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This noticeboard is a location to discuss and coordinate administrative tasks for the Battlestar Wiki.

It is my hope that this place can serve as a location for administrators to coordinate their efforts on the maintenance tasks of the Wiki (it's not ALL fun and games), as well as a spot for our contributors to be able to bring things to the attention of the admins if something needs to be done. Need a protected page edited? An article or picture deleted? Admins will watchlist this page so that your request won't get lost in the shuffle.

These are the archives:

Archive 1:

General, David Larson Screen Capture, Home, Part II, Toaster revision, Billy, Spam Alert, SPAMER ALERT, Constant Vigilance, Amazon referral links, Spoiler policy, Another spammer, IRC Channel Open, Jon Doe

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Battle Template[edit]

Me and Shane have been working on a template with aim to replace the individual wikitables on the battle pages Merv created. I was hoping I would get some feedback from you on the appearance etc. The testing area is here and you can see the actual template at {{Battle Data}} --Mercifull 13:49, 21 June 2006 (CDT)

I left a note at Template talk:Battle Data. --CalculatinAvatar^(C-T) 14:24, 21 June 2006 (CDT)4

Inadvertent Deletions[edit]

I have inadvertently save over another's edit 2 0r 3 times (RFA for Merciful) in the last 2 days . I thought that the wiki prevented that automatically. Is it because I talking so longer to edit sometimes? Or is there a problem. Just don't want to keeping doing it. --FrankieG 14:03, 23 June 2006 (CDT)

I think this happens when two people are editing the same page, always preview your work before posting to make sure you havnt made a major fubar. I recently did it on the ships page cutting off half the page lol and if i had previwed i wouldnt have messed it up hehe. --Mercifull 14:05, 23 June 2006 (CDT)

Thanks, I usually preview, but will make sure that I do in the future.--FrankieG 14:08, 23 June 2006 (CDT)

Steel re-added the vote, so no problem there. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 14:13, 23 June 2006 (CDT)

It also helps to only edit a section (not the whole article) when possible; this limits how much teeth gnashing you have to do as you repaste your contribution. --Spencerian 17:25, 23 June 2006 (CDT)

For the record, that can't happen on an RFA due to it's design. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 18:00, 23 June 2006 (CDT)

Unlock the BW:SC Archives[edit]

I am going around to most of the pages that are getting to long and making archives to keep the content clean and the BW:SC archives are protected and I can not edit them. So can someone unlock them for me. They do not have to be locked up as items would have to be removed if the same issue arised in the future. Thanks. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 08:35, 24 June 2006 (CDT)

I'm confused... You want to archive the archives, or...? Maybe a link to the specific page you're wanting archived. --Day ^{(Talk - Admin)} 22:25, 24 June 2006 (CDT)

Just the old archived pages. It's already been done. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 22:55, 24 June 2006 (CDT)

Okay. I thought so... That's what had confused me. They didn't look locked to me. *wink* --Day ^{(Talk - Admin)} 23:52, 24 June 2006 (CDT)

Request that User "Shane" be given a warning ban[edit]

Per the discussion on "Battlestar Wiki:Requests for comment/Shane",

Per our banning policy:

"The Battlestar Wiki community, taking decisions according to appropriate community-designed policies with consensus support, following consensus on the case itself.

The Administrators can impose a parole whereby any sysop can, at their judgement, impose a 24-hr temp ban for a violation of the parole, even though this offence would not normally be a bannable offence."

Per the Appeals Process for banning (my italics):

"Community-derived bans may be appealed to Joe Beaudoin via a request for arbitration. Joe will decide such a case based on whether the ban followed a genuine Battlestar Wiki policy, whether the procedures were correctly followed, and whether the ban was consistent with other Battlestar Wiki policies.

I'm formally requesting the Administrators and specifically sysop/Bureaucrat Joe Beaudoin, to, as per the suggestons in the RFC linked above, give user Shane a warning ban of one week, followed by the standard probatationary period of one month. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 17:03, 25 June 2006 (CDT)

I think this process is already underway. The appropriate place for other administrators to weigh in on the decision is still the RFC. --Peter Farago 17:12, 25 June 2006 (CDT)

The "Ban" Policy is not even "Official". It's {{Proposed Policy}} --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 17:13, 25 June 2006 (CDT)

Vandel[edit]

I can not sit idlily by and watch this vandel mess up the site. I am taking action to revert the pages. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 23:40, 28 June 2006 (CDT)

Report on Vandalism by User:Mickey McGizzle[edit]

Summary of Events[edit]

On 18:42, 28 June 2006, Mickey McGizzle joined Battlestar Wiki. He immediately initiated a series of attacks against several articles. These consisted of blanking the original content, which was replaced with a short string of nonsense, and quickly moving articles from one name to another, generating a massive number of redirects.

At 18:57, Kkimball took notice and posted a comment to McGizzle's user page.

At 19:00, Kkimball restored the contents of Battlestar Wiki:Cast and Crew (at that time located at "Cwap"). At 19:04, he restored the contents of Battlestar Wiki:Human Census Survey, which had not been moved. At 19:24, he restored the contents of The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game, (at that time located at "The Land of Seventeen Guatemalens") and attempted to return it to its original namespace by moving it to "A Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game".

Immediately after Kkimball's edits, McGizzle renewed his attack on the Drinking Game, and retaliated with an attack on Kkimball's user page.

At 20:40, 28 June 2006, Shane, currently banned from editing on an informal basis, posted a notice to Battlestar Wiki:Official Communiques, due to an error on Battlestar Wiki:Administrators' noticeboard, which he corrected at 20:41. At 20:42, I reverted his comments to Official Communiques, and at 22:19, I moved his comment to the Administrators' noticeboard. It is my opinion that due to the extraordinary circumstances at work, Shane's actions were not in violation of the terms of his ban as set forth in Battlestar Wiki:Requests for comment/Shane.

Immediately after his post to Official Communiques, Shane notified me of the attack via GMail. On 20:42, 28 June 2006, I banned Mickey McGizzle with an expiry time of infinite, and set to work on repairs. By 21:34, all the attacked articles had been restored and moved back to their original locations. By 22:04, all spurious redirects had been deleted.

During this time, User:The Merovingian attempted to help by tagging several redirects for deletion.

Analysis[edit]

Damage[edit]

Mickey McGizzle was able to actively vandalize Battlestar Wiki for exactly two hours.
He attacked a total of fourteen articles:
He generated over 200 redirects.
The Wiki remained vandalized for 52 minutes after Mickey McGizzle was banned. Deletion of all redirects took 1 hour and 22 minutes.

Response Time[edit]

Kkimball first noticed the attack 15 minutes after it commenced, but he failed or was unable to report it to an Administrator.
Kkimball's attempts to combat McGizzle's vandalism on his own were ineffectual.
Shane noticed the attack 1 hour and 58 minutes after it commenced, and notified me. If he had not done so, the damage would undoubtedly have been much worse.

Threat Assessment[edit]

McGizzle's personal response to Kkimball (replying to a comment on his user page, and subsequently moving Kkimball's user page to "Fatass") clearly indicates that he is not a bot, of the variety we've occasionally seen depositing link span. That a human being was able to cause so much damage raises serious concerns over automated agents using the same techniques.

McGizzle's vandalism method is extremely time consuming to revert. Vandalized articles must be identified from a large number of move log entries, then followed to their final destination, reverted, and returned to their original locations. This took an average of 3 minutes and 42 seconds per article. Following this, an enormous number of redirects must be deleted. This is tedious and inconveniently floods recent changes, but the presence of redirects does not directly harm the usability of the wiki.

Recommendations[edit]

I recommend that the ability to move pages be restricted to administrators, and, if possible, other trusted users. I understand that current versions of MediaWiki allow a distinction to be made between newly registered users and old hands; if it would be possible to implement such a thing here, that would be ideal.

Straightforward vandalism would still be possible, but it is much easier to revert than the redirect technique.

The fact that it took two hours for an administrator to be notified of the attack is extremely disturbing. Hopefully Mercifull's election as an Admin will enable more round-the-clock surveillance, but Kkimball's attempt to revert McGizzle's edits personally, rather than contact an Admin is disappointing. Presumably, it simply didn't occur to him. Perhaps contact information for admins should be consolidated in another location besides user pages, to which a link could be included in the welcome greeting.

Stars of Kobol should be awarded to Kkimball, Shane and The Merovingian for their valiant efforts to stop McGizzle's rampage.

--Peter Farago 02:15, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Its a shame this has happened, at a time when some people were contemplating opening the wiki to guests I feel that we cannot ever do this now. For every minute this mailicious user was here he caused 3 minutes of time to fix. I have a few suggestions however i am unsure if they can be implemented:

Make it so only administrators can move/rename a page. While this wouldnt stop someone manually making a new page and then adding a redirect to the old one it would certainly slow them down.
Edit limit for new users. I'm not sure if this can be done with MediaWiki but is it possible to limit the number of edits per hour/day for new users?
Limit on the number of "New" pages that newly signed up users can make.
Wikipedia runs some bots that look for these kinds of mass changes by users and reverts them and blocks the user. Is that kind of thing possible here?
Make it so pages cannot be blanked... minimum number of characters for example.

Just a few ideas. I think its something that needs to be discussed in detail fairly soon. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 03:14, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

I also think that with users such as this blocking just isnt enough. These kinds of people need to be completely banned from the site using .htaccess --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 03:27, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

The timing of this is extremely unfortunate. The type of vandalism involved is something we have never see here at this wiki. Previously all vandalism has been either a direct personal attack (user pages, etc.) or more commercial in nature (editing pages to include invisible spam links). This is the first time that I am aware of that an individual has committed vandalism solely for what appears to be their own amusement. While the thought of this type of attack had been considered (it wasn't "inconceivable"), I imagine we all thought it unlikely as no such attack had occured for so long (even when we had less restrictive login requirements).

In the "Recent Changes" banner, there is text that states that "If you find any vandalism or edits that need to be brought to the attention of an admin, report it here." (With a link to the admin noticeboard.) Unfortunately that might not be read/paid attention to much. Also, while the noticeboard IS on my watchlist, it won't generate an email notice like a note on a user page would. I definitely concur that some research should go towards improving accessibility to Admins and educating editors about who should be contacted in the case of an emergency (like this one).

I agree that an attack of this magnitude merits an evaluation of our security protocols. (Would such a discussion be best suited here? The Quorum?) I would like to urge that we not be too hasty in locking things down, though, and should perhaps let the sting of this attack subside somewhat before any security decisions are finalized. If we allow this incident to harm the daily experience of our average editors, then this "terrorist" will have had more impact on this world than they deserve to have made.

Lastly, I second the call for a commendation of Kkimball, Shane and The Merovingian. Dedicated editors like them are what keep this place running. I concur that this incident should have no bearing on Shane's RFC-imposed "vacation". While he is obviously still checking up on the place, he prevented a great deal more work through his timely contacting of an administrator. I would also like to thank Peter Farago for his diligence in dispatching and cleaning up after the vandal. It might be a good idea to work out a protocol for distributing vandal cleanup work amongst administrators, in the event more than one is active or in the event of a larger attack. --Steelviper 08:13, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Thanks for your kind words, guys, though I'd like to apologize. Though my immediate thought was to contact an admin, the user page didn't occur to me as I haven't used the mediawiki software in a peroid of several months previous to my return last night. I'm afraid my attempts to restore the content were somewhat feeble, but I'm glad this could all be fixed relatively simply (if not quickly).

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