Current events
From SEDSWiki
10 February 2008: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.11.1 today. Updated SpamBlacklist extension, and updated and re-installed BadBehavior extension. --Chris 08:46, 10 February 2008 (MST)
16 September 2007: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.11.0 today. Bad Behavior extension seems to be broken by this, but can't find an update, so that extension is disabled for now. --Chris 11:34, 16 September 2007 (MDT)
20 May 2007: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.10.0 today. Also updated and enabled Bad Behavior extension 2.0.10. --Chris 10:55, 20 May 2007 (MDT)
9 Mar 2007: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.9.3 today. --Chris 21:52, 9 March 2007 (MST)
13 Jan 2007: <Math> capability enabled.
See Calculate_the_height_of_a_rocket_launch. --Chris 13:00, 13 January 2007 (MST)
11 Jan 2007: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.9.0 today. --Chris 23:29, 11 January 2007 (MST)
22 Dec 2006: Pilot Error
While trying to diagnose the over-eager "Bad Behavior" spam blocking, I accidentally deleted the whole wiki database! It was restored from an 11 hour-old backup, and I believe no edits were lost. This is a reminder for everyone that frequent backups are a good idea :) --Chris 12:32, 21 December 2006 (MST)
5 Dec 2006: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.8.2 today. --Chris 14:15, 5 December 2006 (MST)
10 Oct 2006: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.8.0 today. Required an update to PHP5. --Chris 20:13, 10 October 2006 (PDT)
26 May 2006: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.6.6 today. --Chris 07:42, 26 May 2006 (PDT)
6 May 2006: Mediawiki Software Update
Updated to MediaWiki 1.6.5 today. --Chris 09:53, 7 May 2006 (PDT)
22 Apr 2006: Mediawiki Software Update
I updated the wiki software to version 1.6.3 today (quarterly release). This version has lots of new features and bugfixes. I also took the opportunity to update the SpamBlacklist extension. MediaWiki 1.6.x now has its own captcha verification, ConfirmEdit. I might mod it a bit for our use here, but we'll see how that goes.
25 Mar 2006: Captcha login verification
Too many spambots have been creating accounts and trashing our pages. I've re-written one of the mods out there to work with the most recent version of MediaWiki and put up a MediaWiki:Captcha page for the open-source community on how to do it for their installations. Note that nothing will change for folks that already have accounts, but if you're creating a new account, you'll have to type in the word that is in the image to the right of the login form. --Chris 11:27, 25 March 2006 (PST)
4 Mar 2006: Mediawiki Software Update
I updated the wiki software to version 1.5.7 today (maintenance update). --Chris 06:11, 4 March 2006 (PST)
27 Jan 2006: Mediawiki Software Update
I updated the wiki software to version 1.5.6 today (maintenance update).
--Chris 09:05, 27 January 2006 (PST)
2 Jan 2006: New updates to prevent spammers
I've made some updates to try and reduce the amount of spam edits we're getting. This consists of three updates:
SpamBlacklist extension
The SpamBlacklist_extension periodically loads a blacklist file from the meta-wiki site (the same list used for wikipedia), and prevents edits from succeeding for those matching the blacklist.
Bad Behavior extension
Installed the Bad Behavior extension which has code to block users based on suspicious behavior. I haven't read too much into this, but it seemed like something to try and hadn't gotten any negative feedback.
OpenProxy blocking
I changed the variable $wgEnableSorbs to "TRUE" which prevents edits from being posted via open internet proxies. It uses a database maintained at dnsbl.sorbs.net.
Feedback
Hopefully these measures will go a long way to reducing the amount of pages we have to rollback. If for any reason you are prevented from editing pages that you ought to be able to, please let me know and I'll invesitage.
--Chris 13:10, 2 January 2006 (PST)
