Jmol:Administrators

This page contains information about Jmol wiki administration. It lists some actions administrators should take in various situations.

Fighting against vandalism and spamming

Wiki configuration

Several configuration options have been activated on Jmol wiki to reduce the number of vandalisms. These options include:

• Anonymous users can't edit pages.

  <source lang="php">$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;</source>

• Email address is required for account registration and this email address must be confirmed before the user can edit pages

  <source lang="php">$wgEmailConfirmToEdit = true;</source>

• Users have limited rights unless they are registered for at least 4 days. Limited rights are about:
  • Creating pages,
  • Moving pages,
  • Editing pages without previewing first,
  • Uploading files,
  • Sending emails.

  <source lang="php">$wgGroupPermissions['*']['upload'] = false;</source>

  <source lang="php">$wgAutoConfirmAge = 3600 * 24 * 4;</source>

  <source lang="php">$wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['upload'] = true;</source>

  ...

• Extension ForcePreview to force previewing modifications before saving them.

  <source lang="php">$wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['forcepreviewexempt'] = true;</source>

  <source lang="php">require_once( "$IP/extensions/ForcePreview/ForcePreview.php" );</source>

• Extension SpamBlacklist to manage a black list of URL.

  <source lang="php">require_once( "$IP/extensions/SpamBlacklist/SpamBlacklist.php" );</source>

  <source lang="php">$wgSpamBlacklistFiles = array(</source>

  <source lang="php"> "http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spam_blacklist&action=raw&sb_ver=1",</source>

  <source lang="php"> "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist&action=raw&sb_ver=1",</source>

  <source lang="php"> "http://blacklist.chongqed.org/mediawiki/",</source>

  <source lang="php"> "DB: wikijmolorg JmolWiki_Blacklist"</source>

  <source lang="php"> );</source>

• Extension ConfirmEdit to add a security feature, known as a Captcha, to prevent bot access in some situations (user registration, second login attempt, and URL added).

  <source lang="php">require_once( "$IP/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ConfirmEdit.php" );</source>

  <source lang="php">require_once( "$IP/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ReCaptcha.php" );</source>

  <source lang="php">$wgCaptchaClass = 'ReCaptcha';</source>

  <source lang="php">$wgReCaptchaPublicKey = 'xxx';</source>

  <source lang="php">$wgReCaptchaPrivateKey = 'xxx';</source>

• RevisionDelete has been activated.

  <source lang="php">$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['deleterevision'] = true;</source>

  <source lang="php">$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['hideuser'] = true;</source>

Administrators actions

Unfortunately, even with these options, vandalism can still happen. Administrators actions in this situation can be the following:

• Block user with the following options:
  • Expiry set to infinite,
  • Prevent account creation checked,
  • Automatically block the last IP address used by this user, and any subsequent IP addresses they try to edit from checked,
  • Hide username from edits and lists checked.
• Informations about the account can be retrieved by an administrator.
• Eventually, merge user with Anonymous account (and delete the old user).
• If the vandalism is about spamming links to external sites, update the JmolWiki Blacklist by adding the domain of the spam URL.

  The dot character '.' must be escaped with backslash '\' before.

• If the vandal has created a new page or uploaded a new file, delete the page or the file.
• If the vandal has modified an existing page, revert its modification and delete the revision using the Show/hide selected revisions button in the history of the page.

Contributors

NicolasVervelle