Wikipedia talk:Spam

Retaliatory idea

user:142.177.etc suggested some stronger measures against corporate shills and the like, such as "no new articles on any commercial enterprises except when scandals occur and the initial article can be entirely or mostly negative in tone - this ensures that any attempts at spamming are likely to be diverted into spin control". Responses follow:

These solutions are not good. While I agree that spam is a problem on Wikipedia because it can lead to biased articles, the solution is to write unbiased articles, not to begin applying different measures to different subjects. Tuf-Kat 03:31, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

One concern that I have about these policies is that someone could post spam posing as one of their competitors, with the hope of negative retaliation. The same currently happens with email spam. -jackson

I dislike these measures. Optim 03:15, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There is now way that the NPOV policy is going to be trumped by an anti-spam policy. At the current time only tin-pot little companies are spamming wikipedia and that is unlikely to change, so its not a big deal. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:24, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't see wikispam as that big of a problem. One must take for granted that the articles in Wikipedia are of uneven quality. Any intelligent person should be able to detect the bias of a wikispam article. Finally, I think articles on products or companies are a useful addition to Wikipedia. pstudier 20:41, 2004 Apr 30 (UTC)

How about adding the message to the top of the page (just like for a stub):
This article is Wikispam. You can help Wikipedia by providing a NPOV.
pstudier 20:56, 2004 Apr 30 (UTC)

This proposal sounds something like adding more plastic wrap and duct tape to our houses every time we're attacked with poison; eventually, we will suffocate ourselves. Let's rewrite every advertising article spammers add with a better, NPOV one. If anything, the spam can motivate us to write. Eurleif 21:03, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Eurleif. There's no reason to have separate policies for spam as opposed to nations, people, or objects. Meelar 01:49, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I found an interesting idea: If an ad is posted as an "article", rewrite it with the fact that the company spammed this article or something. KirbyMeister 18:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

- We can't know it's them. Better to just leave it out. Most companies willing to spam won't deserve articles anyway. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 18:43, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

from pump

I just thought the word wikispam might be a good catch-phrase to describe those dubious and sinister articles that are thinly-veiled commercial solicitations. See Eyeplaygames.com, an article that should be deleted precisely because it is "wikispam". Anyway, I'd be interested to know what wikians think of wikispam, how to make it std. jargon if enough like it (ie add it to some admin page somewhere), or if there's already a word for these types of articles. Alcarillo 06:47, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I like that word, I just added one article at WP:VfD of that kind and used the term for it. There are two kinds of wikispamming I came across so far - one is to create an advertisement article, the other is trying to sneak in external links to the spammer's website. The second one may also just be trying to get a better google ranking by having more incoming links. andy 07:52, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Glad you liked it! Hopefully it will gain further acceptance and be inshrined in wikipedia jargon with its own description. (BTW, this is an example of what's best about wikipedia, and it reminds me why I still come here.) Alcarillo 08:11, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Anyway, I took the lead and created a page describing Wikispam (since merged into wikipedia:spam). Alcarillo 08:28, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Note that the word WikiSpam has been used fairly widely for a few years now, I don't think Alcarillo can claim credit for coining it. -- Tim Starling 01:50, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

Well, apparently not. C'est la guerre. Alcarillo 14:56, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

What's in a name

We call it Wikispam in our discussions; wouldn't it be more accurate to rename the article Wikipedia:Wikispam? We are talking about a different, specific beast altogether: commercial solicitations disguised as wikipedia articles. Just calling this "Spam" isn't entirely correct. Alcarillo 18:04, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

wikipedia:advertising would be less jargony. Martin 22:55, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. wikipedia:advertising isn't as comprehensive. Remember, this category also includes those puff-pieces obviously written by PR hacks, typically used to promote some unknown entertainer. And spam is already understood as unwanted content. Alcarillo 14:34, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the page name 'Wikipedia:Spam' is OK, but I was confused by it, because I followed a link here (from an external website), and didn't realise at first that this was a 'project page'. How about a disambigation sentence?

e.g. This is a 'project page' about spam on wikipedia. See also articles on Spamming and Link spam

-- Halz 14:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

'guideline' message at the top

I was also confused about the 'guideline' message at the top. Anyone know why that is there? The page doesn't really seem like a particulary great guideline (no better than any other page particularly) Maybe it was placed there to settle some edit war. I suggest we remove it, unless anyone knows a reason. -- Halz 14:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Retaliation for SEO spam

Currently our anti-spam system works by ignoring edits containing certain text items. For example, if you try to save a page linking to hukuki dot net, your edit will be ignored. The problem comes when before starting large-scale spamming, the spammer added a few vaguely relevant links to external links sections in various articles. These articles then can't be edited, unless the offending external link is removed. Currently it's necessary to manually search for these links, but I'd like to know the community's opinion on doing this automatically. Presumably some sort of server-side script would search for the links and remove them. I'd also like to add the following statement to this page:

Note to spammers: spamming Wikimedia wikis, including sandboxes, may lead to the automated removal of all links to your site, even those which were in articles before the attack began.

Hopefully this policy will have a deterrent effect. Any thoughts? -- Tim Starling 04:04, Jun 8, 2004 (UTC)

The danger is that sites may spam their competitors sites instead in order to have them removed from Wikipedia. If it's done, I don't think it should be done automatically, or people may start using it purposefully as a way of removing links from the site. Angela . 04:21, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Links should be in an article if they are relevent to the article. They should not be there if they are not. Jdavidb 20:56, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

paperlessarchives dot com wikispam

I am currently tracking down many links in the external links sections (and others) to paperlessarchives dot com. In many cases the regulars of the articles block these out, but many have not been caught. I'm unfamiliar with the mediawiki upgrades for handling wikispam, but I think this site's URL needs to be added into the regex for blocking wikispam. Additionally, a robot-assisted removal would be nice. I could write one, I suppose, but probably lack the time and can better help by removing what I can find.

Can someone please direct me to the appropriate place to submit this URL for wikispam blocking?

If anyone disagrees that this commercial site does not constitute a legitimate external link, by all means please discuss with me here or on my user talk page or wherever is appropriate. Jdavidb 20:52, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've added this request to the new non-development tasks for developers page at Meta. Angela . 19:13, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hukuki

An answer : (altinmas@yahoo.com) - 23.9.2004I'm the owner of -www.hukuki.net- (Turkish Law site) . You think we are spammers. Unfortunately we are not spammers. We add some of articles or rules about wiki to many international pages in their languages. Because they are empty pages. And then we add our link to contact us. It is a mistake for you and for me... Best regards. AND THERE IS NO ATTENTION LIKE THIS: DO NOT ADD YOUR EXTERNAL LINKS TO THIS PAGE ...

You are joking? You added this link to at least 43 Wikipedias and hundreds of other wikis on pages that have nothing to with Hukuki, often pasting in pages in English to other language Wikipedias with your link sneakily hidden in the middle of the text. Hukuki is on dozens of blacklists. I fail to see how you do not regard this as spam. Angela . 19:57, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

He also complained at chongqed.org about being listed as a spammer and asked to be removed. After we pointed out some evidence in Google and told him he would not be removed from the list he started spamming our link as well as several other wikis that list him as a spammer on many non-english wikipedias. The front page of our site gives more details. JoeChongq 06:32, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a link farm ?

Before writing this message, I have browsed through a few Wikipedia: series page to see what was already written on this topic ; I found nothing. More surprisingly, I found very little on the general theme of Wikipedia pollution by unfair use of its articles for Google ranking promotion. This does not seem a "hot" issue, but I fear it could become in a near future as long as Wikipedia gets better known and gets higher (together with its clones) on Google.

Indeed I became aware of the problem when googling http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+asinah&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 to see what was already written about a (non GFDL compliant) Singapurese clone of WP. Look : they have linked about twenty of their pages from WP articles ; in each case, the page is not blatantly irrelevant, simply it is a poor page and indeed in reality a link farm.

Then I have kept looking for similar abuse. Watch out this interesting one (I link to a diff page, since I removed it) : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Tourism&diff=5861245&oldid=5802398 An anonymous user adds two links ; the first one is irrelevant but not shocking ; the second one is blatant self-promotion. Probably naive from a good-faith editor (he also wrote a "real" sentence on a talk page), and not too dangerous (though the links remained more than one week with nobody noticing the problem).

Now, browse through the various links in the "Commercial travel sites" of Tourism. Some are indeed relevant, like http://www.letsgo.com/ . A few others are self-promotion of sites which are in no way nasty, but not remarkable enough to justify a link from a very general encyclopedy page, e.g. http://www.luggage-life.com/. Lastly and more annoyingly, some are simply there to help link farms sucking Google ranking, see http://www.asinah.net/ (the WP clone which made me conscious of the problem) or http://www.insidetraveltips.com/, still more blatant.

What should be done ? Nothing, hoping that I overestimate the danger and that this kind of parasiting can be contained by the editors as teenager vandalism is effectively contained ? Listing offender domaine names and forbidding external links towards them ? Adding a "nofollow" tag in WK pages, finding another way to have our articles archived ? Something else ? --French Tourist 12:48, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

We already, controversially, ban links to a number of locations where active link-farmers were hitting us. It's controversial because it causes problems when editing some real pages and because it's easy to work around it. Wikipedia is an effective device for artifically raising page rank, but is also an important source for Google of authoritative links. At this point, we pretty much hope that the usual wiki process will take care of such links (often, once such a user is noticed once, their other contributions will be checked and all their changes are then easy to revert.) Derrick Coetzee 23:13, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is an issue that I have an interest in. I've been building a website, schema-root.org that is an encyclopedia of current events. It currently has over 3,000 page topics, each with its own current news feed, links to main stream news sources that relate to the topic, and pre-defined google searches against topic-relevant resource sites. As a matter of fact, Wikipedia is a "root" level resource for my site; so links to specific Wikipedia pages appear on any of my pages where my page-defined google search argument finds Wikipedia content. My site has very good Google pagerank generally, and it receives several hundred hits a day coming from Google searches, as well as several hundred more that come from Yahoo, MSN and approximately 100 other search engines. I'm mentioning this because I believe it indicates that my site is generally taken seriously. Anyway, on about a dozen Wikipedia pages I had put "external links" to related pages on my site. This seemed completely above-board to me, since my pages are resource rich pages with current news, and each was specifically relevant to the Wikipedia page in question. However I received a notice accusing me of spamming, and self promotion, and a recommendation to "quit while you are ahead." However, only two of my links were actually removed. From the remaining pages, I get 30 to 40 hits each day. So apparently at least some Wikipedia users are finding them useful. My question is this: Is Wikipedia interested in preventing any one site, like mine, from getting too much exposure on Wikipedia, even if the external links add considerable value to the encyclopedia? John Tinker 03:55, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

self promotion is often considered spam even if it add something usefull to the article. even if you legitametely belive that your resource on something is of a sufficiantly high quality and/or relavence to be listed in the article then you should get at least a second opinion before going forward. Plugwash 16:58, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Internal spamming

I think DV wanted to discuss this - it's come up w.r.t. the arbcom elections, and possibly other cases. Certainly something I think we should think about. That's not to say we necessarilly need to make any actual policies about it. Martin 23:45, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On second thoughts, since DV has (ironically) been cross-posting his views about excessive cross-posting, I've taken the liberty of consolidating all this onto Wikipedia talk:Spam/arbcom elections.

Other situations that have involved "internal spam": adminship/bureaucratship candidates inviting support for their nominations, critics trying to mobilize opposition, and editors in a dispute recruiting new participants, especially when a survey/poll is involved. With respect to this last case in particular, some people have complained about "selective spamming" to those likely to be sympathetic to the spammer's perspective, even though this practice is fairly common and it should not be surprising that few people feel inclined to "get out the other side's vote". So these are some of the situations that can be considered in formulating any kind of internal spam policy. --Michael Snow 02:53, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Culture of brazil article

(http://www.ju li and i bbell.com/brazil/brazil.html Julian Dibbel) is a englishman who lived in brazil many years and wrote fantastic, profound and light hearted essays on brazilian culture, specially the (http://www.juli andi bbel l.com/texts/brasilia.html) mysticisms of brasilia, (http://www.juli an di bbell.com/tex ts/ gil_tropicalismo.html)tropicalismo, and even http://www.wired.com/wired/arc hive/12.11/linux.html open-source soft

I can't add those links on the article. our spam filter thinks nice guy dibbel is a spammer. How do I fix it?--Alexandre Van de Sande 22:45, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Automated posting to user talk pages

I wonder if I could start a discussion here that would hopefully lead to a specific policy on whether we want to allow the use of bots to mass-post on user talk pages. This has come up as the result of the recent mass-posting run by Rambot (information here, here and here), which seems the first use of a bot to mass-post on user-pages. (On the other hand, it's also been suggested that this is already covered by existing bot policy.) PRiis 01:09, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've just posted this to User_talk:Anthony_DiPierro#Wording_of_bots_clause_on_spamming, but I'll also copy and paste it here because it's absolutely relevant to this topic:

Hi Anthony, With the proposal on Wikipedia:Spam about bots, would you consider rewording it to be something like "Don't use a bot to post to talk pages, unless the message left by the bot clearly relates to the content in that specific article"? The reason for this qualification is LinkBot, which I'm revising now so that it'll leave a 2 line message on talk pages, pointing to a specific LinkBot user page, and that page in turn will contain specific link suggestions just relevant to that article. In other words, I'm trying to walk a line between not annoying people by filling up the talk page with suggestions, but on the other hand I also want to let them know that there are suggestions, that are specific just to that particular article. I don't think that should be considered spam, because it's completely consistent with the whole purpose of a talk page (defined as: 'a special Wikipedia page containing discussion about the contents of its associated "subject" page'). Suggesting links specific to that page is completely in keeping with the whole reason for having talk pages (this then becomes a discussion about whether the Wikipedia should even have talk pages, not about whether link suggestions should be placed on those pages). Note that I'm more than happy for there to be a spam policy, as long as the language of the policy is specific enough that bots leaving messages that are consistent with the purpose of talk pages could not be accused of being spammers. Sorry for waffling on, and I hope that I've made sense! :-) All the best, -- Nickj 01:32, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Doh! PRiis's message was about user talk pages, not general talk pages, so it's not as on-topic as I first thought ... Sorry! All the best, -- Nickj 01:37, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's unclear to me just how this would work. If you're posting the exact same link to all these talk pages, I don't think it's a very good idea. anthony 警告 02:11, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No problem, please let me explain. It'll be a different link for each talk page. Probably the best way to illustrate is with a mock-up example, rather than discussing it in the abstract. Please see Talk:Abraham_Lincoln#Link_suggestions for such an example of what's being proposed. So what you get is a brief note on the talk page, pointing to a customized page with link suggestions that are just specific to that particular article. I hope I'm explaining this OK! :-) All the best, -- Nickj 02:56, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's pretty neat. As an obNitPick, dancing is not a verb :). (User:Nickj/Link Suggester calls it one) anthony 警告 03:04, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Because dancing is both a noun and a verb? (e.g. in "I was dancing" dancing is part of the verb, whereas in "I hate dancing", hate is the verb and dancing is the noun) ... Good point. OK, I've changed it to "suggesting", a transitive verb (i.e. it's incomplete without a direct object), so it shouldn't have this problem. All the best, -- Nickj 03:38, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bleh, I'm a moron. OK... Dancing is (at least, can be) a verb. I was thinking of the noun. Incidently, it's probably used more often as a noun, but I'm still a moron for not thinking of the verb. :) anthony 警告 03:45, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hey, as you said to me, no need for personal attacks :) All the best, -- Nickj 04:05, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ah, internal spambots. Frankly, if you can't take the time to write me a message yourself, and if I didn't specifically ask you to do something to my user talk page, keep your ~~insert expletive here, where I removed it~~ bot off of my user talk page. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:22, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Malfunctioning spam filter

Has anyone else had problems with the wiki spam filter? Every once in awhile, it seems to go on the blink and start blocking a bunch of legitimate links. 69.243.41.28 02:28, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

Recently someone posted a substantially identical message on over 50 user talk pages. Immediate issues aside (it was an attempt to pack a vote) it concerns me that there is no policy explicitly saying you can't round up a targetted list of talk pages (user talk, article space talk, whatever) and spamming substantially identical text on them.

This may be something that will be more important in future than it is now--such spamming is rare and sometimes done by hand (although sometimes it has been done using a bot).

I'd like to canvas for ideas on whether this kind of thing merits new policy, or whether existing policy is sufficient to treat any abuses that might arise. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:10, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we have any existing policy that consensus agrees covers this issue. I also don't think that a hard-limit would work on its own as I can see people attmepting to get around this by posting the messages to a batch of (limit-1) pages, substantially rephrasing it and then doing another batch of (limit-1) pages. Thryduulf 13:14, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Problem is that some people are interested in things that are put on a large number talk pages (colabiration of the week is the first example to come to mind). I'd like to see template nospam become inforced by policy with admins being left to decide if something is spamGeni 15:09, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we could implement some system were users themselves decide what they want to stay informed about? Spam is by definition unwanted, but with this kind of messages it's kinda hard to find out. On the other hands, mailings from the COTW are useful and shouldn't be restricted by such rules. Mgm|^(talk) 18:44, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

That's what WP:Watch is aiming to achieve, at least partly. violet/riga (t) 18:51, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But I don't want to know about every COTW I just want to know if the one I voted on won so I know I should do some work on itGeni 20:39, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to see a "template nospam" system because it gives the yellow light to spammers. Why should I *have* to put something on my talk page, which a spammer would ignore anyhow, just to say I don't want spam? Of course I don't want spam, few sane people do! --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:51, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that not all mass messageing (and mass messageing is really what we are dealing with) is spam.Geni 01:02, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If a problem editor is sending unsolicited bulk messages (either very large numbers, or repeated mailings) shouldn't it be possible to use the regular dispute resolution mechanisms? Certainly it seems like a breach of Wikiquette and maybe WP:POINT and so forth. ArbCom can impose anything up to a hard ban on users who do this sort of thing, I would imagine, depending on how disruptive the acts were. Less egregious offenders might be allowed only a certain number of user talk page edits per day, or a ban on sending substantially similar messages to more than one or two users.

If someone is sending the same message to lots of people—but none of them are complaining—then we don't seem to have a problem. Do we? If the objection is because the mass messaging is encouraging a cohort of editors to act in concert for some bad-faith objective, that is a fit subject for RfC or arbitration. Again, a ban on mass-messaging might be appropriate under such circumstances within the framework of a larger solution. But again no new rules need be created. Policy creep is to be avoided! As Thruyduulf notes, such a policy would likely have loopholes anyway, and we'd be back where we started. --TenOfAllTrades | Talk 04:37, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. I was one of the spammed people - my annoyance was because the poster had not bothered to check that I had already done what he was asking me to do. -- Arwel 16:58, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I strongly agree that policy creep is a major consideration--which is why I'm not at the stage of saying "all talk page spamming is utterly evil." My problems with using this method to coordinate campaigns are pretty much solved by Violetriga's excellent (and timely!) WP:W. If I see people spamming I'll simply recommend that they use that more benign and equitable method instead. Factionalization and politicking are much bigger issues than spamming which is why I'm deliberately separating them out from this proposal--there are many good, noncontentious reasons to want to contact a group of people, so the question is just whether we could or should reach agreement on the when and the where. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:11, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How not to be a spammer

There was a case recently on our article Spyware where a new user posted a large number of links to pages on his own commercial Web site. This was interpreted by other editors (including myself) as an act of spamming.

The user professed to have good intentions, as his Web site is indeed somewhat useful. I suspect that he simply did not know the standards of content expected here, and expected that adding links to what he regarded as useful material would be eagerly received. He didn't, in other words, realize that his action (adding a large number of links to the same site) would be interpreted as spam.

I'd like to suggest a few guidelines on how not to be a spammer. -- or, in other words, how to mention a Web site or other resource without appearing to the Wikipedia community that you are trying to abuse Wikipedia for self-promotion.

Review your intentions. Wikipedia is not a space for the promotion of products, Web sites, fandoms, ideologies, or other memes. If you're here to tell readers how great something is, or to get exposure for an idea or product that nobody's heard of yet, you're in the wrong place. Likewise, if you're here to make sure that the famous Wikipedia cites you as the authority on something (and possibly pull up your sagging PageRank) you'll probably be disappointed.
Contribute cited text, not bare links. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a link farm. If you have a source to contribute, first contribute some facts that you learned from that source, then cite the source. Don't simply direct readers to another site for the useful facts; add useful facts to the article, then cite the site where you found them. You're here to improve Wikipedia -- not just to funnel readers off of Wikipedia and onto some other site, right? (If not, see #1 above.)
The References section is for references. A reference directs the reader to a work that the writer(s) referred to whilst writing the article. It isn't just a list of related works; it is specifically the list of works used as sources. Therefore, it can never be correct to add a link or reference to References sections if nobody editing the text of the article has actually referred to it.
Don't make a new article for your own product or Web site. Most often, when a person creates a new article describing their own work, it's because the work is not yet notable enough to have attracted anyone else's attention. Articles of this sort are known as vanity pages and are usually deleted. Wikipedia does indeed have articles about popular products and Web sites, but it is not acceptable to use Wikipedia to popularize them.
Don't gratuitously set off our spam radar. There are certain stylistic behaviors that will say "spam!" loud and clear to anyone who's watching:
- Adding a link to the top of an unordered list. This is an A-number-1, red-flag, hot-button spam sign. It suggests that you want people to look at your link FIRST FIRST FIRST! You wouldn't butt in at the head of a queue; don't put your link first.
- Adding a link that's snazzier than any of the others. If there's a list of products that gives just their names, and you add a product with a short blurb about how great it is, we'll all know why you did it.
- Adding many links to (or mentions of) the same site or product. Going through an article and adding the name of your product to every paragraph where it seems relevant is just going to attract the revert button.
- Adding the same link to many articles. The first person who notices you doing this will go through all your recent contributions with an itchy trigger finger on the revert button. And that's not very much fun.

Thoughts? --FOo 21:49, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal updated in light of the below discussion on vanity. --FOo 03:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is very hard to deal with spammers, they have no reason to follow any guidelines except promoting their site. The guidelines are right but target audience won't read it. Pavel Vozenilek 22:55, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The target audience is not concerted spammers, but rather users who do not understand Wikipedia etiquette. There have been at least a few cases of well-intentioned users whose actions were interpreted as spam, but who did not intend to spam and who changed their ways when corrected. The recent case on Spyware should be illustrative.

Calling a spammer a spammer will not change his behavior, nor will asking him not to spam. In that, you are correct. However, a user who doesn't realize that his contemplated actions constitute "spamming" by our standards, can be educated. I do not propose to teach malicious spammers the error of their ways. I propose rather to use the opprobrium of the term "spammer" to teach well-intentioned new users to do better. --FOo 23:23, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On vanity

You say Don't make an article for your own product or Web site. These are called vanity articles, and they're automatically eligible for deletion. Wikipedia does indeed have articles about popular products and Web sites, but it is not acceptable to use Wikipedia to popularize them. This is not strictly accurate. If Bill Gates choses to add an article about a Microsoft product (or about himself) it is not automitaccly delatable for that reason. If a subject is suitible for an article, it doesn't matter who adds it. The problem is that most articles added by people about themselves or their own projects, products, or buisnesses are not notable, and would and should be deleted no matter who adds them. The fact that the creator adds the article makes it look more suspicious, yes. but this needs to be reworded. DES 00:50, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is not a problem for a person to contribute to a page on themselves or their own work, as in the Gates/Microsoft example you describe. Nor does such a contribution transform an otherwise notable article into a vanity page.

However, vanity page is listed on the deletion policy as a grounds for deletion. In regards to deletion, Wikipedia:Vanity page states as follows:
Vanity pages are usually sent to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Deletion of the page normally ensues, although sometimes it may be moved to the user's user-page. Even famous Wikipedians have had pages about them judged to be vanity pages and deleted.

I believe this supports the above contention that vanity articles are eligible for deletion. I don't mean that they must be deleted or that they are candidates for speedy deletion; rather, I mean that may be reasonably nominated for deletion; a person listing a vanity page on VfD is doing something both acceptable and expected. --FOo 01:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if the following phrasing might work better:
Don't make an article for your own product or Web site. Most often, when a person creates a new article describing their own work, it's because the work is not yet notable enough to have attracted anyone else's attention. Articles of this sort are known as vanity pages and are usually deleted. Wikipedia does indeed have articles about popular products and Web sites, but it is not acceptable to use Wikipedia to popularize them.
Now that text I would endorse. It was just the previous wording which implied -- or seemed to me to imply -- that any text by a person about that person or his or her own work was automatically vanity. Most such are, but not all.DES 01:52, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise, this item could just be dropped from the guideline. Vanity pages are usually a separate phenomenon from Wiki-spam -- while sometimes an editor creates a vanity page and spams links to it across many pages, it seems more common to simply spam links to an external site. --FOo 01:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, my own policy is that if I think something I wrote elsewhere is worth being linked from an article, I mention it on the relevant talk page, I'm clear that it's my work, and invite people to link if they think it is useful. Sometimes someone does, sometimes not, which is fine. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:09, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

This is a great suggestion. What do you think of this phrasing?

If your product is truly relevant to an article, others will agree -- try the talk page. We usually recommend that editors be bold in adding directly to articles. But if the above advice makes you concerned that others will regard your contribution as spam, you can find out without taking that risk: Describe your work on the article's talk page, asking other editors if it is relevant.

--FOo 05:13, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now that is a suggestion that I like. --Paul Laudanski 15:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The text looks great to me. Be bold, and add it to wikipedia namespace at a page like Wikipedia:How not to be a spammer... JesseW

Done. --FOo 05:11, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Potemkin villages

This may be interesting to those watching this page: Talk:Department of Motor Vehicles Rl 08:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re-merged

After development and approval at Wikipedia:How not to be a spammer, this guideline has been merged into Wikipedia:Spam. --FOo 22:55, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Third kind of wikispam

The article says there are two types of wikispam: advertisements masquerading as articles, and wide-scale external link spamming.

I think there is a third kind: Adding a link to your companys website on the Wkipedia page about the field of your business. For example, I just reverted these two: [1], [2] --Apoc2400 20:32, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect this was omitted because of the frequent perception that "spam" involves a message repeated many times. I happen to agree with you, though: Wikipedia is a popular enough resource that adding an irrelevant link for the purpose of driving traffic to a site should be considered, if not "spam", then something very similar. "Vanity linking", we could call it, but we might as well just say "spam". --FOo 22:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

my changes

Today I made some changes but they were removed because they were considerd too major to happen without discussion. (I don't know how to link these edits, can someone link them for me?) The current linking policy doesn't describe when you should link to blogs. It recommends incoportating information rather than adding externals, but the value of a blog is it's dynamic nature... So such a practice is not possible. 12.111.139.2 01:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Spam is a policy page. That means it is intended to reflect a consensus or established understanding of accepted practice among Wikipedia editors. A major change made without any discussion is not going to reflect a consensus or established understanding. Take a look at how the Wikipedia:How not to be a spammer guidelines were integrated into this policy -- with advice and consensus from other contributors, organized via the talk pages.

It is hardly ever appropriate for a person who has violated a policy to come around and change the policy page so it seems like they didn't violate it. Remember, the real policy is the consensus understanding among other editors -- not what the page says. Policy pages are not law that can be amended by editing the page; they are descriptions of what policy is. So changing the page doesn't change the fact that you broke (or perhaps merely bent) the rules. Trying to do so is taken as a sign of bad faith, which is why you got repeated warnings on your talk page.

There is rarely any reason for a non-logged-in user to try to contribute to Wikipedia policy discussons. Go get yourself an account. It's free, and it means we can think of you by a username rather than thinking of you as "yet another random IP address with no name, probably a vandal."

Repeatedly adding a link that other editors have removed, without discussing it and waiting for others to respond in support, is considered bad behavior here. Whether it's useful to call that "spam" or simply "revert warring" is another matter. In either event, it is unacceptable behavior, and it is not going to get you anywhere here. --FOo 03:57, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

External links criteria and lyrics sites

Many external links are links to sites such as lyrics or guitar tab pages. I'm trying to decide whether these could be considered spam.

Argument that such links are spam:

The same site can appear in many different articles.
Often such sites are low-quality or commercial or ad-based sites.

Arguments that such links are not spam:

Such links are useful to each individual article.

What do other users think? DDerby | Talk 19:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, any site that has something to do with the individual, whether they contain something that is in the article or not (unless it's virtually identical) should be considered valid to the artist and fans. I.e., this is especially in the case of tabs and lyric sites that may have Google ads on them, but otherwise contain relevant content. But it is also relative to the case whereby a site may not add much to the article, but may be used as a reference so that someone may conveniently access information that won't change as much as articles that are commonly changed one way or another by maybe vandalism and edit wars. It's difficult to trust some of the information any more by articles on celebrities where of course these types of external links would be placed. That said, low quality, high commercial sites should be removed promptly. Drdr1989 20:51, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Two facts I'd like to toss in about this issue:

Many lyrics sites are copyright violators. Songwriters hold the copyright on published song lyrics, and reprinting them without permission is a copyright violation. Reprinting them for commercial gain (by carrying advertisements on a lyrics site) can be a criminal offense. Compare the issue of Wikipedia mirror sites: we expect that sites which mirror Wikipedia content will do so in a way that is compliant with our copyright license. Wikipedia is harmed by mirror sites which use our content, plastered with ads, in violation of our license. We should not use sites which are engaging in similar offenses as a resource.
1. Corollary: Lyrics sites will not last long. Any given lyrics site is likely to eventually be taken down as a copyright infringer. Therefore, they do not form good references for Wikipedia's purposes -- they are not long-lasting.
Lyrics sites are frequently commercial (ad-sponsored) sites which are likely to wish to use Wikipedia to drive up their Google PageRank or otherwise to drive traffic to their sites. Any systematic pushing of a given lyrics site is likely to represent a commercial spamming activity against Wikipedia.

In short, I think links to lyrics sites should be regarded with a heaping helping of suspicion. First off, commercial (ad-sponsored) lyrics sites are likely operating in violation of criminal law. Second, Wikipedia contributors are copyright holders and expect the protection of copyright, and so should not help copyright violators as a matter of equity. Third, links to lyrics sites are likely to be added for the purpose of driving revenue to those sites, which is equivalent to spamming Wikipedia. --FOo 22:27, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Need more specific criteria as to what constitutes spam

The criteria are not defined clearly enough to provide unambiguous guidance as to what constitutes spam. Is it the intent of the writer that determines it, or is it some objective aspect of the article? Theoretically, you could write about any small or medium-sized company, or non-ubiquitous commercial product, and people could regard it as spam. It is rather frustrating for those whose articles get put up for AFD when they had no intent to spam. 24.54.208.177 04:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's why we added the How not to be a spammer section -- to provide some guidelines about what things frequently get identified as spam. The purpose is both to deter spammers (by letting them know we're onto them) and to help non-spammers keep their articles from being mistaken for spam.

Nonetheless, any article can get listed on AfD. If it's really not spam, it shouldn't be too hard to convince people there of it. In the case of the DoYouDo article, it looks like there was some malfeasance in the AfD including (what's claimed to be) deletion of other people's comments, so I don't think that's likely to be a very good basis to argue for policy changes. Generally as soon as there's sneakiness going on, people are a lot less likely to believe assertions about intent.

If you're looking for a set of clear-cut content rules that you can follow and thereby guarantee that nobody's allowed to call the result spam or try to get it deleted, you aren't gonna find one. We don't have too many of that kind of rules here. We have a lot of recommendations and guidelines (like this one) and procedures (like AfD).

To answer your question, "Is it the intent of the writer that determines it, or is it some objective aspect of the article?" -- it's neither, in a way. Wikipedia is run by rough consensus. Wikipedia guidelines (such as this one) describe what consensus seems to have settled upon. If people object to an article because it comes across as promoting a product rather than describing something notable neutrally, then they're likely to try to get it deleted as spam. This is a feature, not a bug; it's part of how Wikipedia maintains its neutrality; by public review. --FOo 05:47, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Judging from this version of that article, I'd consider it notable, if only because someone apparently paid almost two million dollars for it. My advice is to restart that article with a lead section that documents the most notable aspects of the company -- the focus in the version I linked to appears to be the technology behind a website that apparently doesn't exist anymore, and who wants to read about that? Start off talking about what makes it notable, and I'd vote to keep. Of course, I can't guarantee there won't be consensus to delete it anyway, so if you don't want to waste your time on something that may go away soon, then don't. I agree with Fubar though that spam ought not be specifically described; we should discuss borderline cases, like this one, and come to a consensus. Tuf-Kat 07:21, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really desirable to include something as subjective as "spam" as a legitimate reason for article deletion? In my opinion, in a case of suspected spam it would be better to either delete as "non-notable" or add an NPOV notice to the article. NPOV can be fixed by adding more content to balance out the article; non-notability can't. 205.217.105.2 12:04, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One rule of thumb I use is that anonymous users whose edit histories consist of 95-100% edits to add articles about or links to sites deemed spamming have no standing in the discussion. People need to show that they are committed to Wikipedia by making a number of unambiguously non-spamming beneficial edits if they want that kind of respect. People who clearly have only one purpose, adding in references to their favorite site or company, don't hold opinions about what is and is not spam that hold any weight. Jdavidb 13:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the text of the article to read:

Since there can be a fine line between articles that are promotional and those that are simply informational, it is better to avoid listing "spam" or "advertisement" as the sole basis for article deletion. Articles posted on Wikipedia about products, companies, bands, etc. that do not meet established notability criteria can be dealt with by listing them on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion as "non-notable."

205.217.105.2 16:43, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If the subject of an article is a notable company, product, or service, then yes, the correct way to address an article that reads like an advertisement is cleanup (e.g. {{advert}}, {{NPOV}}, or {{cleanup-tone}}) not deletion, with the exception that one always applies Copyright Judo to delete/rollback copyrighted advertisements. When the subject is notable, dealing with advertising becomes a matter of adhering to the neutral point of view policy and using an appropriate tone for an encyclopaedia article, both of which are cleanup matters, not deletion matters. Uncle G 01:45, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Delete. Spam" and "Delete. Advertisement"

I don't think we should encourage people to put articles up for deletion, or vote Delete, just because they start out as an advertisement. To take an extreme example, suppose a Microsoft marketer writes a glowing Wikipedia article about the company, detailing its great products and service and all the great things people are saying about it. In my opinion, that should not merit deletion; it should be revised to make it NPOV. What matters is notability, and the guideline should clarify that it is better in the case of an advertisement to: (1) If it is a non-notable subject, AFD it for non-notability; or, (2) If it is notable, rewrite it to be NPOV. The text that Aaron Brenneman reinstated[3], says "Advertisements posted on Wikipedia should be dealt with by listing them on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion." Even though below, it says, "It is also possible, and appropriate in some cases, to rewrite the article from a neutral point of view," it doesn't really specify what those cases are. I like Plugwash's clarification better, which says, "If an article is about a notable company or product but is written like an advertisement, it is more appropriate, to rewrite the article from a neutral point of view." 24.54.208.177 13:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And I don't think anonymous editors who show up and generate said advertisement articles should have much of a say in the matter.

If an article can be NPOV'ed, and there's someone around who wants to and has time to NPOV it, great. I have personally seen some AFD requests turn into NPOV'ing of the article, and everyone benefits. But just because some vandal shows up to advertise his company does not obligate us to put "clean up this guy's mess" on our todo list. If nobody can or wants to NPOV it, we're going to delete it. Wikipedia is not a blank wall for people to put their billboards up on. We are justly and rightly angry when people try to use it for advertising. People who come by for a day and plant their advertising have no say on the subject; the people who remain have every right to clean up the mess. Jdavidb 14:49, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thoroughly agreed. We need to recognize that spamming Wikipedia is not a good-faith attempt to contribute an encyclopedia article. It is an abuse of the medium, just as spamming email, blog comments, or instant messages are abuses of those media.

What the anonymous contributor (who has been accused of spamming) suggests is that spam should be treated like NPOV problems. I suggest that spam should instead be treated like vandalism. Both spam and vandalism are disruptive abuses of the Wiki system. They occur when someone posts to Wikipedia for purposes contrary to the goal of producing an encyclopedia: in the vandalism case, they have the goal of disrupting or simply of seeing their name or words "in print"; in the spam case, of making money by diverting people to their Web site or product.

We don't respond to vandalism by "attempting to NPOV it." We just revert or delete it; and administrators block people who continually vandalize. Spamming should be treated the same way -- revert or delete the content, and block people who persistently spam. --FOo 17:27, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What is with the ad hominem attacks? No one has any evidence at all that I have spammed. Moreover, the articles that I created that were supposedly spam appear about to survive their respective AFDs (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DoYouDo and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ECRUSH. I think incorrect assumptions were made as to my motives. That's the problem with AFD'ing articles based on who created them or what their motives might have been; sometimes, you're bound to be wrong. By the way, I am the primary author of pet skunk, cannabis rescheduling in the United States, Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Convention on Psychotropic Substances, as well as wildlife crossing and numerous other articles that are not featured – they just weren't created under this IP address. So, I have made plenty of contributions. In short, just judge articles on their merits, and not based on the author. When we delete articles, it should be based on non-notability, copyvio, and other criteria that can be established reasonably objectively. "Spam" is too subjective. Just my opinion. I just don't like to see people try to undo my work because for no good reason, they think I'm a spammer. 24.54.208.177 02:07, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an ad hominem attack. It's an assertion of a lack of credibility. The fact that articles you created are currently embroiled in AFD proceedings means we're less likely to feel you're making a good faith attempt to improve Wikipedia in this policy discussion, rather than an attempt to ensure the success of your (possibly spam) articles. If your articles survive AFD, that certainly improves your credibility. In addition, it proves that things are already the way you want them to be: your non-spam articles survive AFD, and all is good. The fact that they underwent AFD is not a problem; it just means that several editors looked at the article to decide if it really belongs here. That is exactly what we want! Not all AFD requests result in deletion; that is as it should be. It doesn't mean the person who put the article up for AFD is "wrong." It just means we needed to take a collectively look at that article.

Your credibility could certainly be enhanced if you would create an account and log in, and allow your edit history to accrue your accomplishments. Somebody coming from a random IP address and concerned about our standards for what is and not spam certainly looks suspicious. Somebody with an account who has been here awhile and created several visibly good articles is much more worth listening to. It's not our fault you've chosen to allow your edit history to be dispersed among several anonymous IP addresses. That's your choice.

We do judge articles based on their merits. An article that is deleted for being spam is generally also non-notable (and/or a copyvio or whatever). Jdavidb 17:07, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Except that things often labelled "spam" here are a mix of two different things. 1) Attempts to promote non-notable companies, products or organizations; 2) Attempts to promote notable companies, products or organizations. The first should be delted, but the second should (ideally) be converted into NPOV articles. Simple linkspamming (i.e. addign links that do not enhance articels, and are often of dubious relevance) is vandalism and is normally reverted as asuch. Simuilarly an article that is little or nothing but a promotional link is already subject to speedy deletion under A3. But an articel with significant content, but a highly promotional tone, is another matter. Perhaps it should be deleted, but perhaps it should be rewitten -- and IMO only a consensus procvess such as AfD can make that decision. Thus a general speedy deletion criterion for "spam" would IMO be a mistake. DES ^(talk) 17:34, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

DES makes a good point -- there are certainly going to be cases where we want an article about some company or product (since it is notable) but where the article is created as a spam article first. In these cases, I agree that we do not want to refuse to cover the company or product just because it was spammed about. We want there to be a non-spam article, even though the article was created as spam.

However, I think deletion or speedy deletion of the spam article can be a step in the process. Just because a spam article entitled Foocorp is speedy-deleted, doesn't prevent someone from creating a non-spam article under the same title. Deletion of spam articles about notable companies or products could be accompanied by listing the title at WP:RA, for instance.

My reading of DES's suggestion is that spam articles about notable subjects should not be deleted; they should be left up until someone gets around to "NPOVing" them. (If that's a mistaken reading, please correct me.) I don't see why the spam should be left up at all. NPOVing a lengthy spam article is more time-consuming than speedy-and-WP:RA, and so DES's suggestion is more likely to yield ill-gotten gains for the spammer in the meantime.

I'll freely admit I have a hardcore attitude towards spam. I think it's necessary to deter spammers by making it clear that spamming Wikipedia is a waste of time -- that they will be denied the ability to extract any benefit by doing so, and will just get themselves in trouble. Deleting the spam article (and allowing or encouraging others to create a non-spam article) seems to me to be the best way to do this. --FOo 18:31, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't intend to say that "spam articles about notable subjects" should be "left up until someone gets around to "NPOVing" them". My feeling is that spam articles should be taken to AfD, not speedied, assuming they don't qualify under an existing CSD such as A3. In the course of an AfD, if the subject is notable, it may well get cleaned up promptly. If the subject is notable but a prompt cleanup does not happen a consensus may form to leave it up (perhaps with a suitable clean up tag, and active links removed, to avoid rewarding the spammer) or to delete it, depending on the exact circumstances involved. If the subject is deeemd not-notable, i would expect it to be delted no matter how it gets cleaned up. In short I think AfD offers the needed flexability and time to develop a proper way of dealing with such thinngs case-by-case. Things that don't need this should already be speedy deleteable under G1 or A3. DES ^(talk) 18:41, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK! This sounds pretty reasonable to me. --FOo 20:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I understood DES' point was to use AFD instead of speedy for spam, but that's what I usually do anyway unless something is just complete junk. The Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion don't mention spam, though they do permit speedy-deleting an article that consists of nothing but an external link. IMO, DES is warning of a mistake that is not made that often. Jdavidb 19:01, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was interpreting this as part of an argument to add a speedy delete criterion for spam -- or for (IMO) mis-using the existing speedy criteria (mostly Patent nonsense or vandalism) to speedy delete articles. There are surely a number of editors who have advocated using speedy delete for most or all spam. I was not really responding to the question of whether on AfD a person ought to vote for deletion purely or largely on the basis of whether an article started as, or is currently percived as, spam. IMO that involves enough case-by-case judgement that I don't find a general rule useful. I hope that calrifies my comments a bit. DES ^(talk) 19:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should be able to speedy delete an article on a company with little meaningful content and no assertion of notability in precisely the same circumstances under which it would be allowed for an article on a person. Is there a reason the two are different in this context? -- SCZenz 18:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unacceptable conduct by User:24.54.208.177

Several people have attempted to communicate to this user that they are not to make controversial alterations to a Wikipedia policy or guideline page without establishing consensus first. Wikipedia guidelines are supposed to reflect consensus among editors. Therefore, altering a guideline to bring it in line with one's own preferences without consulting other editors is simply a form of deceit: it is creating the false appearance that the alteration has been agreed upon, by placing it under the heading of a Wikipedia guideline.

So far, the clue has not sunk in. This user persists in reverting the guideline page to a version which does not represent the consensus of editors in discussion. It doesn't seem to reflect anyone's position other than that of an anonymous user ... a person who created some articles that a number of people considered spammy, and therefore seems to have a vested interest in altering the rules against spam.

I consider User:24.54.208.177's reverting to be unacceptable conduct for a Wikipedia editor. I invite him/her to demonstrate some good faith: quit reverting. Either convince us that your changes to this guideline are worthwhile, or quit trying to change the rules. --FOo 20:44, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All right, I'll leave it alone. 205.217.105.2 20:59, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I encourage users to make use of the advert tag as a substitute for AFD of suspected advertisements. 24.54.208.177 02:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

noindex, nofollow

Why don't they just added noindex, nofollow to the tags of all external links? That way, if any spam, borderline spam or otherwise bad links were put on Wikipedia, they wouldn't be promoted by Wikipedia's PageRank. Nathan J. Yoder 03:59, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand, "they" already do. --DDerby-(talk) 06:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Because "they" (devs) did put nofollow on external links, and there followed an outcry and much indignation, moaning about unilateralism, and a vote. The result is that en.wikipedia no longer uses nofollow. -- Jeronim 18:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed Wikiproject:External links

One major annoyance I have with Wikipedia is linkspam, as well as long lists of mediocre-quality external links at the end of articles. I believe the length of external link lists should be limited and include only a small number of the highest-quality, reputable, and informative websites. Preferably the linked websites would also be ad-free or minimize use of ads. I have come across articles with 50+ external links (e.g. Hybrid vehicle), sorted through them (a tedious process) to only find 6 links that were truly informative and worthy. How do we expect readers to discern those 6 informative references out of such a lengthy list?

I propose a WikiProject where we nominate and work on such articles that need their external links weeded through to get rid of linkspam and be quality-checked. I have also put forth guidelines and philosophy regarding external links — primarily drawn upon "official" Wikipedia policies set forth here and on Wikipedia:External links. I expanded on "What should not be included in external links" and welcome discussion on these ideas. Maybe we could use these to improve the "official" Wikipedia external link policy.

Template:See2

If interested in helping out, please indicate your interest on the List of proposed projects. --Kmf164 23:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of perfectly good and useful Web sites that also carry ads. We depend on some of them regularly for citations -- newspaper or magazine sites, for instance; or even search engines. We can't expect all the resources in the world to be offered by volunteers, just because Wikipedia is. The problem with for-profit link spam isn't the ads; it's that the editor who adds it is acting in bad faith -- they aren't adding the link in order to improve the article, but rather to get money.

I would suggest that something like the last "how not to be a spammer" guideline might apply. If a person runs or profits from a Web site, then they should consider not creating a link to it themselves. They can always propose the link on the talk page and see if others agree that their site is useful and relevant. --FOo 06:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that many good and useful websites contain ads. There should be no hard-and-fast rule regarding ads, as its more of a case-by-case judgment. The consideration should be the ratio of ads vs. useful content. If a site has more ads than content and information, then I'd favor deleting it. Or it the topic is less notable, maybe an ad-supported site is the only (or one of few) references and then would be okay. --Kmf164 14:34, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple requests for help.

What about requesting help from lots of users simultaniously? Like the translations of Encyclopædia Britannica articles User:Armour were asking for. Doesn't it count as spam in some way? How should it be dealt with? --Boivie 22:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup-spam

Is {{Cleanup-spam}} really necessary for most of the articles that it is on? If it must be used, please only put it down in the External links section, rather used as the article header.

My personal opinion is that for articles that are permanent spam magnets (e.g. Search engine optimization), it would be better to have a "hidden" template that gets substituted in the External links section that adds an HTML comment warning spammers that they will get promptly reverted and possibly banned for multiple link spamming, and add the Category:Wikipedia spam cleanup to the article.

Any halfway intelligent link-spammmer will remove the template and category, so you also need to create a Wikipedia:List of frequently spammed articles. ^Blank ^Verse 00:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OTR Spam

I've been noticing a lot of spam from a mailing list calling themselves OTR digest Could we get a removal bot or a block for this site thanks. Deathawk 19:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]