User:MisterGame/Challenge
From The Urban Dead Wiki
A Challenge
While fooling around with the word "random" I came to a very interesting discovery. You may ask what that could be, well you can find out by trying to figure out the challenge I am going to present to you now.
http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Random
The page you see above. I dare anyone to try edit it. Yes, that's it, just editing the page linked above. As soon as you click it you might already realize this is no simple task. Keep trying though, I got the time.
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By now you probably have figured out that the page has the #REDIRECT[[Special:Random]] code written on it (I did that in case it was not obvious). What I ask now; Can this page be edited in some manner, because honestly, since the 10 minutes I made the page I still haven't found out how to myself (I am not such a wiki-god as some other users, so bare with me). So can anyone, without the use of sysops power, edit this page at all? Just wondering. --
Thadeous Oakley 21:01, 13 August 2009 (BST)
Possible Massive Vandalism Usage
I just realized this. Would this have the potential to be a new form of abuse? I still haven't figured out how to edit page, or the real problem: how to get on the page without being redirected immediately. Usually with redirects, it works in this manner: you get redirected to a page and at the top of that page you get a message you have been redirected and a link to the redirect page. For some reason this does not happen with the random redirect.
When you can't get on the page, you can't use undo button either, so you can't fix vandalism. What happens when I start replacing entire pages with the #REDIRECT[[Special:Random]] code? The page is gone? At this point, I wouldn't know what sysops action could undo this but I do know this might be open to massive abuse. People could render half the wiki useless until a sysops steps in.
Solution
Spoiler, don't read on if you want to figure it out yourself
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... Okay, I found the way to get on the page. 2 options: Either go to recent changes if the page is still on there or go to my contributions. Look up the page and either click "hist" or diff". You will be able to edit page. ( I realize this might be pretty obvious to the experienced users, forgive me)
Of course even while knowing this, if I did this random redirect thing to say, Haliman's userpage for example, he would be pretty powerless. You see, I told at the beginning that it was my edit and that you could fix it by going through my contribution page in the case of the random page.
But what if you don't know who did it? The only you would figure out who replaced your page with redirect random is by checking the history of the page. Too bad the page constantly redirects you to something else so that's out. The only other way would be checking if the edit is still on recent changes. If the edit isn't there anymore then you are pretty much fucked. Unless there is a different way that I still haven't found as of yet. Likely a sysops power.
You know, for science and experimentation's sake I should have proxied my IP and redirected as many pages to random to see how long it would take the sysops to clean the mess. Probably a lot longer then most forms of vandalism. The fact that you can't edit/undo it as easily makes it an very efficient abuse. --Thadeous Oakley 21:01, 13 August 2009 (BST)
Thought's people? Please give em on the talk page. --Thadeous Oakley 21:01, 13 August 2009 (BST)
