Recent Posts
Recent PostsRecentPosts is a temporary script that shows the IP addresses, UserNames (if set), and timestamps of changes to a WikiWikiWeb page extracted from four days of server logs.
It provides some defense against the use of SockPuppets.
As of October 11, 2004, the page revision number associated with each post is also shown. Also (introduced shortly afterwards), the byte-counts of the new content and previous content (if any) are given.
Warning: Currently (2004-Jul-1) it does not always complete its list of posts, so sometimes the last shown post is not actually the most recent post, but rather a slightly older one. Refreshing the page seems to goad wiki into providing a complete list, but one should still take the results with a grain of salt. In particular, be careful not to blame the wrong person for a post on this basis.
The most recent abuses have come from AOL. The precise list of all possible AOL IPs can be seen at http://webmaster.info.aol.com/proxyinfo.html.
The timestamp is seconds since Epoch [00:00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970]. There are Web-based tools to make it readable, e.g. http://www.jimworld.com/tools/unixtime/.
I usually use the time.ctime(seconds) function in PythonLanguage.
Just for a personal learning project, I wrote something I call ColorWikiPosts. It formats the date, reverses the order of the display (most recent first) and adds color, representing the changes over time. The new version also colorizes the IP Addresses and host/usernames so that seeing who is practicing SockPuppet'ry and who is deleting more then once should be easier to spot.
From WardsWikiNoLongerSupportsNameSpoofing:
Goodbye privacy! The WikiBore?s here will love this! I don't think this is the right solution to stop WikiVandals or other "bad" WikiMembers. The problem is that here at WardsWiki, WikiIsUsenet. There is no real administration. Check out WikiPedia for a better approach, and a better wiki IMHO. --anon
I wonder how long until Ward adds a feature to let user see what pages a certain IP has modified ...
What is needed most, ultimately, as proven by our resident well-poisoner, is a way to undo all the damage done by one person/IP. Not all the embedded content, of course, as that would be impossible. Just enough to lower the apparent insanity level of C2. This still won't bring back all the fantastic minds that said to hell with this place, unfortunately.
Is there a list of these "fantastic minds" that left anywhere? Like a PeopleWhoLeftWiki? page? . . . incidentally(jfyi), I was the anonymous person making a point on the old page -- LayneThomas Think about that...
I identified you shortly before you identified yourself. -- another anon
Well, if you can explain how, it's probably worth documenting how anonymity on this Wiki can be cracked. -- LayneThomas
I obtained your ip address and then recognized it from having seen you sign an edit in the past.
Yeah, I figured someone might try that (or remember). I guess going from known to anonymous is much harder than just remaining anonymous. Also, I don't think there is an automated way to search for that. Were you able to distinguish it from my coworker who goes through the same proxy? -- LayneThomas
True, especially since one person is probably much more active than the other(good odds I think) -- LT
When I first heard about this, I was a little skeptical. One of the foundations of Wiki, often repeated by Ward, is that we want an EgolessWiki: the words on the page mean more than the identity of the speaker.
After seeing the implementation, though, I think this is a real GoldilocksSolution: it's possible to figure out who said what, but it's enough extra steps (read the page, look at the page history, look at the posts page, and correlate the two) to make a soft barrier to casual "who said what" determination.
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