User talk:Joannac

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Revision as of 07:05, 29 May 2009 by imported>Joannac (oh no wait I get it now!)

Old talk has been moved to User_talk:Joannac/OldTalk

Admin function to Rename/Move a Category?

Do you as an admin have the ability to change the name of a category without having to change it on every page? See the discussion at Category_talk:Expedition_outcomes#"Failed" Should Be "Thwarted".

User to Block

All requests up to date :) --joannac 20:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Please don't send me spammers to block unless they've hit >1 page. There are a few spam networks that keep changing IP addresses, and there's no need to ban an IP if it's never getting used for spam again. --joannac 22:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Benjw 11:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

To-do list

  • update All Graticules with any stray pages reletbot did this I assume?
  • Map NSW and Victoria
  • Tag images
  • Fix retro hashes
  • Clear out Category:Tagged_for_deletion
  • Fix inconsistent Swedish grats (mainly around Stockholm) -- ekorren's job!
  • Tag expedition pages properly (Coords reached, Coords not reached, meetup on ..., meetup in ..., retro, failed, etc)
  • Check all the day pages are well-formed

User:ReletBot

works. ty! [1]

Two Ideas

1. Thanks for the Achievements link change.

2. I've created a "What's New?" box and put it on the Main Page. It's been suggested that I put it on the Recent Changes page, but of course I can't do that. Koepfel says you can. What do you think?


news archiveEdit What's new on the wiki?

More pages needing discussionDiscussion archiveEdit Now discussing - please join in: 


Maybe right at the top of the page? It looks a bit funny, IMO. And I'm not good at aesthetics --joannac 23:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean, and I'm not sure why. -Robyn

I want it under all the settings, and before the actual list of changes. But I can't get in there, I don't think. --joannac 23:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Uh you put it in MediaWiki ... now I can't edit it to update the messages ... -Robyn

No, she just embedded the template into MediaWiki:Recentchangestext. It can still be edited. About the location, we were just discussing it in IRC: She want it to be below the settings, above the actual recent changes, but I prefer it as it is right now. Koepfel talk 00:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

protect a page forever

Regarding you inquiry in the recent changes: It's "infinite". (at least it used to be in older mediawiki versions) Koepfel talk 11:53, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The keyword I want is "indefinite". Not "never", "permanent", "permanently", "infinite", or "forever" (although I am impressed with my vocabulary. maybe the crosswording helped). --joannac 08:40, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


Weird Quasi-Spam

I put a delete tag on a page called Developer. It was the third biggest page on the wiki, and appeared to be full of spam. There was a notice at the top of it that it was a research project, and gave a link to click on for more info. It was a Brown University link, so I followed it. It came up with a page saying "WARNING" and my IP address. So I ditched that IP address. I then chopped the back part of the link and went to graffiti.cs.brown.edu . It looks like it's real, but it also looks like there's people not happy about it, and I think understandably so. They say they won't delete it, but if we want to and scrub our logs, we can. But part of their thing is that they want the spam to persist as long as possible. I looks fishy. I figure you know more about wiki'ing in general than I do, and you're a sysop, so enjoy.  :-) --excellentdude 05:00, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

According to their FAQ, it's a file sharing "network" - we're effectively hosting a chunk of a file for them (they say it's a Linux ISO, but it could also be illegal content for all we know). Maybe not spam in the traditional "advertising" sense, but definitely abuse. Page should be deleted - otherwise the content remains accessible through the history tab. (If that is indeed a research project, they don't want their content to remain there as long as possible, but just want to see how long it does - and thus, if file sharing through wiki spamming is viable long-term. Interesting approach, but still wrong.) --dawidi 05:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
It leaves me wondering how useful having the wiki unprotected is. Do we know what proportion of page edits are done by users who are not logged in? And once we ignore the few who would have signed in if they'd remembered to do so, what proportion of edits would be lost by making the wiki log-in-only? I'd estimate it's quite small. And it would certainly make spam-removal a lot easier. -- Benjw 12:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
I've removed the page in question. They seem to have created at least 2 pages (Developers, and Singletons), when their FAQ says they'd only do one per site. Maybe someone should yell at them (I will, if no one else does, in the morning).
RE:making people log in, I'm happy to keep fighting the spam if it means we get more expedition reports from people who would otherwise not report because they don't want to create a login (or don't want to login from a public computer if they're geohashing while on holidays or something). --joannac 12:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh yes, so am I. But it would be interesting to know if we are getting any reports from people who don't have a login. -- Benjw 12:36, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
2009-04-09_33_-84 (the one that isn't NWoodruff) --joannac 12:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Those are both NWoodruff, as far as I can tell from their edits! -- Benjw 13:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I found that on the Recent Changes page you can click a link to see only anonymous edits. And yes, there are a few contributions by people who don't seem to have user accounts. Whether they would stop contributing if they had to log in is a separate question, but for now at least, I agree, it's probably easier to keep dealing with the spam. Thanks for the replies. -- Benjw 13:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

after the move...

Joanna: I'm sure you'll FIND someone to search for... (or: come visit =) --Nemo 14:32, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Tagged for deletion

When the spammers let you, could you have a look at the pages marked for deletion? There is a lot of duplicate categories and various clutter around. -- relet 12:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, someone's been busy! Thanks for going through all of those. -- Benjw 05:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for all the cleanup. And it looks like you get to google for shoes in Alberta as well?? Jiml 07:02, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
No worries. Being a wiki admin isn't all about glamour you know... occasionally I have to do stuff too ;)
And huh? Shoes in Alberta? What? *so confused* --joannac 07:04, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
OH! Google *shows* a little slice of Alberta (in that grat) --joannac 07:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

White-tiger-swimming.jpg

Yes, this can be deleted. I was going to use it as a ribbon icon, but I got a lot of pushback b/c it's copyrighted. -- Jevanyn