WikiThing Main Page Edit/Hack?

Hi, I'm not sure what this is exactly, but when you head to the main page of LibraryThing's Wiki you see "love you Hitler" displayed there. I'm not sure what the text was there before, but how can that be removed?
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Thanks
Alyssa

That's alarming and you'd do well to contact one of the helpers directly.

And I can no longer find the link to post to a helper nor remember the exact spelling of any of their names, something the bloody search on this site probably demands. Perhaps post on Tim Spalding's profile page asking for deletion--?

Here is the "Contact Us" page:
https://www.librarything.com/contact

I'm sure they would appreciate knowing about this.

I've deleted it, but have no idea what should actually be on that page.

You can always find the contact page by clicking on about at the bottom of most pages. It's in the left hand column.

There is a Recent Changes link on the left sidebar. I'm on my phone so I can't do anything but it appears there has been a lot of spam content posted. Perhaps someone with an actual computer would be able to dig back to the actual content and restore it.

From digging into the Recent changes page of the Wiki, it looks like this was something that happened at about 4:40 PM EDT by this user:
https://www.librarything.com/profile/bokepa

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=prev&old... (Link to the proof)

I've flagged the profile, but there are so many that need flagging from that recent changes page...

I've reverted to the last edit before vandalism started - post modified by Tim 21 Oct 2016. Major vandalism seemed to start 24 Aug 2017. There seems to be a lot of vandalism recently. We'll see how long this revert lasts!

I'm going to spam flag user names with vandalism back to 24 Aug 2017 that haven't already been suspended:

https://www.librarything.com/profile/bokepa
https://www.librarything.com/profile/eugenetpa
http://www.librarything.com/profile/fever100
http://www.librarything.com/profile/nimki123
http://www.librarything.com/profile/poojakumari21
http://www.librarything.com/profile/varun06
http://www.librarything.com/profile/jennifer115
http://www.librarything.com/profile/alvin12540
http://www.librarything.com/profile/gfdggfgfgfdg
http://www.librarything.com/profile/lkjhgf786
http://www.librarything.com/profile/shikhar123456
http://www.librarything.com/profile/ascfder
http://www.librarything.com/profile/coinbasesupport
http://www.librarything.com/profile/1966Mike
http://www.librarything.com/profile/jossemiler3
http://www.librarything.com/profile/ABHI785
http://www.librarything.com/profile/Aliciaroy
http://www.librarything.com/profile/CHOMLUI
http://www.librarything.com/profile/layyout
http://www.librarything.com/profile/coinbase
http://www.librarything.com/profile/sabkamalik
http://www.librarything.com/profile/uyttrwerw786
http://www.librarything.com/profile/rnkn
http://www.librarything.com/profile/niyaaaaaaa
http://www.librarything.com/profile/htlm
http://www.librarything.com/profile/amitsoft
http://www.librarything.com/profile/sbcglobalemail
http://www.librarything.com/profile/conuvix
http://www.librarything.com/profile/glstechserve
http://www.librarything.com/profile/navroazsmith
http://www.librarything.com/profile/smith112
http://www.librarything.com/profile/ppoo
http://www.librarything.com/profile/poojatiwari
http://www.librarything.com/profile/Saliya.Boli
http://www.librarything.com/profile/applefullcare

I think it's been rehacked as it now seems to house a whole load of stuff about Amazon Prime facebook and the right hand side box is also full of references to Amazon. I think it was done by eugenetpa as mentioned above - but as I'm not really familiar with the Wiki at all, I've made no attempt to repair it. Having mentioned it here I've also sent an email to staff at info@librarything.com - not sure if that was the correct place to send it, but figured that whichever staff member did pick that up would know who needed to be informed.

>8 Peace2: I've reverted the page (possibly slightly clumsily). Why is eugenetpa still able to vandalise the page after being provisionally suspended?!?!?

>4 MarthaJeanne: I know I've found 'contact us' or the like at the bottom of the page before but now I can't even find in in 'about'.

Whilst looking about for it though I did find this when I clicked 'wiki help': http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents.

>10 bluepiano: Clicking 'About' at the bottom of a page takes you to a page that has 'Contact us' in the left side bar.

I also posted this on the Spam thread:
Is there a way to delete these spam pages from the Wiki without getting staff involved?
This is a link to "Uncategorized Pages," bringing up the last 500.

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:UncategorizedPages&....

Please note they are almost all Spam...

ETA Oh and the Wiki Help page? Spam now too: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents

>12 gilroy: I've reverted http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents

The Main Page was redirected to a spam page. I'm not sure of the best way of reverting this without losing the edit history.

Yes - those uncategorised pages should all go!

Ordinary users seem to be able to edit and move pages, but not delete them.

Goodness, what a rat's nest! Thanks to all you Spam Fighters who've helped with reverting to the proper versions of our HelpThing Wiki pages. Currently, I think all affected pages are back to normal, but let me know if you see any that still look amiss.

I'm going to have to do some testing tomorrow regarding provisionally spammed accounts and wiki editing privileges. I can't imagine that those accounts should be allowed to make edits. If it turns out that provisional spam accounts can currently make those edits, we'll get that fixed ASAP.

>14 lorannen: There is a bigger issue with more generalised spamming of Wikithing. Looking at the following wiki Special Pages reveals the extent:

The Active Users list is full of spam accounts - http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:ActiveUsers
Recent Changes shows the types of things they have been creating/modifying - http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RecentChanges
Uncategorized Pages shows again what they've been creating - http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:UncategorizedPages
as does the double redirects page - http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:DoubleRedirects
and the Longest Pages - http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:LongPages

I've just backed out two more changes to the Help and Help:Editing pages of the Wiki. The users are not in the member area to flag, however. :$

Update: I'm working on finding when and where this all began, so we can simply revert the DB back to that point. That will take care of the current mess.

Staff are discussing ways to prevent this issue moving forward, and we've got a couple options. I'll report back once we've decided where that's headed.

And they're back - see the main wiki page> http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Looking at the list of recent changes, if I'm reading it correctly, the spammers are replacing each other's changes!

>18 Peace2: Reverted! :-(

>18 Peace2: And the current list of usual suspects!

I'm wondering if the spam blocker is temporarily disabled while staff works on this? Sure were a lot of spam threads in Book Talk group this morning.

There are a lot in the spam folder as well. The spammers are just very busy right now.

>19 rodneyvc:

Not for long. Might be better to lock the main page until a solution is in.

To help the developers:

A user who I know I flagged on LT the other day: http://www.librarything.com/profile/Stephaniaaaa
Has no existing profile on LT at all. Still making edits to the Wikithing as of 11:36 EST today.

Aye, spam season it is.

Honestly, locking down the wiki until this can be fixed might be the lesser of two evils. Active participants in the challenge threads will be unhappy (I know several of those groups make very heavy use of the wiki) but if the alternative is rampant vandalism I hope they would understand.

>24 gilroy: No existing LT profile? There's definitely a (spammed) member with that name.

>27 lorannen: Yeah, I remember flagging the profile a day or two ago, but when I do site search, it says no results. So I'm sure they got spamblocked, but are still able to edit. There are two or three like that on the Wiki actives.

ETA: Ah, I see my glitch. Once they get suspended, they are no longer available by site search. However, if you use the profile link, they show up. I've since updated my post in >24 gilroy: with the profile link.

>28 gilroy: I believe what happens is that the profile ends up in the spam folder, which moves quickly at times, and isn't noticed as not having been suspended. I'm going to go check it now...

Well, you can toss out that theory. I found nothing (I'd been remembering the fun I had with Johnypapa, and thought this might be related).

>29 Lyndatrue: The Wikispammers don't normally get caught in the spam folder unless they are giving talk posts too. Which lately has been rare.

>30 gilroy: Just caught one in talk! What a coincidence! Flagged profile too.

They're back on the main page again - is anyone around to help?

>32 Peace2: beaten to the punch by @abbottthomas

I don't understand spammers. Is it just a game for them? There can't possibly be anyone who would follow their links, is there?

I get the emails and phone calls asking for your credit card number so the rich prince or whatever can get out of their horrible predicament and share all their money with you. I see that those nets cast wide enough might catch some gullibles. But this just wrecks a site which makes people mad. Where's the profit?

Are they sad, lonely, friendless folks who have a grudge against the world so it makes them happy to mess up a harmless place people are enjoying? Or is there some profit angle I don't understand?

I believe if they can create more pages out there on the internet that have links to their pages, then that makes their pages look important to search engines and gives them a higher position in search results.

>35 jjwilson61: Yes, and the better reputation the site that links to them has, the more points they will get, so it makes perfect sense to hog the wikipages here.

>35 jjwilson61: Surely not beyond the wit of man to devise a means by which a search engine could pick up blocks for spamming and allocate many negative points to the spammer?

>34 MrsLee:

There can't possibly be anyone who would follow their links, is there?

Of course not, and they're well aware of that. They're just after the googlejuice - more sites linking to their sites.

lorax, bnielsen, jjwilson61 are all correct. It's all SEO fodder.

I've got the timestamp for when it all started so we can revert changes and clear out added spam pages now. I just need dev help to make that change, as well as put a stop to further spam waves.

Locking the wiki from edits is something we want to use as a last resort—there are a number of challenge groups that use their own wiki pages to track their progress, and the like, and we don't want to interfere with those if at all possible. I hope to have a solution in place by EOD.

*sigh* main page is borked again

That one is just straight-up vandalism, not spam.

Borked again. And it's going to keep happening b/c that one user is still able to make edits. Why bother? >39 lorannen: said there should be a solution by EOD. It's a waste of effort to fight an editing war.

>40 gilroy: Sigh indeed. Got it.

We're shutting off all edits to the wiki now.

We will probably revert the wiki back to when this started.

We are looking at options going forward.

If there's anything you need from the Wiki—things added since Nov. 4—you should grab them. Our systems administrator is currently out, but we'll be looking at rolling the DB back after that.

Thanks for the headses upses

>45 timspalding: There're a lot more spam pages before Nov 4 based on the Orphaned Pages function...

I know we've got a few very active groups that update their wiki pages often. I've grabbed the following pages that have been updated in the last 3 days, and will replace them with their more recent versions after we've reverted the wiki. So, if any of these are yours, you don't need to worry!

Groups:Folio Society Devotees
2017 RandomCAT
2017CC CultureCAT
2017CC CATWoman
2017CC AwardsCAT
2017 BingoDOG
2017 Unofficial SF/SFFKIT
2017 Unofficial AlphaKIT
2018 MysteryCAT
Take It or Leave It Challenge - November 2017 - Page 1
Take It or Leave It Challenge - November 2017 - Page 2
Take It or Leave It Challenge - November 2017 - Page 3
2017Threadbook
Groups:75booksin2017
Our TIOLI Meter - November 2017
Groups:BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE FOLIO SOCIETY

What >46 majkia: said :-) I've grabbed a copy of my wikithings, but I'm wondering if some of the other stuff like Common Knowledge and translations are also stored as part of the wiki?

>49 bnielsen: Nope! CK and translations are totally separate.

Maybe you could also pull the wiki pages for the 2017 75-Book Challenge group? And the TIOLI (Take It Or Leave It) challenge within that group uses the Wiki a lot: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Take_It_or_Leave_It_Challenge_-_Novem...

It's probably also worth posting a quick heads-up about Wiki unavailability to those groups. It won't eliminate their posting to Bug Collectors about it - not everyone will see the post - but should reduce it.

>51 rosalita: Thanks! I looked in that group, but didn't see any links to wiki pages within the group description. I found 3 pages for TIOLI there, and have updated >48 lorannen: to reflect those. Let me know if you know of more?

>52 lorax: I'd thought about it, but didn't want to cause undue panic. Think I'll go ahead and post.

>53 lorannen: Thank you so much! There are two in the group description for the 75-Book Challenge group:

One for the 75ers Wiki: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Groups:75booksin2017

And one for the 2017 Threadbook: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2017Threadbook

Although I see the Threadbook is linked from the main wiki page at that first link, so perhaps you don't need to save it separately?

>54 rosalita: Thanks! I grabbed those, too.

>53 lorannen: one more TIOLi page: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Our_TIOLI_Meter_-_November_2017

It is only pages that are updated recently?

>56 FAMeulstee: Yep, and got that one—just hadn't updated >48 lorannen: yet.

Yes, only pages edited on or since Nov 4th will be affected. Anything edited prior to that point will be fine.

Thank you so much, Loranne! I'm just sorry you all are having to go to so much work to defeat some stupid jerky spammers. A pox on their houses!

>58 rosalita: A pox on their page ranks!

>59 Foretopman: Even better!

>45 timspalding: Of course today's the day I make a change to my wiki page for the first time in like a year. :p (No biggie, I've got it copied.)

>48 lorannen: Thank you so much, lorannen. All of this happened when I was away from my computer. I appreciate your saving the edits my group (Take It or Leave It Challenges) has made over the past week or so. All of us edit those pages multiple times a day. We can handle the wiki lockdown until this issue is resolved. Good luck!

>56 FAMeulstee: Yes. The three Take it or Leave It pages and the TIOLI meter page are the four pages that have had frequent use so far this month (as in every other month!). Thanks for letting the admin know about that last page.

Ah, SEO stuff, okay, thanks for the enlightenment. Now, setting about to pox their ratings!

I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who thought of us over in the 75ers group. I appreciate it so much! I've been busy over at work for the last few days, and by the time I got back to the group, the plan for restoration was already done!

>65 drneutron: You're welcome, Jim. :-) Although part of it was for purely selfish reasons, as I use the Threadbook constantly. And while I don't participate in TIOLI regularly, I think it's a nifty challenge and I knew from the times I have participated that they make heavy use of the wiki.

>66 rosalita: Thanks so much for alerting the LT admins to our need. You saved the day (and month) for us! I've recorded all of the latest information on those pages from November 8th. Modifying the wiki page is not as hard as creating information out of thin air! :)

>67 SqueakyChu: I'm just happy I was able to help! I hope Loranne and the LT staff are able to smite the spammers once and for all, though that's probably wishful thinking.

Have the edits now been turned off?
Cause we have several borked pages again.

http://www.librarything.com/profile/Jeneliya
This looks like the culprit lately. Though they have been flagged for spam and haven't made edits in almost a day.

>69 gilroy:

Unless those graffiti were inadvertently replaced by the rollback (i.e. the spam started earlier than supposed).

>69 gilroy: Yep, edits were disabled yesterday, per >44 timspalding: .

>71 lorannen:
Ah, okay, it stops at that time, but the references are still there... When the rollbacks are done, maybe it will be fixed. :)

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Contributions/Jeneliya

>72 gilroy: Yep, we're still working on getting rid of all the spam stuff, but there certainly shouldn't be anything new coming through at this point.

So does this mean we can no longer edit our own wiki pages? Or have steps been added that the wine I just imbibed is preventing me from seeing?

>74 clamairy: That is correct, for now. Unfortunately, this was the only way we could stop the recurrent spam attacks (they were happening on the order of every 8-12 hours) before/while we move the wiki over to its new home server (also where we'll be able to put better spam measures in place). Our sysadmin is working on this as I type!

Would it make sense to allow Wiki posting only by members with a minimum of, say, twenty-five thread posts? And then only be allowed to Wiki-post when at least ten days have passed since meeting the 25-post minimum? Twenty-five legitimate (or at least legitimate-sounding) thread posts would be a lot of work for a spammer, and the ten-day period would give the SPAM FIGHTERS time to weed out the spammers before they have Wiki privileges.

I know we want to be friendly to newcomers, but legitimate newcomers generally don't have any need to post to Wikis until they get to know their way around LT a bit.

The other alternative could be to restrict Wiki posting to paid members. This is less friendly but LT really doesn't charge an arm and a leg for lifetime membership. The price of LT membership is small but it's still high enough to deter spammers, who'll find their money wasted when they're banned.

>75 lorannen: That's fine. I was afraid I was missing something. :o)

And I'm sorry people are being such asshats.

How many people actually use the wiki pages? If not that many of us, then maybe we who do use them could make a one-time special request for permission to do so. That would completely eliminate drive-by spammers on the wiki pages. If lots of people use them, that would be too much trouble for admin.

>78 SqueakyChu: I use the wiki a lot. Mostly my own wiki-pages on http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/User:Bnielsen/ and with http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/User:Bnielsen/TimQuotes as the most edited. I've probably edited a few of the help pages too.

I think we need to consider what the asshats will do when the wiki is blocked one way or the other.. Translations is an easy target, imho, but I don't know if flagging or blocking links is already in effect.
I'm not involved in spam-fighting on Talk, but it seems to me that spamming is quickly removed there, so thanks to everyone who flags spam here.

I didn't realize this was going on. I don't know if anything has been posted to the 2017 Challenge group (the one with all the CATs and KITs). If so, I missed it! I'll go mention it over there.

Any idea on how long the wikis will be down? Thanks!

>80 LibraryCin: up in msg >48 lorannen: is a list of saved pages.

>80 LibraryCin: http://www.librarything.com/topic/274390

>81 FAMeulstee: Yes, thank you. But, I thought people over there might also want to know.

>82 MarthaJeanne: And I completely missed that message in the group. Thank you!

Ugh spammers suck. Is there any news on when wikis will be available for editing again?

Sorry for the delay, folks. We had one solution that we thought would work in place, but it fell through at the last minute. Sysadmin is working hard on getting the migration complete right now. While I don't have a specific ETA, it's on the order of a few days yet before it's done. Thanks so much for your patience.

Thanks for the update!

>86 lorannen: It's worth waiting for, if it will solve this problem for a while (and to be frank, there's never any perfect solution that's going to endure forever).

Any update?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide at this time.

>89 SqueakyChu: I've been wondering the same the past couple of days. Thanks for asking!

>90 LibraryCin: You're welcome! :)

>92 gilroy: That thread only talks about Black Friday!!

>93 SqueakyChu: The beginning of the thread talks a bit about a fix taking longer than expected.

>92 gilroy: Thank you for the link.

>94 LibraryCin: I got that update a few days ago, I'm checking for a new update! It's the end of the month coming up...usually a wild time on my wiki pages! :D

>95 SqueakyChu: Ah, I see. I hadn't come across that thread yet, so it was news to me. :-)

So, the migration is complete—yay! However, we're waiting for Tim to check the spam situation, and Chris H. to get the LT skin in place. Tim's out at the moment, so I'm not sure if he'll have time for it today, but the hard part is (I think) done!

Awesome!

>97 lorannen: Thanks to a great LT team!

Good news!

Any updates on when this will be fixed? Thank you!

Interested in any update as well...

*waits patiently*

@timspalding -- The natives are getting restless with no word other than we're waiting for you. Could you pipe up here?

>103 gilroy: I've asked for an update, and am waiting. I'll post when I've got one. I know we've been making progress over the last couple days—I tested the new wiki myself on Tuesday. But, one of our developers is out of the office due to Fiber construction in their neck of the woods today. So, it may be later before I can get a more complete picture of where we're at.

Also, just a quick FYI, tagging someone in a post on LT as you've done doesn't notify them.

>104 lorannen: Update from our beleaguered dev: our best guess at the moment is looking like everything will be in place Monday!

>104 lorannen: Always thought it helped with admin but no one else. *shrug* was worth a shot.

>105 lorannen: Thanks!

Thanks, again. I've got a list, just waiting to be added...

>108 LibraryCin: And I keep my wish list for xmas on a wikipage, so I won't be getting any presents this year unless ....

>109 bnielsen: Oh no!!!!

>109 bnielsen: the page is still there, just not editable.

Spammer at:-
http://www.librarything.com/profile/khbraaltswyq

Update: We're putting the finishing touches on the new wiki as I type. Still aiming for getting it done before EOD.

We'll talk more about this when we finally unveil the new one, but, due to the massive spam attack, and the fact that the wiki was in the process of being moved for the last six months, the latest full non-spammed backup we have of the wiki is from July. So, we're reverting the new wiki to that point, and leaving up the old one for now so folks can copy over any pages/updates since then. It's not a perfect solution, but it's the best we've got for scrubbing out all the spam.

I've mentioned to several Groups that use the wiki extensively that I've already got their pages saved, and that is still true. I'll post those up as soon as the new wiki is complete.

SantaThing is in full-swing now, which means that I won't be able to devote as much time to helping copy over everything else that's been updated since July, but I'll do what I can on that front. I imagine we'll want to continue this thread to keep tabs on pages that have been copied over, that need to be copied yet, etc.

So, sit tight a little while longer, and I'll update you soon. Thanks so much for all your patience while we've been getting the new wiki ready for primetime. I know it's been frustrating, but I really appreciate it.

And again, appreciate the update.

Me, too. I appreciate the update.

>113 lorannen:. Thank you for saving those pages! That was so much work that I’m not sure I would redo if I were forced to.

Finally, the new wiki is here! Post on New Features: https://www.librarything.com/topic/277450.

ETA: My sincere thanks for your patience while we worked on getting this up and running. I know it was a long, frustrating wait, but we think it will have been worth it in the long run.

>117 lorannen: YAY! Thanks!

Are people running into problems of being autoblocked on the new Wiki? Because their IPs were used by some spammer? I emailed Lorannen

>119 CurrerBell: Thanks, got your message and replied. I think I fixed it, but will need someone to test and make sure. Let me know?

Okay, while I'm still waiting to hear back re: >119 CurrerBell: , I think I've got that sorted.

We've also got groups pages finally moved to the new wiki. There's still a minor background technical issue with the groups category, but it's not something that should cause problems or even be noticeable for members. I'll proceed with making sure the group pages are the latest-saved version I've got!

>121 lorannen: Thanks! Everything seems to be OK now and I pm'd you also to tell you.

>122 CurrerBell: That's great! Just got your message.

In other news, I've finished copying over all the pages I mentioned I'd save in >48 lorannen:. Those are all up-to-date through November now.

message deleted

>119 CurrerBell: I might have a similair problem, as today I can't update the wiki and my new own page has no "edit" option.

>125 FAMeulstee: Better check with TPTB. Lorannen got me fixed, got me fixed within just a few minutes of my contacting her (which was around eighth in the evening, though). Give her a chance to get to it during more ordinary hours and remember that we're now into the weekend. But drop her a PM (and be sure it's a PM because just posting something on this thread won't catch her attention as quickly).

>126 CurrerBell: Thank you, I will do that.