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Maniphest T5300

Where are these unwanted user accounts coming from on nenawiki.org?
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Description

We have a prominent message on our Create account page "Registration is for NENA Members Only".

Yet, we get dozens of bogus user account creations that are extremely troublesome because we have to process legitimate users' permissions and we have to wade through all these bogus applications.

  1. Where are these users coming from?
  2. Are they manually creating accounts (and ignoring our message) or are they being automatically being added by Miraheze?
  3. Is there a configuration parameter we can change that stops or discourages the bogus account creations?

Event Timeline

MikeV created this task.Mar 2 2020, 23:47
Herald added a subscriber: • Examknow. · View Herald TranscriptMar 2 2020, 23:47
Void subscribed.Mar 3 2020, 00:22

I'll take a look shortly. Most likely just spambot registration, and there's not all that much we can do to stop them from registering accounts. They are, however, prevented from making edits.

MikeV added a comment.Mar 3 2020, 15:32

I don't know what "spambot registration" is. Are these only Miraheze users? Do they satisfy the email verification process? Why would anyone want to automatically join sites? Is this a characteristic of shared wiki farms? Is there really no way to block spambots? Would a dedicated mediawiki server eliminate them?

I know, a lot of questions. But these bogus accounts are a problem and any information or assistance with them would be appreciated.

RhinosF1 closed this task as Invalid.Mar 3 2020, 17:20
RhinosF1 subscribed.
In T5300#100578, @MikeV wrote:

I don't know what "spambot registration" is. Are these only Miraheze users?

They all have Miraheze accounts. A spambot is an automated tools that spams websites

Do they satisfy the email verification process?

They probably don’t

Why would anyone want to automatically join sites?

To promote themseleves

Is this a characteristic of shared wiki farms?

Any wiki or public site

Is there really no way to block spambots? Would a dedicated mediawiki server eliminate them?

Not really, we take action once we catch them to try and prevent them.

I know, a lot of questions. But these bogus accounts are a problem and any information or assistance with them would be appreciated.

@Void will look into it. Closing as invalid though as best asked on Stewards Noticeboard.

John triaged this task as Normal priority.Apr 16 2020, 20:48
John added a project: MediaWiki.Apr 16 2020, 20:57
Herald added subscribers: Reception123, NDKilla. · View Herald TranscriptApr 16 2020, 20:57