User talk:AgProv

It's not hard to export pages and import them into here. But I'd hold off, Sanity is supposed to be giving me a copy of the existing site this weekend. --Osiris (talk) 19:30, 2 October 2012 (PDT)

Back again! Check the "Delete" option in the drop-down from "Create" in the vandal's User page. It's quick and easy and removes the pest from the User list at the same time. It only lacks a knob on the end! --Old Dickens (talk) 15:13, 16 November 2012 (PST)

There's a little drop down arrow with extra options on the page. Delete, Move, Protect, & Watch. --Osiris (talk) 16:56, 8 December 2012 (PST)

Thanks guys! See what you miss if you don't stay alert? AgProv (talk) 06:28, 9 December 2012 (PST)

Strange templates

There. I think I fixed the Annotations section of the Book Data template so that it works instead of creating a new page with a stutter. Now if someone could make the Amazon cover look-up work...--Old Dickens (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2013 (GMT)

Hi AgProv

Hello AgProv!

Thank you for your kind words. I take your point about potential spammistry so I've thrown a random thought up onto my user page.

Thanks again for the warm welcome!

Allan

What's new

Yo! You're back from Seattle! Feel free to comment on various changes to the infrastructure and the new creator permission. Sewage has been transpiring. --Old Dickens (talk) 23:51, 10 June 2013 (GMT)

Holy Mother of Nuggan! That must have been the biggest day ever. --Old Dickens (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2013 (GMT)

It was a sense of acheivement. I also have an uneasy feeling that User Sharlee (7070) might have been legitimate, as he/she made a couple of insightful edits to one page. (Deep sense of "whoops") I may have deleted them in error. Is it possible to get a second opinion on this and restore them?AgProv (talk) 23:31, 17 June 2013 (GMT)

"friendly fire incident": sure, blame it on the Americans!
--Old Dickens (talk) 00:51, 21 June 2013 (GMT)

Quite a few in the Falklands and Northern Ireland when there wasn't an American in sight.... at some level, does the Wiki store email addresses for users? A quick email from me to Aldibidable (and Sharlee) to explain what's happened and beg apology might be called for here... AgProv (talk) 23:18, 21 June 2013 (GMT) more care is now being taken when blitzing spammers, although this is hardly an excuse...AgProv (talk) 23:18, 21 June 2013 (GMT)

No worries about the accidental deletion. I only managed one bit of spam killing as my aldi account anyhow. Manwe (talk) 21:02, 23 June 2013 (GMT)

Speaking of spam, the talk page for this account was spam. Discount handbags indeed. Manwe (talk) 18:08, 24 June 2013 (GMT)

DanaeBatt: he/she/it is now not even a memory. Thank you for pointing it out! having now killed all the "B"'s in UserList, with the exception of BS5770 and Britarse, I'm onto the C's...AgProv (talk) 18:49, 24 June 2013 (GMT)

A couple of things

First off the main page keeps getting vandalised. I have undone edits twice in the last 24 hours where it has been replaced with an ad for methods of getting 'free' xbox live points. Is there no way to protect the page somehow or is that not something this version of the wiki software will do?

Also, I have spotted some redlinks for pages I wouldn't mind creating, but I can only seem to edit existing pages not add to blank ones, is this intentional? Forgive my newbie-ness - is there something I need to do to get access to this or do I need to get one of you guys to put some text in to enable editing like you did for my user page? Manwe (talk) 10:15, 26 June 2013 (GMT)

What we've discovered - Old Dickens and me spotted this independently - is that there are two "special" spammer names that just cannot be killed, at present: they appear to have burrowed themselves neatly into the deeper programming of the Wiki and corrupted the database. these two user-names specifically target the Main Page and at present appear kill-protected - all we can do here, for now, is to keep restoring the original edit. I suspect this may be a useful clue to something deeper. I also discovered a third spam user who just keeps coming back with the same name, however often we detect, delete, and merge. Like a vampire, this one has returned from the grave three times. Funny what you find out when you're intensively slaying spammers and start noting exceptions and anomalies...I wish I had the know-how to explore this more deeply...AgProv (talk) 15:13, 26 June 2013 (GMT)

Well I don't know if I can help any, but I am a computer technician. What do you see? Manwe (talk) 20:34, 26 June 2013 (GMT) I don't know if you see what I see when you go to a userpage, but what I'm getting when I try to merge/delete certain users into "Anonymous" is this:

Database error

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "DatabaseBase::update". Database returned error "1062: Duplicate entry '0-0-Main_Page' for key 'wl_user' (127.0.0.1:3307)".

I have so far identified THREE spam names who return this error message and who all appear to still have active accounts. These are:-

• Darrington07
• Parent7kettle
• Taiwan5kettle

The "vampire" user who has so far returned from deletion three times was "Antoinette"

O.K., so what I have gathered from looking at the documentation on the merge user tool is that this is caused by the spam user's watchlist. Would I be right in assuming that the Anonymous user you are merging them into is the one that you/the admins control? If so you need to log in as the Anonymous account, go in to the account's watchlist, edit raw watchlist and clear it. Then log back in as your administrator self and try merging/deleting the troublemakers again. That should obliterate them. Manwe (talk) 00:39, 27 June 2013 (GMT)

Addendum, if I got this right, the error is caused by the user you are trying to merge having something in their watch list that is already in the watch list of your dummy deletion account which the database can't handle. It's not a serious hacking attempt fortunately. Manwe (talk) 00:43, 27 June 2013 (GMT)

OK, I feel like Homer Simpson, but anyway I'd suggest cutting and pasting the two previous sections to the Mended Drum where I've started an overview of the security exceptions. Demarcation, don't you know? . --Old Dickens (talk) 01:41, 27 June 2013 (GMT)

I have no problem with that. I hadn't noticed it was being discussed in there to be honest. Manwe (talk) 01:45, 27 June 2013 (GMT)

A high rate of fire

A spammer every five seconds? My ISP isn't that fast - couldn't do it. --Old Dickens (talk) 22:36, 18 July 2013 (GMT) I did a little test. Ten seconds seems to be a good average for me. --Old Dickens (talk) 22:53, 18 July 2013 (GMT)

The technique I've arrived at is to open User List in "Special Pages", and go down it, right-clicking on every red name and clicking again on "Open In New Tab". (Of course, I also check the Active Users list to be sure we haven't had any new legitimate contributors there - any red names there that look legit, I'll open their contributions. If they're valid, I'll blue-list them with a welcome message on their user page. If not, they're zapped).

When I've got around thirty-five new tabs set up - that seems to be the maximum number of open tabs my browser will allow me - I'll go through them form left to right. It's a simple three click process: hit "delete", wait for the screen to change, click to merge user to "anonymous", close tab, the next New user tab pops up automatically, repeat. As the relevant points to click on appear in exactly the same places on screen every time, my mouse-using hand is now trained to move quickly and accurately!

Now and again I'll double-check any name that looks plausible or familiar and scope them out, but as often as not I'll blast the whole lot at a fairly fast kill-rate! Then refresh user list and begin again...AgProv (talk) 00:08, 19 July 2013 (GMT)

Ah...not performance-enhancing drugs, then. --Old Dickens (talk) 00:19, 19 July 2013 (GMT)

alas, no. One of the four fundamental Druidic forces applies - bloody-mindedness....and as it's now 01:23 GMT, I'm off to bed...AgProv (talk) 00:20, 19 July 2013 (GMT)

All-Time High: during the sixty seconds of 22:12 GMT on Friday 19th July, I deleted 24 spam accounts... that's one every 2.5 seconds... I'd be really surprised if I bettered that...AgProv (talk) 07:48, 20 July 2013 (GMT) and during the sixty seconds of 18:12 GMT on Saturday 27th July I killed 28... that's getting close to one every two seconds...AgProv (talk) 18:37, 27 July 2013 (GMT)

Kill the fatted calf; the Provigal returneth!

...and about time, too. I fear no one's been doing much work: fortunately Qwesty Capcha has eliminated the vandals, unfortunately very few new or old contributors have shown up. I've been pottering around dusting and polishing, but you haven't missed much. A new book's due though; that may provide a boost.--Old Dickens (talk) 03:15, 4 November 2013 (GMT)

The Cymric spelling confused me, there. I thought you referred to to your old Hugglestonian school, but I find Prifysgol Glyndŵr in the Welsh Wikipedia with an "i". "Pryf" translates as hornet; I wondered why. --Old Dickens (talk) 03:15, 4 November 2013 (GMT)