Prevent Spam and Vandalism

Vandalism and spam are a major problem in all wikis, but especially wikis maintained by a small group of volunteers, such as this one. To prevent spam, many measures can be taken. Included in these are necessary precautions which can, at a minimum, cause spammers and vandals to think twice before proceeding to attack a wiki.

Administration Related Shortcuts

The following are measures suggested by MediaWiki's page, Manual:Combating_vandalism, to be taken by administrators in case of spam or vandalism.

User related

   User rename: Special:RenameUser (requires Extension:Renameuser)
   New users log: Special:Log/newusers
   User list: Special:ListUsers 

Block related

   Block IP: Special:Block
   IP block ranges (perform block ranges carefully and in most cases only temporarily such as 24 hours, 3 days, 2 weeks, 3 months and so on depending on the situation):
       Table of sample ranges
       Most commonly used (sample blocks):
           69.208.0.0/16 (for blocking 69.208.x.x)
           69.208.52.0/24 (for blocking 69.208.52.x) 
   Block log: Special:Log/block
   Unblocking and list of current blocks: Special:BlockList 

Other shortcuts

   MediaWiki:Titleblacklist - for editing list of bad titles (requires Extension:Title Blacklist)
   Hide Revisions: For hiding bad usernames still left in logs or bad edit comments etc
   Special:RecentChangesCleanup - clean up recent changes from vandalism (requires Extension:Recent Changes Cleanup) (always the last step)