Guild Wars Wiki talk:Requests for technical administration/Archive 6

Length of usernames

Is it technically possible to limit the creation of user accounts to a certain number of characters? If it is, we should implement something to stop account-creation-trolling like we've seen in the last couple of days. I don't think it would have a detrimental effect; even accounts made in good faith should not be overly long. -- pling 14:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It should be. I think it would be useful to do so. But what would happen to existing names that are too long? -- FreedomBound 14:33, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Would it actually prevent anything, or would they just create like 3-4 accounts in quick succession to make the same message? Are you aware you can create accounts while logged in? The tabs could all be open and submitted in order. It wouldn't take significantly more effort to troll in this manner, but would require more effort to fix. Something like the option to put a temp restriction on creating accounts (like 10 minutes) site wide would be more effective and unlikely to be that destructive. That being said, I struggle to see a legitimate reason for someone having a ~50 character user name, so I am not overly opposed to it. Did you have a particular limit in mind? Another option would be to make the account creation log not part of RC by default, then no one would even see the trolling. Admins could all switch it on. Misery 14:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The longest username I can think of off the top of my head on any wiki is "Arnout aka The Emperors Angel" which is 29 characters. So, 35-40 wouldn't be unreasonable. However, keeping the logs off of default RC wouldn't be bad either. --JonTheMon 14:54, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not just the account creation log that's a problem when long usernames exist, it's the edits they make and the reversions they require. I'm not sure about taking the user creation log off RC since it can be useful to detect new vandals/socks (most of the recent ones I think were detected on RC before they had a chance to edit) - I'll leave that for others to decide. However, I still think a limit on username length should be implemented in addition to that (if applicable).

I'd rather not put off new users registering accounts by adding a time limit between account creations (i.e. having some requests rejected just because someone else registered minutes ago), and I don't think the circumstances we're trying to avoid necessitate that. Blah, misread. Still, I'd rather not have account-creation-temp protection.

40 characters might be ok. -- pling 15:40, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I'd say a limit of 40 characters should more than cover any legitimate names (for example, the in-game name character limit is half that) while curbing vandals' ability to spam RC and page histories with multi-line names. Obviously it won't keep vandals from vandalizing or socking or spamming, but it helps limit their lasting impact (on page histories). A question: Will complications with GWW and GW2W's shared user database arise from this, or should it be fine as long as the limit is applied to both wikis, or what? - Tanetris 15:51, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

40 is more than enough, I'd consider something a little shorter like 35 or even 30 since 40 characters still look a bit intrusive. Also shorter sigs ftw! :-) We can also reduce the limit to the same as ingame if we find that 99% of the accounts are under 20 characters. --Lania 18:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

40 seems like a bit too high of a limit. I'd feel a bit more comfortable with a 25-30 character limit. The username is a username, not all of your biography plus one. I know mine pushes 23, but I don't think its intrusive....I hope. -- Wandering Traveler 21:27, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Please note, that that limit there is in bytes, not characters. Also note that 20, and even 30, characters is very short. Just think of people, who are registering using their full name. It's not rare that those names get quite long.

Anyway, setting a username length limit shouldn't be done to prevent vandalism (although we still should reduce that limit a bit to make revision lists prettier), and I don't think those vandals will actually care how long their new nick is, as soon as they notice, that the full line no longer works. Instead we should set up blacklists to prevent common vandalism name similarities. poke | talk 21:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, the overly long names do help to spot them in a crowd. — Why 21:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

lol, true. poke | talk 21:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to setup IP blacklists? like against known open proxies? --Lania 22:10, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I think so. But the blacklists will take time to fill out properly, and it still wouldn't fix this immediate problem on its own - the main issue for me is the length of the usernames in logs and histories, so that should be our priority. Even a temporary limit to character/byte length, just to deal with the current troll, would be useful to lessen his impact - we could then go on to discuss/carry out the implementation of a blacklist (whether by word or IP), and see if we need to modify the username limit. I'm still in favour of 40 characters. -- pling 22:20, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I've no problem with this. I agree with poket that we shouldn't do it just to play into the hands of trolls. but the trolls do it because it is annying, so will be so even if not done with malicious intent. 32 bytes should be enough for everybody. Backsword 22:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I guess 32 bytes is okay. poke | talk 23:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

.. awesome :D. Have we established whether existing usernames will be affected by the limit, by the way? -- pling 14:30, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Having checked that, it appears that existing usernames (above that limit) will no longer be usable. poke | talk 17:49, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion

• $wgMaxNameChars = 32
• $wgAccountCreationThrottle = 2

These are the setting, we will change. Any objections, or comments? poke | talk 18:42, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, with the added note to make sure to add the same changes to GW2W at the same time as GWW, given the shared database. - Tanetris 18:47, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree even with a limit of one. - J.P.Talk 18:53, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't know any reason why someone would need to make 2 accounts on the same day. ~Shard 20:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Making shoepuppets for signatures; registering an account then registering again because you don't like the name.

I agree with the first thing; not sure about the second, but not completely opposed. If we do go ahead with the second, it should be no less than 2. -- pling 20:34, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. — Why 13:21, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds great! :)--Lania 16:09, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The throttle is pointless as when you ban an account, account creation is disabled for the duration of the autoblock, 24 hours. It could only really hurt legitimate contributors who for some reason screw up making their accounts or want to make a couple of accounts at once for redirects, or make the hypothetical situation about opening multiple tabs and submitting them all at once to create multiple accounts marginally more difficult. Misery 12:32, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Can the throttle use decimals or values less than 1? I think this calls for science. elix Omni 12:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

On that note, Misery, I want to point out that vandals can also tab and submit multiple user names before a single autoblock is in place. — Gares 13:00, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, hence making that one specific case of vandalism that has never occurred marginally more difficult. It's even a kind of vandalism that you don't have to do anything about at all. You could go and remove all the log entries, or you could just ignore it. If someone really wanted to do that they would just have to have a different proxy every 2 tabs, which is totally doable. In any case, if people really want a throttle, something like 4 is more reasonable. It's not like the clean up job is any harder for 4 entries instead of 2 and it gives a little more leeway for legitimate mistakes. Misery 13:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

If someone had nothing better to do, then yeah, you're right. That would also be pretty pathetic too. I really have no objections to either 2 or 4. Just as long as there is a reasonable limit. — Gares 13:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that specific case of vandalism has occurred - it started some time after you pointed it out in your first comment. But at least you're not giving them more ideas. -- pling 13:27, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome Pling. I actually have more reasons for pushing the removal of the user creation log by default, but I wouldn't want to give anyone any more ideas. Misery 19:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Removing the log from RC has actually less benefit. In the first place, we want to avoid vandalism. If a user with a name similar to the recent ones is registering, it is very likely, that the user will try to vandalize the wiki. And then it's better to block him before he even has the chance to do it. It might be disruptive in some cases, but at least it is less disruptive, than lots of vandalism and reversion entries in both RC and the page's history. poke | talk 22:22, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki has a "list" of blacklists which would not "take time to fill out" ... I think Lania had a good point. Dime Cadmium! 22:32, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. We have no policy against (open) proxies, and such vandalism cases are rare anyway. I would rather see a solution against the actual vandalism, without blocking possible visitors. Also setting up such blacklists from open proxies really isn't that easy. poke | talk 22:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) [1] I'm not sure if this is vandalism, but it seems informative. --Riddle 22:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) (Edit conflict) You also have no policy against username lengths, nor do length limits prevent (all of) the vandalism - a large portion of the vandalism is the page edits, IMO. In addition to the fact that - how many users on here use open proxies? Few, I'm sure. Moreover, how many HAVE to use open proxies? None. And, it's not incredibly difficult, either. @Riddle, that would WORK, but 1. it would slow down the process of editing (im not sure if they check every edit, or only first edit, or etc and 2. as said, some people might not like the scans. Dime Cadmium! 22:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I was talking about the notes provided. [2] --Riddle 22:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Just a quick note about open proxies. About 2/3 of IP vandals that I bother checking are open proxies. So open proxy vandals are pretty common. --Lania 22:46, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I see, Riddle. It's... at least partially true. I don't know how many users/admin's would do so, but some might. Lania, agreed, and I'm fairly certain this particular vandal is using open proxies. Dime Cadmium! 22:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

[3] This looks like a IP blacklist addon for media wiki. Not sure if this will work for us though. --Lania 22:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Search

Did we ever install LuceneSearch/the stuff that enables it? The search features on both wikis aren't great, so I doubt we did; it's a lot lot lot worse than Wikipedia's. -- pling 16:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Guild_Wars_Wiki:Requests_for_technical_administration/LuceneSearch For reference Shadow Runner 17:23, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

It is worth noting LuceneSearch is now marked as obsolete in favor of MWSearch according to MediaWiki. - Tanetris 17:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

And that needs "Extension:Lucene-search"... they really should use a different name. Anyway, I think we should install these. -- pling 20:32, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Bump. This is quite an important extension that helps readers as well as editors. There are currently also... "issues" on GW2W regarding the functionality of the search features. If someone could make the proper request page for this, that would be great. -- pling 14:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for technical administration/MWSearch. poke | talk 17:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. Is everyone fine with adding that to the list of requests? -- pling 18:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

reCaptcha

I would like to suggest you also make addurls=true. While it will be a bit obnoxious for people adding legitimate external links, it will eliminate the IP advertising spam, more immediately than the blacklist. Just a thought. -- Wyn talk 12:43, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see where that was discussed that it is immediately requested by the community. In fact, I highly disagree with those settings, as they overwrite already made settings by the ConfirmEdit extension. I have no major issue with adding a stronger captcha, but instead we should adjust our previous made settings first. I'm not sure if those settings are correct (as I get a captcha when trying to register as well), but we should decide on those separately.

In addition, I am also thinking about finally adding something against harmful known open proxies. poke | talk 13:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

ConfirmEdit can be disabled to make way for the stronger security of ReCAPTCHA. I do not see why a more extensive captcha would be a negative, other than a little more work installing a new extension.

Oh, and Wyn, I'm on the fence regarding urls. It would be an added preventative measure for sure, but a more prominent hassle for users than just user creation. I don't mind the hassle myself, so I would support either way. — Gares 13:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The reCaptcha is a separate plugin that is from what I understand not available to be "added" to ConfirmEdit. You can replace the default captcha (which is not bot proof as we have seen for the past many hours), with the FancyCaptcha, which requires creation of the captcha images in Python (seems a bit of a pain to get installed and set up). I agree that this request was not discussed by the community, but I am in favor of it. -- Wyn talk 13:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

"reCAPTCHA relies upon, and is bundled with, the ConfirmEdit extension." poke | talk 13:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so I don't totally understand it all. I'll freely admit that. I just believe that the reCaptcha (however it is installed and implemented) is the best choice of bot prevention of the options out there. I for one do not want to see another round of rc spam like we have had for the past day. -- Wyn talk 13:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) ReCaptcha sounds like a great idea, not sure about the url setting. Anyway to make it so only registered users can add urls, rather than requiring existing editors (that have registered and thus already passed the initial test) to solve a captcha each time an external link is added? -- FreedomBound 13:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No Freedom, anyone wishing to add an external link would have to complete a reCaptcha before the page could be saved. As I said, it's a little obnoxious for people adding legitimate external links, but it would eliminate any IP bot ad spamming. -- Wyn talk 13:32, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Based on the supposed confirm edit settings, IPs already have to captcha to post a URL. --JonTheMon 13:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No one is expected to know everything in the world of programming, even know everything in a particular concentration, Wyn. I don't know every function or library in C++ by heart after 10 years of coding with it. Poke just found that note at the bottom of the Extension:ReCAPTCHA article. — Gares 13:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

This is my configuration proposal. Not completely sure if the original settings were actually kept or if this request actually was enforced. However part of that change is to put unconfirmed users down to the same level as unregistered users, as we did with other things before. I'm not too sure if adding a captcha for external urls is the best idea (given how many useful links we actually get), but we may or may not argue about that; I don't feel too strongly about it. poke | talk 14:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What's the req for confirmed again? --JonTheMon 14:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I can live with that poke. It's been so long since I did anything here without logging in, I have no idea really what IP users can and can't do anymore. :D My suggestion was just an attempt to curb the IP ad spamming (which is not a huge problem). -- Wyn talk 14:37, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Jon: 10 edits or registered for 24 hours. poke | talk 14:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The biggest issues I can see for having the captcha for unconfirmed users is when they have another online profile or are making a guild page. But since the confirmed level is pretty low and a captcha isn't gonna stop those people, I think the current settings are fine. --JonTheMon 15:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Can we push the button on this one? -Auron 08:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The button's been pushed on our end. Just need to poke ANet. --JonTheMon 12:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.16

1.16 was released on July 28th. Should we add a request to install it? (It contains Vector!) -- pling 22:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Go for it! ...As long as it doesn't break anything :) - J.P.Talk 22:56, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah! I'm just hoping it doesn't mess up my shiny new sig with the preferences changes. –~=Ϛρѧякγ (τѧιк) ←♥– 22:59, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, does vector override monobook, or is it a choice? ~ PheNaxKian talk 18:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a choice, but personally with 1.16 I would like to decide on a single skin (i.e. getting rid of every other). poke | talk 18:52, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's not go down the Wikia route... at the very least, Monobook and Vector should be available options. -- pling 18:55, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

As long as we don't decide to mess with the skins, we are not able to go at least in a similar direction as Wikia.. poke | talk 19:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

You can take away Monobook when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. - Tanetris 19:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

lol. <3 poke | talk 19:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

It's ok for me to only have Monobook and Mehtor. Others have visual issues anyway, am i correct? - J.P.Talk 20:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

What Tane said..... -- Wyn talk 21:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Dangling in the wind

Emily's gone, with mention that the wikis would now be in the hands of the Extended Experience team, but no one there's visibly stepped up. We've had the MWSearch and Recaptcha requests lingering in limbo since July with no official word on them. More recently, Poke mentioned wanting some new interwiki prefixes, with no clue who to ask, and then there's the wiki off-and-on sluggishness the past few days (which thankfully seems to have stopped, at least for now).

My point: We need a point of contact for this sort of thing, one that's visible to and reachable by at least the admins if not everyone. If there's already an Anet person watching, great, but we need to know you're there and know what's going on and know how to reach you. If not, what are we doing about this, people? - Tanetris 02:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting you say this when yesterday I sent an email to the webmaster arena.net address requesting to whom we could address wiki technical issues - especially wrt the servers being slow with tedious regularity. It may have been better coming from someone who's name they might recognise and trust and so perhaps be more likely to reply to - but I'll let you know if anything shows up from the request. -- aspectacle 07:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I actually wanted to get to know who is responsible for the wiki now for a while, but didn't really have the time to ask yet. I'll do that tonight, and we will see. poke | talk 08:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

GW2W has had off-and-on sluggishness since August, never mind 'the past few days'. Oh, and you left out the MW 1.16 (Vector!) update. -- pling 13:38, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes that would be nice. i expected someone to get in contract with us after Emily left, but apparently not. Backsword 12:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. The team member who will be working with you on requests for technical administration is on paternity leave for the month. Any requests for wiki plugins can't be addressed until he returns. I've forwarded this thread to the EE team, and they're aware of the discussion concerning point-of-contact for plugin requests. Thank you for your understanding, and we appreciate your patience through this period. --Regina Buenaobra 22:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki link to Guild Wiki

→ moved from Guild Wars Wiki:Admin noticeboard

Guild Wiki has moved to its new location; the old location is now know as Guild Wars @Wikia. Can we update the interwiki map accordingly? e.g. so that [[GuildWiki:Focus]] could point to Focus? Thanks. (Obviously, please move this comment if this the wrong location for it.)  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll note it may be useful to just install http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SpecialInterwiki so admins can add/change/delete (particularly delete looking at how many useless ones there are there) interwiki links without having to bug Anet about it each time, and to have a more easily findable list of interwiki links for everyone. - Tanetris 20:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds sensible. In fact, I'm surprised that ANet would want to manage interwiki links when the unpaid staff here can handle it; I assumed that the sysops already had that power.

For those not following other threads: Regina mentioned recently that, since Emily's departure, the new staff person responsible for handling these requests has not started work...so we probably won't see any action on this until January.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Who can we ask (@ANet) to get a status update on either self-management of interwiki links or when they can update the current list? I realize the probably answer is: wait another 3-4 weeks (but I would like to make sure this isn't lost in the holidays/transition). Thanks.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:29, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

We don't know who the new Anet-wiki liason is and a message on Regina's talk page won't be noticed any time soon, so I guess we wait for someone to come to us first. The alternative is finding an off-wiki route of communication - email, Twitter, Guru, or something. -- pling 19:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

She seems to respond to forum questions, but I don't have a login on any of them.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Regina is on MSN every day. elix Omni 20:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Right, I'm not ever on MSN, otherwise I would ask her directly (instead of asking here). So, could one of the sysops who is on MSN ask her for a status update? (Again, I'm not expecting her to put a rush on anything, but I would like ANet to set our expectations.)  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this going to be done? o.O Cause I'd still like to link to my userpage on that site using interwiki. Kaisha 16:46, 10 May 2011 (UTC)