Re: [Phpwiki-talk] Wiki spam, an emerging trend?

[John K. <jo...@ke...>]

At 1:05 pm +0100 10/11/03, Oliver Betz wrote:
>  > First blogs, and now wikis. There ain't no justice.
>
>Ack. Another reason for some kind of user management/authentication.
>
>I'm also afraid about vandalism, spam, illegal contents etc.
>
>Having some small and not very active Wikis for small groups, there
>is no large community to check for changes, and sometimes I don't
>visit the pages for weeks.

I made a mod for 1.3.2 that I use on all my wiki installations. 
Whenever someone alters a page the server emails me the new page 
text, saying who changed it & adding a link to the diff page:
http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/EmailNotificationHack

I just visited that page and note that some kind persons have updated 
it for 1.3.3

I find it a very useful security add-on, especially for my more open 
wiki sites - my sixth form college site took a beating a few weeks 
ago from a disgruntled student writing rude words on a dozen or so 
pages. Because I got immediate notification, I'd started reverting 
the changes to the first few pages before he'd even finished the 
later ones! As you can imagine, he gave up fairly promptly, seeing 
his clever alterations had all disappeared.

I also find it handy to monitor submissions from wiki novices who 
maybe haven't got their heads round either the syntax or the 
structure of the site - I can quickly amend their changes before 
anyone sees them.

Perhaps this idea might be included in the 1.4 distribution in some 
way? It gives people who've not encountered wiki before and feel a 
little nervous a reassuring safety blanket. In practice I find my 
wikis are rarely abused.

John.
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