The Libregamewiki Blog

This is an update to the origional post below

1. ‎List of games ‎[17,821 bytes] — An increase of 4699 bytes, it may have struggled last time, but, this time it increased and got further away from the rest of the articles, will it be overtaken…
2. ‎Battle for Wesnoth ‎[13,020 bytes] — An increase of 1024 bytes, and has overtaken Hero of Allacrost to take 2nd place!
3. ‎Hero of Allacrost ‎[11,983 bytes] — This article has lost 207 bytes and lost its place to Battle for Wesnoth!
4. ‎Battle for Wesnoth release history ‎[10,953 bytes] — Increase of 701 bytes!
5. ‎History ‎[5,166 bytes] — It gained 219 bytes!
6. ‎Main Page ‎[4,917 bytes] — The main page got much smaller, and did not hold onto 5th place!
7. ‎List of developers ‎[4,344 bytes] — Barely got bigger, and is ahead of PyWeek by 22 bytes.
8. ‎PyWeek ‎[4,322 bytes] — Did not earn any bytes
9. ‎Secret Maryo Chronicles ‎[4,142 bytes] — Earned 162 bytes, and swapped position with Nexuiz
10. ‎Nexuiz ‎[3,984 bytes] — You would have thought being article of the week would earn it bytes, but rather it has lost bytes.

Now for the top 5 editors!
1. Qubodup with 533 score! He has overtaken kiba again! An increase of 127 points!
2. Kiba has a score of 470, an increase of 36 bytes
3. John, who has 284 points, an increase of 106!
4. RB[0], who has had an increase of 33
5. AVRS, with 62 points, a newcomer to this wiki, and has upsurped Andrewmin!

From now on, snapshots are going to be short and sweet.

For this week, we’re seeing very heavy wiki activity(one time hitting more than 250 edits in a single day) and more new articles added to our rank. We’re also seeing the proliferation of infoboxes on game articles, which is somewhat similar to what normally can be found on wikipedia entries concerning games and other media. We also hit 6,000 edits total.

For the 1000 bytes club, we see only see an expansion of 15 members, from 95 to 110 of articles over 1,000 btyes.

You can comment on this article at the forum. 

Well, this week turn out like any other active week. New articles are created, articles are being expanded, and the usual stuff. We didn’t have a snapshot last week because there aren’t much going on.

But we did accomplished something. For example, we smashed the 5,000 edits barrier. That’s a lot for a wiki that’s about 4 months old and even more amazing for a wiki that is under 100 users.

In term of articles over 1,000 bytes, we see 8 new articles bringing the club from 87 to 95. This is 95 articles out of 241 articles total. As for the top ten, almost all the articles change in sizes and positions.

Here are the top ten:

1. (hist) ‎List of games ‎[13,122 bytes] With the addition of 102 bytes, it maintained its position in spite of recent expansion of articles in lower ranking.
2. (hist) ‎Hero of Allacrost ‎[12,190 bytes] With an amazing increase of 2327 bytes, List of games could lose its place again. You can be sure that Hero of Allacrost now rival Battle for Wesnoth. You can thanks the main contributor, Roots, for this.
3. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth ‎[11,996 bytes] Thankfully, Battle for Wesnoth also expanded in size by
4. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth release history ‎[10,252 bytes] No changes
5. (hist) ‎Main Page ‎[5,442 bytes] As usually, Main Page changed very dynamically
6. (hist) ‎History ‎[4,947 bytes] It gained 276 bytes!
7. (hist) ‎PyWeek ‎[4,322 bytes] Pyweek rise from 10th to 7th place by 585 bytes!
8. (hist) ‎List of developers ‎[4,166 bytes] It gained 270 bytes while managed to keep 8th place.
9. (hist) ‎Nexuiz ‎[4,004 bytes] With 263 more, it too hold on to its current position
10. (hist) ‎Secret Maryo Chronicles ‎[3,980 bytes] This article suffered the most, losing its 7 place due to no size increase

And here is the top 5 contributors:

1. Kiba, which is me, still hold top position with 434 points, an increase of 16 points.

2. Qubodup’s points still didn’t change.

3. Jonh now replace RBO with 178 points, an improvement of 48 points over last time.

4. RBO is moving slow with just 4 more points, increased from 164 to 168.

5. Andrewmin stands still with sixty points!

Discuss this post at the forum. 

The latest edition of Snapshot is out, by one day late. Sorry about that.

This week, we saw a horde of new pages on this wiki along with expansion in term of content.

We’re also continously attacked by nonsense inserting spambots but the situation seem to be under control. User John is working on the extension to fend off this unique situation. So there may be hope of defeating these zombies for good.

The wiki also upgraded to the latest stable version of mediawiki, 1.11.0 some time around when the last edition of snapshot appeared.

We also see some major change in term of article size. 16 articles joined the 1,000 bytes club, from 71 to 87 articles. This mean that about 39% of all of our articles are over 1,000 bytes. This week is not looking poor in movement of articles in top ten either. Rather, it is spectacular. Here are thetop 10:

1. (hist) ‎List of games ‎[13,020 bytes] Gaining 297 bytes, it is maintaining its position as leader of the pack.
2. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth ‎[11,871 bytes] No changes here.
3. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth release history ‎[10,252 bytes] No changes here.
4. (hist) ‎Hero of Allacrost ‎[9,863 bytes] This article appear out of nowhere and charge to 4 place! It could be a game changer in the top ten list.
5. (hist) ‎Main Page ‎[5,452 bytes] We can say with some degree of certainty the size has permanently improved though it seem to lost hundred of bytes this week.
6. (hist) ‎History ‎[4,671 bytes] With 222 bytes, it is moving!
7. (hist) ‎Secret Maryo Chronicles ‎[3,980 bytes] Although this article lost 6th place, it finally started moving after many weeks of not changing. With 171 bytes gained, it now have a much better chance of staying on the top list.
8. (hist) ‎List of developers ‎[3,896 bytes] You may remember this from snapshot 2, but you probably don’t. this article finally broke in the top ten after disappearing at 9th place. It now ranked higher than ever before.
9. (hist) ‎Nexuiz ‎[3,741 bytes] Nexuiz is suffering some major setback. Next week, we might even see the disappearance of Nexuiz from the top 10.
10. (hist) ‎PyWeek ‎[3,737 bytes] Despite gaining 90 bytes, PyWeek struggle to hold on to last place.

Here are the top 5 contributors:

1. Kiba - Now reigning champion with 418 points, 349 pages and 1535 edits. Kiba barely finally surpassed Quobodup, sometime referred as super Qubodup.

2. Qubodup - No changes unfortunately. He continues to hold 406 points.

3. RBO - He merely increased his scores from 160 to 164 points.

4. John - He is cathing up with 130 points. Last time he have 113 points. If RBO don’t do anything major, John just might surpass him!

5. Andrewmin - We have a newcomer! He replaces Mpgamer with 60 points!

And…that’s it!

Discuss this article at  the forum.

Oh dear! The spambots returned, this time with new IPs. I blame window. This week, we saw the addition of new articles to the encyclopedia, having change focus on from expanding articles to simply adding large masses of information. However changes aren’t that dramatic as it seem that editors are busy this week.

We added 6 articles to the 1,000 bytes club, bring the total to 71 articles. Since we have 209 articles, about 34 percents are made up by 1,000 bytes sized articles. The top ten largest article list however didn’t change from last week. However, the size of some of our articles change. Here is the top ten list:

1. (hist) ‎List of games ‎[12,723 bytes] - Increasing its lead with 653 bytes, it is leaving the challenger in the dust.
2. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth ‎[11,871 bytes] - No change here!
3. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth release history ‎[10,252 bytes] - No difference here!
4. (hist) ‎Main Page ‎[5,544 bytes] - A constantly changing “article”, it lost 213 bytes this week.
5. (hist) ‎History ‎[4,449 bytes] - No change here
6. (hist) ‎Secret Maryo Chronicles ‎[3,807 bytes] No change again.
7. (hist) ‎Nexuiz ‎[3,741 bytes] - 3rd time!
8. (hist) ‎PyWeek ‎[3,647 bytes] - 4th time
9. (hist) ‎Freeciv ‎[3,600 bytes] - 5th in a row of no changing in size!
10. (hist) ‎Phil’s pyGame Utilities ‎[3,520 bytes] Expanding a mere 24 bytes, it continues to hold on to last place.

Don’t worry, the bottom under the top ten are vibrant in term of changes. Maybe an article from the underground will usurp one of them.

The next part is the top 5 editors!

1. Qubodup hold 1528 edits and 406 points to his credit. I think he is losing points to articles being deleted, but he is still a contender to beat!

2. Kiba close the lead on Qubodup with 14 points at 392 points. Next week may finally may be the week that Kiba become the reigning champion of the top 5 contributors to this list.

3. RBO with 160 points and 334 edits, earned himself 6 more points over last week of 154 points.

4. John earned himself 35 more points bringing the total to 113 points!

5. Mpgamer didn’t budge one bit this week either. He is in trouble with 60 points!

Well, that is the end of the current edition of Snapshot 4.

Discuss this article at this forum.

Spams are practically eliminated from this wiki! Victory! Spambots are not very sophisticated and easy to defeat. This week, we passed the 4,000 edits milestone and the 200 articles milestone too.

Also we saw some of the highest level of traffic this month, reaching at its peak 1,700 pageviews and
900 unique visitors. I am quite delighted about an entire week over 1,000 pageview. Free Gamer linked to us so it gave us some extra boost. That bring the traffic level to about 20,000 pageviews and 9,500 unique visitors. It also saw the highest level of editing activity ever seen this month. So I guess it go hand in hand.

I also launched a new planet called Planet Free Gaming just yesterday. It is a service that syndicate RSS content from the free gaming world. Let me know if you have a free gaming blog.

This week, we add 15 more articles to the over 1000 bytes club bringing the total to 65 articles. The top ten list continues to change again as well expand in size. Here is the top ten as of October 20, 2007:

1. (hist) ‎List of games ‎[12,070 bytes] Expanding 1355 bytes, it has crushed Battle for Wesnoth for the title of biggest articles by 199 bytes!
2. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth ‎[11,871 bytes] Battle for Wesnoth lost its title. Will it overtake List of games?
3. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth release history ‎[10,252 bytes] - It still managed to hold third place.
4. (hist) ‎Main Page ‎[5,757 bytes] - 6,147 to 5,757 bytes the tendancy of news posts constantly being added and removed.
5. (hist) ‎History ‎[4,449 bytes] No change here.
6. (hist) ‎Secret Maryo Chronicles ‎[3,762 bytes] No change here.
7. (hist) ‎Nexuiz ‎[3,741 bytes] No change here.
8. (hist) ‎PyWeek ‎[3,647 bytes] PyWeek is new here! Welcome to the top 10. 142 bytes more and Nexuiz will be demoted.
9. (hist) ‎Freeciv ‎[3,600 bytes] A mere 48 bytes would be all that is needed to hold 8th place. Too bad that it didn’t expand enough.
10. (hist) ‎Phil’s pyGame Utilities ‎[3,496 bytes] This article continues to hang on to last place!

List of developers, although it expanded from last week has failed to hang on to the top ten list.

Now presenting you the top 5 contributors to this wiki!

1. Qubodup with 1530 edits to his credit hold on to 407 points. If he doesn’t edit soon, he may have to give up position to the next guy down the list, me!

2. Kiba is closing on to Qubodup with 1242 edits, 307 pages, and 366 points!

3. RBO, a greatly motivated editor is catching up to me fast! With 154 points compared to 83, you can tell he is serious!

4. John now hold the 4th position after surpassing Mplayer with 18 points bringing the total to 78 points!

5. Mpgamer is the only contributor who havn’t edit this week. He still have 60 points.

Well, that’s all for this week’s edition!

You can discuss the blog post on the forum.

This week saw a nasty spam attack. As a result, I been getting suggestions and even made a half-hearted measure to deter spam. Spam attacks still haven’t occur since many hours ago(near 24?). Maybe blocking their ip actually work?

New articles continue to appears but information about release date are added more often. We also saw a few expansion happening such as the article Pyweek.

The number of articles with a 1000 bytes now reached 50 articles. We also see many articles in the top ten expand in size. Here is the list of the current top ten as of October 13, 2007.

1. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth ‎[11,871 bytes] - Expanding with 175 bytes, Battle for Wesnoth article continued to be the champion on this wiki.
2. (hist) ‎List of games ‎[10,716 bytes] - 285 in expansion over last week, this list is trying to catch up to what is rightfully their place.
3. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth release history ‎[10,252 bytes] This article exceeded 10,000 bytes this week. 464 bytes behind 2d place, it threaten to overtake List of games as biggest.
4. (hist) ‎Main Page ‎[6,147 bytes] The main page of this week has expanded their size, putting a healthy distance ahead of History of about 1698 bytes.
5. (hist) ‎History ‎[4,449 bytes] Not much has happen here though it has expanded 419 bytes since last time.
6. (hist) ‎Secret Maryo Chronicles ‎[3,762 bytes] No edit this week.
7. (hist) ‎Nexuiz ‎[3,741 bytes] Also no edit this week.
8. (hist) ‎Freeciv ‎[3,050 bytes] Freeciv exceeded 3,000 bytes. It narrowly hang on to 8th place by a mere 58 bytes.
9. (hist) ‎List of developers ‎[2,992 bytes] I think you can thank RBO for expanding this one. If there are new developer articles, you can expect them to defeat List of developers for 8th place.
10. (hist) ‎Phil’s pyGame Utilities ‎[2,861 bytes] This is the new contender! Defeating Starfighter article by 121 bytes, it has taken over 10th place.

For the first time, we’re presenting the top five contributors to this wiki:

In first place we have Qubodoup, the current holder for the largest amount of edits which is 1527, and also pages affected, 336. He is the winner with 405 points.

In 2nd place, we have me, Kiba! I hold 2nd place for largest amount of edits as well pages affected, 1106 edits and 266 pages affected. Mine is 324 points.

Well pretty much everyone is ranked in order of greatest amount of edits and pages affected.

3rd place, we have an active contributor, RBO! His scores
is 83 points for 164 edits and 63 pages.

4th, we have an contributor known for grammar fixes, Mpgamer. His score is 60 points for 99 edits and 45 pages.

5th, we have John, who is also the first commenter to this blog.
He scores with 19 points for 23 edits and 12 pages.

Discuss this blog post in the forum.

This week saw very little actions in term of activity but I did added a new forum.

Other than that, activities are very normal. It mainly consist of me as well others expanding and editing existing articles as well adding the occasional new articles. We slowed to a near stop in term of adding new articles. Qubodup’s absence is noted, he did a few edits here and here. RBO did step up the plate in term of editing however.

The next part of this articles will take a snapshot of the biggest articles on this wiki. They’re taken straight off the wiki with some occasional modifications.

1. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth ‎[11,697 bytes] - This article is our best. It now reign supreme even over List of Games, which is historically our biggest article/list.
2. (hist) ‎List of games ‎[10,431 bytes] - It stop expanding a lot ever since we stop creating lot of new articles.
3. (hist) ‎Battle for Wesnoth release history ‎[9,977 bytes] - Could use a few pictures. You can thank the Wesnoth team for frequent release.
4. (hist) ‎Main Page ‎[5,984 bytes]
5. (hist) ‎History ‎[4,030 bytes] - I predict this article will eventually split into years like Wikipedia’s years article as it grow in size.
6. (hist) ‎Secret Maryo Chronicles ‎[3,762 bytes]
7. (hist) ‎Nexuiz ‎[3,741 bytes]
8. (hist) ‎Freeciv ‎[2,976 bytes] - This been featured on the front page and the focus of a collaboration project!
9. (hist) ‎List of developers ‎[2,931 bytes]
10. (hist) ‎Starfighter ‎[2,740 bytes]

That is the end of the first snapshot article for this wiki. I hope you enjoy this article!

P.S We’re disabling comments on this blog to encourage forum discussion. Sorry for those who register and comment anyway!

Discuss this entry at  this forum thread.

Here at Libregamewiki, we been recently hit by gibberish url-less spams. It is the only type of spams that ever hit this wiki. It been somewhere around about a month and a half since we launched.

This possibly represent the ongoing arm race between website operators and the spammers. I don’t know what these spammers are trying to accomplish, but I think they’re trying to posion a non-existent filter. If that is the case, their url-less spams are worthless.

But this only successful type of attack probably meant that our measure at spam prevention work pretty well against regular spambots. For one, if you’re trying to add an external link, we will make you answer a simple math question. For some odd reasons, spambots are not designed to answer questions. I think this is because math problems are uncommon security measures. Thus spambot writers ignore the existence of these type, prefer to spend their time on more lucrative solutions. So a good way to counter future spambot attacks is to write unique countermeasure questions as to make writing solution against your site not worth its price.

Since the attack meant that there are holes in our defense, this meant that we have to pro-actively use our filtering extensions the next time they attack so we can prevent similiar attacks.

Other measure we could take is to make preview button mandatory so spambots that are programmed with the assumption that they only have to press once are thrown off.

Given good enough measures, simple solutions can prevent spambots from spamming. After all, they often fail many of our simple preventive measures but easy to get around.

While we’re pretty young for a wiki, so we don’t get as many chances to see our preventive measures in our action but keep in mind we been dug at digg.com and even appears on slashdot. If you query libregamewiki on the google search engine, you’ll get many thousands of results. So I think I have enough credibility to say that at least the majority of time, our defenses work.

Hello, this will be the official blog of libregamewiki.

Here, I will talk not only about libregamewiki and its community but also other topics as well such as wiki, Free gaming, and as well Free software.

I hope we will bring strong compelling content to this blog in the next few weeks or two.