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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by A. B. (talk | contribs) at 15:06, 2 May 2009 (→‎rivercanyonpress.com: disable links). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

    Spam blacklists
    Shortcuts

    Mediawiki:Spam-blacklist is meant to be used by the spam blacklist extension. Unlike the meta spam blacklist, this blacklist affects pages on the English Wikipedia only. Any administrator may edit the spam blacklist. See Wikipedia:Spam blacklist for more information about the spam blacklist.

    Instructions for editors

    There are 4 sections for posting comments below. Please make comments in the appropriate section. These links take you to the appropriate section:

    1. Proposed additions
    2. Proposed removals
    3. Troubleshooting and problems
    4. Discussion

    Each section has a message box with instructions. In addition, please sign your posts with ~~~~ after your comment.

    Completed requests are archived. Additions and removals are logged, reasons for blacklisting can be found there.

    Addition of the templates {{Link summary}} (for domains), {{IP summary}} (for IP editors) and {{User summary}} (for users with account) results in the COIBot reports to be refreshed. See User:COIBot for more information on the reports.

    Instructions for admins
    Any admin unfamiliar with this page should probably read this first, thanks.
    If in doubt, please leave a request and a spam-knowledgeable admin will follow-up.

    Please consider using Special:BlockedExternalDomains instead, powered by the AbuseFilter extension. This is faster and more easily searchable, though only supports whole domains and not whitelisting.

    1. Does the site have any validity to the project?
    2. Have links been placed after warnings/blocks? Have other methods of control been exhausted? Would referring this to our anti-spam bot, XLinkBot be a more appropriate step? Is there a WikiProject Spam report? If so, a permanent link would be helpful.
    3. Please ensure all links have been removed from articles and discussion pages before blacklisting. (They do not have to be removed from user or user talk pages.)
    4. Make the entry at the bottom of the list (before the last line). Please do not do this unless you are familiar with regular expressions — the disruption that can be caused is substantial.
    5. Close the request entry on here using either {{done}} or {{not done}} as appropriate. The request should be left open for a week maybe as there will often be further related sites or an appeal in that time.
    6. Log the entry. Warning: if you do not log any entry you make on the blacklist, it may well be removed if someone appeals and no valid reasons can be found. To log the entry, you will need this number – 287456738 after you have closed the request. See here for more info on logging.

    Proposed additions

    nonciclopedia.wikia.com

    Another uncy off-shoot which never needs to be linked anywhere and has been spammed on User talk:Hinoa. Has potential to be spammed by the sites users like what happened with uncy.--Otterathome (talk) 22:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • There are four links, all form Uncyclopedia where this and other language uncyclopedias are discussed. Actually I would think that none of them are notable, and could safely be removed from that article, but that is just my view. Right now I see no evidence of abuse. Guy (Help!) 15:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Cross wiki spamming;
    Might need looking into?--Hu12 (talk) 19:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree, this should probably go to Meta. All the usual article suspects (e.g. Chuck Norris). Guy (Help!) 20:27, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    theclassicalshop.net

    theclassicalshop.net: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C Cross-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Local - COIBot-XWiki - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • Live link: http://www.theclassicalshop.net

    A commercial download site for classical music, see post at WikiProject Spam and multiple links to their download site from music and related articles. In some cases articles have many different "samples" added to "external links" -- all of these downloaded from the one same site. DIFF 1 DIFF 2.

    FT2 (Talk | email) 21:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

     Additional information needed :
    Can you provide some diffs showing these links were spammed? I spot-checked 6 articles and found the links were all added by regular editors with solid contribution histories. --A. B. (talk • contribs)
    Here's the linking report:
    I see just one editor adding many of these links, but when I look at his edit history, it looks like he's doing this as an article builder, not a spammer.
    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 19:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know for sure what criteria are used for identifying "spam" or "spammer". But when a commercial site's download section is linked 6 or 7 times in a single article, by a single person, that seems to constitute spamming to me. When that's done across multiple articles, then it seemed appropriate to blacklist the site as being used for spam purposes. In other words, it's unlikely to be appropriate to add an external link to this site's download section (or indeed the site itself), and unlikely there would be a legitimate need for such a link. I wasn't so much assessing his wider editing, just the website (or its download section) as a repeatedly added external link. What criteria are you looking to find? FT2 (Talk | email) 23:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. The Spam project report above shows massive overuse of links, and there is no suggestion that this is a reliable source. It's a commercial site with off-the-page sales links, no more appropriate than Amazon. If it's that good then find a way of creating a musicsources mediawiki page and add it as one of the many, but right now this looks like a mix of ill-considered use of a commercial site, deliberate spamming and possibly inadvertent preferential promotion of a particular vendor. Guy (Help!) 20:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    porn site referral spam

    70.81.9.135 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

    An IP just added a bunch of links to porn star articles in the form of:

    • join.kobetai.com
    • join.clubamyried.com
    • join.pornstars-ambermichaels.com
    • join.transexualstarr.com
    • join.amberpeachraw.com
    • join.clubangelcassidy.com
    • join.clubangeldark.com

    followed by long referral codes.

    Can some regex guru figure out a way to block such links without blacklisting the entire site? I think these are "official" sites.

    Thanks, --A. B. (talk • contribs) 07:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Could blacklist track/MTA5MzU2OjM6 as that fragment seems to be in all the links. Stifle (talk) 11:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you or someone else more knowledgeable either do this or else show me how to do it? I'm good at plain-vanilla blacklisting (i.e., bexample.\com\b) but not the advanced stuff. I don't understand regex -- I just plagiarize what others have done.
    Also, I can't clean up porn-related pages (this is a shared computer and it's not wise for me to go to those pages); if there's any of this junk still out there, can someone remove it? Thanks, --A. B. (talk • contribs) 17:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    lyricstranslations.com

    1. lyricstranslations.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

    This domain hosts copyright violations ; that being translations of works into English; and yes these translations are copyrighted and held by the original copyright holder. The links continue to be inserted into We Don't Wanna Put In, such as this, even after I have posted on the talk page that it is linkvio. As this is not a reliable source for info (it's a blog), and as editors keep inserting this linkvio, we need to treat it as spam, and block the whole domain from being linked to from WP. --Russavia Dialogue 02:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    It is not clear from what has been asserted that the links are contrary to WP:LINKVIO. The blacklist sledgehammer should not be used to prevent insertion of links to a single article, absent a clear showing that the site hosts massive copyvio. There is no linkspam. These are translations which are presumably copyrighted by the translator, I cannot tell from looking at the site if they are violations. There is difference of opinion as to "proof" required to allow linking, the policy at WP:LINKVIO only requires avoiding linking to known violations, there is a guideline which suggests "reasonable certainty" of no violation and it is not clear to me what level of consensus this enjoys, nor is "reasonable certainty" defined. However, if lyricstranslations.com is highly visible, we can generally assume freedom from massive copyvio, because they would be quickly taken down. (That's a rebuttable assumption, but it would take specific evidence, such as the site being hosted in some place where they are immune to legal attack.) The site does not appear to be a blog. --Abd (talk) 15:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Contrary to Abd's assertion the blacklist may iondeed be used if a site is overlinked and looks likely to violate policy. In the first instance, though, I would advise you to simply remove the links; spammers will typically edit war over this, and that tends to be unambiguous. Sites of unproven reliability hosting lyrics of unproven copyright status are not apprporiate as links, whether or not they are appropriate for blacklisting. Blacklisting is a frequent result of the site owner's determination to have such links, and that is not usually in any way controversial. Guy (Help!) 14:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sites which host copyvios can still be used for links to other articles on the same sites. Youtube, for example. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Whaddaya Gonna Do About It? Productions

    Article and link-spam:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 01:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    I'm unsure how to format the blacklist regex entry for the facebook URL -- could someone help me with this? Thanks, --A. B. (talk • contribs) 14:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    kriyayogamission.org

    kriyayogamission.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

    Subharthee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

    This user has again added a website that had been blacklisted previously under different URLs.

    • The latest spamming: [1]
    • The same user's previous spamming: [2]
    • That previous website he added, yogakriya.blogspot.com, along with kriyayogain.com, and kriyayoga.org.in, have all been blacklisted. All were the same as this new one, kriyayogamission.org.
    • These are the diffs to the previous reports which I filed last year on his other URLs: [3], [4], which resulted in the others being blacklisted.

    - Priyanath talk 04:58, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    afterelton.com

    afterelton.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
    This site is being used (among other uses) to identify people as gay or as having gay relatives, etc. See for instance Special:Contributions/Shojego. Looks like clear BLP violations. We still have a lot of links to the site. Dougweller (talk) 05:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 19:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that it is polemical and not an appropriate source; it also seems to be subject to abuse by the accounts you list. This will result in some disgruntlement if we add it, but it is clearly not somethign we should be linking widely, if at all. Guy (Help!) 14:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    digitalspy.co.uk

    Unreliable source used too frequently by inexperienced editors. Often found on entertainment BLP's and music related articles. — R2 01:12, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't want to blacklist this without broader community consensus or proof that many of our hundreds of digitalspy.co.uk links have been spammed, not innocently added. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 18:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    errorremovers.com

    Concerted ongoing effort by the same spammers with wide-ranging single purpose IP's to insert adverts into the Registry cleaner article. fixerror365.com was blocked recently, so they've simply switched to another of their domain names and continued the same activity as before. Registry cleaners typically fall under the umbrella of scareware or have malware payloads - this one is the latter. Please note the other domains associated with this software that the spammer can switch to if errorremovers.com is blocked:

    Socrates2008 (Talk) 22:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    More info:
    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    plus Added I'm not sure that all these domains share ownership, so I've only added errorremovers.com for now. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    myspace.com/grimestwins

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 03:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Lockbumping.org

    Site is strongly biased toward one brand of locks, provides unsourced(and false info), all while masquerading as a "public service site". Subverted (talk • contribs) 06:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Users:

    Evidence of spamming:

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    graboid.com spam

    Domains:


    Related:


    Accounts:


    Deleted material:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 19:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    superfriends.wikia.com

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 23:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    myretrotv.com

    This link has legitimate uses in these articles, but no spammed as was done by the account above:

    Specific pages can be whitelisted in the future as required and affiliate stations can just wikilink to one or both of the articles above. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 23:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    paadalvarigal.com

    • Google AdSense ID: 5852500989351564

    This lyrics site may be violating copyrights; in any event, it's been heavily spammed. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 23:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    See subsequent discussion at:
    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:15, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    ilovebolly.com

    Domains:

    Google AdSense ID: 7935679661678836
    Related domain:

    Accounts:

    122.169.115.174 also added a link to:

    as did this IP:

    I'm not sure this is the same person --A. B. (talk • contribs) 16:46, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added: the first two domains listed above; did not list the citizenforce.in domain. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Combalicer Consignment Business Model spam

    Domains:

    Google AdSense ID: 6743583833224363

    Accounts:

    Reference:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 17:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    spoxcy.com.au

    Spam domain:

    Spam article:

    Spam accounts:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 17:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    indiancareerclub.com

    Can this website be blacklisted? It's been spammed in tenth of articles by User:122.164.243.0. Since it's an IP, the abuse filter can't be used and User:XLinkBot wouldn't help either since the website doesn't provide any useful contents (pagerank = 0). Laurent (talk) 10:54, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Spam domain
    Related domains
    Possibly related domain
    Spam accounts
    Spam article
    Public domain registration

    Vaxgen Technologies

    46, Arokya Nagar
    Opp new busstand
    Thanjavur, 613005
    India
    Reference

    --A. B. (talk • contribs)

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 12:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Viagra spam

    Domain-tracking

    Domains

    Related domains (same server):

    Related domains already filtered by blacklist:

    Spam account:

    Spam article:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:09, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    highstrangeness.tv

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 16:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    tomahawx.com

    some sort of golf device, does not take hint and reapplies link from different IP. Hits Tee and tomahawk articles. Resurr Section (talk) 21:56, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    no Declined -- normally we blacklist after a spammer ignores multiple warnings. I suggest warning for now. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 14:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    galapagosenchantedexpeditions.com

    Domain:

    Account:

    Deleted pages:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 14:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    colombopro.com

    Spammed domains
    Related domains
    Possibly related domains
    Accounts
    Deleted pages

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 19:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added (except the "possibly related domains") --A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    bigmaps.wordpress.com

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 17:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    vasanthandco.com

    Spam domain:

    Related domain:

    Accounts:

    These domains are not owned by Vasanth & Co, the company whose article to which they're being spammed. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 18:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Still more spam today:
    Note that the current domain-owner appears to be a domain-squatter; if Vasanth & Co subsequently secures this domain, we'll want to remove it from the blacklist.
    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:18, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    youtube.com/ColorMeChase

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 12:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 13:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    merafaridkot.com

    Spam domains:

    Google AdSense IDs: 4528369498476358, 5869563452077828

    Related domains:

    Accounts:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 16:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 13:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    ginnisystems.com

    Spam article

    Spam domains:

    Spam accounts:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 17:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 13:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    rivercanyonpress.com

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 00:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 00:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    buttgrabber.com

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    rbimoney.com spam

    Spam domains:

    Related domains:

    Spam accounts:

    • Reference hijacking: [12]

    Spam pages:

    Reference:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 01:40, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    extreme-seo.net

    Spam domains:

    Related domains:

    Spam account:

    • Reference hijacking:[13]

    Spam page:

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 02:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    svtuition.blogspot.com

    Google AdSense ID: 7354621086790983

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 03:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    ratekhoj.com

    • Google AdSense: 3320188327080900

    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:03, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposed removals

    Recently paadalvarigal.com site is added to blacklisted. Tamil songs lyrics is useful to categories where it describes about a film. In each tamil film there will be atleast 4-5 songs. When describing about a film, tamil songs plays a vital role. This site is making a collection over lyrics, where one can find all lyrics in one place. You can check how many people actually mark this lyrics section as spam/useful if you indeed give them an option to mark themselves. All people who visit paadalvarigal.cm through wiki will be those who expects lyrics. If adding adsense is a problem, then i will remove those adsense too. Just let me know how to proceed. I am a novice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.36.192 (talk) 19:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    pokerverdict.com

    Please remove this useful website from the blacklist. I had the following conversation with the person who originally suggested that the website be blacklisted:

    This discussion originally took place here.

    You think that Poker Verdict is an unreliable source? They have some useful information, especially on players; the biggest hurdle is proving their reliability, though. It might be wise to contact them to determine how and where they get their information from, etc. Gary King (talk) 01:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    No, I think they are generally a reliable source. But they created nine spam articles last year for the "November Nine", which they used solely to spam their website as a "reference", basically only referencing that the person made the final table, which is an obvious fact available everywhere. The company that owns them has several other publications/websites which they have spammed here. So... while the site seems okay in general, their egregious single-purpose spamming is way over the spam line. 2005 (talk) 02:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, well the website is blacklisted, so I was going to use it for a few articles but then noticed that it is blacklisted. Do you think it's safe to remove it from the blacklist? There are other ways of preventing people from adding the same URL over and over again; for instance, their accounts can be blocked, or the articles in question can be semiprotected—which might be more effective if only a small number of articles are being bombarded with these URLs. Gary King (talk) 03:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I would not object to it being unblacklisted. It was just a large pain at the time, because these guys are shameless, and like I said, some of their other sites are blacklisted. I suppose it would be fine to unblacklist it, but blacklist again if they get too spammy again in the future. 2005 (talk) 03:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Gary King (talk) 04:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • The request does not address the reasons for blacklisting, and there is no evidence of reliability, peer-review, editorial policy etc. Do you have an example of an article where it provides a provably reliable source? Guy (Help!) 16:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    sermonaudio.com

    In articles about ministers, a link to their available online sermons seems perfectly reasonable and useful. Kyriosity (talk) 13:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    We've had a discussion here, and the consensus seems to be that it would be a useful addition to the article. Kyriosity (talk) 12:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Do I need to give more information or something to get a response to this? If so, would somebody please let me know what else is needed? I've never encountered with this issue before, so I'm working blind here. Thanks! Kyriosity (talk) 13:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The site was spammed, and is not actually useful in almost all the places it was linked. If there are isolated links which would be useful (and ina way which does not violate WP:NOR, which was also an issue before), then whitelisting would seem to be appropriate. Guy (Help!) 14:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    bollywoodhungama.com

    Bollywood Hungama was recently added to the blacklist since spam bots were adding links to it to Bollywood movie articles. While the site should not be linked to in such a manner, it has a lot of legitimate use. I don't think it ever should have been added to the list, considering it has its own Wikipedia page and produces a lot of reliable information used heavily in references for Bollywood movies. Regarding this site, I do not believe User:A. B. followed steps 1, 2, or 3. There are still lots of references to the site in use all over Wikipedia. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Hmm .. spambot? this looks different. This is totally disruptive, and as I see some SPA's on this link and indiafm.com ... hmm ... maybe this can go into abuse filter Special:AbuseFilter/107 or XLinkBot? I would certainly suggest to wait until another solution is implemented. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Here was the community's response prior to these domains' blacklisting:
    1. 202.189.225.24 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    3 blocks and 10 warnings from 9 different editors
    1. CambridgeBayWeather
    2. Capricorn42
    3. Edgar181
    4. Fritzpoll
    5. Jonathan Hall
    6. Killiondude
    7. MER-C
    8. Oxymoron83
    9. Sephiroth BCR
    2. 122.170.120.134 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    5 blocks and 13 warnings from 9 different editors:
    1. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
    2. Abecedare
    3. Capricorn42
    4. Closedmouth
    5. Dreadstar
    6. Efe
    7. Jmundo
    8. Lucasbfr
    9. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
    10. User:DarkFalls
    3. 124.30.48.153 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    9 warnings from 7 different editors:
    1. Hqb
    2. Islescape
    3. Maelgwnbot
    4. Mspraveen
    5. Shovon76
    6. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
    7. Tiggerjay
    4. 202.87.45.10 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    3 blocks and 8 warnings from 7 different editors:
    1. J.delanoy
    2. Caknuck
    3. Ironholds
    4. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
    5. Geoff Plourde
    6. Closedmouth
    7. Allstarecho
    8. Kafziel
    5. Bollywoodhungama (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
    2 warnings from 1 editor:
    1. Dekisugi
    6. 219.83.226.2 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    17 warnings from 7 different editors:
    1. Closedmouth
    2. JaGa
    3. NickBush24
    4. RainbowOfLight
    5. Someguy1221
    6. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
    7. Tombomp
    7. 202.189.225.25 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    7 warnings and 1 block from 4 different editors:
    1. Oxymoron83
    2. Piano non troppo
    3. Anshuk
    4. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
    8. 219.83.226.4 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    1 warning from 1 editor:
    1. Backslash Forwardslash
    Normally, we blacklist domains after the spammers have gotten 3 to 4 warnings -- not 67 warnings and 12 blocks.
    Given this person's persistence, I don't think XLinkBot will do much good. We may be better off whitelisting individual web pages as needed. As for removing the remaining links, the spam filter should allow editing the pages with links that pre-existed the domains' blacklisting. I think most of these were added by regular editors, so I did not remove them. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 16:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm .. I agree fully. Need I mention this is a XWiki case? --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've left a note at WikiProject Films/Indian cinema task force inviting editors of our Bollywood articles to comment.--A. B. (talk • contribs) 16:59, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    The spamming is very unfortunate and I think mars the reputation of an otherwise useful site. I looked at some FA and GA listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Indian cinema task force, and here are the number of references that are to bollywoodhungama.com or indiafm.com:

    Is it possible to make an abuse filter to only allow autoconfirmed users to add the links? --Odie5533 (talk) 18:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe this can go into abuse filter Special:AbuseFilter/107 ... A. B., how wide are these ranges, and how big is the chance that there are more ranges? --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Still need the ranges, I have them now too narrow. We are going to test Special:AbuseFilter/143 on this one. Consider removed. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, XLinkBot should find any new ranges or socks, please block logged in spam user accounts immediately. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    newenergytimes.com

    Resolved
     – Site removed from blacklist per the consensus below. ViridaeTalk 03:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This site was added to the blacklist, originally without discussion or evidence other than a mention in a "courtesy notice," about lenr-canr.org, that "newenergytimes.com seems to be apart of the same problem." There was no apparent declared basis for the listing of NET other than an alleged fringe POV bias. (The copyright violation argument made with respect to lenr-canr.org, which might be considered to "rub off" on NET -- i.e., similar arguments could be made because they do republish material published elsewhere, sometimes -- has been discredited.) The site is notable, and was previously used as an external link in Cold fusion; it would be one of the top three or four web sites covering the field (along with lenr-canr.org). There is a draft article at User:Abd/New Energy Times, I would like to link to the site there, since I plan to move the page to mainspace, plus I may present links for Cold fusion for the consideration of the editors there. The site is useful in three ways: it contains many articles published elsewhere which are not readily available, plus it contains original material by notable authors which may, under certain conditions, be useful, and it is extremely useful for our readers to find further recent information and news on the subject, the editor, Steven Krivit, is a journalist specializing in the field, and recognized as an expert. There was a prior discussion on a delisting request at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/February_2009#newenergytimes.com. The denial there referred to alleged cross-wiki spam, which would not be grounds for blacklisting here, and the site is not blacklisted at meta. My impression is that the "evidence" consisted of appropriate links to the web site, placed on other wikis, possibly in violation of COI rules by the site manager, which should not be, unless massive and not stopped after warning, a cause for the use of the blacklist. Editor COI is not relevant to content decisions as made by other editors. Hence I respectfully request delisting. --Abd (talk) 15:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Support delisting. The admin who added it to the blacklist has been involved in content disputes involving the topic and is currently the subject of an RfC for exactly such admin actions while involved. I haven't seen any evidence that the link was used for spamming. While there may be differences of opinion about whether to include the link in various places, those are content decisions, not to be decided by blacklisting. Arbcom has decided "In particular, conjectures that hold significant prominence must no more be suppressed than be promoted as factual" (Fringe science). (involved editor)(23:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not going to vote either way, as I am too involved in previous requests regarding this site. There is a minor (cross-wiki) spam case on newenergytimes, but that one is, though it looked promotional, really not a large enough scale problem to allow blacklisting of this site (5-6 additions cross wiki, and we are not talking about the meta blacklist anyway).
    Newenergytimes.com and lenr-canr.org contain freely available copies of documents. Due to the nature of such sites, they may show a preference (see [WP:UNDUE]]) for certain information (without the site maintainer being able to do something about that). the main problems being, that the only documents on such sites are those documents copyright could be transferred for (where certain authors or journals are more willing to transfer copyright, and generally, journals with a higher citation index will have more problems transferring the copyright), and only documents which the site maintainer knows existence of (in good faith, I presume they have a full overview), &c.,&c.
    That said, for these two links, there have been editors who have shown a massive preference for using documents on this site, while I have the feeling that they hardly linked to the original literature. From that point-of-view, I do believe that blacklisting of these sites, maybe with the disclaimer 'at that time', was warranted.
    I hence believe that this site can be useful (but not necesseraly necessery, as the originals can in most cases still be linked), but when used, the information on these sites should be used with due care! --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, Beetstra. Properly, as you know, you should not reject the unlisting, because of your prior decision; however, if you choose, you can reverse your prior decision. Normally, I'd ask you on your Talk page to do so, but there are, again as you know, complications with that. As to due care, of course. Links to this site would only be used on Cold fusion and related articles, and those are intensely scrutinized, I couldn't force usage the links inappropriately if I wanted to, and I don't. --Abd (talk) 12:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am neither declining nor endorsing de-listing per my involvement (I have given my thoughts more often). I found it however appropriate to give my 2p in order to broaden the view (that's why I say, that if de-listing is decided, that then due care is necessery; and I am giving another interpretation of an above statement: blacklisting of a site is not a content decision, the material on blacklisted sites can still be used as a reference (see my post "my thoughts" on your talkpage of 6 April 2009, 13:27 (I hope this is UTC)), they can only not be linked to anymore on the blacklisted site). I let the decision of de-listing entirely to other admins, preferably ones that are not too involved in other discussions regarding this case. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree completely, except that it is a content decision if it is based on content arguments. The appropriateness of a link is the appropriateness of a kind of content. I'm seeing no argument here that the link needs to be blacklisted to prevent linkspam, and "linkspam" is, technically, not a content argument but has to do with numbers of links being added without review. --Abd (talk) 15:26, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That this list is named 'Spam-blacklist' does not mean that it is, for long, used for links which have been abused, which can be abused (but have not yet been!), broad rules which block out a lot of abuse (spam), Joe jobs, perfectly solid links which nonetheless are massively, uncontrollable abused, malware sites which have not been abused (but are a risk to Wikipedia). You don't see the argument this is spammed or is spam, because it is not the case, the case is about abuse in order to give certain articles a undue weight. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Great. Now what does this have to do with the blacklisting of this particular site? Links to it were long used for various purposes. The editors of Cold fusion made the decision, and certain links were relatively stable. There was no apparent consensus against them, but one administrator, who seems to believe that WP:UNDUE requires removing any references to positive results or argument in favor of low-energy nuclear reactions, did remove links and blacklisted, without discussion. There is no way for discussion here to properly determine weight at Cold fusion, that requires understanding the field and the issues, and requires participation of editors knowledgeable about the article. If there was abuse, please document it. I am not claiming that the blacklist should never be used for content issues, only that, by the guidelines, this should be unusual and the case for it clear. There is no such case here. Further, blacklisting the two most significant web sites that are sources for information about cold fusion (original publication or as convenience copies) is hardly a way to create balance! --Abd (talk) 18:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Do I have to repeat that (just to be sure, there is at least one editor with quite a preference for using information from these sites, over 40% of the link additions by this account were to newenergytimes.com and lenr-canr.org, I am sorry, but I do not believe that the articles on these sites have a high citation index (of course there will be exceptions), and I suspect that the number 3 and 4 on the list of this editor are also not having a high citation index, and possibly even the 5th, and by now we are over 50%)? To me this reeks of using selected information for undue weight. And please, at least lenr-canr.org is NOT the most significant web site that is a source of information about cold fusion, that are the originals of the copies contained there. But as I said, I'll leave the conclusions to others, I only state what I see and what data I have. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    See also Bugzilla bug 14719 (link) and the discussions to rename this list linked over there. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the link, Beetstra. We've talked about the word "spam," and agree. However, here, the issue is not the name of the blacklist or "spam," but the usage of the list, and usage guidelines are clear. Sure, the name should be changed, I agree completely, because "spam" unnecessarily is insulting to editors, and it is often inappropriate, even if the blacklisting is necessary. But that's not today's issue at all. Please do realize that substantial change to the blacklisting guidelines should be widely discussed, it's quite a serious issue, and I think that most editors are unaware of this expanded mission, where a handful of administrators can make far-reaching content decisions that even ArbComm would stay away from. --Abd (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Arbcomm does not make content decisions, that is done by editors. No need to drag ArbComm in here, Abd. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you may have misunderstood, Beetstra. I wrote that ArbComm does not make content decisions. But apparently a handful of administrators think that they can do this, here, on the blacklist page, where those watching an article won't see it, and it seems that you (and at least one other administrator) believe that, as applied to newenergytimes.com, making these decisions site-wide and enforcing them with the blacklist is appropriate. Just so the issue is clear. I could present evidence countering your impression about weight and editors, but it is actually moot. The site should not be blacklisted, whether it is actually used or not, unless there is a linkspam issue. If it's blacklisted, the editors of the article, for the most part, won't even have the opportunity to consider it, and IP editors are at a severe disadvantage (you won't even consider a whitelisting request from an IP editor).
    Oh, yes, I forgot to mention, indeed: again, blacklisting a site is not a content decision, the information can still be used to write part of an article and it can still be referenced. And the accusation that we do not consider IP editors' requests is just ridiculous. If they request "please remove it, I want to link to it", yes, then we decline, if they come with a reasonable request, then generally we either say them to consider asking a wikiproject for more back up, if the request is proper, then we certainly consider it. But most of these requests are done by IPs who were involved in the 'spamming' originally. And you are again going completely off topic, this is NOT the place to discuss blacklist practices, that is below. Here we discuss newenergytimes.com, and if we have sufficient reason to remove it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:06, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Last time I looked, references and external links were content. You know and I know what happens to whitelist requests from IPs, and I haven't said this is improper, with proper blacklistings. This blacklisting wasn't. To demand that there be "sufficient reason to remove it" .... is evidence of a poor practice here, biased toward original decisions. Because of the shotgun nature of the blacklist, the issue should be "sufficient reason to keep it." --Abd (talk) 11:05, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This issue has been discussed numerous times, and there is still no convincing argument to remove from blacklist, per concerns of WP:UNDUE as noted above. OhNoitsJamie Talk 17:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, the issue with this site was discussed only once, where a decision was made, and that was here, and is cited above. The blacklisting guidelines suggest blacklisting as a measure of last resort, to stop massive linkspam. The decision to use a link or not in an article is up to the editors of that article, subject to wider consensus on appeal. Blacklisting makes the decision, for all practical purposes, top-down, i.e., generically, without regard to the specific page linked and the needs of an article. The arguments about possible site bias have a basis, possibly, but are matters that we have generally chosen to leave to editorial consensus, not to administrative action, and blacklisting is an administrative action. Ohnoitsjamie has it backwards. If there is no necessity to blacklist, blacklisting should not be used. Period. It is only if there is necessity, but also some possible use, that debate over usability becomes relevant.
    Beetstra has somewhat confused lenr-car.org, which is mostly a "library," containing documents published elsewhere, with newenergytimes.com, which is a site of original publication, plus containing archives of documents published elsewhere. As an example where newenergytimes.com would be particularly valuable as a source would be with respect to news and views of the community researching low-energy nuclear reactions; it is an edited publication with a responsible publisher. It is reliable for that; however, this issue should not be decided here. It should be delisted because there was and is no legitimate basis for listing. --Abd (talk) 18:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It may have only been discussed, but these sorts of links have been discussed ad nauseam. OhNoitsJamie Talk 02:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Please point me to a place where a decision was made by more than one administrator or group of editors other than those involved in fighting spam. No linkspamming was involved here, see Beetstra's comment above. The link is the kind allowed or even encouraged by WP:EL, particularly when viewed in the light of the recent ArbComm ruling on Fringe science. And whether the topic is fringe or not is actually much more complex than it might appear at first glance from popular opinion. See the recent peer-reviewed literature in the field. But this is actually irrelevant here. This is abuse of the blacklist to control content, I'll stand on that. Disagree? Change the guidelines. --Abd (talk) 11:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Please make content-based arguments ("UNDUE") on the relevant article talk pages. Blacklisting is not used to enforce content decisions. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • So we should deblacklist it even though it's a blatantly iunappropriate source for any article, so we can go back to having fringe kooks edit-war for inclusion all over the place. What a great idea, I wonder why I didn't think of that? Guy (Help!) 15:03, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, Guy, that was actually helpful to delineate the issues and behavior.
    • It's an appropriate source for Cold fusion and certain related pages, if nothing else, to show the point of view or opinion within the cold fusion community. As the admin who blacklisted out-of-process, we know your POV, but I wasn't expecting you to continue the "kook" business. And I *thought* you'd said you would be hands-off with anything involving cold fusion or me. That promise of staying away did seem to carry some weight at the RfC on your abuse of admin tools.
    • There wasn't edit warring over these links, at the time of the blacklisting or shortly before it, by anyone. You later edit warred over a lenr-canr.org link that had been whitelisted, at Martin Fleischmann. Your position was rejected by consensus.
    • All over the place? Where, except for Cold fusion and related articles? --Abd (talk) 19:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:DEADHORSE again. You think it's an appropriate source, but I don't and a lot of others appear to agree with me. It's a fringe website, of no provable reliability, it is of no relevance to a Wikipedia article on a scientific subject. You seem to be on a crusade to redress the "balance" and undo the "damage" caused by the arbitration case, but it is useless to say this because experience and the subpages in your userspace suggest that you never accept a consensus that goes against you. Guy (Help!) 22:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't necessarily accept a decision by a single editor or administrator that I disagree with, and because I don't make an immediate fuss, screaming and waving my arms about it, but follow, one step at a time, DR Guy then claims that it's a dead horse. Guy's comments are dense with mud, quick innuendo, and invite extended response, which he knows irritates people. Guy has been a pet administrator of the extreme anti-fringe faction that also loved ScienceApologist and that allowed him to get away with abuse for a long time. Yes, I think that *in general* prominent web sites on fringe topics can, with appropriate caution, balance, and editorial consensus, be used, and, indeed, should be used. Cold fusion, however, is arguably not a fringe topic, and that is a complex question not to be resolved with admin tools, there is a gap between popular media (fringe!) and more reliable scientific source (science!). The truth is that Guy couldn't get the editors of Cold fusion, including some dedicated skeptics, to cooperate with his years-long campaign to keep links to these sites out, they were being used and accepted, so he got tired of his occasional removals without discussion that didn't stick and closed the matter with his tools, and has managed, as he usually does, to get a small number of administrators to agree with him. WP:DGAF. This particular issue is easily resolved here. If not, it goes up the ladder, one step at a time, until consensus is found or a clear decision is made. --Abd (talk) 10:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There's no cold fusion true believer article. Why pretend that links to this fringe site are appropriate anywhere? Nevard (talk) 07:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    ArbComm has already answered this question. It's ridiculous to have an article on cold fusion, which is the subject of ongoing research, as encouraged by the U.S. Department of Energy, as supported by various governments, as is appearing in peer-reviewed publications, and with references in recent reliable source specifically to New Energy Times and the editor, Steve Krivit, and not reference this major news source in the field, with a full-time professional investigative reporter hired to collect and report exactly that. Nevard's position on "fringe" has already been rejected by ArbComm and the community, and the designation of cold fusion as "fringe" is becoming increasingly shaky. So let's move on and use editorial consensus at the article to determine what links are appropriate, not the blunt instrument of the blacklist. --Abd (talk) 11:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Support delisting. The spam blacklist should not be used to make content decisions, particularly ones based on the WP:IDONTLIKEIT criteria of a few editors thinking a site is "fringe". *Dan T.* (talk) 03:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Support delisting. Please don't use non-relevant system tools to add weight to editorial positions. --Wfaxon (talk) 08:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose delisting Not a RS and there has been no tool or blacklisting abuse. Abd's views give one very slanted point of view. Verbal chat 13:36, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The situation with newenergytimes.com is similar in some ways to that of lenr-canr.org, and in the only request for whitelisting filed yet on these two sites, a decision was made that one page from lenr-canr.org was, indeed, usable, and that was confirmed by editorial consensus, and stands. "Reliable source" is actually a separate issue, not all links used, by consensus, are to web sites considered, automatically to be reliable source, in the end, it is a page-by-page decision. However, as to tool and blacklisting abuse, the blacklisting of newenergytimes.com was done by an involved administrator, who directly blacklisted without discussion, asserting his own POV in later discussion. Because directly editing the blacklist page is an administrative privilege, this is use of tools while involved, and is abuse, absent emergency. This request, here, is not about admin abuse, and the original listing and its circumstances were raised only to give the history; the listing was confirmed by Beetstra in the first delisting request; he is now the responsible administrator, and he is neutral. He has recused, but is now more informed on the topic, and has expressed opinions that are far less negative on delisting than one might think from Verbal's comment. --Abd (talk) 17:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I dispute Abd's statements (JzG has not, it appears, acted inappropriately), and lenr-canr.org should also remain blacklisted. These are all separate issues, and conflating them doesn't help. Verbal chat 17:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    "Isn't reliable source" is not a legitimate reason for blacklisting, because that is a complex judgment which should be made by editorial consensus, with regard to a specific page and a specific reference or link, not by use of admin tools like the blacklist. It can be a legitimate reason for not delisting but only if there is linkspam making the continued listing advisable. --Abd (talk) 17:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There has been no abuse since blacklisting, I'm amazed. Isn't that the point? I don't see any editorial consensus for using lenr-canr or NET on the CF page, and it seems the reasons were valid - as has been discussed above and elsewhere. Verbal chat 18:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This is getting to be a disturbing pattern of distracting sarcasm, Verbal. There was no abuse before blacklisting. (I'm not saying never, the article has a long history, but nothing was going on when the links were removed and the site was blacklisted.) Lenr-canr.org is used at Martin Fleischmann, currently, and it took serious deliberation to get that, given the knee-jerk opposition and edit warring from the same admin who blacklisted, after it was whitelisted. There are many papers currently cited and referenced at Cold fusion that could use convenience links, for starters, they can be very hard to find, if not impossible. --Abd (talk)
    Content argument. See my response to Ohnoitsjamie above. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Support Delisting I agree that this is not a reliable source. However, blacklisting is not used to censor. Sanction the behavior, not the content. Ronnotel (talk) 18:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, Ronnotel, I agree completely on the principle, indeed, it's what I and others have been arguing for months now. As to RS, this is a decision which isn't made globally with sites like this (which include quite a bit of detailed and sober content, as well as possible fringe opinion), the decision should be made in context, looking at specific references and text, by editors familiar with the issues, and if others are to become involved -- which they can at any time -- ideally it is as we all are informed by those who are familiar. Is Cold fusion a science topic or a sociology/history topic? This is a very complex problem, there are entire books devoted to it. Is it rejected by consensus? What kind of consensus? How do we know? Etc. These questions should not be resolved here, the answers should not be presumed and enforced with administrative tools, including the blacklist, blocks, article protection, etc. Rather, those tools are used to deal with behavior, quite as you have said. Thanks. Delisting creates no presumption of usability. --Abd (talk) 21:54, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    New Energy Times appears to be closely held and it's difficult to determine whether its editorial process is independent and to what degree. It appears little different from a self-published periodic blog therefore it should not be regarded as a reliable source. However, there's scant evidence of aggressive self-promotion so it's an inappropriate candidate for blacklisting. We don't blacklist on content - we blacklist on behavior. Ronnotel (talk) 15:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    In other words, we agree on our business here. I raise arguments about "fringe" only because they are asserted against this site. It's not a blog, per se, rather, it's clearly a highly specialized publication, the ownership is a nonprofit, donation-supported. Krivit is paid as a journalist/editor, which does make it in some ways like a blog, though the kind of blog that shades into usability, where the blogger is an expert (as Krivit has become and as he is recognized in reliable source as being). The biggest problem about considering them RS in general is that they mix editorial comment with news reporting; the page I cite below is full of researched fact that could be useful, but then there is what amounts to argument at the end, showing a kind of "balance sheet" for cold fusion vs. hot fusion. The raw facts reported, as such, are probably correct; but the putting together of those facts is clearly intended to create an impression that represents a POV on the comparison. Where I believe we agree completely is that decisions about this as a source would be made by editorial consensus among involved editors, and that the issue of whether or not a site or page is "fringe" or "unreliable" only becomes relevant here if it is necessary to balance content with the difficulty of handling extensive linkspam. I.e., if there is linkspam, the site may be blocked, and, initially, the blacklist volunteers need not make any determination of "reliability" or "fringe." But if there is then a request to delist after linkspamming, some showing is routinely and properly required of at least some possible usage, and I've preferred to establish this with, first, a narrow whitelisting, then move from there. But in this case, there was no linkspam even alleged, the copyright violation claim was bogus, and that left "fringe." Which is actually irrelevant.
    The actual argument made in refusing the first delisting request was that using the site could result in WP:UNDUE violation, which is true; however, that violation only arises with respect to specific usages in specific contexts, which cannot possibly be considered here. We do not blacklist sites based on their alleged POV, even though this undue weight argument could be made with respect to very web site with some identifiable POV bias. Thanks, Ronnotel. --Abd (talk) 16:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The actual argument was more that the site was used in WP:UNDUE violation. The site was not blacklisted based on their alleged POV. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, no. Please read the actual arguments made in blacklisting; further, please review the history of the blacklisting administrator as presented in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3. (Arguments made later are rationalizations, even if they be cogent ones, which, in this case, they aren't.) Any site can be "used" improperly; blacklisting requires large-scale usage (even if "proper") without consensus. Further, the links removed with the blacklisting were not improper, that has never even been considered except with respect to one of them, and you know the result of that consideration, Beetstra. It stands now, at Martin Fleischmann, thanks to your assistance. Please stop defending the indefensible, it stains the rest of your good work.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs)
    Abd, I am defending the point, that there were editors in the past, who have had a strong preference in using material on sites (including this one) over other sources. This site and others, though containing correct information, were deemed not a reliable source (and even when published by a nobel prize winner in a subject, it is self published information, not peer reviewed information, it is probably right, but .. well). Editors who were using this site, have subject bans on them. I am defending the abuse of the site. It may be that the original stated reason is not correct, but we are not a bureaucracy where procedural errors should be reverted on sight. And please, don't tell people not to comment or give their view if they disagree with the requests or remarks placed. And yes, the citation still stands, not attributing anything, and certainly not in the same way as it was used earlier.
    To expand the remarks:
    • You say: "The actual argument made in refusing the first delisting request was that using the site could result in WP:UNDUE violation"
    • I reply to THAT: "The actual argument was more that the site was used in WP:UNDUE violation."
    • You say "Please read the actual arguments made in blacklisting; further, please review the history of the blacklisting administrator as presented in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3...."
    Twisting and turning again, Abd? We are talking about the DELISTING REFUSAL, READ IT!!! Or are you only reading things you want to use, ignoring the rest? I ask you again to stop that point (I think this is the second time!). --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    (Unindent). I think I may have at some point above misrepresented Beetstra's position, but this has become so complex that I can't follow it. As to anything I've said about Beetstra's position, please disregard it, and I apologize for any misunderstanding. But as to the arguments Beetstra reiterates or newly states (some of the above are entirely new), this has gone so far afield and is so shotgun in nature that I'm not responding. It is not relevant whether the original blacklisting was proper in procedure or not, because Beetstra confirmed it, becoming the responsible administrator. However, Beetstra is advancing arguments that depend on his judgment of content, a debatable judgment, and, as noted by many above, not appropriate as a cause for blacklisting. --Abd (talk) 04:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This response is absurd and rediculous Abd .. You really can't stop. You represent my position wrongly at one point, apologise, and then you do what? You do the same thing again, twice!
    • re: "But as to the arguments Beetstra reiterates or newly states (some of the above are entirely new)": There is nothing new there, that has been said by me over and over, even in the previous de-listing request: There are/were editors out there who have a huge preference for using links on sites which are, to say the least, problematic reliable sources, and it at the very least reeks of a massive WP:UNDUE violation (guess what, some of these editors are banned from the subjects involved .. WHY, I ask you?). It is simply not true, it is not new, it is because you have ignored my remarks regarding that.
    • re: "It is not relevant whether the original blacklisting was proper in procedure or not, because Beetstra confirmed it, becoming the responsible administrator.": I have not confirmed that the original blacklisting was proper in procedure (I did however , I have cited policy, and said that the original reason does not need to be relevant). But that does not make me the responsible administrator! It makes the policy the responsible part that we have to look at, and the editors responsible! That conclusion is rediculous, absurd, and laughable!! What are you really trying to accomplish here, Abd??
    I again ask you: stop with this type of twisting and turning information or writing interpretations which YOU think people said, as again you are wrong. I until now thought I was maybe unclear, but I am wondering! Strike 3, Abd? --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure. Stopped, whether right or wrong. Now, the topic here? --Abd (talk) 14:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Fringe?

    discussion of whether NET is "fringe" or not

    Whether or not NET is fringe, I have said, is a complex issue, and is actually irrelevant in this case (it might be relevant if there were extensive linkspam). But because some editors think it important, I'd ask them to review this: COLD FUSION IS HOT AGAIN - Presented in 1989 as a revolutionary new source of energy, cold fusion was quickly dismissed as junk science. But today, the buzz among scientists is that these experiments produce a real physical effect that could lead to monumental breakthroughs in energy production. Scott Pelley, reports. Denise Schrier Cetta is the producer.[14], and this short video from CBS. As to NET being reliable source, my judgment is that there are difficulties, and NET should be used with caution, because it editorializes in the articles. However, facts stated seem to be accurate and reliable, so this could be reliable source on the level of newspaper editorials, i.e., handle with care. See http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2009/60MinutesTurnsUptheHeat.shtml Further, NET, like lenr-canr.org, is a repository of copies with usage rights of documents that are, indeed, reliable source, some of which aren't available directly or easily. --Abd (talk) 15:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Um, no, it's still fringe. You are beating the drum for a fringe view, as you have often done in the past, and you have expended vastly more effort (and sucked up vastly more of everybody else's time) than this issue deserves. Even if the site were not a fringe one, which it is, it is not a reliable source so is of no obvious value. As it is, it has been used as a vehicle in a long-standing campaign to skew content. Cold fusion was a featured article until the pro-CF kooks got to it, and the best way for it to get back there is for obsessives to leave it alone. Right now you;re including yourself very firmly in the obsessive camp. Guy (Help!) 00:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Fringe" is not a black-and-white categorization to be decided by Wikipedian editors as a guide to how to censor articles. Whether individual Wikipedians have been convinced that an effect is real or not is irrelevant: articles are to be based on the sources. Relevance and reliability of a source is to be determined on article talk pages with help from article-content RfC, RSN etc., not decided here. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This website is fringe. It supports a number of fringe views, and has little or no mainstream balance. It also has no identified editorial board or peer-review process. It is useless as a source, and has been abused as such by people advancing fringe beliefs. It's just a personal website. Guy (Help!) 20:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indeed, Coppertwig, articles are to be based on the sources. Those sources include reliable sources, as defined in our reliable sources guideline. The information on NET is either a copy of something that can be referenced elsewhere (the original), or which is not peer-reviewed material which can never be a source of proper information. Please base the information in the article on that information published in said reliable sources. That the site is fringe or not is a difficult case, but even when not fringe, the site was abused on a significant scale to impose a fringe view on Wikipedia. There are better sources. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:47, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There is no better source for current news on the field. The report linked above is original reporting, by an investigative reporter, Steve Krivit, funded to do just that. No fringe view was "imposed on Wikipedia" using this site. Indeed, the alleged fringe view is coming like a freight train, and NET is just a webzine that reports on the field. It's a specialized publication, and there is an apparent POV, so, as has been stated, it's to be used with caution, as I stated above. A link to the article on Talk:Cold fusion? I have no doubt at all about the appropriateness. Shouldn't editors of the article be familiar with these views and reports and news? Or do we want only drive-by, uninformed editing, based on superficial opinions and random discoveries of sources? --Abd (talk) 05:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It probably isn't relevant, but I read the article you referenced, and it was more than an "apparent POV" - it was very biased and I'd seriously question using it as a source. I haven't read other articles on the site, though, so maybe they aren't normally presented in that fashion? - Bilby (talk) 09:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Some are, some aren't. What NET does is to mix factual reporting (which is quite reliable) with editorial comment (which is Krivit's opinion). The investigative reporting is good, the opinion is, arguably, fringe, though it's the view of an expert in the field, as can be shown by reliable source, and, what the report shows (and others, recently) is that "fringe" seems to be disappearing, it's a relic of 1989-1990. As I wrote, if an article like this is going to be used as a source, it should be used with caution. There are other documents hosted there which are simply usable as convenience copies, and others which are original publication, some of which is usable, and this should all be up to editorial consensus, not to all-or-nothing decisions by editors not considering specific cases. I gave the link precisely to show the range of what is there. If you read it, you can see that Krivit actually interviewed the major players. I'm going to point out, though, that "bias" can be in the eye of the beholder. Krivit's an expert, the opinion of an expert can appeared biased -- and it may be -- but the bias can be that of the natural bias of knowledge vs. ignorance. I can make statements here that, even if sourced, will be considered biased by many or even most. That's what happens where there is a true controversy! --Abd (talk) 14:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    He did interview people, but the way the article was put together was more than somewhat questionable (and this isn't really the place for that discussion, as you say). However, that's simply my opinion - I just wouldn't recommend using that article as an example of the site's quality, as if the argument is that there is no better source of news on Cold Fusion, then that article makes me concerned about the quality of the best source on the topic. But maybe others would think differently. - Bilby (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The link was asserted as an example showing both sides, the value and the problem. You have to consider the context: as a "fringe science," its very right to exist is in question. If it's total junk science, what's the value of a news source that just shows, "junk science." Boring. No, the New Energy Foundation was started up by someone who thought the matter worthy of attention! That creates a natural POV. Question is, does NET exclude negative opinion, and the answer is no, they report it. You can find criticism of cold fusion experiments there. But, sure, Krivit has his opinions and he expresses them. The section at the end of the article I found actually offensive, the report on hot fusion. It's pure POV advocacy. But that's okay in editorials! We used editorials and opinion columns as source for some facts, with caution. I'd certainly prefer to see Krivit separate reported fact from editorial opinion, maybe I'll ask him to do that.... --Abd (talk) 15:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Continued discussion of delisting request

    • Support delisting - Not what the Spam-blacklist is intended for. Whether the site should be used as a source should be decided on the article talk page, not through a blocklist. --Apoc2400 (talk) 16:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • this request was filed 15:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC). Twelve days should be more than enough to get a decision on a delisting request (and I find the consensus here obvious). (Note that delisting does not insure actual usage in articles, that's up to local consensus at each article.) (There is also a backlog of other requests, this isn't the oldest.) My intention is to request review by a neutral administrator at WP:AN, as I've done before when there was such delay. --Abd (talk) 13:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I made the request at WP:AN, and Viridae responded with:
    Closed as consensus supporting removal, blacklist entry removed. ViridaeTalk 03:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The site was removed from the blacklist; I've asked him to formally close here... --Abd (talk) 03:42, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    losethegame.com

    I know this has been brought up before, but I just did a comprehensive Google search on the site losethegame.com, and there are literally two mentions of Wikipedia on the entire site, one of which is a link to the Wikipedia page on The Game and the other is a quote from the Wikipedia article on Google bombing. The stated reason for blacklisting the site was that it promoted vandalizing Wikipedia through a plugin for Mozilla Firefox. If this ever were true, it clearly isn't anymore. Eebster the Great (talk) 19:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • That's not really the point. Jonty Haywood is an assiduous self-promoter and the site was spammed everywhere in his attempts to lead the charge for a Wikipedia article on the non-existent "game". Now there are over two sources in the world, we of course have a massive article on this, and one on Jonty Haywood thanks also to his assiduous self-promotion. We have it whitelisted as a source, I believe (though God alone knows why). Guy (Help!) 20:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Given that there is an article on the game now, any past spamming in an attempt to get such an article created is merely of historical interest, not relevant to the current situation. *Dan T.* (talk) 03:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • To be fair, The Game pretty clearly meets the WP:Notability at this point. I understand that it is a recent phenomenon and that Haywood's spamming may have spread its popularity, but it has been reported in numerous newspapers, and more importantly, is omnipresent online and offline. None of this legitimizes any spamming from the site, but I don't really see that as such a problem anymore. Eebster the Great (talk) 05:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to be clear, some of the additions of losethegame.com were NOT to pages which even have anything remotely to do with either Jonty Haywood or The Game or Lose the Game. Additions include a high school, G. Bush etc. I don't think this is necesserily to be removed from the blacklist as the possible abuse is likely and widespread, I would really suggest that specific links were whitelisted where needed (on The Game and Jonty Haywood, e.g.). --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, links were added by those playing the so-called game, as a way of tripping up other players. That was the problem, and the probability of such abuse has not gone away. It has no value as a source outside of the two articles mentioned above, and the request does not suggest any possible utility. Guy (Help!) 18:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The original reason for blacklisting Haywood's site (see here) no longer applies. The "strategies" section that suggested spamming Wikipedia (a good reason for blacklisting!) has been removed. I can only find two recent cases of users trying to add the link on COIreport, and the most recent was in March 2008 when a user tried to add the link to this page:[15]. The addition to the Fairless High School was a special case. It was not random spamming, it was due to the school apparently banning their pupils from playing The Game, and the user was trying to link to a specific part of the site that says this. The Bush addition was encouraged by the old "strategy page", which is gone now. I don't think there is a real risk of link spamming anymore. If a full removal isn't agreed on, a whitelisted link on the page of The Game (mind game) would be welcome. Fences and windows (talk) 00:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it still does. Of course it is not being abused anymore, the link can't be added anymore, and the risk, even if not actively promoted by the site, still exists. There is no use of this link outside of The Game and Jonty Haywood, and whitelisting has been applied for that. As such, no Declined. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Economywatch.com

    I would like to request whitelisting this site as it is updated daily with original articles on the economy worldwide. It has thousands of in-depth pages on the economy, economic terms, country profiles and much more. I don't know why it is blacklisted. It could be a valuable source of economics news, data, and explanation of terms if it were whitelisted. Thanks. Patro (talk) 04:50, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I would concur with this request. There was no reason associated with the blacklisting that I can find. Stifle (talk) 13:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    A quick MediaWiki search for "Economywatch.com" indicates this was one of a bunch of sites spammed:
    Related discussions:
    So this was one of a number of related sites that were spammed. The next question is how useful is it to this project? While the site "looks" reliable, there's no information as to who publishes it or what the editorial staff is other than the cryptic "Copyright © Stanley St Labs". Google News does not crawl Economywatch.com's pages. A Google web search turns up just 742 unique hits. A Google search on "Stanley St Labs" turns up a web developer in Singapore, not a news media company. The economywatch.com domain itself is for sale. Meanwhile, this AboutUs.org page seems to identify this domain with Compare Infobase in India. So I'm skeptical that this site is really a reliable source for any of our articles that meets WP:RS. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 04:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Humansfuture.org

    Hello, our website conducts a broad range of programs and activities to promote an understanding of the factors in the social, genetic, biological, medical, physiological and technological fields that may have an impact on the future of mankind.

    There was a huge misunderstanding by a member of the website team who tried to force adding the website to some wikipedia articles by prohibited means, we apologize for what happened and ensure you that such a behavior will not happen again.

    Please remove it from the blacklist.

    Thank you

    --41.232.196.72 (talk) 18:03, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Comment I would not recommend removing this site from the blacklist. For one, there was an obvious attempt to spam links through the use of a series of sockpuppets. This action was compounded by the subsequent use of the "co.cc" redirect service to add more links after "humansfuture" was blacklisted,. Beyond that, however, the site itself does not appear to meet the reliable sources requirements, nor is it particularly useful as a stand-alone link. If we permit these links, the only benefactor would be the website itself. --Ckatzchatspy 20:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Our member believed that the external links removal was an action of a bot and was obsessed about defeating it by trying differnt wrong ways, we have noticed that later and we apologize for it. Our website didnt have any problem in meating the wikipedia requirements when it was added long time ago to the external links of this wiki page:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_transhumanism
    You still can find it there under the name "Future Human Evolution Gateway" and it redirects to our old domain "human-evolution.org", we have just moved that website to this new domain "humansfuture.org" so why is it now considered as unuseful ??? We believe that there is no need to blacklist our website and the wiki pages which have our old link must be corrected to redirect to the new one. Thank you. --41.232.196.72 (talk) 23:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for pointing out the link. As it turns out, that link was added as part of a block of over thirty URLS, by an editor (User:Auroranorth) who has since left the project after an extended series of blocks and "sockpuppet" issues. There is no indication that any of the links were reviewed for appropriateness. --Ckatzchatspy 00:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    You welcome Ckats and just for the record we have no idea about that user "Auroranorth", dont judge the website and its team by an ignorant's mistake, and please be fair because half of the listed websites will not pass if reviewed for appropriateness.

    You have just mentioned earlier that it is possible to use other services to forward to a blocked website, so what is the point of the block after all ?

    We just want it to be removed because it is not good for its reputation and because the site is growing quickly which may allow it to be used someday on wikipedia in a good and useful way, but for now we ensure you that no one of the team will try to add it by any mean. Thank you

    --41.232.196.72 (talk) 02:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Stifle, If that is your way to ensure that no one will ever add any website to wikipedia then why didnt you keep all the other sits in the blacklist too ?

    We believe Ckats has a personal problem with the website or someone of its team, if that is the case please let us know what is wrong in here ?

    --41.232.198.207 (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Please reconsider removing it from the blacklist and if the spamming ever happened again, simply block it FOREVER, OK ?

    --41.232.198.216 (talk) 21:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    rossgarnaut.com.au

    I'd like to request that this website be removed from the blacklist. While the rossgarnaut.com domain is still held by person(s) unrelated to Ross Garnaut (Australian economist and author of the Garnaut Climate Change Review) the Australian domain name has now been purchased by Ross Garnaut and his website has been created and published. The website contains up to date information regarding Ross Garnaut's appointments as well as copies of his economic papers, CV and assorted publications. It is a valuable resource for economics students and the general public interested in the Garnaut Climate Change Review and Ross' work in other areas. It would be much appreciated if it could be whitelisted Garnaut Office (talk) 01:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Can anyone please help with this request? It would be very valuable to be able to have this website as an external link on Ross Garnaut's wiki page. Garnaut Office (talk) 23:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    eu-football.info

    Please, remove this site from blacklist, because it has useful and detailed information.

    This site may be useful for that users who want to get additional detailed information about played matches of the national football team. This unique detailed information contains line-ups with full names of players and their clubs. Users will be thankful to Wikipedia for this link to additional statistics.

    Please, unlist at least one link eu-football.info/_list.php?id=123 at the page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia_national_football_team

    Although there is detailed info about all european national football teams on this site.

    Pleaser09 (talk) 08:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This domain is blacklisted on Meta-Wiki; you can inquire at meta:Talk:Spam blacklist. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:46, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    learningrussian.net

    This site is an educational resource with lessons written by professional language instructors. Wikipedia articles related to Russian study would benefit from unique explanations of Russian grammar and a different angle on the topic. The resource provides content that can expand complex Russian grammar concepts which otherwise would not be explained due to formal wikipedia format. It is unclear why learningrussian.net would be blacklisted as I see nothing wrong with the site.

    www.cais-soas.com

    I don't see why this site is blocked. I wanted to link to http://www.cais-soasFIXME.com/CAIS/History/hakhamaneshian/Cyrus-the-great/cyrus_cylinder_complete.htm which is a scholarly translation of an ancient document. There is something at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/cais-soas.com but I can't understand form that what the problem is. Astarabadi (talk) 10:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    www.tropical-towerwars.co.cc

    I see no reason why this link is spam blacklisted apart from having the domain *co.cc at the end of it. I need to reference TONS of links (in-text citations) within the webpages of www.tropical-towerwars.co.cc in order to bring the notability and verifiability of this article: Tropical Towerwars up to standard, but am unable to do so. If *.co.cc needs to be blacklisted, please add an exception for tropical-towerwars.co.cc and tropical-towerwars.co.cc/* —Preceding unsigned comment added by TeBBuTT85 (talk • contribs) 16:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Some issues here... the site you wish to link to does not appear to meet the reliable sources guideline. Furthermore, we cannot establish notability by referencing the game's support and development forum. You need to find independent sources and reviews to establish notability for the game, which at this point may not even qualify for an article. --Ckatzchatspy 18:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for the advice Ckatz, I can easily find many independent reviews and sources, (I plan to further 'buff' out the article), however my issue here is I still need a few references (at least ONE) to the OFFICIAL fully fledged website (which is much more than a support and development forum), and the site falls under a blacklisted pattern / domain. TeBB

    TeBB, it looks like you have a conflict of interest from looking at your profile at tropical-towerwars.co.cc:
    • www.tropical-towerwars.co.cc/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1
    See our Conflict of Interest rules.
    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    FYI:
    --A. B. (talk • contribs) 20:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Again, thank you for your comments, however you are missing the point. I have over 400 active members in the forum hosted as a side-section on our homepage, that can easily contribute to the article, (see discussion under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tropical_Towerwars where I list tons of relevant independent sources and reviews) but the OFFICIAL website itself is blacklisted! How can you support blacklisting the official site URL/Domain as a source (or not even as a source, but just a MENTION) in the article? Surely it needs to appear somewhere? Its the official website for pete's sake. Even just as an "external" link at the bottom of the page. This section (page) on wikipedia is for discussing the blacklisting of URLs, not for debating the deletion of the article. Even if the article was removed, I could find another place where it could be 'merged' with another article for instance, in which case I would need a reference to the official site, but NO its blocked -_- . Do you see my point? TeBBuTT85 (talk) 21:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    www.army-guide.com

    The barmy-quide blocks it though. Flayer (talk) 12:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Troubleshooting and problems

    Logging / COIBot Instr

    Blacklist logging

    Full Instructions for Admins


    Quick Reference

    For Spam reports or requests originating from this page, use template {{/request|0#section_name}}

    • {{/request|213416274#Section_name}}
    • Insert the oldid 213416274 a hash "#" and the Section_name (Underscoring_spaces_where_applicable):
    • Use within the entry log here.

    For Spam reports or requests originating from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam use template {{WPSPAM|0#section_name}}

    • {{WPSPAM|182725895#Section_name}}
    • Insert the oldid 182725895 a hash "#" and the Section_name (Underscoring_spaces_where_applicable):
    • Use within the entry log here.

    Have added a supplement, a general " how-to of sorts. --Hu12 (talk) 10:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Note: if you do not log your entries it may be removed if someone appeals and no valid reasons can be found.

    Addition to the COIBot reports

    The lower list in the COIBot reports now have after each link four numbers between brackets (e.g. "www.example.com (0, 0, 0, 0)"):

    1. first number, how many links did this user add (is the same after each link)
    2. second number, how many times did this link get added to wikipedia (for as far as the linkwatcher database goes back)
    3. third number, how many times did this user add this link
    4. fourth number, to how many different wikipedia did this user add this link.

    If the third number or the fourth number are high with respect to the first or the second, then that means that the user has at least a preference for using that link. Be careful with other statistics from these numbers (e.g. good user do add a lot of links). If there are more statistics that would be useful, please notify me, and I will have a look if I can get the info out of the database and report it. The bots are running on a new database, Eagle 101 is working on transferring the old data into this database so it becomes more reliable.

    For those with access to IRC, there this data is available in real time. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    poking COIBot

    I notice that sometimes people who are not active on IRC need some link reports. Admins here can now add {{LinkSummary|domain}} to User:COIBot/Poke, when COIBot picks up the edit to that page (and it should), it will put the domains into its reporting queue (high priority, which is, only behind waiting XWiki reports) and create a report on the link(s). The first report should be saved within about 5 minutes, if it takes longer than 15 minutes there is probably something wrong, and it may be useful to add the template with the link again (it reads the added part of the diffs (the right column)), or poke me or another person who is active on IRC personally. Hope this is of help. --Dirk Beetstra T C (en: U, T) 12:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    P.S. Please don't overuse this function, everything still needs to be saved .. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It had some startup problems, but all seems to work fine now. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


    Discussion

    Malicious sites

    Can a site be blacklisted for being malicious? prowrestling.com is one, a Google test shows 6.97% of the pages on the site resulted in malicious content being downloaded to the users computer without their consent. My own personal experience with the site was the same, I would have to run my McAfee security sweep after visiting the site due to the problems the site would cause. Here is the Google report [16]. I have brought this up at the wrestling project and so far they seem to agree about not using this site. TJ Spyke 02:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Sites that are found to be malicious, or host exploits need to be immediatly removed and blacklisted to protect wikipedias users. Another check for this can be found at http://linkscanner.explabs.com/linkscanner/default.aspx . --Hu12 (talk) 19:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Question

    Dont know if this is the right place, hope someone will see this. Was adding a link to the section on Stepfamily. It has been there in the past, but know told that The following link has triggered our spam protection filter: http://www.st

    What the hell.

    The links would have been: s t e p f am i l y . a s n . a u

    s t e p f a m i l y z o n e . c o m .a u

    I can be contact at <email address removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.87.106.232 (talk) 11:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    http://stepfamilyzone.com.au http://stepfamily.asn.au http://www.stepfamilyzone.com.au

    They aren't blacklisted, as can be seen. I'll email the editor. --Abd (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    there was a technical problem which was solved a few minutes after it occurred. -- seth (talk) 17:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, out of this there may have been some improvement to the article. Turns out that the site the IP editor was concerned about had been removed in spite, apparently, by an editor whose own addition had been reverted as linkspam, and it wasn't noticed. The article was also a linkfarm, and some work has been done on that. All's well that ends well. --Abd (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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    Accounts
    203.87.106.232 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
    Seems this anon IP is adding sites that are only from the same site owner, "Stepfamily Association of South Australia Inc" (Adsense confirmed). Administrative Contact is the same also (aka 203.87.106.232)--Hu12 (talk) 07:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Problem

    Resolved
     – It's been fixed --Hu12 (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Dear Administrators, We got a big problem in Spam-blacklist's Turkish page tr:MedyaViki:Spam-blacklist. The problem is, the list doesnt' work. I mean, anyone can write the web page in blacklist with having no problem. Could you please look for the problem and write what the problem is in my user talk page (in Turkish wiki). Greetings from Turkey.--Onurkayabasi (talk) 19:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • You are right, only administrators can edit it. Because of that i requested you to find the problem&solution and write me to make it changed. Im not an administrator but administrators asked me if i could find the problem and tell any solutions for that, but i couldn't find and wanted your help. And i think you can find the problem by looking at the source page. Thanks for sharing your time with this.--Onurkayabasi (talk) 20:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • We found the problem and make the list work again. Thanks for your helps--Onurkayabasi (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia mirrors

    What's the feeling about placing wikipedia mirrors on the blacklist? I know they aren't normally "spammed" by single editors and aren't malicious, but they do tend to show up in articles inserted by well meaning folks and can create circular references. We discussed it on AN but I wanted to kick the real answer back to you guys. Some of these have something on the order of 500-1000 links (probably a lot more if I went through everything on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks) and it might be nice to know that manually removing them wouldn't be in vain after a few months. Thoughts? Protonk (talk) 02:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This is tricky because some of these sites leave editing on and so may become divergent sources in their own right. Any site hosting only static Wikipedia article mirrors is another matter, but most include some kind of embellishment that could be viewed as adding value. I'd say treat them on a case by case basis. Dcoetzee 09:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Is it possible to blocklist internal WMF/interwiki links?

    There's a very banned user (banned WMF-wide, per Jimbo) that keeps popping up here linking back to the one site he's apparently still active on. He will link his sig as an IP user as something like interwikiname:User:Something/Something or interwikiname:User talk:Something/Something. Can this be blocked from here to discourage him or is that not technically possible? rootology (C)(T) 14:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    We used to have MediaWiki:Usernameblacklist... might be an equivelent on meta.wikimedia.org? --Hu12 (talk) 22:50, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Usernames are added to the MediaWiki:Titleblacklist now, (meta). Kylu (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    buddconf.sytes.net

    Is it possible somehow to whitelist (buddconf.sytes.net)? Its a Buddhist conference page filled with materials about Northern european buddhis history .Has nothing to do with commercials or so on. I even dont to whom to talk about it. I,m editing articles - *Friedrich Lustig ,*Guhyasamāja tantra ,*Karl Tõnisson , *The international conference „Buddhism and Nordland , *Alpo Ratia , and I need it for reference . VanemTao. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VanemTao (talk • contribs) 07:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    FortMillHomePros

    fortmillhomepros.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
    and
    fortmillhomepros.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

    buddconf.sytes.net

    Is it possible somehow to whitelist (buddconf.sytes.net)? Its a Buddhist conference page filled with materials about Northern european buddhis history


    Spam filter notice From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

    The spam filter blocked your page save because it detected a blacklisted hyperlink. You will need to remove any instance of the blacklisted link in your text addition before you can save the page. Blacklists are maintained both locally and globally. Before proceeding, please review both lists to determine which one (or both) are affecting you. You can request help removing the link, request that the link be removed from the blacklist, or report a possible error on the local or global spam blacklist talk page. If you'd like to request that a specific link be allowed without removing similar links from the blacklist, you can request whitelisting on the local spam whitelist talk page.

    The following link has triggered our spam protection filter: buddconf.sytes.net Either that exact link, or a portion of it (typically the root domain name) is currently blacklisted.

    If you want to remove the site from the blacklist entirely, please request it in the "proposed removals" above. To use just one or a few pages from the site, please request it in the relevant section of MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. Stifle (talk) 11:55, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    FamousAmericans.net

    This cite seems really good; I need it for a reference for the Benjamin Edes article I'm making. Google search benjamin edes; it's the first result; it's very non-spammy. Daniel Christensen (talk) 00:58, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    It's part of Virtualology.com, it's all about history and stuff; I have NO IDEA how this got blacklisted. Daniel Christensen (talk) 00:58, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    [19], [20] and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive115#Virtualology and Stanley L. Klos -- boon to our historical articles or just a bain of spam?. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:42, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Page size

    Please split discussion into sub pages - the page is very big and cumbersome, and therefore very slow to load and scroll. I'm on a fast connection with a fast PC, and I'm finding it frustrating, so other mortals must be having a torrid experience. Thanks Socrates2008 (Talk) 08:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Without a doubt, something needs to be done here. Set up one of the bots maybe to archive threads older than 5 days or something. 2.5 Mb for a page is way too much. — Ched :  ?  02:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I just archived some sections, which may help. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 04:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Much much better A.B. I would have gone ahead and archived some, but I don't know what you guys are still working on - so I thought it would be better if one of you guys did it. thanks. — Ched :  ?  06:12, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There is also the issue where people have added additions/removals in this level 1 section (Discussion). Perhaps subpages for additions and removals?

    A.B., Stifle, Guy, Dirk, Hu12, and any of the other "regex" geeks, I've got a question to dump in your lap. I did a search as best I could given this sections difficulty at the time, and couldn't find anything. I've noticed that Google Trends (google.com/trends) has been brought up in a few places as a reference, and it begs the OR/SYN policy more often than not. Any way we can get a spam warning of some kind set up for this? I know that there will be times it's re levant, but it may be better to push the exceptions into seeking individual whitelist in the long run. Just a thought, I'll leave it up to you pros to do as you think best. thx. — Ched :  ?  02:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Listing question

    An editor has been creating/editing numerous articles using forum postings on "Voy.com" as refs/ELs (in all likelihood to host copyvios). I've removed them per WP:RS, but the editor simply returns them w/o explanation - I'm not sure this is technically spamming per se, but when clicking individual links leads to malicious site warnings that leads to diagnostic pages like this, I suspect the site requires blacklisting. Is this the right place or is there another blacklist for malicious sites?  Mbinebri  talk ← 00:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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