I suggest that what we need to do about problem users (spammers and
vandals) is to go a step further than merely blocking their accounts. I
have been looking at the database layout underneath the wiki,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Mediawiki-database-schema.png
which shows that the user's validated email address is there, in some
form. We should access that, and complain to the ISP involved. We
should do our part as good Netizens, to shut down these parasites.
The complaint part is easy:
1) find the address. Digging a real address out of email spam is tricky,
but here (in the database) it should be easy.
2) look up the complaint address on http://www.abuse.net/
One click takes you to the lookup page, where you supply the ISP, and
they supply the complaint address (usually, "ab...@whatever")
3) send them a note describing the user's undesirable actions. The usual
response from well-known ISPs is a return note saying that the account
has been cancelled.
The address part requires root access, which I don't have, and wouldn't
know how to use if I did.
A more ambitious project would be a little data mining: list all the
email addresses (encoded is fine, here) which have more than one user
name associated with them. This should yield at least a few entries for
those of us with clones or bots. It may show whole strings of spammer
IDs, with the same email. Again, we should complain.
--
/tj/
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