Wiki

[Jess Hires]

Hey everyone,

Sorry for all the spam problems on the wiki. I had intended for this to be open and people could just register with no verification. However, we need to make sure people are human before creating an account and being able to add/edit pages...

First step of the fix, only Administrators can currently add/edit pages. This is temporary, to stop the in-flow of spam. After we get in under control, we will open it back up to users.

Second, registration is currently halted. Administrators can add new accounts. Again, this will open back up once we get it under control. I think the temporary solution (after cleaning up the spam) will be that anyone can request access, but an Administrator will have to approve it. If we can find a good way to verify people are human (like a Captcha that actually works), we may attempt to open this up again, but that is a distant vision.

As of right now, I am deleting the garbage posts, reverting the edits to legitimate pages, and deleting the spam accounts. If I accidentally delete a legitimate account, please let me know and I will get it corrected. After we get spam deleted, I'll continue copying over posts from the old wiki to the new one.

FYI, jaxlug.org now redirects to jaxlug.net (in certain scenarios). For the technical: If you request "/" or "/index.php", it redirects. If you request any other page (like "/index.php/Main_Page"), it will not redirect. That just means we can still pull over data from the old site, but anyone with a bookmark of http://www.jaxlug.org will come to the new site. This is good news!

Thanks again for bearing with us on this, we will have back up and running soon!

Jess Hires

[Jess Hires]

Just double checked, and have to retract that last statement. It appeared that we could still get to the old data, but that's incorrect.

Jess

[Jess Hires]

Alright everyone, the Wiki is clean. It's still on lock-down for now, so please let me know if you had a legitimate account that was deleted, or if you need an account created.

Over the next couple of days/weeks, we'll be working on making it user friendly, and hopefully safe from spam. Thanks for being patient, I know it was a mess.

Jess

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JaxLUG" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jaxlug+un...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to jax...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
 
 

[Jess Hires]

Progress update:

Registration is now open, requiring a successful Captcha to create a new account! You will never be asked to enter a Captcha again, this is just for registration.

Once registered, an account will need to verify their email address by clicking a link sent to the registration email, and (for now) be added to a group granting write/create permission. This is a fail-safe in case the Captcha is easily broken, so we would only have to clean up spam accounts and not spam posts. If it goes well for a while, we'll open it up so any registered users can edit the wiki. If you currently have an account (or register a new one) and would like write access, please let me know and I will get it setup for you.

Thanks everyone!

Jess

[Jess Hires]

So, since I put in the Registration Captcha, only 3 users have registered, with only 1 appearing to be spam. I'm fairly certain the other 2 are legitimate, but need someone else to confirm. Anyway, huge improvement.

Current measures in place:

1. Lock-down
   Registration is open, but people are required to be a group that enables create/modify access. I'd like to lift this restriction once we're sure the spammers won't get in too easily.
2. Email confirmation
   Before being able to create/modify, users also need to confirm their email address. We imagine not too many spammers are going to have legitimate email addresses, and think this is a great security measure.
3. Registration Captcha
   This seems to be working well, and our users only ever have to do it once.

I'd like to get others opinions about the next steps I have in mind:

1. DNS blacklists
   It's relatively easy to setup DNS blacklists from a source, like spamhaus.org. This might help prevent spammers from attacking the site, since most of our traffic should be coming from Jacksonville local traffic. Any reason why I shouldn't implement this?
2. Cool-down period
   It's also relatively simple to setup a "cool-down" period, where new users can't edit or create new entries until after a certain period of time (let's say 72 hours). This could prevent people with malicious intent from vandalizing a page, or even stop a spammer if an attack is unsuccessful for such a period of time. It would certainly give us enough time to identify the illegitimate account and have it removed.

I think that's about all I have for suggestions at this time, but I'd like to see what others think. Any suggestions or comments? I will most likely try to implement some of these changes over the next few days, but I really want to get (legitimate) users participating and editing the wiki!

See you all next week, I'm sure this will come up at the meeting as well. :)

Jess

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jaxlug+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[JaxSmart Admin]

Hi Jess. I just joined (logged onto) the wiki. Since you mentioned that you want more people to add content and edit the JaxLug wiki. This is the first time I've tried the 'edit a wiki' thing. I thought I'd put a link where the mention of TekSystems to the local page (http://www.teksystems.com/locations/teksystems-united-states/jacksonville) since they are bringing the Pizza. I think having a page for reviews or a 'recap' of a presentation would be useful (especially when we get a handout like Dan did, that would be nice to add) and perhaps folks would see the benefit of attending the meetings. Maybe a page for attendance too. 

I know that the more help you get the better JaxLug will be and I want to help in what I can. Being new to Linux I have been picking up concepts every time I attend a meeting. Dan's handout was really a good idea it made it so much better to follow along and I can even 'give it a go' at home at some point. We should have a 'Best of' type of award yearly or maybe 'peoples choice' for presenters. It amazes me how the Linux community is willing to share their time and knowledge.    

Thanks for all your work and leadership.

MJB (aka the "I hate Windows Guy") My smart Car Page 

On Thursday, August 8, 2013 9:04:39 AM UTC-4, Jess Hires wrote:

[Jess Hires]

Great ideas! As I mentioned last night, I'm still trying to port things over from the archive.org copy of the old site:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130622050020/http://www.jaxlug.org/index.php/Main_Page

I definitely want to have notes of previous meetings, we have a brief start here: http://www.jaxlug.net/index.php/Meeting_Notes

Ideally, line (either the date or the presentation name) would be a page with a brief write-up of that presentation, slides/handouts, etc. Here is how it was done before:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120911072405/http://www.jaxlug.org/index.php/Meeting_Notes

We used to have pages for our sponsors as well (Peak10 and Enterprise Integration), and I'll be working on getting those back up as well. 

Wanted to explain a few details about our Wiki security while we're on the subject:

• During registration:
  
• You must successfully answer a Captcha, one time. Captcha isn't used anywhere else on the Wiki.
• You can't sign up with certain email address domains (for example, nothing from hotmail.com).
• After registration:
  
• You must click the link that is emailed to you to be able to create/modify anything.
• There is also a 72-hour "cool-down" period where you will not be able to create/modified anything. This is so I have time to determine which accounts are spam/bots and remove them before they post anything.
• Other notes:
• If you would like to start editing immediately, contact me to verify your account, and I will add you to a group that can edit immediately.
• If I accidentally delete your account, let me know so I won't delete it again. :)
• If you have any recommendations for the wiki, please let me know. The wiki is for the community, and supported by the community. I'll change anything that the group supports, whether I like it or not!

I hope to see more people getting involved with this! Let me know if you have any questions!

Jess

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JaxLUG" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jaxlug+un...@googlegroups.com.