User talk:Rlparker/Archive 2

Archive 1 - Older Contents

Accessing old mail
Thanks for your advice, but if you read the message I received, it specifically says to consult the Dreamhost wiki. Every time one of my emails gets automatically archived, I get one of these messages. I have literally received hundreds of them. I now want to access my old email, and I'm following the instructions in the message. It says to consult this wiki. But the link provided has no information. So I am wondering why you deleted the article I created? Dreamhost tells me to look at this article, but when I create it, you delete it. Is this not absurd? Blabla123 03:27, 5 November 2007 (PST)


 * While it may seem "absurd", it really just common sense; the wiki is not a forum. DH Support referred you to the wiki because, actually, the information you need *is* in those pages referenced in the emails you received from support. If you are having a hard time finding it, or understanding it, I'm sure other users will be glad to help you on the forum. It just that a wiki article is not the place to express your confusion. Once you have learned how to get your mail from other folders, you will be in a position to determine how, or if, the articles involved could be clarified - that's very different than the article that you posted. I can tell you are frustrated, but I suggest you carefully re-read the wiki pages linked in the support email, and if you still can't find the answer to your question, post on the *forum* as you did here. I, and others, are more than happy to help you there, as it is a much more appropriate forum for such *discussion* than wiki articles and/or talk pages. BTW, the answer to your question lies in the "subscribe" aspects of managing your folders. '-) -- Rlparker 04:31, 5 November 2007 (PST)

Webhosting
Yeah, thanks for that. English isn't my native language, plus I was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote the section. Anyhow, I specifically mentioned that hosting company to show that there *are* actually hosts that have worked shared appserver hosting out, and for DreamHost to look into how they do it -- which would be difficult without knowing the company's name. I'm currently using them for a project at work, which I wouldn't've done had only Dreamhost have a working TurboGears environment. As it is now, I cannot use TurboGears at all because my processes are immediately killed off by Procwatch thinking I'm eating too much memory (threads share memory, so there's very little additional memory usage by each thread, which CherryPy/TurboGears spawns a lot). --Tic 10:06, 13 April 2007 (PDT)
 * No problem! I think you bring up some very good points, have a good suggestion, and I appreciate your understanding about my edits. Hopefully DH staff can find the other hosting company you mentioned without any trouble (I left the "linked from the TurboGears site" reference in!); you could also send them further information about this via a support ticket, or make a suggestion in the Suggestion section of the Control Panel. A DH staffer can also easily find the other hosting company's name easily enough in the page history.  At any rate, it would be nice to have a more usable FastCGI environment/ -- Rlparker 13:30, 13 April 2007 (PDT)

Spammers
I think we should have a zero-tolerance policy for spammers. I recommend that we block all spammers (even single-link spammers) indefinitely. Furthermore, I wouldn't bother commenting on their talk pages - they're just "one-and-done" users. -- Scjessey 09:43, 12 Jan 2007 (PST)
 * I agree with you on that. In this last case I guess I was just feeling maybe the guy was experimenting outside the sandbox (given that he was on the Editing Help page) and was just clueless.  That said, you are probably right; I'll handle the next one with an indefinite block, and I'll not comment on their talk page. -- Rlparker 11:46, 12 Jan 2007 (PST)


 * As I've noted previously, the linkspam we see on this wiki is done by bots: The accounts are never used more than once, so blocking them is pointless. If you're in the mood for flexing your e-muscles, then go ahead, but it's not going to do anything.  The only thing you can do to help hide the spam is to do bot rollbacks, rather than regular ones.  It's worth noting that there are anti-spam extensions on more recent versions of MediaWiki: If you really want to help solve the problem, get your pointy stick ready, and poke any DreamHost employee you can find about upgrading.


 * While we're on that subject, here's the scoop on that as Sabrejack has told it to me: Because of php version limitations, upgrading to 1.9.0 (up until a few days ago it was 1.8.3, and 1.8.2 just before that; MediaWiki definitely has an active development team) would be time-consuming. The good news is that only versions 1.7 and up require php5; version 1.6.9 can be run on php4.  It's outdated, but it's stable and secure, and has pretty much all of the features we desperately need.  Upgrading to it would be a fairly simple matter.  Unfortunately, it seems that Sabrejack isn't actually assigned to the wiki in any way: He just helps out in his spare time, so we may have to wait a while unless we can either find another employee who's willing to perform the upgrade, or put enough pressure on DreamHost to convince them to perform the task (the upgrade is advertised as taking "less than 10 minutes on average," so we're not talking about days and days of ceaseless toil by a legion of engineers).  I was going to make a joke about how we should consider extortion as a means of getting this done, but I figured it might be in bad taste: Stick with email and IRC (and crank phone calls, of course).  --Emufarmers 19:15, 12 Jan 2007 (PST)


 * Thanks for the info re. the spam bots. I'd seen your previous comment(s), but I could have sworn I saw in the history that the last one I dealt with had posted one previous link to google on the same page a few days earlier. I was fooled by that into thinking it was a "people" 'stead of a bot. Doh!  Actually, I have *no* interest in "flexing and e-muscles"; I was just trying to help a bit with the work load.  I'd as soon not mess with it, but I figured one that I handle is one less for you or Simon to have to deal with ;-).


 * Thanks for the update of the wiki software front - I'll lobby whenever I get the chance for *any* upgrade to a newer, but stable, version! --  Rlparker 19:26, 12 Jan 2007 (PST)

Bottery
Some of the weird edits you are seeing are the result of various bot actions. The most prolific of these is the "Ampersand Bot" which deletes everything after the first ampersand (&) it finds. Another bot inserts or removes blank lines, but I've not been able to determine why it does it or what it has to gain by it. The bots are easy to spot if you look at document "diffs", and I've been routinely banning the user for "infinite" time. Keep 'em peeled. -- Scjessey 06:27, 9 June 2007 (PDT)


 * Thanks for the "heads up" and explanation - I was suspecting as much but I'm glad you "edumacated" me - I'll pay closer attention and do the same re. Bot Bannery -- Rlparker 12:37, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

Plus sign bottery
I've not encountered this one before. Weird, huh? -- Scjessey 15:02, 18 June 2007 (PDT)
 * Indeed it *is* strange! I've run across maybe a half a dozen of them on the wiki in the last few days and, IIRC, it seems to just delete "plus" signs - also strange that, on that last one, while it delted a total of 4 plus-signs, the RecentChanges pages shows the "character impact" as "0". - It's almost as though it, and the ampersand bot, are a "recon run" for a spam bot which comes along after.  Or at least it almost seems that way (I have not really closely analyzed the targeted pages to see if there is a correlation - it just seems there is). -- Rlparker 15:13, 18 June 2007 (PDT)

CAPTCHA thoughts
MediaWiki has a nice extension that forces a CAPTCHA if an edit adds an external link. Since you seem to have already been in discussions with DH about this issue, perhaps you could recommend it? Alternatively, reCAPTCHA will do the same thing, but also on new user registrations and password-cracking attempts. -- Scjessey 14:19, 11 June 2007 (PDT)


 * No problem! I had a discussion on IRC with JeremyK last night (Sabrejack was there too)and JeremyK promised to bring the subject up in this morning's "admins" meeting, and to mention thie situation to Aaron. "G" (irc nick) pointed out those, and other, extensions that could be very helpful in controlling this problem, so I know JeremyK is aware of the potential solutions.  I'll follow-up as I see them in IRC (though you should also!) -- Rlparker 15:30, 11 June 2007 (PDT)

Last vandal revert
That vandal has made many visits and always vandalized the same pages. It is annoying that we don't have the ability to semi-protect articles, eh? -- Scjessey 13:51, 22 August 2007 (PDT)


 * Yeah, at least it's a human vandal that only shows up now and again! -- Rlparker 18:01, 22 August 2007 (PDT)

More
After a quick telephone call to the university network administrator
 * That's extraordinarily diligent! Nice job :) -- Scjessey 10:06, 8 September 2007 (PDT)

Spammery
That's good news about the hidden DIV spam! -- Scjessey 19:20, 14 September 2007 (PDT)
 * I guess that didn't work out too well after all :( -- Scjessey 10:58, 21 September 2007 (PDT)

IRC client
Do you know if this is okay on DreamHost? The TOS says that IRC clients are "discouraged", but I thought perhaps they might be okay for DreamHost PS customers. I'm trying to figure out whether or not it is okay for the Irssi article to exist at all. -- Scjessey 05:49, 5 November 2007 (PST)
 * On a DH PS I'm sure it's fine (considering we can run anything else on one) and on the shared servers we were told in the past, in IRC specifically, that it was "okay" so long as you didn't attempt to leave it on, unattended (as obviously Procwatch would kill it, though I imagine that was said so people don't attempt to circumvent Procwatch by writing a re-start script). The staff's position on that may have changed of course, but I find it highly unlikely. Irssi generally doesn't eat up a huge amount of resources either, and if anything, the rule is in place to prevent attempted IRC-based DDOS attacks or the circumvention of bans. Sorry for answering your question directed at rlparker, but we just had this discussion not long ago in IRC, so I figured I'd throw in my two cents. Mousee 08:54, 5 November 2007 (PST)
 * I'm sure rlparker won't mind us stomping all over his backyard for a bit! Anyway, that answers my question - we should probably adjust the article to recommend it for DreamHost PS users only. -- Scjessey 12:21, 5 November 2007 (PST)
 * You guys charge right ahead; this space is as good as any. I had the same question about the appropriateness of that article, but I figured I would leave that to Scjessey to address (I'm already handling one discussion over deleting a new page atm). I think Mousee has it about right, though it couldn't hurt to add to that page, in addition to the comment about DreamHost PS. a short quote from the TOS regarding IRC related processes and a "if you choose to do this, be advised that should your use of irrsi be deemed abusive, it could be construed as a TOS violation" caveat, or something like that. -- Rlparker 14:15, 5 November 2007 (PST)
 * Sounds like as of an idea as ever to me! I'll throw it on the chopping block now and see what I can do with it ;) - Mousee 15:28, 5 November 2007 (PST)
 * I'm glad you didn't mind us roaming free on your turf. You should probably pick up all this crap I see lying around, though. -- Scjessey 16:00, 5 November 2007 (PST)