User talk:Akw

Has anybody got useful suggestions? Feel free to tell them!

--akw 11:46, 25 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Suggestion: Introduction of Model-Type Categories

Hei,

first, thx for sysoping me. I feel honored. ;)

I just thought that we could have categories representing the TP models (not too detailed)...like ThinkpadR50, ThinkpadT40p, ThinkpadA21 and so on.

This way we could add the specs, install notes and other pages to the according models category and this way provide a means of crossreferenced "show me all info about my model" access.

What do you think?

Wyrfel 12:13, 25 Sep 2004 (CEST)

We could add the category views to the List in the Models section, since the specs are only attached to the model-numbers, not to the general name of the models.

Wyrfel 12:16, 25 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Yes, that's a good idea, let's do it. I like the mediawiki category concept.

--akw 13:01, 25 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Hei, it works great.

Seems like we got a good start. ;-) I mean, two days and we already have some really useful cross reference information gathering functionality!

However, i have three general issues we should make decisions about:

1. If we rename all the Model categories to just T40, 600, X23, they would not all be sorted under T in the Models category, hence leading to better organisation. The backdrawing is that this causes them to spread out in the category listing that one can get by clicking on the Categories link of categorised pages. I think the advantage is bigger than the backdrawing, right? (Good that i just added a lot of them to different pages. ;) )
2. We are using these strange not very expressive internal link names. Mediawiki seems to handle expressive names quite well, so shouldn't we just use real page titles as their links? Makes things easier for editors, makes things more readable in Category views and finally gives us nicer titles to the pages.
3. Is there a way here to get some kind of back-buttons automatically included into the pages? I've seen that the wiki does this on subpages of userpages, but i tried giving hirarchical link structures (with slashes) in the install section and it didn't work the same way. Else i think we should sooner or later start including them by hand.

Greets...Wyrfel 19:38, 25 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Hi, I think so too, hope some others from the mailing list will join the building process.

Issues:

1. Renaming of the model categories: I think it's a good idea! I see if I can patch the mediawiki software to the the Categories link point to Category:Main_Page. I don't like the Special:Categories anyway, because it shows no treeview.
2. awful pagenames: YES! T40psidInstallation could be also Installing Debian/Sid on a T40p. Would be much nicer. :-)
3. back-buttons:I don't know if there is an automatically working template or something. I will find it out.

By the way: I saw you are experimenting with designs for the mainpage. My approach was just a quick hack (basically copying from wikipedia..) So if you have something nice-looking, just apply it! :-)

See you, akw 13:13, 26 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Hi,

ok, i'll start adjusting pages then. I agree to your point about the Category view...having the Link point to Categories:Main_Page would be nicer.

Concerning the designs...i'd like to experiment a bit more before applying it to the page...not really satisfied so far. However - i got used to your block layout. ;)

Wyrfel 13:28, 26 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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• Category:Main_Page link patch: done.

--akw 14:09, 26 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Great work. I think we are through with point 1 and 2 now.

The Category-Main page looks nice with the pic. I thought that we could add a specific picture to each Models category page. Would be nice. I started gathering pictures the like of yours (white background, isometric perspective). I could scale them to a standard size. Do you have any idea where i could find them all at once or more quickly than searching google images? (Also thought about creating icons for the main page, but that will take a while (to be expected in november the earliest.)

Wyrfel 15:28, 26 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Hei,

i just transformed all the distro pages into categories, gives similar advantages as with the ThinkPad models. Also relayouted them a bit while at it.

The bad news is that today is the last day i can do something, probably until middle of october, since the Telekom doesn't manage to give me a new phoneline in time, and from 6th to 12th i'll be in holidays. So good luck...i hope i get the line earlier, but you know the Telekom, i guess.

Wyrfel 12:16, 29 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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Hi Wyrfel,

YES... I know the Telekom... Happy holidays, anyway :-) Thanks for all the work.

Ciao, akw 12:54, 29 Sep 2004 (CEST)

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dynamic 3Dfps

Hei,

great work you did there again! Some suggestions: A sorting mechanism would be nice (best via up and down arrows on the table headers like in gtk apps) and a filter functionality (via select boxes in the table headers maybe?). Also, the dynamic page doesn't have a talk page associated, do you think you might be able to move it there?

Best wishes... Wyrfel 01:48, 13 Oct 2004 (CEST)

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• Sorting/Filtering: Yes, I thought about that, too: I will do it when I find time.
• Talk page: Unfortunately, "SpecialPages" cannot have discussion. So I put the discussion on the Header-Template (Template:Benchmarks_Header) which appears on the top of Special:Benchmarks.

--akw 12:59, 14 Oct 2004 (CEST)

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I finished sorting and filtering now. Just have a look at it. :-)

--akw 21:54, 15 Oct 2004 (CEST)

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I'm impressed. ;) Really. Do you do something in the web area professionally?

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Thanks! Not yet, I am still a student, but I hope I'll get my studies finished in March/April 2005.

--akw 15:19, 16 Oct 2004 (CEST)

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edit page modding?

Hei,

can you tell me how i can change the edit pages footer? Can't find any info about it and would like to put the policies page there. Is there a special template for this?

Wyrfel 06:41, 29 Dec 2004 (CET)

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Hmm, don't know. I'll have a look.. Thanks for creating Help:Editing, that's great!
Have a happy new year!

--akw 20:31, 30 Dec 2004 (CET)

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You, too.

217.230.181.21 04:43, 31 Dec 2004 (CET)

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Hei, please let the logo contest go until 28th of february at least, i'd like to submit something, but I'll be on holidays until 23rd. ;-)

Wyrfel 03:34, 27 Jan 2005 (CET)

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Hi Wyrfel,

superb! that's great!

--akw 10:20, 28 Jan 2005 (CET)

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Hei,

could you please update the MediaWiki to at least 1.4? We have the problem that one can't use the same template more than 5 times on one page. This is fixed since 1.4. Thanks a lot.

Wyrfel 03:00, 2 May 2005 (CEST)

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R51p??

Are you sure the 'R51p' exists?

There is no mention of it on the IBM support site, and tabook.pdf, trwbook.pdf, tawbook.pdf or twbook.pdf also does not mention it.

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You're right, removed it.

Wyrfel 13:02, 5 May 2005 (CEST)

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ThinkWiki Update

This is great! Thanks a lot. Unfortunately i can't help with the mod_rewrite problem. At work we had trouble with it as well, but i don't know any details about it. Good luck!

User:Wyrfel 12:46, 12 May 2005 (CEST)

Me agian. ;-) Just wanted to thank you for fixing the image display. (In case this happend accidentially...some images weren't found after the update. It seems to work for all of them now again.)

Wyrfel 02:31, 20 May 2005 (CEST)

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page moves/deletes

Can you move the following pages:

These machines where marketed with lower-case 'c'

• 360CS -> 360Cs
• 750CS -> 750Cs
• 755CS -> 755Cs

All the Other 'CS' where marketed with upper-case, so they are fine.

Also can you delete the '701' page, it never existed as discussed on its talk page.

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Did these. We also have a mention of a 750e on the 750 Family Device Support in Linux page. This doesn't have a category page, yet and information seems hard to gather. Tonko, if you know anything about it..... ;-)

Wyrfel 00:05, 27 May 2005 (CEST)

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I guess you mean the reference to a '750Ce'. I can find no reference to it in tabook, and also my EMEA references make no mention of it, so I doubt it was sold in either the Americas or EMEA. Could this simply be confusion with the 755CE?

Tonko

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Can you delete the '365' page, such a machine did not exist.
What did exist was the 365CS, 365C, 365CSD and 365CD for which I created pages.

Also are you sure the 700T existed? it is not in twbook, and my EMEA references do not have it either.

Tonko

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Vandalism & Spamming

Hei,

is there a way you can delete the Vova22 and Vova38 user accounts? They have been used for spamming only.

Also, since we get the same kind of spamming attacs over and over again now and the responsible person uses different IPs, is there a way to prevent edits based on their content?

Regards, Wyrfel 03:36, 13 Oct 2005 (CEST)

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My guess is that this guy is probably using an anonymous proxy such as http://tor.eff.org/ such that his IP address is different each time. blocking the IP as such has little effect. Not sure what can be done about it, perhaps as you said we can try to block specific content but that just gets us in the same game spam blockers are in.

Another option would be to require users to login to edit pages, and make it such that bots cannot be used to create userids. But again, I am not sure that is the right option either. But looking at the changes made, the vast majority of valid changes seem to come from people who have a userid...

--Tonko 15:25, 13 Oct 2005 (CEST)

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I don't like requiring people to login to edit, but it might be worth thinking about if one can really keep bots from creating accounts. However, this would still allow real person vandalism and we would end up with junk user accounts that are not easy to remove. Also, how would we prevent bots from creating accounts? I do not like the "type the number in the picture below" kind of thing.

I was thinking about something like if a certain text is included in the edit, the whole edit would be rejected or offered for reediting. This way we would only have to maintain a list of links (or even domains) that we don't want to have here. Our job would not be as tough than that of spam blockers, cause we have a limited content target and hence can be sure that certain content is to be excluded.

Wyrfel 17:28, 13 Oct 2005 (CEST)

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For the moment I have protected the Help:Contents page since it seems to be a constant target, and I suspect it is a bot using an anonymous proxy.

--Tonko 22:43, 13 Oct 2005 (CEST)

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Sounds reasonable. I think we can even keep it protected, because standard users normally don't edit there. Wyrfel 02:46, 14 Oct 2005 (CEST)

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Yet another MediaWiki upgrade

Hi Akw,

Thanks for running this great site! It really changed the "ThinkPad experience" for me.

There were several MediaWiki security updates released since the present version 1.4.4, and the new MediaWiki 1.5.x offers some nifty features like diff during preview. Any chance of an upgrade?

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Maybe I try the upgrade for christmas ;-)

--akw 12:59, 26 Nov 2005 (CET)

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I'm trying to provide variable-width notes using the conditional templates ("Template:If defined" etc.) from Wikipedia, but they don't work on ThinkWiki. I guess this is also because of the old MediaWiki version...

--Thinker 04:08, 27 Dec 2005 (CET)

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Spam filtering

Judging by the weather, it must be spam season. Maybe it's possible to reject or silently drop posts based on strings/regexps? Most recent spam seems to have been posted by the same tool, whose favoriate conversation piece are

<div id="zuenwa1651" style="overflow: auto; height: 1px;">

and

<div class=exf align='center' style='overflow:auto; height: 1px;'>

Maybe this will buy us some quiet (until the next step in the spammers vs. humans arms race).

--Thinker 23:37, 10 Dec 2005 (CET)

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Perhaps it is possible to use $wgSpamBlacklist to setup a regex that blocks the most common spam keywords?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anti-spam_Features

--Tonko 03:11, 18 Dec 2005 (CET)

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Good idea, I'll check that tonight or tomorrow.

--akw 17:02, 19 Dec 2005 (CET)

file uploads disabled

Hi,

As I mentioned already on the Issues with the Wiki page, file uploads are disabled.

--Tonko 15:21, 15 January 2006 (CET)

Thank you, I fixed this now.

--akw 18:11, 15 January 2006 (CET)

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Backups

Just wondering - is there presently some mechanism for off-site backup of all content (database, images, configuration)? If not, I can help with that.

--Thinker 20:57, 10 February 2006 (CET)

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Given the recent database trouble, I'm becoming a bit concerned for our data... What's the situation backup-wise? My offer of help still stands.

--Thinker 18:02, 22 February 2006 (CET)

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Seconded, this Wiki is way too valuable to let it go up in smoke in case the server dies. So in case help is needed, just tell us. BTW, I just noticed this server is located in the same data center I have a couple of servers in, so backup wouldn't even count as 'external' traffic.

--spiney 19:43, 22 February 2006 (CET)

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Agreed. I can also provide backup access and space for online (but not live, i.e. not as a backup wiki) site.

Also, it would be very valuable to be able to download the entire wiki to DVD or somesuch, for offline reference. Make that a "paid option", and it could even help thinkwiki...

--hmh 2006-02-24 01:39 UTC

Hi everyone,

The ThinkWiki database is backuped daily, so in case of a harddisk crash, no data would be lost. ;-) But nevertheless thanks for the backup space offerings. Maybe it will become useful in the future. I will talk about the DVD idea with the other admins.

--akw 15:54, 24 February 2006 (CET)

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The DVD backup is not a bad idea, but causes work for someone. Also, it should be scheduled sensibly, like every quarter of a year or so.

Wyrfel 13:51, 27 February 2006 (CET)

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I think Hmn intended the DVDs as a feature for offline reference, not as a backup. For backups, a copy rsynced to an off-line server is just as good.

--Thinker 14:04, 27 February 2006 (CET)

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Can you publish dumps anyway, like Wikipedia does? I'd like to have a local copy, if only for the warm fuzzy feeling... You know what Linus says about backups. :-)

--Thinker 02:07, 27 July 2006 (CEST)

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email for registration confirmation and forgotten password doesn't work

Hi, my password was not accepted so I used the "Email password" button on the login page. The mail never arrived. So I registered a new account, but the promised confirmation email also never arrived.

Thanks for having a look at this issue.

--Whoopie79 16:59, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It is not vandalism anymore, it is getting dangerous

Guys, I just found a bunch of nonsense pages that went along with image file uploads. That crap has all the signs of being a covert channel operation, where the page title or some of the page text (usually both) provide a key, and the covert message/data goes in the image through the use of steganography. Looks like the first attempt was an initial test run (there was no key text/page title), and then two pages and two images that might be the real deal.

Can we add manual vetoing of new accounts, or at least delay account activation by one week or add some other annoyance that makes this site less attractive for those that want to use it as a message board? This is not just an annoyance anymore.

For spam, require manual vetoing of any new external links _AND_ marking all links with metadata that causes google/bing to ignore it for pagerank purposes is also a very very good idea, as that greatly reduces the value of the site to the spammer scum.

Tonko, can you make sure that data is _gone_ from the wiki, including from the history (might want to keep copies for law enforcement if they show up, though)? Might as well make it harder for whomever wants that crap if they haven't got it already.

--hmh 03:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I tried to clean up again. I think I got it all. Is the spam blacklist not working, it did he manage to miss any of the keywords? I do agree that mediawiki should be configured in such a way that Google does not pagerank external links, if it is not already.

--Tonko 20:36, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Any suggestions?

Anyone an idea how to fortify our mediawiki setup?

--akw 08:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

There clearly using bot nets. blocking IP has no effect. I have added some of their keywords to the spam blacklist in the hope of cutting down on the amount of rubbish.

I guess you already have setup captcha for new user accounts, but they have a way around it.

How about adding ConfirmEdit, preferably in such a way that it only effects new users. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit

--Tonko 09:33, 9 February 2011 (CET)

Spamblacklist is apparently not functioning. He is still able to create new pages with words in the blacklist.

--Tonko 09:43, 9 February 2011 (CET)

Akw: Can you please disable account creation for the time being, and investigate if the IP blocking and SpamBlacklist are functioning? This guy is spamming the wiki with a new account and crap every few minutes, and there is no way we can keep up with that.

--Tonko 10:06, 9 February 2011 (CET)

I do not like the captcha for edits with Weblinks. They should not be needed if using the IBMDOCURL template. --Numeric 22:16, 5 September 2011 (CEST)

User database purge

Awk, please consider warning people on the relevant MLs and forums to edit their user pages to not have their accounts purged...

Actually, IMHO it would be safer if accounts with any edits at all are locked instead of purged... --Hmh (talk) 02:32, 14 August 2013 (CEST)