Wikia - creating communities

In response to the increasing administrative load caused by widespread linkspam on Wikia, Tim Starling wrote a new maintenance script, which edits with the username "Spam cleanup script". Its function is to check every page on every wiki against the Spam Blacklist.

If a match is found, the script reverts the page to the last revision which does not match the blacklist. If all revisions match, it blanks the page.

This Wikia feature is now available as a MediaWiki extension for all MediaWiki sites.

Some Wikia wikis had legitimate links to sites which were blacklisted, such as subdomains under cjb.net or netfirms.com, causing incorrect reversions. If this happens, it is essential that you either:

• Obscure your links to the domain, either by removing the http:// from the URL or by using a redirection script such as tinyurl.com; or
• Ask that the domain in question be removed from the blacklist (at Talk:Spam Blacklist); or
• Remove the links from your wiki altogether.

In cases where web hosting companies tolerate spamvertised websites hosted on their subdomains, it may be better to take the third option and boycott the provider rather than to find some way to work around the inconvenience. You might want to send an email to the provider telling them why you are making this choice.

If you simply revert the cleanup script using the "revert" feature, the script will revert you back next time it's run. It's not a good idea to leave such links on your wiki anyway, since the spam filter will automatically reject all attempted edits that leave the link in.

It is a maintenance script not a bot and it acts on the database directly rather than editing via the web interface. If the bot causes problems for a wiki, it is blockable by an admin like any other user.

Please note problems at talk:Spam cleanup script, except urgent requests, which should be directed to whoever is around on #wikia on irc.freenode.net, which can be accessed via irc.wikia.com.

[edit] Related links

• Help:Spam
• Spam Blacklist
• Comments at LiveJournal
• Tim's mailing list post, which this page was based on.