User talk:Seth

Welcome

Welcome, Seth, to BattleTechWiki!

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Again, welcome to Sarna's BattleTechWiki!

*******Be Bold*******

Tags

Welcome, Seth, to Sarna's BattleTechWiki and thanks for helping to beef up our fan fiction section. I would ask you to do two things, please. 1) Add the fanon tag to the top of each story by typing {{fanon}} above the story itself. 2) In order to increase visability for your story, please add it to the fiction category, by typing [[Category:Fiction]] anywhere in the edit field (though usually at the bottom). (Edit: #2 has been taken careauto-magically.) Again, thanks for contributing, Seth. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Fanon tag

--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

reCaptcha

Seth, at first look I didn't understand the value of your suggestion, but as I dozed on it, what you're suggesting would cause the editor (including the targeted spammer) to complete two reCaptchas, right? One at registration and one again when ever attempting to post a url?--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

In short, yes. Anytime anyone adds an external link to a page, they will be asked to enter the captcha in addition to the one everyone has to enter when registering. I understand that it may add an extra step for legitimate editors, but you can move trusted editors to another group with the same rights as a normal user, but not be subjected to entering the captcha ever again.

The first thing I would suggest doing is changing the following from false to true:

"$wgCaptchaTriggers['addurl']        = false;" //true requires reCaptcha when adding external URLs.

That line should be found beneath the line:

"require_once( "$IP/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ReCaptcha.php");". 

Keep it that way for a day or so and see if it even slows the bots down from adding links to their talk pages. I'm not 100% sure it will work because they're obviously able to register in the first place and that requires entering a reCaptcha too.

Seth, what about existing URLs? If an article gets editted, with no changes to the url (but it previously exists), must the reCaptcha be completed?--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

No, you only have to complete it if you add a new url link tag. Technically, you can even edit a current url to something else and it won't ask you to re-enter the captcha. You can test it here in this sandbox. --Seth 21:18, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, first, thanks for the test ground. It did require a captcha test when the url was added and when it was edited. However, further changes to anything else on the page did not. That was a great test.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I guess being an admin lets me edit them without having to re-enter the captcha. I added you to the group "editors" so in the future you won't have to deal with the captcha at all. But you guys have a lot more people to move into an editor group than I do.--Seth 20:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

New User Group

If it does prove to be effective, you can create a new user group for legitimate editors. To create a new group called "Editors", do the following;

Create page "MediaWiki:Group-editor" and enter "Editors" to the content of the page.

Create page "MediaWiki:Group-editor-member" and enter "editor" to the content of the page.

Create page "MediaWiki:Grouppage-editor" and enter "Editors" to the content of the page.

Add the following lines beneath require_once( "$IP/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ReCaptcha.php");

$wgGroupPermissions['editor'] = $wgGroupPermissions['user']; //Initializes the editor group
$wgGroupPermissions['editor']         ['skipcaptcha'] = false; //exempts the group editor from having to deal with the captcha again
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']          ['skipcaptcha'] = false; //exempts system operator 
$wgGroupPermissions['bureaucrat']     ['skipcaptcha'] = false; //exempts anyone you have already added to this group
$wgGroupPermissions['bot']            ['skipcaptcha'] = true; //not the same as spam bots, you only have one bot in this group NicJBot

Go to to your page "Special:UserRights" and enter the name of people you want to add to the editor group. Simply check the box for editor and press save.

To sort through your list of users, go to "Special:ListUsers" and sort by users with edits. That's where you'll find the users you want to add to the editor group. The bad thing is, you have over 900 members with edits. So that's gonna be a project. But if you decide to take that on, you might as well create the user group "spambot" as well. As you go down the list, as the known spambots to that group. After you're done, whoever has access to the database can look for the spambot table and delete those users periodically.

Other ways to fight spam bots

I've been running a MWO wiki since the beginning of November, and I haven't dealt with a spam bot yet (quite unlike the MW4 wiki I made). Right now I am using the following mediawiki extensions;

• Extension:SpamBlacklist
• Extension:SimpleAntiSpam

Sorry about the wall of text!

Overall response

No, this is excellent material. The active admins here have no way to institute this (don't have the access), but I'll share this with Nic. He's responsive to our requests to improve the site. Thanks! --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I follow this at the stard of Seth's discussion on the Admin page, and he provide a greate tool to handle this problem on sarna, thanks.--Doneve 21:40, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the Semantic Wiki

Hy Seth, at first great work to bring the Semantic Wiki to sarna, ok i must a little bit experiment with it how i can use the full scale of it, when you have any tips i was appriciated, at first i want to use it on the Mech, Vehicle, AeroSpace Fighter, etc. pages, i see your example on the Sandbox, i think we need a seperate Mech Timetable page, the Sandbox is not the right place for it, sorry for raw writing, greetings.--12:11, 15 February 2012 (PST)

I'm in the process of creating a few examples of how this can be implemented with current mech pages. I'll post on the Contact an admin shortly and explain how it works.--Seth 12:13, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Ok thanks.--Doneve 12:15, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Hy again i saw you follow the main production years, but how can i include the hell of variants of some 'Mechs like the CPLT-K5 Catapult variant as example.--Doneve 12:52, 15 February 2012 (PST)

I could make a similar function for that, but that would work better on the Catapult page instead of the overall mech timeline page.--Seth 13:10, 15 February 2012 (PST)

I cant see any introduction year on the Alfar page?--Doneve 13:52, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Lol, you're getting ahead of me. I'll post on the contact admin page when I'm at a point that I'm ready to show you guys how it works.--Seth 13:54, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Semantic MediaWiki

Seth, I've been semi-following your experimentation on the sandbox and just read the above thread. I hadn't expected you to be throwing yourself into this program, but since you've indicated you'd post your explanation on the Admin page, could I ask you to re-shape BattleTechWiki:SemanticMediaWiki instead? I'm all about one-stop shopping for guidance and help and I'd be glad to edit behind you, as necessary. Frankly, you are THE expert on BTW when it comes to Semantic MediaWiki and you're input would go a long way to jump-starting the transition and make the rest of us conversant.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:12, 15 February 2012 (PST)