Twin Peaks Wiki - anybody want it?

gentlegiant · Post by **gentlegiant** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:33 pm

So, with only the best of intentions and the purest of hearts, I registered and began building twinpeakswiki.com. And many of you folks have helped load in content.

But in the last few months, my work life has become hectic, and I've had no time to devote to it. To make matters worse, the filthy link spammers have started attacking it, and I'm not familiar enough with MediaWiki to lock it down.

So, an offer for the good of the community: if anyone would like to take over the project and has the time to devote to it to make it great, I'd be happy to give you the domain and the hosting account. Contact me at james.bickers@gmail.com if you would be interested, and we can talk details. Just want to find it a good home.

James

gentlegiant · Post by **gentlegiant** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:50 am

No takers? Anyone? Anyone? Hate to just let it expire.

Post by **Brad D** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:51 pm

whats with all the porn links on it?

They-Shot-Waldo! · Post by **They-Shot-Waldo!** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:20 pm

I noticed that myself the last time I dropped by, I don't reckon that was gentlegiant's fault though. There is no reason any Wiki cannot become a fully comprehensive informative site, like the Heroes, Lost or even 24 Wiki with all the resources and information we have available. What do you reckon all?

gentlegiant · Post by **gentlegiant** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:25 pm

Like I mentioned, it fell off my radar a while back due to work. I go in every day or two and remove all the spam links, but they're always back within hours. I'm guessing this can be prevented in MediaWiki, but I haven't had the time/patience to figure it out.

btaw · Post by **btaw** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 3:05 am

I have looked at the wiki a few times in the past while 'learning' the show for the first time and thought that I should try to contribute. Now seeing the terrible spam-damage, I am happy to try to help maintain, edit and develop the site with others. However, I have no experience with such enterprises, so it might help if I could ask some potentially silly questions.

For one, is it possible to control who signs in to the wiki, via some sort of screening or approval process? This might help to keep out the spammers of course, or at least set up some sort of 'secret question' like Dugpa has to deter frivolous sign ups.

Then, I guess I should ask if you have copies of the original material that you have used to build the wiki? I feel a bit apprehensive editing things if I can't be sure just what the spammers have changed, so having an original template to work off of would be great.

Apart from that, I would like to try to help contribute to the wiki if others are willing as well, and I think it would be entirely possible to develop a resource that is worthy of the show itself.

Post by **Brad D** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 7:32 am

i have no experience managing websites or with html, etc. but i would like to help

gentlegiant · Post by **gentlegiant** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:10 am

I've set it up to where you have to register with a username and password to make changes; I've also blocked the usernames for the spammers. They just come back and register under new names.

The original vision was to make this like the excellent "Lostpedia," which uses the same software. Does anybody know how they handle the spam problem?

btaw · Post by **btaw** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:45 am

There is a hell of a lot of crap spam-pages in there that could be edited out, a number of which I have tagged for deletion, and according to the wiki-media help pages there are a number of options available to try to combat it happening again, but by raising these issues I guess I am opening myself up to taking over their control... which I would not necessarily object to... just that I would rather keep the whole thing collaborative.

Post by **Annie** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 2:00 pm

I think it's great what you guys are doing! After the holidays, you might want to talk to dugpa about getting rid of spammers. In the early days, we had terrible spam. Our final solution was the questionnaire thing that you have to answer to get in.

Looking forward to reading the Wiki!

jmichael · Post by **jmichael** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:46 pm

I was helping gentlegiant in the early days of the wiki - I did all of the episode guide layout, basing it on the MediaWiki code that Lostpedia uses. I just haven't had a lot of time to keep adding material, and since no one else seemed to be contributing it went on the way back burner.

Lostpedia, and other Wikis like it, have a large "staff" of moderators that approve changes and keep out spammers (For example, over the Christmas holiday, the site is locked down to any changes so they don't get flooded with new material and/or spam to look through). I'm sure a big problem they have there that we would not is people posting speculation and spoilers for upcoming episodes.

I'm happy to continue to help as time permits.

gentlegiant · Post by **gentlegiant** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:43 am

Gang, I think I've made some real progress - I've "locked down" the site so that nobody can make any changes of any sort unless I designate them as a sysop.

Now, I've got the cleanup work ahead of me. If you're interested in working on this project as a sysop, please post an affirmative to this forum and let me know the username you've used to sign up on the wiki.

Cheers,
James

Post by **Annie** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 12:44 pm

Hey James, glad you got that under control. This could be a fun project! Just wanted to point out that under the "history" tab, there are still spam links. Good luck!

gentlegiant · Post by **gentlegiant** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 1:11 pm

Annie wrote:Hey James, glad you got that under control. This could be a fun project! Just wanted to point out that under the "history" tab, there are still spam links. Good luck!

Yeah, there are a ton - it'll be a real hunting expedition getting them all out ...

btaw · Post by **btaw** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:59 am

gentlegiant wrote:Gang, I think I've made some real progress - I've "locked down" the site so that nobody can make any changes of any sort unless I designate them as a sysop.

Now, I've got the cleanup work ahead of me. If you're interested in working on this project as a sysop, please post an affirmative to this forum and let me know the username you've used to sign up on the wiki.

Cheers,
James

Sorry for the delay in replying, but it would be great to be a sysop and help clean out some of the shite that has plagued the site... as well as adding to the existing content.

My user name on the wiki is Btaw. Thanks.