Temporary KayakWiki: RichardP

At the request of Nick Schade I've started cleaning spam from KayakWiki.

Richard, Thanks for your help. I am going to look into other script options with the eye to something that is less susceptible to spam – Nick Schade

:If you are looking for suggestions, I am aware of two wiki packages with excellent anti-spam features that are similar to the UseMod? wiki software you are currently using. My first recommendation is OddMuse. OddMuse? is written in Perl and its chief advantage for you would be that since OddMuse? is a descendent of UseMod? it directly supports existing UseMod? database page files and UseMod? page markup. Its chief disadvantage is that OddMuse? removes support for hierarchical naming (i.e. all pages like MainPage/SubPage have to be converted to a flat name like MainPage_SubPage.

:My second recommendation is MoinMoin. MoinMoin? is written in Python and one of its advantages is that its anti-spam feature requires no maintenance on the administrator's part - it is automatically maintained by the MoinMoin? community and then automatically used by all MoinMoin? installations. For you the chief disadvantage of MoinMoin? is the same disadvantage most non-UseMod? derived wikis have, namely that it doesn't have any support for the UseMod? database files. Thus, to use MoinMoin?, you'd have to use something like WikiGateway to move the page data from the old wiki to the new wiki.

Richard: I'm glad you were able to help.

Nick: A first step in reducing the amount of spam you have had to see here lately is to somehow prevent search engines from indexing your old revisions or even the complete wiki. You could either patch your usemod script somehow so that it issues the robots metatag accordingly, you could come up with a robots.txt file, or you could even have a .htaccess file that simply denies access to the major search engine crawlers. Spammers find spammable wikis by searching for spam. The more often your wiki is spammed, the more spammers will find you. And, of course, the more spammers find you, the more you will get spammed. I like to compare that to a thermonuclear reaction. The damage isn't quite as bad, but the similarity is obvious.

Oddmuse is certainly a good recommendation. They have detailed instructions on migrating from usemod. And oddmuse doesn't need to be patched to issue the correct metatags and to block spam. Moreover, it's very easy to install; just like usemod.

– Manni

I've looked at OddMuse? and it looks like it has some useful features. The biggest downside is KayakWiki is currently using SubPages? and it looks like a time consuming process to eliminate them. Any suggestions? – Nick Schade

:There's 148 subpages, of which 49 are Talk pages. Not impossible to convert by hand, but a little tedious. :The HomePage coloured boxes (inspired by the wikipedia main page) are made with

tags which I'm guessing most wiki engines won't allow. Eve.n the later versions of usemod don't allow them. Oh well. Looks like we'll have to have a more boring homepage after an upgrade. If it blocks most of the spam, then I'm all for it! – Nojer2 - 4th Feb 2005

::Hi… err .. Nojer2. ;-) The hard-coded tables could be replaced or emulated with the Long Table Markup Extension. The talk pages could be done with the Comment Pages feature. The features are all there. But how do you make the transit? – Manni

:If someone wants to take on the task of reworking the subpages we could go ahead with the upgrade. – Nick Schade.