MediaWiki:Edit Monitor: Difference between revisions

If you have been blocked by mistake

We apologize for the inconvenience. We will remove your block within 24 hours and notify you on your talk page. The vandalism protection system places some reasonable constraints on edits that should not be a problem for most editing activity. If you become a regular editor on this site, you wont be bothered by the protection system. You may also email us at wikiislam

exmna.org regarding this block and tell us about the edit you were tying to make.

Reason for having such a system

Giving any internet user the power to edit a website has its advantages and disadvantages. On October 26, 2006, WikiIslam came under its first bot-based vandalism attack. The attack went on for about an hour, and new user registrations were then disabled for some time. The third and last unrestricted attack was on November 20, 2006. A system was developed to deal with such attacks and limit vandalism to an easily manageable level. Without such a system it would be impossible to have this website. We keep regular backups of the site and in any situation it is always possible to restore the wiki to its previous state.

Sometimes this system may temporarily intercept activities of new editors and automatically block them from editing the wiki. Auto Blocks are logged and we investigate every incident, usually within 24 hours.

Page Moves

New users are not allowed to move pages to new titles. Please leave a message on the talk page of an article if you think it should be renamed.

Lock down/protected Mode

This mode is enabled on the wiki to protect against ongoing vandalism which may involve multiple user accounts or IP addresses. If you are new to the site and want to make an edit and see the edit protection notice, please try your edit again later. Regular editors of the site are still able to edit the site when its in protected mode. Link for administrators: WikiIslam:Administrators (turn protection on or off)

Information For Admins

This section contains information for site admins The aim of the Edit Monitoring system is to monitor vandalism on the site. It does this by preventing excess activity from new accounts or IP addresses. This activity might originate from a malicious bot or a user who intends to corrupt content on the site.

Block codes

When the EM system blocks a user action, it provides a code explaining why the action was blocked.

Most frequent user action blocks

• 13: Vandalism detected. The system automatically blocks usernames indefinitely and IP addresses for 3 months. This happens when a new user tries to remove a large portion of content. Block should be changed to indefinite.
• 31: Website is in protected mode and account creation is disabled.
• 15: The website is in protected mode and edits from IP addresses, or users who are not on the two safe lists are disabled. Account creation is disabled.

Other activities

Edits:

• 10: User is not on the safe list and exceeded the number of edits allowed.
• 11: Website is in lockdown mode and editing from user users is disabled
• 12: Similar to the above case except only anonymous edits are disabled. Edits from all existing user names are still allowed. Account creation is disabled.
• 14: New user link. This function is currently not implemented however the site has other protections against spam (Captcha on account creation, or for all edits from an IP address).

Moves:

• 20: New users are not allowed to move pages to new titles.
• 21: The site is in manual protected mode and pages moves are disabled for new users.
• 22: Similar to above, except that unknown activity was detected and the site is in automatic protected mode.

Account creation:

• 30: Excess account creation was detected.
• 31: Account creation is disabled because site is in protected mode.

Safe User Lists

There are two safe user lists.

• MediaWiki:Bpl-1: Users who are new to the site and are still not considered completely trusted, should be on the Mediawiki:Bpl-1 list. Anyone can be added to this list without any risk.
• MediaWiki:Bpl-2: Users on the Mediawiki:Bpl-2 list are not monitored at all. Only Administrators and users who are completely trusted should be on this list.

In other words if a user is new to the site and it looks like they're making positive contributions, they should be put on the Mediawiki:Bpl-1 list, and the Edit Monitor Table should be cleared from time to time (see point #2 below). Only when it is certain that they can be trusted completely, they should be added to the Mediawiki:Bpl-2 list, and after that the table will not need to be cleared for their edits.

It would be very rare for anyone with a malicious intent to try to get on these lists and for that they would have to make some positive contributions to the site. If the account goes 'rogue' for some reason, we will revert the edits and if that's difficult, we can revert to a backup and retain their positive contributions.

Clearing the Edit Monitor Table

This table should be cleared in the following conditions:

1. A User was a genuine editor blocked by mistake
2. User is new and has made some edits but cannot yet be trusted to be put on the "MediaWiki:Bpl-1" or "MediaWiki:Bpl-2" lists. Clearing the EM table occasionally will make sure they won't be blocked by the EM system while they are editing and establishing that they can be trusted. This is usually only needed for new editors who are making a lot of edits. In any case, it should still be safe to add them to the "WikiIslam:Bpl-1" list. Users can be added on the "WikiIslam:Bpl-2" only when it is certain that they can be trusted.
3. User cannot be trusted yet to be put on the MediaWiki:Bpl-2 list and is making some edits.
4. There have been some valid edits from an IP address.
5. Vandalism has subsided.

The table clears itself every now and then so it should not need to be cleared unless a user has been blocked.

Clear Edit Monitor Table

Related links

• WikiIslam:Administrators
• Edit Monitor Log | Auto Block Log
• Block Logs

The Edit Monitor log only shows the unsuccessful attempts of a user to edit or move a page. The actual blocking of the user is initiated by Edit Monitor but is shown in the regular block log.