Recently, I've noticed an increase in the incidence of Wiki Spam on the Wikibon site. Wiki Spam are original posts and edits to existing posts, that are unrelated to the topic of the wiki. Wikibon is a collection of member-contributed best practices and opinions regarding the use of information technology. Anything unrelated to information technology is, for Wikibon, Wiki Spam, including recent posts about Black and Decker toasters. These posts have been taken down.
The folks at Informatics Review have created a wiki "devoted to topics in clinical informatics." They, too, have been the target of Wiki Spam, as this page of recent changes, which are mostly deletions, confirms. At least, I assume that contributions regarding online poker and house gym equipment are not relevant to the topic of clinical informatics.
Informatics Review was kind enough to provide a special page describing the motivation for Wiki Spam (they say it's not what you may have thought) and methods for dealing with it. I've provided the link in the footnotes below. I welcome advice from others on less labor-intensive methods for dealing with wiki spam. Feel free to contribute and provide other resource pages in the footnotes section, but spammers beware. I'll be watching.
Action Item: Wiki administrators should assign responsibility to a specific individual or team of individuals to monitor a wiki for Wiki Spam. By monitoring recent changes, most Wiki Spam can be caught quickly. Wiki Spam will appear not only in newly submitted pages, but also in changes to existing pages. Pay particular attention to changes in hyperlinks. The highlighted text may remain unchanged, while the underlying hyperlink gets redirected.
While the Wikibon team is diligent in removing Wiki Spam, it is virtually impossible to check all hyperlinks on the Wikibon site. Anyone who notices Wiki Spam on the Wikibon site should email:
- David Butler at david.butler@wikibon.org
- Bert Latamore at bert.latamore@gmail.com
Please include the URL for the article.
Footnotes: Additional Resources:
