User blog:LostInRiverview/Spam Attack and Wiki Lockdown News

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Hello fellow Sims Wikians,

Presently, the wiki-wide protection of articles has been lifted, meaning that unregistered contributors may once again edit the wiki freely. As with similar incidents in the past, we apologize for any inconvenience caused to those who wish to positively edit our wiki. It is unfortunate that a single user can ruin an experience for so many other people.

What happened?
The past couple days, we've been experiencing bot-run spam attacks. Each attack is orchestrated by a person utilizing shifting IP addresses to evade every block we try and issue to stop them. Each incident has increased in scope and severity; the most recent incident involved over three dozen individual IP addresses. The Sims Wiki was not the only wiki affected by these attacks, so the Volunteer Spam Task Force (VSTF) took action; their involvement greatly reduced the severity of the most recent incident, and made the jobs of local administrators substantially easier. The VSTF implemented a coded script that blocked and/or deleted much of that person's spam, and VSTF members were able to issue global blocks to offending IP addresses

Moving forward
Administrators on TSW and members of the VSTF will continue to closely monitor the situation closely. All appropriate measures will be taken to prevent vandalism, including another wiki-wide protection if necessary. The vandalism that has occurred disrupts our wiki and is not welcome, and will not be tolerated.

It is reasonably likely that the spammer enjoys the disruption they cause. In that case, the creation of messages like this serve only to bolster their resolve to continue vandalism. The need to alert the wiki community to major developments is important. However, we wish to resolve this situation, and creating messages for each incident might serve only to encourage further vandalism. To that end, no further notices regarding this vandal will be issued, except for a small message that may be used if another lockdown occurs. The principle of 'revert-block-ignore' will be utilized in dealing with this and similar vandals, and no undue notoriety will be paid to this vandal.

If there are any further issues, please contact an Administrator.

--  LiR speak ~ read 03:44, May 27, 2012 (UTC)
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