Managing SPAM on your wiki

[eqt (Administrator)]

I worried about SPAM. Won’t my wiki be overrun with spammers?

[eqt (Administrator)]

There are a number of things we do with QualityBox to prevent SPAM. One of the most important is the use of spam-fighting extensions. We also fine tune the configuration of QualityBox to counter the most common spam techniques.

Extensions

There are a number of extensions you can employ to detect and counter SPAM on your wiki.

Abuse Filter is one that is used by the WMF on Wikipedia. To use it, you must create and test filters; plus assign the proper privileges to users who administer those filters. In short, it requires work, but the flexibility and power of the system is great for a public facing wiki. You can import the hundred or so filters used by WMF to create filters in your wiki, so at least you don’t have to start from scratch. However, the syntax and rules are complex.

Bad Behavior is an extension which used to be pretty popular for both WordPress and MediaWiki. It may still be worth using. However, I have decided to delay investigating it further because it doesn’t appear to be an actively maintained project. The source is not hosted in gerrit and it hasn’t been updated to REL1_27 standards of using the extension registry.

Configuration

Besides extensions, there are also configuration settings that you can use to fight spam on your wiki.

$wgSpamRegex is a setting that can be very effective in stopping spam. However, unlike the Abuse Filter where you can apply rules to different groups, this is a one-size-fits-all sledgehammer. Anything not permitted will not be permitted [period] (unless you change the setting).