Wikipedia talk:Spam

I do not agree

I want to say that, in my point of view, this anti-spam policy is very nocive for any project that have the will to be really Free. This is nothing more then a way to avoid the little ones in favor of the biggers. Someday there will be a real free encyclopedia in the web and it will grown faster than any wiki projects. Or the Wikipedia cancel this policy or it can not call itself The Free Encyclopedia.

Democracy is NOT a justificative to start cutting freedons and if you put limits it is NOT freedon anymore. Only there is freedon when one have the same power of the other, and the power of everybody else together is not superior to the power of one. I challenge anyone to prove that I am wrong.

So. Or the Wikipedia cancel this policy or it will have to erase the slogan The Free Encyclopedia. You all are confounding Democratic with Free. There is no freedon on Wikipedia. Victorgmartins 22:16, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd much rather use an encyclopedia that was free of advertisements (regardless of what it is called). OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 21:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Please don't conflate "free" with "anything goes" or "people can add whatever they want". Wikipedia is free because anyone can copy, modify, and redistribute its content as long as that freedom is preserved for others. You don't need to wait for someday; if you think you can make a "real free encyclopedia", you or anyone else can take Wikipedia's content and try to create something better. That's not a dismissive answer, but one of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia.

There is some truth in what you say. Prohibiting self-promotion does hit individuals and smaller organizations harder, because big companies have more money for traditional forms of advertising. But I think it's worth remembering that Wikipedia's primary goal is to provide the best free content possible, not necessarily to level the playing field between all content providers, or to treat everyone equally. At the most basic level, self-promotion hurts Wikipedia because it violates our neutrality policy; it's natural and understandable for people to be biased toward their own interests. I would argue that allowing those biases to influence Wikipedia does not lead to a higher-quality encyclopedia.

Finally, Wikipedia is much more egalitarian than a traditional advertising market, where money is king. If a topic is worthy of inclusion, it's very likely that a neutral editor will choose to write about it. And enforcement of the rules against self-promotion is not limited to individuals; I can think of three fairly large companies whose links I removed as spam in the past week, including a large amount of spam from a company named as one of the 15 fastest-growing companies in the US in 2006, with a revenue of more than $60 million. ―Wmahan. 22:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I read the official neutrality policy and it is possible to create an article, even if it is to promete something or somebody, without trespass that policy. Say that the company X sells product Y is a neutral point of view since it is a fact. It would not be neutral if, and only if, someone make a personal point of view about the company or the produt. The official wikipedia´s policy make no distinction according to the size of the company. Same goes to a person.

Wikipedia is not a democracy. Than is it free or a dictatorship ? Victorgmartins 01:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You make several points here. You are absolutely correct, that it is possible to write neutrally about one's own interest, but in practice it tends to not happen. Often material is presented factually, but in a biased way (highlighting success, ignoring or glossing over failure). Moreover, such articles give the appearance of a conflict of interest, which can be as harmful as actual lack of neutrality. In addition to neutrality, however, there is a question of notability. Wikipedia does not collect all facts (there are several reasons for this, see WP:NOT), so some determination of what should be in an encyclopedia is needed. Notability critera exist for a variety of subjects, including corporations (see WP:CORP).

To answer your second question, it is untimately a dictatorship of sorts. Jimbo, Wikipedia's founder, is the ultimate authority on all things Wikipedia. In practice, however, he rarely intervenes. However the content is not his, only the operations of the site. As was already noted, if you want to start your own online encyclopedia, you are welcome to use Wikipedia's content as the starting place. That is something that even Jimbo can not change, since it is set down in copyright law (so the ulimate authority is the law?). --TeaDrinker 01:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

"Free" has several meanings. The relevant one here is "not costing anything." Goldfritha 23:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

What's the big deal!? Wikipedia has to be anal on this. We should loosen up this policy, especially on new users. I read a few accounts on people who gave up on Wikipedia because they got all this crap that a simple link was considered spam. We should definitely reconsider this policy. -Yancyfry

Unfortunately, anti-spam work has taken a strong tone (since it does infiltrate regularly). There are some new templates: {{welcomespam}} and {{spam0}} which attempt to put a friendlier face forward. Hopefully they will be used more frequently in the instances that you mention. I would categorically disagree that policies should be bent for new users, however. Writing an encyclopedia should always come first, not considerations about the user. --TeaDrinker 04:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, we want to write an encyclopedia here, but this anti-spam rule could turn-off users who only want to contribute. For the longest time, I didn't know what Wikipedia calls spam. If you want to keep this an encyclopedia, maybe, just removing a link is easier. And send the user a message, not warning. Just send a simple message, maybe create a template stating what is spam. If they continue to put the same link, then, in my opinion, that's when you give the first warning. -Yancyfry 05:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Wait, is a fansite considered spam? -Yancyfry 05:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Double checking

I just want to double check on something. I looked through this page, and found no reference to one's user page. There was a brief mention of the talk page for a user (I assume), but nothing on a user page itself. I just want to know if self promotion is permitted on a user page. I'm thinking about making some changes and expanding my user page further with regards to my interests which will include a larger amount of self promotion to what is already there. I'm also toying with the idea of doing a template for personal "upcoming events". Again - on a user page would this be spamming or not? I know it wouldn't be on a Wikipedia article (and fair enough as well) but I want to be given the proper guidance on the conduct of my user page when it comes to such things. Curse of Fenric 05:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure but I think that should be ok. As long as you play nice, most anything is allowed in userspace. The better place to look for an answer to this question is probably our user page policy though --T-rex 22:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about that. WP:USER#What can I not have on my user page? states "Generally, you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a general hosting service, so your user page is not a personal homepage. Your page is about you as a Wikipedian." I have seen user pages get deleted under MfD for having too much promotional content that has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Probably best to avoid this stuff. I do believe, however, that it is okay to have a link to your personal website, which I see you have done. -- Satori Son 00:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Factor canvassing

I would like to factor the section on Canvassing to its own page, for example Wikipedia:Canvassing. Discuss. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-10-12 07:58Z

• I believe the term "talk page spam" sees more use than "canvassing". Why do you want to split them? >Radiant< 08:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the two subjects are orthogonal. One is about spamming articles, usually with external links. Another is about internal spamming/cross-posting/canvassing to user talk pages, usually to affect on-wikipedia debates. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-10-12 09:05Z
    • Good point. Unfortunately they're both frequently referred to as "spam"... >Radiant< 09:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
      • That's what disambiguation pages are for :) —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-10-13 08:39Z

external links

if I want to put in an external link that has good information on the subject, am I right in thinking that I should put it at the bottom of the list and contribute to the page by adding some information that's relavant

• Yes. Also, please consider whether your link is a reliable source (e.g. not someone random guy's blog). >Radiant< 08:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

An untitled question

I recently added an external link to a magazine website that is a good source of information for the topic page I was visiting on Wikipedia. It was removed and I was told to refer to the guidelines, which I read extensively. It seems that linking to a website, such as magazine that focuses on a specific content subject would be a relevant resource. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LFW (talk • contribs) 2006-10-16T19:36:49 (UTC)

Who knows? It's hard to say when you've given us little to go on — what link, what article? Thanks/wangi 19:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Offshore magazine (if that's the link you mean) appears to be light on content, at least without a subscription, so I expect it was deemed as having little useful free content. Decency should have obliged the reverter to give some indication why they thought it unworthy, but a high volume of spam links have wearied many editors. (Perhaps a new summary acronym should be used: rvsl.) — EncMstr 19:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Might actully be http://www.laserfocusworld.com/ looking through contribs... I'd say it's rather light too... Thanks/wangi 20:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Excellent thoughts-thanks very much. Yes, laserfocusworld.com. The site has quite a bit of laser information including product info, etc. I thought it would be a valuable resource for those looking for in-depth information. Most of the content does not require registration. perhaps it would be best to link to the "online news" (http://lfw.pennnet.com/articles/Online_Listing.cfm) or product gallery with a new summery acronym. I know these sections do not require registration. Thanks again for the clarification.

who's job is it to remove the {{advert}} tag from the page?

When an editor puts {{advert}} on a page and then the page gets fixed, who's responsability is it to take that off the page?

And if it's the editor in question, what does one do if this editor has been subsequently blocked indefinitely?— Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Mgrant0 (talk • contribs)

Ideally the person who fixes the page should remove the tag, but its not a big deal - anyone can do it as long as the problem has been dealt with. -- — Moondyne 10:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Votestacking

From the phrasing, it would appear acceptable to contact people on the grounds that they've editted a certain page, or editted it quite a bit, as long as it's POV neutral -- but is it? Goldfritha 23:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, from my reading it is acceptable. But only so long as it is done neutrally, that is without regard for their expressed or suspected opinions. In other words, don't contact past editors selectively. Derex 23:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

External link spam, wihout bots

This is a topic that really isn't covered by this policy, but should be. Rather then spam all pages just looking for google ranks, many spamers look for somewhat related articles and then just add their site to the list of external links at the bottom. Granted, about 5% of the time these links are probably appropriate, but the vast majority of the time they are not. Obvouslly the defacto policy is against this, but it would be easier to deal with spammers if we had a section of this page that delt more directly with this situation. any thoughts? --T-rex 15:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to rewrite this to clarify things. I don't see anything remotly contriversal, but if so let me know --T-rex 19:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Your improvements look good to me. -- Satori Son 20:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Jericho (TV series) spam

It appears that Jericho (TV series) has been the target of a mis-directed promotional campaign from CBS. The page is now semi-protected. See Talk:Jericho (TV series). It also seems that VmillerKS (talk · contribs) is a dedicated spam account operated by the producers/writers/publicists, and had created some (now deleted) articles Jennings and Rall and Ravenwood Solutions (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ravenwood Solutions). I'm just drawing attention to other admins in case they pop up again. -- Chuq 12:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Exchange

May be potential spamers can somehow exchange themes of their articles to preserve neutral point of view? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavisNT (talk • contribs)

Interesting reading . . .

To get an idea of the thinking behind wiki spammers, you may want to take a look at a couple of posts on this forum. There is a lot of discussion on how to get external links to stick on wikipedia.

Here are a couple of interesting threads . . .

• Link on Wikipedia
• How to get a link from en.wikipedia.org ?

If you pay attention, it's possible to match up some of the posters to actual spam. ScottW 00:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

That was some fascinating reading - thanks for the links. A few of them seem to have a genuine understanding of what Wikipedia is, at least, and take a win/win angle. Others, not so much. I need to start checking citation links more carefully.  :) Kuru ^talk 03:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it was interesting to see that some people legitimately didn't know that spamming wikipedia was frowned upon. Of course, that apparently is balanced out by people who do know it's bad and try to figure out ways of getting a link on there anyway. One person went so far as to copy text from a wikipedia article to his website so as to try to give the appearance of an appropriate citation. Also, I'm sure this has been discussed previously, but it seems like a lot of these issues would go away if WP just used the nofollow attribute for external links in the article space like is done on talk pages. ScottW 11:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm against that. As long as our links are overwhelmingly "good", which I think they are, we do the search engines (and, hence, the search engine users) a service by having our outgoing links "count". - Jmabel | Talk 18:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Commercial links

Are commercial links always disallowed, unless they are links such as a corporation's website on the article about the corporation? A couple of times (namely with Manta ray and Red Fruit), I have linked to websites that were commercial without me realizing it for the purpose of citing sources. They were removed, leaving poorly sourced information. --Gray Porpoise 03:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

For specific information on what external links are allowed and which are prohibited, see Wikipedia:External links. -- Satori Son 04:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I came here after reading that. What I mean is, if a commercial is added for educational purposes, is it allowed? The guideline (which I have long been familiar with) doesn't make it clear to me whether links to promotional websites are allowed for non-promotional purposes such as verification. --Gray Porpoise 19:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a pretty strong presupposition against commercial links, and the more commercial the stronger the presupposition. Obviously, there are exceptions. For example, we routinely link to IMDB, which is commercial, but which is also the standard online reference in its field. We routinely link to relevant newspaper articles, and newspaper sites are pretty much all commercial. "Promotional" web sites, though, if I understand you correctly, are another matter. For example, there is a very strong presumption against a site that is advertising a book unless it contains large enough excerpts to be a genuine resource (that is, we might link to a site that provided a chapter or two of a non-fiction work, or (as in one case I can think of) over 30 high-quality images from a photo book.

In short, this is an area that calls for some judgment, and no one is going to be able to give you a hard and fast answer in the abstract. - Jmabel | Talk 18:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Open Source links

Links to commercial software products are often removed as spam. However, the links to open source software products are not removed from the same page. Many open source products are created by commercial companies. These companies get their revenue from providing services to customize and host the open source software. So, is it a good practice to remove links to commercial software products and leave links to open source products that provide revenue to commercial companies?

Request for Opinion

I have come across the following article VCX and user page User:VCXHomeOfTheClassics. I think the article is something that would be deletable as spam. I am especially leary/worried about the affiliation tracking that is done on the external link. On both the user page and the talk page, User talk:VCXHomeOfTheClassics there is some discussion about this not being spam because the user is affiliated with the company VCX. The user has been around for about a year, and has made a contribution to entries in the adult film industry field. I think that the user page is in violation of WP:USER.

I am requesting a second opinion about the following:

1. is the VCX spam and as such deletable under speedy or AfD,
2. is there a concern about the affiliate tracking system, and
3. is the user page outside of the user page guidelines?

Your thoughts would be greatly welcomed. Thanks. --Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr.) 13:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The topic is probably notable enough, and the page seems neutral. It may push WP:AUTO, but only just. I've seen tremendously worse. Heck, I've seen tremendously worse several times this month.

The affiliate link, though, is out of line. We should have just a basic link to their site. I recently went around this just yesterday with the author of an article we link to. We're not here to help someone else track their traffic. - Jmabel | Talk 07:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Spam filter

Very annoying. I just made some edits to a talk page - adding {{unsigned}} as needed, responding to one comment - and now the spam filter won't let me save the page. And, of course, it doesn't give me a clue as to which of the dozen or two existing links on the page (none of which I added, or at least not recently) is the offending link. So unless I'm going to go through the whole page removing links, I'm hosed. So I guess I'll do something like that, but... there seems to be a dubious assumption here that the reason there will be a blacklisted link in a newly saved page is that the latest editor added it. If I didn't know Wikipedia well, I'd find this all as confusing as I now find it annoying. If an engine is detecting an inappropriate link, why the heck can't it report what link has a problem? - Jmabel | Talk 01:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I misread your comment and thought you were referring to this page (hence my odd edit). I thought that the message included the problem link. Which talk page are you trying to edit? ScottW 02:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've now dealt with this through meta. - Jmabel | Talk 07:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Link from my home page

If I link to a commercial site like com Brass fittings or com India Animations from my home page, is that allowed?--Darrendeng 10:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the user page guideline at WP:USER, "you are welcome to include a link to your personal home page, although you should not surround it with any promotional language." The links you mention may be outside of the scope of a personal home page, but I suspect that most people wouldn't object too much. However if you get beyond one or two links, or if your userpage starts to read like an ad, then you may run into problems. Even though the user space uses nofollow and there wouldn't be much benefit to advertising on a user page, I think most people are sensitive to anything that gives the appearance of advertising in wikipedia, on a user page or otherwise. In fact, user pages can be deleted if they give that appearance.

So far as your current user page goes, the "fraction of European costs" line strays a little into promotional language, but I think if you don't take it any further than that you should be ok. Keep in mind that there is always context behind people's judgement. As long as you give no reason to do otherwise, most people will assume good faith and not that you are trying to spam your user page. However, if you were to develop a reputation for spamming other pages, other editors will be less tolerant of external links on your user page. Hope this helps. ScottW 15:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

"wikimyspace"

I have made a proposal on the proposal pump on this issue. It would be good if we could get people to give comments (but make sure all talk is there, or at least in one place). -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 19:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Are links in signatures spam?

On article talk pages, are links that editors use in signing their names (links to external sites) considered spam? It's certainly not relevant to the discussions. --Ronz 20:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have an example or two? John Broughton | Talk 22:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Many here: [1] --Ronz 02:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I see - you're talking about something like this - someone ended her posting with Ilena Rosenthal www.BreastImplantAwareness.org. Yes, the www.... seems unrelated to the article (it's essentially an advertisement for, at best, the credibility/authority of the editor, which is still unacceptable), and I think it would be reasonable to delete it. The user is free to say, on her user page, that she works for that organization, and to provide a URL to it, there.

I note that I was a bit surprised because "signing a name" in Wikipedia is usually done as described at Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages - using four tildes. Free-form "signing", as is the case here, is bad form, at minimum.

You could do the deletion, and ask the editor to follow that policy in the future, without getting into whether it's spam, since her doing it right is not only faster, but it really helps other editors follow a discussion (as in, who said what, first). Alternatively, you might use the {{unsigned}} template, deleting her name and the website address, replacing it with the time/date from the history of the page, plus "unsigned". (If that doesn't make sense, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll do it for you as an illustration.) I don't think, however, that you have to get into a "spam" discussion with her - per WP:AGF, just assume that she doesn't know better, at the moment. John Broughton | Talk 20:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I was hoping to avoid any spam discussion anyways. --Ronz 00:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Mall Spam

Someone has filled Wikipedia with mall spam, purely spam articles, no background about the mall, simply lists of retailers. They've been warned numerous times, and blocked for failing to dialogue the issue, can't articles attached solely to this spamdress simply be deleted en masse, instead of having to request speedy delete on each one? KP Botany 17:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Fund solicitation link from James Kim article

Is there or should there be a policy, perhaps as part of WP:SPAM, which prohibits links to websites purportedly collecting money for the victim families when there are memorial articles about people who die in well publicized incidents such as the tragic case of James Kim dying of exposure when he and his familiy got lost and stranded in the mountains? The links in question go to sites JamesAndKati.com "set up by friends and family of James Kim" and (Link provided by James' former employer CNET)the first of which says which says in part

"We have set up "The James Kim Memorial Fund" through Bank of America. Donations to the paypal account above will be transferred to that account. Checks can be sent to either of the addresses listed below. Make checks payable to "The James Kim Memorial Fund".

We have also received requests for some who wish to send items to the girls or the family. Cnet has graciously offered to receive and store these packages, letters and cards.

The Kim Family c/o CNET Networks 235 2nd Street San Francisco, CA 94105 The James Kim Memorial Fund c/o Bank of America Noe Valley Banking Center 4098 24th Street San Francisco, CA 94114-3716

James and Kati started two stores in San Francisco in the past couple of years. Helping to support these stores is a way that residents of San Francisco can help support the family. Doe is in the lower Haight and Church Street Apothecary is in Noe Valley.

I deleted the link to the website, but it was restored onn the grounds that it is an official family website providing info about the family of the subject of the article. It is claimed in the AfD debate for the article that the James Kim article is not a memorial article, that he was notable before the incident, but just did not happen to have an article. But in general, if links are sometimes deleted as being spam links because they link to a site which provides information but also seeks to sell items, is it legitimate to link to a site created by the family or friends of the family which solicits funds and gifts in addition to well-wishes and condolences? I can see that this method might be widely used wnehever there is some well publicized tragedy in which Wikipedia readers might feel sympathy for the families of conjoined twins, victims of a plane crash, coal mine disaster, war injury, or fire, in which money might be sought for the family or sadly, as in several well-known cases of the past, by charlatans. Thanks. Edison 19:01, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Academic user surveys.

Re User talk:Sharlene Thompson and WP:AN#Spam surveys on talk pages: should requests made to user_talk pages, article talk pages, and/or emailing editors be prohibited? -- Jeandré, 2006-12-17t10:30z

If the community decides to allow these surveys, and the survey is about a specific topic, how substantive should edits have been: several major edits with sources (and not reverts of blanking)? How recent?

User_talk is very specific but some users only want content creation messages.

Article talk and meta namespace messages are topic specific, but may not target the required users.

Email? -- Jeandré, 2006-12-17t11:18z

I've received survey solicitations by email and Talk, and neither really bothered me. That said, email is probably best, because only users who have enabled their email account will receive it, and it won't leave any traces on Wikipedia at all. Thought: perhaps a limit should be put on all broadcast messages to User talk pages (aside from welcome and warning templates); no more than 100 10 without prior community approval? -- Visviva 11:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should formalise this a bit:

• I wouldn't allow on-site "survey" activity (including notifications), unless the survey, and its mode of on-site operation, are accepted by Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia. And listed at m:Research. If the survey is conducted on multiple Wikimedia projects (so, not only at en:wikipedia), then an approval by the m:Wikimedia Research Network should be mandatory. I'd be very strict on which of these are allowed (my personal opinion: virtually none). All the rest is spam.
• Off-site (sollicitations by e-mail,...): researchers initiating such research should at least list their research project at m:Research. If the research program (or the way it is presented) has a distinct "publicity" component or another spam-like aspect, I'd think the m:Wikimedia Research Network should get involved: maybe post a notification at m:Talk:Wikimedia Research Network if you've received such dubious mail. Then let the Research Network workgroup decide whether an action should follow (e.g., they list it at m:Research, and/or they refer it to the Wikimedia Foundation for further action, and/or discuss it via an appropriate mailing list,...) --Francis Schonken 11:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• People such as Sharlene should probably be advised that there are more productive ways of reaching people for their survey. A notice on e.g. the village pump will attract quite a bit of people, without annoying those who do not wish to be contacted. I'm not sure how at all we can make this clear to surveying people, though. (Radiant) 13:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

On a side note, any academic survey that is being implemented through something like the Wikipedia is going to be terribly flawed because the sample is going to be greatly skewed... The results of such a survey would be rather useless, statistically, unless the survey was specifically about the thoughts of Wikipedians. --The Way 00:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

What about making a user category for users that are willing to take surveys? —Dylan Lake 22:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The most advanced project for such a survey is discussed at meta:General User Survey.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Advertising is not clearly enough defined

There is a spate of AfD proposals over articles to do with 9/11. While some of these are eminently justifiable, there seems to be little discrimination between articles that are noteworthy and ones that are not. Some of the editors voting in these AfD proposals actually have hit lists of articles they want deleted and make little attempt to hide their blatant POV pushing.

In one particular case an editor nominated The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin for deletion because it was "advertising" and "spam", despite the fact that the book is plainly noteworthy according to Wikipedia guidelines because it is written by an eminent philosopher who is plainly noteworthy in his own right.

The article in question contains a reasonably balanced criticism section (although it could do with being expanded to include a summary of the outside articles it links to) and also contains the term "conspiracy theorists" which has never, to my knowledge, been used in the mainstream media except in a derogatory sense. I even challenged many of those who habitually vote in these AfD discussions several times to provide a single example to prove me wrong about this, but they were quite unable to do so. I cannot for the life of me see how an article that containing content that casts its subject in such a negative light could possibly be called advertising. I have discussed the matter at slightly greater length on the talk page of the user in question.

The problem I have is that, in spite of what common sense tells me, the definition of "advertising" that provided at Wikipedia:Spam are far from clear. Could anyone advise me on this? Many thanks. Ireneshusband 18:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I would try the village pump, policy page. You get a lot more traffic on that page. Best wishes, Travb (talk) 00:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

External links (oursportscentral.com)

I recently tried adding some external links to minor league sports team pages on Wikipedia and had some changes rolled back. I wanted to see if I could get them reinstated. According to Wikipedia:External links (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links), "information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail" is an acceptable reason to add external links. In fact, the article specifically cites "professional athlete statistics" as an example. For instance, one of the links added was for the Quad City Riverhawks, with the link going to http://www.oursportscentral.com/sports/?t_id=1942. You can see that scores, stats, press releases and links online newspaper articles for the team are available there, something that is too detailed and constantly changing for a Wikipedia entry. All are also missing from the official team website.

I realize that the site I'm linking to, OurSports Central, is a commercial site, but all the content is available for free and much, if not most of it, isn't available anywhere else. I believe it adds significantly to the Wikipedia entry. December 29, 2006Preeths10 19:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Linking to COPYVIO is just as bad as having COPYVIO on wikipedia itself. Team stats are the copyright of the team in America. Therefore, I suggest reading WP:COPYVIO. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 19:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that's a correct interpretation of the law or recent precendent. The NBA lost out to Motorola in a bid to copyright stats (http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dldecen/nbadec.html) and Major League Baseball lost a similar case to a fantasy sports operator (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2543720&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines). No copyright violations exist at that external link. Preeths10 19:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Preeths10 on the copyright issue; I saw none on the site in question. Unfortunately, however, I believe the site violates the "objectionable amounts of advertising" clause of WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided (pop-ups and multiple banners everywhere). Is there truly absolutely no other source for such information? -- Satori Son 20:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for looking it over. I know it was a legal question for some time on the stats, so I can understand the confusion. There really isn't any other source for the information found at that external link. Most of the ABA team sites don't even carry score information or their own press releases. Even the official ABA site is often behind on scores compared to the site. It is the best source of minor league sports information I've found.

Preeths10 20:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be best to link to an official team site instead, regardless if the updates are a little slow or not, however if there is no official listing at all then I see no reason why you couldn't link to this site --T-rex 22:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Understandable. Most of the ABA sites receive minimal, if any, updates, and I wanted to be sure users could find some updated information. Nearly halfway through the season, about a third of ABA team sites haven't been touched at all this year. Is there a way to relay this information to the admin (Jmax) who rolled back all the changes? Preeths10 23:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:CANVASS

Does anyone object to moving the internal spamming part to a separate page? I notice that even somewhat experienced editors running for admin are unaware of the guidelines, part of the reason might be that it's tucked in amids the lengthy discussion on external spamming. They're also targeting very different audiences, so a WP:SPAM link in an AfD discussion might be ambiguous: It could mean that the article itself contains spam links or that a discussion participant engaged in canvassing. In short I see few reasons to keep them together but quite a couple to separate them. Comments? ~ trialsanderrors 21:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I concur. Canvassing seems to have support, but SPAM seems to be universally derided here as disruptive. The two are not the same, so a separation is natural. I will support your proposal. Morton devonshire 21:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

While I am always wary of the dreaded instruction creep, I agree with trialsanderrors on this one. Originally, the concept of Wikispam was meant to be all inclusive, but there are now significant differences in our policy on aggressive spamming by outside business entities and our policy on questionable talk page canvassing by internal editors. Covering both in one guideline is no longer warranted. I support the proposal to separate as well, as long as the new WP:CANVAS guideline is shown prominently here in a top-link disambig notice. -- Satori Son 22:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I also agree; I found it surprising that this policy covers both. Telling an editor that he/she has violated WP:SPAM seems a bit insulting if in fact it's a canvassing violation, something that even more experienced editors can be unaware of (as those who follow RfAs have seen recently). So it would be great to be able to cite a violation of Wikipedia:Canvassing instead [and, yes, that's a blue link, but it redirects to the canvassing section of the spam policy]. John Broughton | Talk 01:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I created a provisory version here. I reset to the redirect for now, but if it gains consensus we can just revert to this version and set the shortcut. ~ trialsanderrors 02:15, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, excellent. I am strongly in favor, I previously started Wikipedia:Canvassing and wanted consensus for splitting it off from here, see thread above titled "Factor canvassing"; unfortunately there was only 1 pro and 1 con opinion so no consensus to do anything was reached. External link spamming and canvassing are two separate concepts, the latter of which is sometimes (erroneously, IMO) also called "spamming", but that's a job for disambiguation, not putting them all on one page. It really deserves its own page as a guideline/policy, also for visibility. Thanks Trialsanderrors. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-31 02:27Z

I've done some copyediting of the new guideline, but, as far as I know, have changed nothing in its intent or details. After a few people have looked at that, I think it would be time to follow some of the steps (some don't apply) at Wikipedia:How to create policy. John Broughton | Talk 03:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've also made changes to Wikipedia:Canvassing, please see Wikipedia talk:Canvassing. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-31 09:06Z

By the way, I now realize that there is a slight nuance between "canvassing" and "internal spamming": the usual problem is the former, while the latter can also include for example telling lots of users about how great an article is -- something that isn't trying to influence a debate. I don't think it's nearly as much a problem as canvassing but it might deserve a paragraph still within the WP:SPAM guideline after Canvassing is officially split off. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-31 09:09Z

• Moved to Wikipedia talk:Canvassing

• As a sidenote, the correct spelling is "Canvass". I've created shortcuts for that and changed it on the proposal page (WP:CANVASS/WT:CANVASS). -- Renesis (talk) 23:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

  They're both correct spellings. ~ trialsanderrors 06:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

  trialsanderrors is right about both spellings being correct (I had to double-check mine originally). As long as we keep redirects from both WP:CANVAS and WP:CANVASS, no big deal. -- Satori Son 16:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

  Where do you get this information? Only one in about 15 dictionaries seems to link the two together. -- Renesis (talk) 18:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

  Still not sure why this is a big deal, but here are links to Merriam-Webster OnLine, Dictionary.com, and Wiktionary. -- Satori Son 20:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) m-w.com:

  Main Entry: 1can·vass

  Variant(s): also can·vas /'kan-v&s/

  Function: verb

  Inflected Form(s): can·vassed; can·vas·sing

  transitive verb

  1 obsolete : to toss in a canvas sheet in sport or punishment

  2 a : to examine in detail; specifically : to examine (votes) officially for authenticity b : DISCUSS, DEBATE

  3 : to go through (a district) or go to (persons) in order to solicit orders or political support or to determine opinions or

  sentiments <canvass voters>

  intransitive verb : to seek orders or votes : SOLICIT

  - can·vass·er also can·vas·er noun

  I didn't check the others. You might be right and we should stick to canvass in the text, but it still makes sense to keep both shortcuts up. ~ trialsanderrors 20:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

  I totally agree with that. And to Satori Son, I didn't say it was a big deal. -- Renesis (talk) 21:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I never said that you said that it was a big deal. ;) -- Satori Son 21:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Official cutover

See Wikipedia talk:Canvassing#Reset.

There appears to already be consensus that this guideline should be split (and I'll add my strong support). But, we now have a large section of duplicated text, with both copies marked as official, and almost certain to diverge in content fairly rapidly. Not good.

My suggestion is that we need to either degrade the status of Wikipedia:Canvassing back to a proposed guideline, or replace the cut-and-pasted section in this guideline with a nutshell summary and a wikilink to the new guideline at Wikipedia:Canvassing. Other thoughts? Andrewa 00:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

From Wikipedia talk:Canvassing#Reset:

Can't hurt, but the thread directly above, WT:SPAM#WP:CANVASS already expressed unanimous consensus to move, not to duplicate, and the Proposal to move tag in the actual text did not trigger any opposition in the last ten days. ~ trialsanderrors 00:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

So, can we now replace this section by a wikilink, and work on a nutshell summary to go there too? Andrewa 02:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I completed the move. ~ trialsanderrors 02:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Progress. Andrewa 03:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

"How To Link Spam Wikipedia"

Take a look: http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/search/2006/04/10/how-to-link-spam-wikipedia/ Be careful... --75.17.60.209 23:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's actually a link to a blog that links to a blog that links to the blog that actually has the post. That's not just quibbling - the original post has comments rebutting it, as well as a lot more (tedious, perhaps) details about the blogger and the Wikipedia editor he complained about (a rival, it turns out). And Peter T Davis, the blogger, appears not to even understand the difference between an editor and an admin.

If this is the most instructive set of info out there on how to spam Wikipedia, I don't think we have that much to worry about. John Broughton | Talk 14:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject External links - merger?

It is suggest on the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject External links, to merge that project with Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam, with the impression that the External links project is actually inactive, and the Spam project, as an active project, can handle its tasks to. I would like to know your points of view in this regard. - huji—TALK 20:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Those nifty human control images?

Couldn't this be used to reduce the problem of external link spamming with bots. Just require users that isn't logged in to enter a imagecode if thay have added an external link.

European Graduate School's spamming

This private school in Switzerland has been spamming Wikipedia by putting on the first line of famous philosophers and artists: "teach at the EGS", and also by uploading photos taken by User:Europeangraduateschool (I believe such names do not respect policies). Maybe someone would like to want to check what's going on there... A Google search on "European Graduate School" 's occurences on Wikipedia gives, as of January 2007, more than 80 occurences. See Talk:European Graduate School and contributions from very few users (you might notice that the EGS entry is in many languages, including Chinese, and were all created by Wikipedia:Single purpose account. Lapaz 02:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh God. I just recently took this off my watchlist after trying to keep it from turning into a gush piece for the last half year. Sadly the AfD closed as almost-unanimous keep despite a dearth of secondary sources, so that route is blocked (and I agree that they're probably notable, but clearly not as notable as they think they are). A note at WP:ANI might be in order if the article spamming has started over again. ~ trialsanderrors 02:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible Waterfall Spam

This user Jenny44 keeps reverting my reverts to what I think is spam. She keeps putting a link to a screensaver on the waterfall article. I tell her that Wikipedia shouldn't be used for promotional material and she says that the link isn't promotional and that its free. Is this still spam? She keeps putting back the link after I remove it...

• [[2]]
• [[3]]
• [[4]]
• Posted by User: Hdt83 | Talk/Chat 20:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's definitely spam. Hell, if we allow it, why not put desktop themes about oranges on Orange (fruit)? Why not candy cane cursors as well? It's impossible not to be spam. --Dayn 03:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Sports Business News

User:Jason ilacqua has been adding commentary/blog links to a multitude of sports articles. Google the name and you will find him to be the senior editor of the site in question. I removed some, but he has been busy. ccwaters 17:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've posted a notice on his talk page regarding WP:COI. If you notice the problem continuing, you might want to post something at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam - they specialize in dealing with spam, including using semi-automated tools to clean up quicker. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree...

...that this is a "prime spam target". Of the external-to-WMF external links, all three of them use interwiki mappings and any real SPAM would be extremely easy to see. I also note that prior to this protection most reverted edits were either: Simple or silly vandalisms, or, edit warring over the now-moved "Canvassing" section. 68.39.174.238 23:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Radio stations

Is there a guideline for whether articles on radio stations should contain details of the wavelength? I am thinking that this may be a form of advertising, a little like giving the address of a corporation, but it seems quite prevalent. Any suggestions where I might look? Abtract 18:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You could check Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory to see if there is a project that covers radio stations; if so, ask there. My personal opinion is that giving the frequency is (a) factual, (b) useful, and (c) takes up little space, so my feeling is that the matter isn't worth pursuing, but YMMV. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have looked around a little at radio station articles and they all seem to have the frequencies shown so I guess you are right. Life's too short to worry anyway Abtract 23:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Spam fake customer sockpuppeteering to become criminal offence in Europe in 2008

The Men from the Ministère will be requiring that commercial spammers toe the line and refrain from posing as a consumer in sockpuppetry and fake bloggery stunts http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2007/02/11/eu_makes_sock_p....html#comments

Bwithh ^{Join Up! See the World!} 21:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Spambots

Should I add a paragraph about spambots to the page, or should this be a separate article?? This is because of the Wikipedia talk:Spam/w/index.php (as an example, this using the {{PAGENAME}} variable to display it here) created by spambots, that are happening frequently.

On the Cornish Wiktionary, where I'm an admin (the only one), I've had to delete-protect spambot pages created. I'm in the process of writing guidelines there about spamming.

Advice is appreciated - I'm unsure about making changes to policy pages without consensus. --sunstar net^talk 11:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

A belated response - beware instruction creep. A policy or guideline exists to provide guidance to editors. A spambot is essentially vandalism; it's fairly pointless to say "don't use a spambot", not so much because dedicated spammers don't read (or follow) policy, but because to an editor reverting spam, it's not clear it makes any difference where it came from. (If it does make a difference - if a spambot should be handled differently than a human spammer - then post something on this page for discussion - a new paragraph for the guideline.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

sneaky spam?

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't have any effect, but check out this edit to a redirect last November... -- nae'blis 03:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Spam templates on talk page

I recently added two external links to Wikipedia, and then received three messages on my talk page (from the same user) about spam. I read the Guideline on Spam he/she linked for me, and this part is worrying me:

"Subsequent offences can be tagged with {{spam2}} or {{spam2a}}, then {{spam3}} (warning of possible block) and {{spam4}} (final warning). The template {{spam5}} indicates that the spammer has been blocked."

The templates used on my talk page were Welcomespam, Spam and Spam2. Should I have gotten three tags, or only two since there were two links, or only one since I added both links basically at the same time? Does this mean that I am now only three links away from being blocked? Playing the devil's advocate here, is it possible to get another user blocked simply by filling their talk page with spam templates? (mwahahaha) Is there a way to get the tags removed?

Does anyone else hear that Violent Femmes song in their heads ... "I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record" ...? Yeah. It's probably just me. Fauxpaw 22:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Given the timestamps, I think one spam warning would have been sufficient; I'm not sure why there are three. Regardless, you shouldn't have anything to worry about as long as you stop adding commercial links. Cheers, OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Links to official book sites

I've seen publisher's book sites included in articles in many different ways, and always consider them linkspam because they are promotional in nature. However, in Wikinomics (book) I saw for the first time that an official site was included for the book in the External links section. I removed it, but with reluctance. It seems to be more just a way to get a promotional link into an article, rather than provide readers with useful additional information on the subject of the article. Given that more and more book sites, especially technical books, contain large amounts of useful information, it might be useful to clarify how to treat official book site links. (Related discussions: [5], [6]) --Ronz 23:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Changes to WP:COI

There have recently been edits to WP:COI changing the spam wording from always avoid linking to your own site to avoid or exercise great caution when linking to your own site. Additional opinions would be appreciated. --Milo H Minderbinder 12:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Internal link spamming

There is something that is not completely clear to me (and maybe to others). How does WP:SPAM cover the mass addition of a sentence with an internal link. I mean examples like:

• Cookies are made by Cookie Company.
• People living in this area might want to ask the Somewhere City Council for more information
• The Somewhere Rail Commuter Council is a board created by the state to represent commuter's interests before Somewhere Rail and state officials.

I would consider them spam (the latter two rather innocent), but find it at this part difficult to explain how WP:SPAM covers this type of spam. Could someone please expand on this? Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not clear why the second and third examples would be spam, given that (as best I can tell) an editor wouldn't be adding the same link (to a specific city council or rail commuter council) to dozens or hundreds of articles.

In general, I think that this policy doesn't cover internal wikilinks, and I'm not sure that it needs to. In any case, if in the cookies article (for example), someone adds "Cookies are made by Minor cookie company which has its own Wikipedia article, it's sufficient to just delete the sentence as not adding value. If an editor is adding large numbers of such links (which, again, would seem difficult to me), then posting a note at WP:AN/I asking an admin to rollback them all, and posting a warning on the user's talk page that the editor is not only being disruptive but should read WP:COI, would be appropriate. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Bandspam

On 26 February, User:Stevertigo added the following as a fourth type of spam:

bandspam (tangential references instead of disambiguation which promote some entity)

Perhaps it's just me, but I don't understand exactly what "bandspam" is, and, more importantly, see absolutely no discussion on this page about the change. Moreover, adding a fourth type breaks the relationship between types (four) and sections describing the spam in more detail (only three).

So I've reverted the change. An explanation of this addition to the guideline, here, would be appreciated. An example would be even more appreciated. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

SV

Bandspam is my term for the usage of links which appear to be promotional rather than informational. For example, if someone put a hatnote WP:HN on the God article: God Part II is also song by U2, that would be bandspam. Its an egregious example because

1. the song itself doesnt have an article and the link only references the band,

1. (actually, now that I check - there is an article for this song)

1. the title isnt exactly the name of the article,
2. the subject matter of the article has nothing to do with the song
3. the song reference is markedly more trivial than the article's subject

Hence my term "bandspam" addresses the trivial nature such links, which may or may not be music related. We could imagine cases where Pokemon or video games might tried to be linked from the top of other non-trivial articles. Of course most major articles wont be subject to this problem because there is often more than two terms to disambiguate, but Ive seen the problem come up enough to make a minor issue of it.

The solution to this (accepted and promoted on wikien) is simply to always use an {{otheruses}} tag, or some variant if the article name is not the same as the disambiguation. The argument against the removal of such notes appears to be promotional, or else it claims that disambiguation should only apply in cases where more than two different articles exist. I disagree, and apparently so do most of our policy wonks at wikien. "Always use the otheruses/disambig method" seems to be common enough to be a rule.

Ive never bothered to remake policy to reflect this view, and Ive for the most part only made it a personal policy to remove such bandspam or hatnotes or hatspam - whatever we want to call it - inappropriate or 'unencyclopedic disambiguation'. There are of course exceptions, and halo is one - where the game is claimed to be the more prominent search and therefore the article should link directly to the game. (Note: Halo now is a disambiguation rather than the article about the optical phenomenon with the video game and otheruses links at top) I might agree with such usage in a small number of cases, as long as the general understanding is that the disambig page method is almost always preferred. -Stevertigo 07:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this a disambiguation policy issue, then?

If the problem occurs with misuse of the hatnote, which is a disambiguation function, why put anything in the policy on spam? To me, and I think to others, the spam policy deals with high-volume postings. As an analogy, posting a single link to an advertising site, while typically reverted with an edit summary of "linkspam", is a violation of WP:EL, not of this policy. In other words, if someone saw a hatnote misused, I don't think they'd think to look at WP:SPAM for guidance, they'd look to Wikipedia:Disambiguation or Wikipedia:Hatnotes (if they knew what a "hatnote" was).

Also, as noted in the section on Spambots, above, it's not really necessary that a policy discuss each and every problem. If in fact editors are arguing over the misuse of hatnotes and similar "bandspam", then, yes, some policy should probably be changed to clarify this. Is this issue really being disputed? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 12:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Its a matter which crosses over from disambiguation, to define a type of spam which is strictly internal to Wikipedia, perhaps promotional, and always trivial.

Its not an issue which editors generally dispute, as much as it a habit that newbies have for assuming that otheruses notes are to be used in trivial ways. -Stevertigo 22:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, the "otheruses" template is part of the disambiguation policy; misuse of it should be covered there, if it's necessary at all. I continue to believe this is instruction creep; let's not put things into a guideline just because they might be needed. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Crossover is not "instruction creep" - I find that characterization to be a specious to be honest. Anytime were there are two related concepts there is bound to be some overlap. Likewise where there is some overlap, a little redundancy does not diminish either policy. -Stevertigo 04:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest related SPAM additions

I'm currently involved in a polite disagreement over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#DermAtlas, and I'd welcome feedback from this community.--Hu12 02:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

How does one get a site off the spam list?

this site: [www.filmfocus.nl] , is listed as spam and I am not allowed to use it as a reference. It is obviously not a spam site, but a serious site about what's happening in film in the Netherlands. I need to use an article there for a reference in an article here about European films/ What am I supposed to do? Jeffpw 13:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You can request a review at m:Spam blacklist. -- ReyBrujo 01:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Request For Clarification on External Links Policy

Though what follows flows from some particular issues I have encountered, I mean this as a more general inquiry, with what answers emerge of use, one hopes, to all. That is, while I present a very particular (and actual) case, I am not posting to argue that case or garner support for my position but because I feel it is quite representative of a large, general class of problem that should get some attention. The particularity is thus simply to have a clear, definite example for discussion.

Case 1: There exists a web site devoted to growing vegetables in the home garden. It seems to have a novel aspect, in that it focuses on the particular vegetable varieties that are reported to be the most flavorsome, a concern of much mores importance to home growers than to commercial growers. The site contains a number of pages, one per vegetable considered, each presenting a discussion about cultivar (variety) selection followed by usually extensive growing instructions plus some basic botany and history of that vegetable.

The individual vegetable pages each have a small text Adsense block on them. The block is small both absolutely and relative to the page length, and is not intrusive (matched background colors). The site also has an associated Amazon bookstore dealing only in books on vegetables. This appears only in the full site directory (which is shown on each page); there are no free-floating ads for it on the pages.

If it is proposed to add to the Wikipedia article on a given vegetable an External Link to the corresponding page of this site, what are the issues? WP:EL plainly says that what should be linked includes Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to . . . amount of detail . . . . The existing WP articles vary in their degree of detail, but though some mention cultivation they do not--and cannot, owing to length--include much detail.

The WP:EL lists 13 reasons why a given link should not be included. None seem to apply. The information provides a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article; it does not mislead the reader by use of factually inaccurate material; it does not require payment or registration; it does not only work with a specific browser; it does not require external applications . . . to view the relevant content; it is not search engine [or] aggregated results pages; it is not a social networking site; it is not an open wiki; and it is directly related to the subject of the article.

That leaves these possible objections: is the link mainly intended to promote a website? Does the site primarily exist to sell products or services? Does the site have objectionable amounts of advertising?

The web site itself is not that of a commercial service; the only thing it itself sells is Amazon books through a related but not integral bookshop (meaning that there are not ads for the bookshop all over the pages). The pages each have a small-type, relatively unobtrusive adsense text block. The pages are of some length and are informational and instructional.

Is that a reasonable link? Note that the question is not on whether it is a good link--if the link qua link is not of good quality, it will disappear in time and good riddance. The question is whether, on the facts as presented, it is automatically debarred.

Now Case #2: the same facts as in Case #1 above, except that the link poster maintains the site. This case presumes that the poster puts a note on the Talk page that discloses the relation.

WP:COI seems not to be much on point here, WP:EL seeming to be the governing policy set, inasmuch as there are no points of view involved.

I, for the life of me, cannot see why such a link would be considered automatically debarred from being a WP EL. Obviously, someone with questions as to how much and how blatant any advertising copy (though I daresay everyone knows what Adsense text looks like) would need to visit the page and see whether the page is "primarily" (or even largely) an advertising medium. But surely it cannot be that the mere presence of any ad whatever of any kind or size on a page automatically debars it from linkworthiness--else a large fraction of long-standing extant links of quality would have to be vanished.

Is that a reasonable view?

---

Let me say that there seems--to me, anyway--to be a general problem with External Links, with a few Wikipedians taking on what seems to me authority beyond what published WP policy states in deciding what will or will not be allowed to appear.

Now there is certainly a problem with spam, including link spam. But there is a reasonable reaction and there is an unreasonable reaction. A reasonable reaction will be founded in the policies set forth with some clarity in WP:EL. At the other extreme will be some self-appointed Guardian of Purity who simply deletes all new external links with the remark "Wikipedia is not a link farm". (That is not an exaggeration: I have seen it.) It is true that Wikipedia is not dmoz; but neither can it completely fulfill its task if it disdains all other sites. So what's needed is a simple way of deciding whether a given link augments the article, and that way is WP:EL, not someone's personal tastes.

The real problem is that there seems no simple way of handling those mavericks who feel that they are On a Mission From God. Endless rounds on the Talk page with most everyone on one side and the maverick alone on the other get nowhere. Yes, that is an extreme case, but there are many others less severe but still problematic.

Obviously, everyone, including me, will disagree with the person who alters or reverts an edit. But when some people's Talk pages are just long laundry lists of plaints about draconian reverts, the perceptive will see a clue. There is, of course, a grey area between the diligent pruner and the zealot. But usually a review of the posted complaints will be revealing: they will invariably include some number of semi-literate objurgations from actual spammers whining about their business site or whatever; but the clue will be the presence of a nontrivial number of different persons each presenting an obviously reasonable case that is not met with reasoned argument but with repetition of some favorite mantra about spam and spammers.

The one poor devil who seems always to get lost in conflicts on this matter is the user--the person who comes to Wikipedia looking for information on some subject. No WP article can cover, at great depth, everything there is to know about a subject, else WP would be the only site needed on the whole web. Obviously, WP itself has related articles for many topics, but even ensemble those cannot duplicate the sum of all information available elsewhere. That is why the very category External Links exists. But too often, WP editing, of external links and much else, seems to be more a tilting ground for 24/7 Wikipedians to joust in power games than to bear much connection to what one would think is the bedrock issue: the utility of Wikipedia to visitors. ("The perfect bureaucracy administers nothing but itself.")

The point is not whether this or that argument should be settled this or that way: the point is that there seems no clear mechanism for resolving these issues at a relatively low level, and few want to go on to higher levels. That is especially true when the would-be link poster is not a 24/7 Wikipedian, but simply a passing visitor with an idea.

Thoughts?

Eric Walker 10:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

You seem not to understand that Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links. I looked at your contribution log and all those vegetable external links you added are clearly spam. The fact that those pages have ads just makes the situation worse. Ask yourself this question: "how do those external links improve Wikipedia?" The answer is that they don't. (Requestion 17:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC))

Yikes -- a lot of accounts have added these links and it looks like Requestion has been busy! Linking data:

• http://owlcroft.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://theinductionsite.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://greatsfandf.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://growingtaste.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://seo-toys.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://highboskage.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://matterscriminous.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://mars-mars-mars.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://adamscountywa.com
  • List of pages with these links
• http://ritzville-museums.org
  • List of pages with these links
• http://omniknow.com
  • List of pages with these links

--A. B. ^(talk) 21:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The growingtaste.com vegetable linkspam was just the tip of the iceberg. The greatsfandf.com domain is where the motherload was. User:Owlcroft has cleverly added a couple hundred external links into Wikipedia over the past 4 years. I have two big questions that are puzzling me. 1) How much AdSense money has Owlcroft made from these wiki links over the years? 2) Why did Owlcroft take his complaint to this WP:SPAM forum when he had so much linkspam still in hiding? I might never of uncovered this spam otherwise. (Requestion 23:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC))

Perhaps because he does not see it as link or any other kind of spam? I don't know how "clever" adding links is supposed to be--it is hardly a secret process; indeed, for the vegetable links, I posted a note on each Talk page. I still am not seeing anything that is responsive to the questions I have asked--questions I asked exactly because I encounter attitudes like this. Let's get back to basics: in what exact way do any of those links not comport with both the letter and the spirit of WP:EL? I keep asking, and--as I noted above--hear no answer save "It's spam, 'cause I said so."

Nor is it as if I have added no other links than to some pages I maintain--I have added numerous links to what I consider good sites, on many topics, as well as discussion here and there over the years. That initially impressive laundry list of "pages containing" includes an awful lot of Talk pages; when there is an article with a link, how 'bout saying what the article is, what the link is to, and then--this gets monotonous--some explanation of how or why it supposedly breaches WP:EL standards. Saying clearly spam is, to be frank, a rather playground sort of "analysis", rather on the "am not/are too" level.

The comments I see above encapsulate rather neatly the sort of attitude problems I see here. I quote: all those vegetable external links you added are clearly spam. The fact that those pages have ads just makes the situation worse. Ask yourself this question: "how do those external links improve Wikipedia?" The answer is that they augment the discussion of the individual vegetables by providing information on selecting cultivars especially valuable to the home gardener, and--in some detail--on growing those cultivars. The pages are not cut-and-paste jobs from a few other sites or pages--each is the result of long, tedious hours spent examining and assessing a horde of often-contradictory information in an attempt to distill it to useful material. I did this not for a site but to help me in my own garden; I then added the data to a site because I hoped others could find it useful. If I am a visitor to a Wikipedia article on beets, it is very possible, one might argue even probable, that what I am looking for is information on growing beets (gardening is America's #1 hobby). Wikipedia does not--and should not--have in that general article a lengthy procedural discussion on growing beets, much less on evaluating various varieties. A link to a page that does just those things improves Wikipedia by providing the visitor who comes here looking for information with the information he sought. Duh.

The same sorts of things apply to the various other categories of link: the pages are each a labor of love--knowledge acquired at some effort, which I try to share. I might also add that most of my sites were up for years before I thought to tack on adsense; for pity's sake, why don't you look at them? Do they look like commercial flytraps? I once experimented with one site, a blending of wp with dmoz, to see if it could generate a non-risible revenue stream; it did not. None of the others was purpose-built. Only one, on induction cooking--now apparently the web's prime resource on that topic--produces any nontrivial income at all, and it's still not much.

I have two big questions that are puzzling me. 1) How much AdSense money has Owlcroft made from these wiki links over the years? 2) Why did Owlcroft take his complaint to this WP:SPAM forum when he had so much linkspam still in hiding? Let's take them in turn. 1) On a good day, the vegetable-gardening site--one of the better performers--as a whole might make as much as 90 cents in gross revenue (before any offset for the domain costs and the not-negligible hosting costs on a good but not inexpensive host). With a cash flood like that, any day now I'm going to retire to my mansion in Brazil (I think people who are unfamiliar with the real world have strikingly exaggerated ideas of what adsense revenue is like). 2) In what way are the links "in hiding"? That's what I mean by attitude: to a policeman, no one ever states anything, they "admit" it; to a WP zealot, anything he hadn't happened to notice before was "hidden". I took my question--not complaint (read it, please)--to this forum because I was thoroughly puzzled about how and why the label "spam" can be so universally bandied about in what looks very clearly--to me, anyway--to be clear opposition to established, published Wikipedia policy. And guess what? I still don't see an answer.

You seem not to understand that Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links. I do not recall saying or implying that it is, and would be pleased if you would point out to me where you think I did. But that wp is not dmoz is not the same as saying that wp categorically has no use for links; the very reason that there is a standard "External Links" category, and a published WP policy page on them, is that they are an important and useful adjunct to wp article content. A hand is not merely a collection of fingers, but it does work better when it has some.

Anyway, you folks go right ahead and pull any and all links you like; it matters not to me. I think it's the height of rudeness to do so without engaging in some discussion on each of the corresponding Talk pages, but you seem to have somewhat different standards of civility than I do. In my opinion, the only loser will be the WP visitor who comes looking for information that he or she will then not find here.

What I consider defining is, to repeat myself, the absolute, utter, and continuing refusal of any of the supposedly outraged souls here to do exactly what I posted in request of in the first place: explain how and why any of the links breach the letter or the spirit of WP:EL, and, more generally, how or why they feel that what WP:EL says can be ignored at will--are there other policies that over-ride WP:EL? If so, which? Saying "it's spam" is not a magic spell that makes a thing so: precise quotation of and application of WP:EL is what does or does not identify spam. I quoted chapter and verse, and followed it with a question, and was throughout--I thought, anyway--passably civil about it all. In response, instead of a reasoned answer addressing the quoted text and its application, I find what I have to consider--to phrase it as genteely as possible--extremely rude character assassination (I certainly hope that none of you would ever say such things to anyone's face), and that same refusal to address the actual questions as asked.

Eric Walker 00:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that WP:NOT is official policy while WP:EL and WP:SPAM are guidelines. Policy trumps guideline so we ought to be discussing NOT issues before we get to the EL issues. The shear volume of external links that Owlcroft added implies a belief that Wikipedia is a mere directory of links, which it is NOT. I think the important question here is how many hundred external self-links to their own website should an individual be allowed to add to Wikipedia? (Requestion 02:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC))

Mmmm a suggestion (about the newer links anyway. If an editor asks you about them, that means it might be a good idea to ask about the potential usefulness of them on the article's talk page. That would be a better place then discussing it here. I really don't have an opinion in this matter yet though. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 01:04, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, members of this project might have concluded spam just because of the sheer number of link insertions that you made, its a hallmark of those that intend to use wikipedia to benifit themselves. I would suggest that all parties assume the assumption of good faith in each other :). If the links are deemed to be good by editors of the articles. (ask on the talk page), then it should be no problem with the members of this project, we are only there to stop spam. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 01:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

And a final note, I just now noticed this... do you own the sites in question? —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 01:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're not associated with the site in question, and other editors agree with the links (or at least don't contest them) then no problem. If these are your sites, then we have a WP:COI problem and you should lay off linking the sites - especially if you make money from the sites. RJASE1 ^Talk 01:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

First, it's nice to see some calm and reasonable answers.

Second, yes, I am the owner. I reviewed WP:COI rather carefully and was unable to find anything there that seemed to me to be controlling. Those policies seem chiefly aimed at the insertion of viewpoints, for which, quite obviously, the potential for COI is very high (the key word there seems to be neutrality, and I agree). I, at least, saw nothing there that seemed anything like as relevant as what's in WP:EL, where perhaps the most applicable remark is: If the link is to a relevant and informative site that should otherwise be included, please consider mentioning it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it. I will admit that in some cases I technically breached that suggestion, in that I posted on the Talk page simultaneously with putting the link in place; but I scarcely "hid" the posting or the relation. And at least in some cases (as with the speculative-fiction site) there was most extensive Talk-page debate on the entire matter of links, including mine.

The "money" I make from the sites is something that Google says we are not supposed to discuss, but I hope I made it plain that it is, in the best of cases, barely at the cost-recovery level. There is, quite reasonably (a word I am fond of), no blanket WP ban on pages with advertising; the restriction is, again reasonably, on pages with "objectionable amounts" of advertising. (Of course, that is subjective: to some, apparently, any amount = objectionable amount.)

I would also like to raise a perhaps larger question. In the Civil Code of the State of California, at Maxims of Jurisprudence, appears the statement When the reason for a rule ceases, so should the rule itself. The larger question I refer to is whether Wikipedia is a public resource or a private playground. By "private playground", I mean a place where the mindless application of principles is become a tourney ground, a sort of oneupsmanship game; by a "public resource" I mean a place where the goal everlastingly in mind is "What are users looking for and how can we help them?"

The rule says that we are to avoid links to sites "that primarily exist to sell products or services." As a guideline--something normally to be avoided--that is sensible. But consider: a link I thought of adding at the Asparagus WP article (and which I have on my own asparagus page) is to the "Asparagus Planting Guide for the Home Gardener" page at the Jersey Asparagus Farms, Inc. site; that particular page has no advertising, has not even a link back to anywhere else on the site, only mentions the company name twice, and delivers very good and useful expert information. But did I put it up on WP, a Richter-Scale 9.3 would follow as does the night the day.

Moreover, why does it matter who puts a comment in or a link up? The guideline is useful because it alerts us to a probable difficulty; but when guidelines become blindly followed rigid rules, the baby is out with the bathwater. If there is a question, the person or persons with concerns needs to follow the link in question and ask himself or herself (but notice how testosterone dominates these affairs) a simple question: If I am a typical WP visitor, come to this WP article seeking information, and based on the link description I follow it, am I going to feel a) offended and disappointed? or b) informed and pleased? Can there possibly be any other bottom line? The guidelines are to help honest, inquiring would-be editors spot potentially offensive links--period, the end.

If the WP page on asparagus gets an external link to a page selling asparagus seed or crowns, or selling fresh asparagus delivered to the home, or touting some grower's brand of store-bought asparagus, it is reasonable to say that that link is not materially augmenting the WP asparagus page, and might even be offensive. But if the link is to a page as I described, even though the site as a whole has a commercial purpose, is it reasonable--that word again--to condemn the link out of hand?

I myself have numerous diverse interests, and I make no secret of them: all my sites are listed on my Talk page. With one exception, the sites were established solely to try to help others (and I think that one does, too), and I feel that anyone with an open mind visiting any of them would agree. I am vain enough to think that some of those sites are fairly good, and some of their pages rightly deserving of a link on a closely relevant WP article page. Surely the utility of a link is independent of who posts it. If a site maintainer regularly posts poor-quality or irrelevant links, he or she deserves heavy criticism. But merely being prolific seems, to me, scarcely a ground for criticism. If my pages on certain speculative-fiction authors are useful augmentations of the WP article pages for those authors, does that make me a spammer if I also have pages on home-growing vegetables that are useful augmentations to their corresponding articles? What "rule" says so?

If someone feels that a page I link is a poor-quality link owing to poor writing or insufficient expertise or lack of depth or some like reason, I am disappointed, and would like to discuss the matter. But when some {bleeped} puppy calls me a mass stealth spammer solely on the ground than that I have a good number of links (many in place for quite some time with nobody objecting), I think I have a perfect right to consider myself gravely insulted. It's not as if I have willy-nilly linked every page I own: I have some sites that I think useful, but know are of lesser quality than some others available elsewhere, and I have not linked those. (My "Mars" site is an example: it appears nowhere on WP except on my personal page and on Talk pages--but it shows up in a laundry list of WP links as if I had pushed it on articles.)

This is long enough now. My point is that all aspects of a WP article, including External Links, should be judged on their merits (meaning their utility to WP users), not on whether they match someone's private ideas of The High And Noble.

As I said at the outset, I did not post here trying to win some local war; rather, I wanted to see what the prevailing mood was on what I consider out-of-control zealots twisting WP to their private ends, and perhaps even stimulate some thought on the issues. I myself am no longer really very interested in posting to WP, links or anything else, because it's just not worth the grief that the Boy Commandos ("Users, hell! This is my Wikipedia!") so often put one through. Illegitimi non carborundum goes the saying, but the illegitimi will always wear down those with other things to do in life besides defend what should need no defense.

Eric Walker 03:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you considered possibly adding more than just links to articles? Like actual content? I don't mean to sound snarky; apologies if it sounds that way. But folks here might be more apt to take you as a serious contributor, rather than a spammer, if you created a few articles, or expanded some existing ones. It's easy to add links, but my understanding is that Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia. As much information as possible should be here. Now, if you used your sites as references, along with other well-established sites that corroborate your info, than the links wouldn't be so spammy. They'd actually be enhancing and supporting the information in the articles.

I can recognize another idealist, and it's wonderful to work to make things they way you think they should be, and rage against the dying of the light. But if you ignore the way things actually are in the process... well, I've banged up my head against that wall in the real world, thank-you-very-much. But good luck, however things turn out. :) --Ebyabe 03:33, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello Owlcroft. If you want to talk about the WP:EL guideline then you should do so on that talk page. This WP:SPAM page is for talking about spam. You claim that you didn't add any mars-mars-mars.com links to Wikipedia? What to you call this [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]? And that last Mars link is a readdition after some other editor deleted it [13], they even commented "rv linkspam." (Requestion 03:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC))