# Ruby Garden Spam **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 16, 2006, 12:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-garden-spam/69148 "2006-02-16T12:11:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Robert\_McGovern](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@Robert\_McGovern](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Robert_McGovern)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-garden-spam/69148/1 "2006-02-16T12:11:28Z")
Been a while since I’ve been to Ruby Garden and just removed spam from the front page. I am amazed at the amount of garbage spam (random characters) that is on the wiki since Jan 23rd > **[WebMD - Better information. Better health.](https://www.webmd.com/?RecentChanges)** > > The leading source for trustworthy and timely health and medical news and information. Providing credible health information, supportive community, and educational services by blending award-winning expertise in content, community services, expert... Someone must really have it in for it ☹ Rob ---
**Author:** ![Robert\_McGovern](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@Robert\_McGovern](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Robert_McGovern)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 2:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-garden-spam/69148/2 "2006-02-16T14:49:01Z")
Robert McGovern wrote: > Been a while since I’ve been to Ruby Garden and just removed spam from > the front page. > > I am amazed at the amount of garbage spam (random characters) that is > on the wiki since Jan 23rd > > [http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RecentChanges](http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RecentChanges) > > Someone must really have it in for it ☹ Actually, this past week has been a slow week for spam. Out of 731 attempted spam attacks, only about 5 needed manual fixup. The other 726 attempts were automatically routed to the Wiki tarpit where they don’t show up on the main wiki page. On the other hand, we had about 27 informative updates in the wiki itself. Robert, if you were seeing a lot of spam, my guess is that you were one of the unfortunate individuals that accidently were caught by the tarpit. We haven’t talked about the tarpit recently, so it is probably worthwhile to mention it again. The wiki tarpit is a special area of the RubyGarden wiki where spammers are automatically directed. Spammers are allowed to spam all they want int the tarpit, and for the most part only other spammers see their spam. The tarpit trap isn’t perfect, and occasionally non-spammers are sent there as well, and occasionally spammers get through to the main page. Here’s how it works. There are two reasons to be redirected to the tarpit: (1) You are posting from an IP address that has been previously been explicitly banned for posting spam. (2) You are posting from an IP address that does not have a reverse DNS lookup (i.e. the wiki software cannot determine the host name of the machine you are posting from) AND you a posting without setting any user preferences. If the reason is (1), then perhaps you are sharing an ISP host with a spammer. If the reason is (2), then all you need to do is setup a user name using the preferences link at the bottom of the wiki page. How to tell if you are in the Tarpit? Well, if it looks like there is a lot of spam, chances are that you are in the tarpit. If you make a non-spam post that seems to disappear without a trace, then you might be in the tarpit (I refresh the tarpit from the normal wiki every few days). Does the tarpit work? Actually, it seems to be working quite well. As you can tell from the numbers, only about 3.5 percent of the wiki updates are non-spam. The tarpit lets most of the good content through without problems. The biggest danger is the accidental tarpitting of legitimate postings. I don’t monitor that all the time, but when I have, the false positives have been fairly low. But that doesn’t mean that they are zero. If you seem to have trouble with the tarpit, don’t hesitate to drop me a line, or post here. – – Jim W.