Where's the NexusWiki??!!!

[The Old Dragon]

Hi Folks,

Tried to go to the Nexus Wiki earlier and got refused by the bouncers! What's happened to it?
I've tried both my link and the one here on the forums and get told "You don't have permission to access /w/index.php on this server."

It'd be a real shame if it's gone for good.

[GeoModder]

I bet the spambots caused Arparso to abandon it.

[DreamorCZ]

I hope it is not dead. It is a really nice wiki full of info, would be shame to loose it.

[Arparso]

Had to disable it because of excessive spamming. The wiki database has actually grown to about 15 GB in size, which would soon fill up all my available webspace.

I want to migrate its (good) contents to a new wiki and set much stricter rules about who is allowed to edit pages and who isn't - I just haven't come around to actually do it yet.

I'll see if I can get it online in read-only mode in the meantime, so at least the content is available again for your viewing pleasure.

[The Old Dragon]

Hey Geo,

Have you managed to contact Arparso recently?  I've tried popping an email through here and there but with no reply and it's been an age since I last saw him here.

[GeoModder]

No, haven't had a email from Arparso since last winter IIRC.
Even so, he only responded 3 or 4 months after I asked him something through email.

If it is NexusWiki related, I told him back then I'd stop cleaning the 'bots from the NexusWiki since they kept increasing the number of spam articles, and with the normal tools of a Wiki contributor it took too much time to clean them out.

[The Old Dragon]

That's a pity, guess he's somewhat busy these days.
Even if it was only a locked version, it'd be nice to have access to the wiki again...

[Arparso]

Sorry, guys. Haven't been very active here for a while. For now I've restored the Wiki and updated its software to the most current version. The old crappy Nexus skin is gone for now, so it looks just like any other wiki... but at least the content is back.

I've also restricted page editing to a select few users, who I know not to be spammers: GeoModder, LordValarian, The Old Dragon and myself. If anyone else wants to edit stuff, please contact me here in this forum.

I'm still not sure how to deal with all the spam in the Wiki. The database is now 14 GB in size and needs some serious cleaning. I'll have to find out how to permanently delete all the bad content or how to transfer only the good stuff to a new fresh wiki database - if anyone has experience doing this kind of stuff with the mediawiki software, please get in touch with me

... as for the unanswered emails - not sure, what happened there. I'll have a look at my spam filters so I won't miss your mails next time.

[GeoModder]

Good to hear you're still kickin', Arparso.

To give you a heads up, I've received a warning in my mail account about the deletion of a page called "weapons" on the Nexus Wiki which was on my watch list.
When I followed the link given in this mail, I go to a deleted page, but when I made a search for "Weapon" in the wiki I came upon a good page created by LordValarian. Is this maybe the result of your changes on the wiki?

[Arparso]

Probably. I've been trying out various ways to get rid of all the spam pages and was mass deleting a couple thousand orphaned pages (a page is orphaned, when no other page links to it - it's essentially unreachable unless you deliberaty search for it). About 99.99% of orphaned pages constitute spam, so I figured that might be the way to go. Seems I've accidentally also deleted your page, which I'm sorry for.

But really... the wiki has about 40'000 pages now and only a few hundred of them (at best!) are legitimate content. It's going to take a while to delete all the spam and some legit pages might get caught along the way, although I'm doing my best to try and avoid it.

Spam bots are already registering new accounts so I'll have to look into good methods to stop that from happening as well. At least they can't edit or create pages anymore, which is something at least.

... another idea would be to move to a professional Wiki hoster like wikia.com. Might also get more exposure over there.

[GeoModder]

Mmm. I'll check again then if the page is still actually deleted or not then.
Btw, it was not MY page, it just happened to be on my watch list because I must have restored it to its original content once after a spambot hijacked it.

[GeoModder]

There may be 40,000 pages, Arparso, but I blanketed all spampage entries I could find until I think late Spring last year.
If you want another marker for deletion candidates, I redirected lots of those blanketed pages and spambot usernames (or their talk pages at least) to "Spampage [insert number]".
So if you can create/run a script to delete all entries which start with "spampage", you might get rid of a couple thousand more.

[The Old Dragon]

Hi Arparso,

Great to see you again, for a while I thought Nexus's last guardian had been vanquished
Thank you for bringing back the wiki, there are some things in there that are easier to find than searching through my files.
When going through the wiki though, I've only got the option to move unwanted pages, otherwise I'd look into helping to remove the unwanted spam.

Catch you later....