate a couple of PNGs, like by reuploading them or making a change to the page that includes them or something. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:41, 3 September 2007 (CDT)

Bot Query

We seem to be having quite a lot of edits from random looking IP's putting one word of garbage at top of page like: http://www.twcenter.net/w/index.php?title=Prothalamos&curid=2637&diff=11850&oldid=11815 is there anything that could be done about that without inconveniencing normal users? Might hopefully stop but there seem to have been and increasing number recently. -Makanyane 06:35, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

It looks like it's not bots, it's open proxies. Some kind of automated anonymizer, probably. If it continues to be a problem, we could either 1) start blocking them as they're used, and hope the person eventually runs out or 2) use an external blacklist to do the work for us (but that has some problems, e.g., we can't unblock on request if the third party is wrong). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:52, 29 September 2007 (CDT)

It's started to drive me round bend as its getting hard to pick out what's going on in recent changes, so have starting trying to block them, have by no means got all of them used to date, but am curious if meeting block might help stop it anyway, it still looks more automated than any sort of human edit to me... Will also try taking out any other ones that come up subsequently. Am just putting it on 2 weeks and anon user only block but leaving account creation open. --Makanyane 13:35, 12 October 2007 (CDT)

Wikis

How would you go about creating a wiki like this, what do you do? Magnus 10:39, 5 October 2007 (CDT)

1. Get web hosting that has support for some web scripting language and databases.
2. Find a wiki engine that works with your chosen web scripting language and your chosen database type. We chose MediaWiki, which works on PHP and MySQL, the most common scripting/database languages available. (It also works with PostgreSQL.) MediaWiki has a number of disadvantages, especially if you don't have shell or better yet root access, and are on a typical shared account.
3. Install the wiki package, generally by uploading it to your webserver and running a script.

—Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:06, 7 October 2007 (CDT)