Spam

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Revision as of 14:50, 3 August 2016 by Wiki-Harry Wood (talk | contribs) (Rewrite better explaining how people can help (and that it is appreciated))
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Nonsense text and promotional links are an ever-present problem on this wiki. Those who add the pages don't seem to understand that these wiki links don't add anything to their pagerank and are just a waste of their and our time. Nevertheless, spam remains a problem.

Wiki administrators

wiki administrators are allowed to delete pages and/or block users. If you are interested in helping to block spamming accounts and revert edits please apply for administrator access on the SAC list (or contact Arnulf Christl directly). There is also a set of people who help review and reject/approve new wiki account registrations.

Normal wiki users can help

Other wiki members cannot fully delete spam, however you can help by spotting the spam and tackling it. Spam on pre-existing pages should be reverted. Much spam involves creation of a new page, often with a spammy title. Deal with these by replacing the page with: #REDIRECT [[Spam]].
These can be found and deleted by administrators. By redirecting we help avoid search engines indexing spam page titles (Spam getting indexed will attract more spam).

All such efforts are appreciated. But we are also working on measures to reduce the need for this human effort.

Shields up again

I have added some new captchas and the spam burden seems the be heavily reduced. Let's monitor... Cheers Markus Neteler 00:33, 31 May 2012 (PDT)

Is there any chance of making the captchas a little bit more tricky? At the moment it seems that the png is always "+1", which is making the automatic registration perhaps just a little bit too easy. Leo 03:56, 6 August 2013 (PDT)

Adminstrator CWillmes blogged about 'The daily kindergardening of OSGeo wiki spammers' - August 02, 2016

A few places to watch for spam

Spam on the osgeo trac system