Re: [website-dev] Sysop stuff: spammer with edit summary

On 05/21/10 23:44, TJ Frazier wrote:
> The last spammer I blocked had actually provided an innocuous edit 
> summary, "punctuational corrections". Yeah, right: just visit our "pay 
> us to do your school homework" site, and we'll fix your punctuation.
> 
> W/r/t blocks, the option to block the IP address is always selected by 
> default. I always de-select it, because I can't be sure whether it's a 
> permanently-assigned broadband address (should block) or just a dial-up 
> address, assigned for the session; blocking that would just mess up the 
> next user who happens to dial in on that ISP port. Any thoughts?

It's a valid point.  I think Wikipedia's Blocking Policy is quite 
relevant to this: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#IP_address_blocks

I suggest that we implement something similar on the OOoWiki Help pages 
and make sure that all people with SysOp rights (only a few, so it's 
quite easy to check in with everyone) has read it and understands.

I've added some simple text to:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Help:Administration
which we can adapt and expand upon as needed.


> Which brings me to the next question. Every privacy statement I've ever 
> seen has a provision like, "will be used for administrative purposes 
> only". I suggest that checking a blocked user's IP address against other 
> blocked accounts is a valid "administrative purpose", as it would help 
> determine whether to block it or not. The next level would be revealing 
> that address, and notifying the ISP that we have blocked that user. That 
> seems only polite to the ISP, which may reassign the address, possibly 
> leading to problems for an innocent user.

There is an extension for this: 
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CheckUser

I am still not convinced that notifying the ISP will ever accomplish 
much of anything.  Only a few ISPs ever respond or react to abuse@ 
emails.  most ignore any communication you send to the abuse@ email address.

I do agree that checking the IP address against others is part of the 
Wiki maintenance and falls under the things we as admins should be doing 
when we are deciding to block a user, and possibly the IP address.  Just 
like the WikiPedia policy states, if we block an IP, we need to be sure 
it's going to have the least collateral damage.

I will look at what is required to install the CheckUser extension - 
there are some issues with how it's installed (via a php script) that 
might conflict with how the Wiki webserver is set up.


C.
-- 
Clayton Cornell       [email protected]
OpenOffice.org Documentation Project co-lead