Viewing the UserCreation Logs, there over a thousand new users with apparent Chinese usernames, and RC is over 1800, with many, many talkpage spam messages to these new users. This looks like some kind of bot spam binge, and unless an ISP range block could be used to stop the bot (?) I am not sure how it can be dealt with. Anyway, it is a curious thing both why the effort is being made, and whether steps can be taken to prevent it from happening?
SarahB
2
Yes I noticed it too! I’ve left usernae templates on 3 talk pages as the policy says that a username cannot be made up with non latin charachters.
One username translates as ‘There is no medicine to make a man a lifetime loss of sexual function,’ and another ‘How people buy medicine coma’ so I guess we are going to be spammed with medical products very soon
Goodness! there are several hundred of them!
Oh dear…I just saw it!
I’ll help out on RC patrol, I hope everything gets under control soon.
SarahB
4
Thanks Jax, I’ve spent over an hour rolling back so far…
Yikes! Just saw them on the patrols — that little box with the sun
I’ve been sending them {{username}} messages! Hope everything gets under control… I’ll call Ashley to get on RC patrol!
They seem like the snake, Hydra, in Greek mythlogy! The more are cut off, the more grow!
Anna
7
Yuck, what a way to wake up. A+ to you intrepid patrollers who’ve been fighting it back - looks like you got through hundreds just in the time it took me to get from my house to the Haus! Rockstar stuff in the face of gross spam.
@Butterfly-princess
and @Ashley-102
No need to bother with the username templates here - pretty sure Bob is right about it being bots, and the robots won’t read that kind of thing!
Bob - I’ll bug Reuben et all about it as they get online to see if there are any bright ideas for prevention… range blocks and the like. In the meantime, off to hop into RCP…
I saw lots of chinese messages!
Anna
9
Phew, I have never shift-clicked that many rollback links in a row in my entire wikiHow life, hah… but hey look, sunny skies!!
Round of applause and cheers to the spam fighting, ace patrollers of the last day:
@Jax-Smith
, @Isorhythmic
, @SarahB
, @OoT2D
, @Lutherus-Shyrilser
, @Wizzdom
, @Bobbyfrank
, @Galactic-Radiance
, @Atheia
, @InfernoTerra
, @Sarah-Lucy
, @Still-nameless
, @Adelaide
, @Ashley-102
, @Mainak
, @P-code
, @Marcus-Arseneault
, @KatLover
This one’s for you!
OoT2D
10
My finger nearly fell off from clicking the rollback button so many times…but congratulations patrollers! Nice work!
No problem! Nice job everyone.
SarahB
12
I lost the plot for a while and mis clicked a couple, thanks goodness a patroller behind me caught them. I’ve never seen anything like it, I guess those spammers kept a lot of us busy for most of the day, I hope they don’t wake up and realise what has happened and start of all over again :((
Me neither. I don’t think the bots will come back on their own unless the owner notices something. But hopefully by then, the IP address will be blocked.Cheers for all your work, Sarah!
Anna
14
@SarahB
and @Jax-Smith
Yeah, I blocked a couple of IPs but my guess is there are probably several (many?) more out there, with his many accounts - hopefully our engs can do some kind of mass-block-magic. I don’t know how all the trickery works on their side but luckily we have some clever people who do…!
SarahB
15
Phew! were you planning on a weekend away @Anna
??!!
Anna
16
Hah, leaving tonight for a long weekend, yes! Don’t worry, I’ll pack the spammers up and bring them on my trip with me, so they’ll be way too busy being rained and snowed on in Colorado to do any more spamming here
Great — finally patrolling is clear! Great idea, Anna, it’s raining — hard — here! They’ll get drowned
system
19
Oh man. I forgot how terrible these attacks are, it’s been a while since we had something like this! But it’s nice to see our community always coming together to defend the fortThanks everyone. I hope we can figure out new ways to keep these bots out in the future.
Every time I clicked the roll-back button the number left to go seemed to go up! I was very happy to see it had all been cleared this morning! Good job everyone!!
