RejectDuplicate

Reject all edits that add a URI that already exists on some other page of the wiki. Perhaps with a polite comment about “We’re already talking about that on (name of other wiki page)”.

This helps well-intentioned users condense information Wiki:ExactlyOnce. (Unlike many proposed anti-spam features, which annoy well-intentioned users).

Once this is implemented, then IdeasToPlace #179 MassRevert and #177 SpamMop are unnecessary – any user can just delete the Wiki:ExactlyOnce instance of that URI in a few seconds. This also #149 LinkBanning is trivial – any user can put/move that link on a “Banned Links” wiki page that can only be read by logged-in users (and so is invisible to Google). (CategorySecurity)

Possibilities

The simplest implementation would make a list of all URIs in the text the user is trying to save, then search every page for any of those URIs.

More complicated (but slightly faster) to cache a list of all URIs on the site (and which page contains them). Search that list and update it on every save.

Implementations

Activity

Terminology

Problems

Moving a block of text from one page (“source”) to another page (“destination”): Many people save the text at the destination, before deleting the old, now-redundant block of text from the source. If that block contains URIs, then the RejectDuplicate would trigger and block that first save.

Work-around: first cut that block from the source and save, then paste that block from the destination and save.

See Also

(Haven’t I already mentioned this idea before ?) Yes, CommunityWiki:WikiSpam as “untrained content banning”.

Contributors

• DavidCary

CategoryFeature CategoryEditing