WikiNetiquette

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Here are some ways to teach Wiki Netiquette.

Spam Homepages

When a group of swedish kids invaded the Wiki, we replaced their pages with the following:

: DeletedPage

: Please don't spam the site. See the MeatballMission. You are off topic. Please tell all your friends.

A friendlier version was also used. Maybe this should be as friendly as possible (HelpingLusers).

: Hello new wiki persons! We realize that you have just found wiki and are discovering its beauty, but you should realise that it is not Geocities. Please read the MeatballMission. We would ask that you join our community slowly. Peek around, read and think about what has been written, give yourself a couple of months before posting things on your homepage. Also, this particular wiki is in English.

: If you just want to try out a wiki, please only write things on your homepage. Don't create any more pages as that makes the rest of us do that much more work to clean up after you. Wikis are online communities, if you are off topic and your page is just for fun, or for a quick learning experience DeletedPage will be posted on it. Wikis work by people working together. Please work with us. Any images that you post will be removed inorder to save on bandwidth.

: Also, you all may want to start your own wiki, then it would be your community and you could do whatever you like!

How about an even friendlier one? It seems like these kids were sent here on some sort of assignment, so i don't think anything like the "please work with us" part is even necessary.

: Hello new wiki persons! We realize that you may be new to wiki, however it seemed that your page concerned a topic unrelated to the core interests of this particular wiki (see MeatballMission to see what our "core interests" are; unrelated pages are sometimes called "off-topic"). Also, this particular wiki is in English, and we would prefer that any new pages also be in English so that the current participants could all read them.

: The contents of your page has been moved to a new Wiki created for you at http://www.seedwiki.com/page.cfm?doc=EgetArbete&wikiid=857. Please feel free to post on MeatballWiki sometime in the future though if you wish (but please do it in English and only about something related to the MeatballMission!).

I missed most of this (I just added DeletedPage to the top of their homepages). Personally, I think it's reasonable to be protective of our space. I also think it's unreasonable to be very vindictive towards 15 year olds who don't know better; however, I also think it's reasonable to have their "Internet" teacher guillotined. At any rate, if you recall, MeatballWiki is technically very stable to attacks, so we can handle such innocent spam without being too aggravating--after all, we'll be here longer than any spammer. I personally think the "Please tell all your friends" message was a bit over the top.

But also remember that MeatballWiki thrives on being boring. Inviting a spammer, however innocent, to join the community is the wrong approach I think. For klutzes who are clearly not interested in MeatBall, send them away politely. There's no benefit in being inclusive of non-contributors.

Finally, Bayle's proactive action to move their content to a SeedWiki, satisfying both their needs and ours, was a masterful move. -- SunirShah

At WikiWiki, the following link was placed on potential test pages: Wiki:DeleteTestAndWelcome. See Wiki:DeleteTestAndWelcomeDiscussion

Spamming existing pages

Usually we just revert the changes and give as summary "spam" or "revert". Some people still don't get it, then. Here is what such an entry looked like on EmacsWiki. Note how we tried humor, first, then we used the spammers nick name from IRC, which we knew (usually spammers are not that smart).

Revision 140: View Diff . . September 10, 2002 1:36 by EdwardOConnor [revert. tsp, would you cut it
out? this is really annoying.] 
Revision 139: View Diff . . September 10, 2002 0:53 by a3io318by56la.bc.hsia.telus.net 
Revision 138: View Diff . . September 9, 2002 9:03 by EdwardOConnor [revert] 
Revision 137: View Diff . . September 9, 2002 4:32 by a3io318by56la.bc.hsia.telus.net 
Revision 136: View Diff . . September 9, 2002 2:37 by MartinPool [Undo stupid "man ed" troll] 
Revision 135: View Diff . . (edit) September 9, 2002 2:07 by a3io318by56la.bc.hsia.telus.net 
Revision 134: View Diff . . (edit) September 9, 2002 1:59 by a3io318by56la.bc.hsia.telus.net 
Revision 133: View Diff . . (edit) September 9, 2002 1:46 by a3io318by56la.bc.hsia.telus.net 
Revision 132: View Diff . . (edit) September 9, 2002 1:21 by a3io318by56la.bc.hsia.telus.net 
Revision 131: View Diff . . (edit) September 9, 2002 0:28 by AlexSchroeder [revert funky phrases] 
Revision 130: View Diff . . September 8, 2002 23:12 by a3io318by56la.bc.hsia.telus.net 
Revision 129: View Diff . . August 29, 2002 13:02 by AlexSchroeder

There was no need to resort to IP blocking until now.

Please don't do this. It annoys other users, and makes life hell for the administrators that have to constantly revert the changes that you have made. - tsp

What would you like us to do ? -- DavidCary

CategoryWikiConventions