Cracking down on Wiki Spam
June 11th, 2007
After having long being plagued by spammers on my WL-HDD Wiki, I have decided to take measures to crack down! One of the main reasons for doing this is that spam decreases rankings in Google. Furthermore, when I am in China from July onwards, I will not be checking my mail as regurarly so spam would go unnoticed which could be damaging.I have therefore upgraded to a more secure and spamproof version of Mediawiki - v1.10
The best way to deal with the spam is to force wiki users to register before editing. Even better is to force them to confirm their email address before they can start editing any of the pages. To force users to register before editing, you will need user permissions such as these in LocalSettings.php:
# Edit Permissions
// Implicit group for all visitors
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['createaccount'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['read'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['edit'] = false; // Stop unregistered users from making edits
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['createpage'] = false; // Stop unregistered users from making edits
$wgGroupPermissions['*' ]['createtalk'] = false; // Stop unregistered users from making edits
// Implicit group for all logged-in accounts
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['move'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['read'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['edit'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['createpage'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['createtalk'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['upload'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['reupload'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['reupload-shared'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['minoredit'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['purge'] = false; // can use ?action=purge without clicking “ok”
// Implicit group for accounts that pass $wgAutoConfirmAge
$wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['autoconfirmed'] = true;
// Implicit group for accounts with confirmed email addresses
// This has little use when email address confirmation is off
$wgGroupPermissions['emailconfirmed']['emailconfirmed'] = true;
// Users with bot privilege can have their edits hidden
// from various log pages by default
$wgGroupPermissions['bot' ]['bot'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot' ]['autoconfirmed'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot' ]['nominornewtalk'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot' ]['autopatrol'] = true;
// Most extra permission abilities go to this group
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['block'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['createaccount'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['delete'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['deletedhistory'] = true; // can view deleted history entries, but not see or restore the text
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['editinterface'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['import'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['importupload'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['move'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['patrol'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['autopatrol'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['protect'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['proxyunbannable'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['rollback'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['trackback'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['upload'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['reupload'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['reupload-shared'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['unwatchedpages'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['autoconfirmed'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['upload_by_url'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['ipblock-exempt'] = true;
// Permission to change users’ group assignments
$wgGroupPermissions['bureaucrat']['userrights'] = true;
To implement the force email confirmation feature, you simply need to add this line of code to LocalSettings.php:
$wgEmailConfirmToEdit = true;
Make sure that the following value is also true in LocalSettings.php
$wgEmailAuthentication = true;
Users will be notified when they try and edit a page to first confirm their email address. This only has to be done once.
Hopefully this should keep the spammers at bay for a little while and give me some peace on my holidays!
Crossroads + Highslide
June 1st, 2007
I have been doing some work on the site and have successfully integrated Highslide JS, a beautiful javascript image library with Crossroads, an excellent Wordpress plugin. Crossroads integrates Wordpress with Flickr so that you can easily include thumbnailed versions of your Flickr sets at the bottom of a post - simply by placing the setid within an html comment. Now, when you click on a thumbnail, Highslide JS causes the thumbnail to grow and ‘zoom’ towards the screen, leaving you with the large version of the photo. Furthermore, captions are also integrated and the keyboard cursors can be used to navigate from photo to photo. If all that is not enough, Highslide JS also preloads your photos from Flickr to save on loading time - making it all a smooth experience.
Just as a taster, have a look at this flickr set below:
Wordpress Update
May 29th, 2007
I have just updated all my blogs to version 2.2 of Wordpress, the latest version released. Wordpress are abandoning support for version 2.1 and so it is recommended that you update now for the most secure code and new functionalities such as widgets.
In the unlikely event that you note something functioning incorrectly (or not at all) on any of my blogs, please let me know!
Thanks
Digging up the past
May 23rd, 2007
Purely for my own archive purposes, here is an article taken from “The Citizen” in which I am mentioned. Maybe I will look back at this in a few years 
Thursday 22nd May 2003
Swimming: Relay strength shows
By Sports Desk
AGE-GROUP awards went to Kendal swimmers Bethany Fleetwood, Josh Stafford, Kirsty-Jo Blenkharn for first places in final events of the Cumbria Age Group Swimming Championships at Workington.Stafford and Blenkharn received second-place awards, while Katherine Pickthall took one for third.
Kendal’s younger swimmers showed great promise when the relays brought the curtain down on the championships.
The 9/10 girls team of Cara Marshall, Rebecca Knowles, Rebecca Knipe and Bethany Fleetwood were a close-up second in the 4×50m freestyle and fourth in the 4×50m medley.
The 9/10 boys dominated their events with the A team powering to a 4×50m victory and the B team a battling third, while the A team repeated their win in the 4×50m medley with the B team second.
Teams were formed from James Clarke, Joe Robinson, Josh Stafford, Matthew Shaw, Jonathan Moseley, Nathan Hogg, Conor Bolton and Daniel Lowther.
The 11/12 girls took the freestyle and medley titles thanks to fine efforts from Holly Stafford, Natalie Knowles, Laura Hogg and Kirksty-Jo Blenkharn.
The 11/12 boys team of Chris Machell, Marc Robinson, Ross Kilshaw and Chris Proudfoot reached the freestyle and medley finals and finished fifth in both.
Kendal’s 13/14 girls team of Nicola Rigg, Harriet Baker, Emma Matthews, Hannah Moseley and Ann Howell touched out Cockermouth to take the 4×50m freestyle title and went on to win the 4×50m medley.
The 13/14 boys were third in the 4×50m freestyle and fifth in the 4×50m medley with Glen Robinson, Ryan Nowell, Graham Colledge and Jonathan Lumb competing.
The girls 15/16 team produced flawless swims from Ceri Lumb, Sarah Jones, Claire Munday and Stacey Colledge to take both the freestyle and medley titles.
In the evening session, there were successes in the junior men’s and women’s freestyle and medley, the women’s freestyle, while the A & B team were first and second in the women’s medley.
In the junior women’s team were Ceri Lumb, Sarah Jones, Nicola Rigg and Hannah Moseley.
The junior men were Glen Robinson, Phil Machin, Darren Stewart and Jonathan Lumb Representing the women’s A team were Catherine Pickthall, Nicola Rigg, Ceri Lumb, Katie Soane, Sarah Jones and Hannah Moseley, and women’s B were Emma Matthews, Claire Munday, Ann Howell, Lucy Mackereth, Stacey Colledge and Harrier Baker.
The men’s team was Phil Machin, Glen Robinson, Ryan Nowell, Graham Colledge, Jonathan Lumb and Darren Stewart.