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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Berean Hunter (talk | contribs) at 20:11, 4 December 2015 (→skyscrapercity.com: endorse). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Wikipedia:Spam-blacklist" redirects here. Not to be confused with Wikipedia:Spam blacklist or Wikipedia:Spam-blacklisting.
    Spam blacklists
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    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 – 693773606 after you have closed the request. See here for more info on logging.



    Proposed additions

    omniglot.com

    A personal website run by a guy from his bedroom, a guy who is not a recognised expert in the field, or even an unrecognised one (see: http://www.omniglot.com/about.htm where he decribes his credentials, and also http://www.omniglot.com/aboutme.htm where he says he earns his living from the website, which is a good reason for spamming links to it), in spite of being presented as a "language encyclopaedia" in the links being added here. And there are lots of links from en-WP to omniglot.com, to be precise 1,100 of them a few minutes ago when I checked, links that IMHO violate the WP:ELNO rules about not allowing links to personal websites written by people who are not recognised experts in their field. In addition to that the links don't add anything that wouldn't be included in a featured article, or even add anything that isn't already included in an average non-FA/GA language article here on en-WP (sample pages: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/finnish.htm and http://www.omniglot.com/writing/urdu.htm ; as can be clearly seen they're nothing but short stubs plus lots of links to other web sites, even linking back to the pages they're added to on en-WP for more information...), which means they also violate the first rule listed at WP:ELNO. Thomas.W talk 21:46, 17 April 2015 (UTC) (also see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Omniglot.com)[reply]

    Ah I see now, so he does earn money from it. If the person adding the links is Simon Ager, it may indeed be spam, but that hasn't been proven and I'm not sure how we would do that, or if that's allowed. This seems to be only one person adding them and to me it looks like they just didn't understand why adding the links was wrong. I have spent a good deal of time there in the past and there's some interesting stuff there, so I can see myself reacting as the IP did. Blacklisting the link seems a bit much. ekips39❦talk 06:58, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, FWIW, others have made contributions to the site: [1] ekips39❦talk 08:03, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • That website is simply a collection of info on script, sound samples and alphabets and includes a bibliography, which the editor obviously ignored.[2]. I even questioned him why IMBD is a site that is used as an external link in every film article, but he keeps running away from it. 94.204.144.31 (talk) 11:33, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • IMDB has nothing to do with it, each site is judged on its own merits. IMDB has also been thoroughly discussed many times in several different venues, and has been accepted for certain purposes under certain circumstances. Omniglot clearly violates even the most basic of Wikipedia's external links policies, that of providing unique information that isn't already in our articles. We already have articles about virtually every script there is, articles that in most cases at least provide more information than Omniglot, we also already have articles about virtually all languages, articles that also provide more information than Omniglot. In addition to that Omniglot isn't a reliable source per Wikipedia's reliable source policies, and thus can't be used as a reference. Which means there's no valid reason for adding links to Omniglot on Wikipedia, and the links that are already here should be removed. Thomas.W talk 12:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    It omniglot gives info on sounds on language as well as audio tracks. I could argue the same for IMBD as it offers nothing unique beyond info already cited by the article. But as usual I don't expect you to counter-argue it, only spur twisted claims about WP policy.--94.204.144.31 (talk) 15:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    • As I said, this is about Omniglot, not IMDB. Each site is judged on their own merits, so if that's the best you can do, and the best excuse you can find for adding links to Omniglot, you might as well stop trying to defend it. Thomas.W talk 15:46, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    This is suppose to be a discussion. You should not tell people to go away just because you disagree with them. Both of you try to be civil, please. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 19:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Per Thomas.W - this is about omniglot.com, not about IMDB (pointing at other sites is a 'WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS-type' of argument which should not be made). We have inclusion standards for IMDB (and it is inappropriate in many places, and not 'blanket added'), we have inclusion standards for all links, and hence also go for omniglot.com. As I argued below, omniglot.com generally fails our inclusion standards (though there are exceptions). If you are discussing that omniglot.com should be included/excluded, then the arguments should be on the inclusion standards and how they apply to omniglot.com, not about whether other sites that may fail inclusion standards and whether they are included. --Dirk Beetstra T C 04:03, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Simon Ager, the owner of the site has a MA in Linguistics from Bangor University and other extensive training in languages, per the links mentioned above. A Google Scholar and Google Books search shows a few cations to his site, not a lot and apparently no published works. I would describe it as a language fansite. However, I do not see reason to not use his site as an external link. WP:ELNO are links normally avoided, so there is room for judgement here. The site seems sincere in providing factual information. Can you show the site is spreading mis-information? Can you show a organized campaign to spam? There are hundreds of links to this site from the English Wikipedia. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 19:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    • I can accept that Omniglot may not be an appropriate external link for most language articles, though I don't see that there's been any organized campaign to spam it on Wikipedia. Do you have any evidence that there is such a campaign, and if so, have the perpetrators ignored warnings about why the links are inappropriate? If not, then adding this site to the blacklist is probably premature. —Psychonaut (talk) 19:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are 1,100 links to it on en-WP alone, and thousands if you count all links on all language versions of WP. It's clearly not a reliable source per WP:RS and also clearly violates even the most basic criteria listed at WP:ELNO, and to be honest I can't see any reason why we should treat this enthusiast's site in a more lenient way than any other enthusiast's site (I deliberately don't use the term "hobbysite" since it's not a hobby, Simon Ager earns his living from it...).
    I also started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Omniglot.com, so maybe we should keep all arguments fore and against in one place, so that noone's opinion gets overlooked? As for deliberate spamming it was the IP's aggressive and persistent spamming, even including filing a report at WP:ANI with false accusations about me edit warring, that made me take a closer look at the site, and report it here... Thomas.W talk 19:45, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion is here. It would be best to direct people from there to here. If there are over a thousand links, that would show consensus that it is a good site for external links given lots of people added those links. Each time someone adds a link they are saying this is a good link, it should be here. If it is only a few or one person adding these links, then it is spam. Maybe this site should be whitelisted. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Since the links have been aded over a long period of time, masquerading as an "encyclopaedia of languages and writing systems", there's no way to tell whether one or many editors have added the links. For all we know it could have been just one or two people using multiple IP's and throwaway accounts. Thomas.W talk 20:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not see assuming that. I would like to see more discussion on the usefulness of the site. To that end I have advised other boards to join this discussion: Wikipedia talk:Reference desk (for language experts), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages and Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    I did a random check of three articles that have omniglot.com as external links and traced back who added them. Here is what I found: [3] (stub created with the link), [4] and [5]. All by registered users who were not single purpose accounts. I selected these at random and did not cherry pick. I did take them from the first few hundred entries on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch/*.omniglot.com I do not know if that creates bias. People have been using omniglot.com since 2003. I will check more later I have real world stuff to do. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:53, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    IMHO you're focusing on the wrong things. It doesn't matter how many people have added the links, or whether it was done in good faith or not, what matters is if the numerous links to Omniglot that have been added, and are still continously being added, add anything unique to the articles they're added to or not, which they clearly don't since our language articles include far more information than Omniglot's short stubs, and, as far as I can see, anything found in the language and writing system stubs at Omniglot can also be found here. I.e. the most basic rule listed at the top of the list of links to be avoided at WP:ELNO. In addition to that Omniglot is a personal website that is not written by someone who is a recognised expert in their field, which is also listed as a no-no at WP:ELNO. Thomas.W talk 21:08, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    This proposal is a non-starter on many levels.

    1. First of all, WP:EL is a guideline, not policy. The banner at the top reads, in part, that it is "...best treated with common sense and occasional exceptions may apply..." Secondly the specific subsection WP:ELNO gives even more leeway, saying the types of links listed are "normally to be avoided" (my emphasis). "Normally", not always.
    2. You misrepresented the website in your first statement ("...not even an unrecognized one...", etc). As Richard points out, the main author of the site possesses an MA in linguistics as well as other extensive training in the field. Apparently Richard was even able to find a few citations to his work.
    3. While I would never advocate using Omnniglot.com as a source, it functions as a very useful utility site, especially for alphabets/script/writing system articles. In those articles, it is not only appropriate, but oftentimes very useful as an External Link, specifically because it contains other links which we can not provide directly in our articles. For example, the entry on Khmer script gives links to character pickers, dictionaries, sound files exemplifying the language, free downloadable fonts. While, as I stated above, it shouldn't be cited as a source nor should it be spammed to every language related article, it is still valuable in some specific cases. RC/Vandalism Patrol seems to be a good enough check on its overuse. Seeking to blacklist it seems a wild overreaction, which leads me to my last point.
    4. I am always willing to WP:AGF, but the second paragraph of this edit makes this feel like a rather WP:POINTY tit-for-tat in return for being reported to ANI (which was also pointy and uncalled for).

    Omniglot is useful in some circumstances and while I'm not convinced that it violates WP:ELNO in those circumstances, even if it did, its usefulness is reason enough to qualify it as an occasional exception.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 21:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    • Then I suggest whitelisting those few links that are of value, but blacklisting the rest. Links to short stub articles about languages added as external links to comprehensive language articles here (see the sample links in my initial post; it's not limited to those two articles though, virtually every language article we have has Omniglot as an external link) are of no value to Wikipedia or its readers, only to Omniglot (generating traffic and money for them). Thomas.W talk 21:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose blacklisting. I see no reason why standard editor discretion can't be applied on an article-by-article basis. I can envisage cases where external links to content on Omnniglot.com could be useful per WP:ELYES#YES 3 and WP:ELMAYBE#MAYBE 4. Blacklisting should only be used in cases of obvious spamming on a large scale.- MrX 23:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    I looked at a db-dump of the additions that LiWa3 saved (1500+ in total, 325-ish on en.wikipedia) and I do not see that most of the links were added by one user, and as FPaS suggests, many regulars are adding the link. There may be spammers / COI-editors in the list, but they should be handled on a case-by-case basis.

    Therefore I would suggest to no Declined blacklisting, consider identifying which accounts are spamming or pushing these links and speak firmly with those editors (let them understand and follow our m:Terms of Use (especially for those with a conflict of interest, failure to adhere may be reason for an immediate block) and our local policies and guidelines - WP:V/WP:NOT/WP:RS/WP:EL/WP:SPAM), and to examine their edits.

    For the links that are there, I think a good cleanup is at hand - the links are certainly in places where they are superfluous and failing our inclusion standards (WP:RS/WP:V/WP:NOT/WP:EL). --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:57, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    • @Richard-of-Earth: If you click on "en" just after "Linksearch" at the top of this section you get all links to omniglot.com on en-WP (all 1,116 of them), in a long list showing both which page on en-WP they're on and which page on Omniglot they link to. Thomas.W talk 09:20, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thomas.W: Yes, that is what I used. I eliminated all the pages that were not articles and extracted just the page names and eliminated all the duplicates and made a list. Your welcome. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Richard-of-Earth: I prefer to use the full list, showing articles with multiple links, links from other pages than articles, etc, and not a shortened list edited/filtered by someone else, so thanks, but no thanks. Thomas.W talk 13:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    It should be added to a filter though, it is not a WP:RS and is spreading like kudzu. Guy (Help!) 22:47, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    sancharexpress.com

    sancharexpress.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

    182.68.77.253 (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)
    115.113.100.2 (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)
    115.113.100.2 (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)

    Non-WP:RS scandal site ("articles" being spammed on BLPs today: #1, #2, #3, #4) spammed on articles relating to India by multiple IPs, both as refspam and linkspam. Thomas.W talk 13:50, 21 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    binghamtontimes.com

    binghamtontimes.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

    Added under Bangalorean.net, is it related? Guy (Help!) 16:33, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    @SmartSE: I think this is waiting for you. Brianhe (talk) 19:55, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    There is no such entity in Binghamton. Contacts list it at Yonkers, New York and Bangalore, neither being very close.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 00:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @JzG: Sorry for not making this clearer - see my comment at 17:57, 27 July 2015 above. It was being used alongside Bangalorean.net in a spam article and the author was linked to the site. (and @Brianhe: - note the lack of caps in my real username...) SmartSE (talk) 20:06, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    infibeam.com

    infibeam.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

    Infibeam is one of the India's leading ecommerce website. Infibeam has become India's first E-commerce website to file IPO.Infibeam also owns [1][2][3] the DotTripleO domain extension. .OOO — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akash207 (talk • contribs)

    Fixed formatting: changed URLs to internal Wiki-links, added reflist and sig. No change in content. GermanJoe (talk) 13:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    References

    1. ^ http://profit.ndtv.com/news/corporates/article-infibeam-files-for-ipo-in-first-e-commerce-listing-777076
    2. ^ http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/07/01/infibeam-ipo-idINKCN0PB3R420150701
    3. ^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/IndiGo-and-Infibeam-file-for-Rs-3000-crore-IPOs/articleshow/47888578.cms

    nndb.com

    NNDB has been declared an unreliable source many, many times at RSN but I keep finding instances of it. This should go on the blacklist. Note that we have a template for making ELs to this site that I have nominated for deletion for the same reason. Jytdog (talk) 22:15, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Being unreliable does not make a site spam. This is an abuse of the Spam-blacklist. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    If it's being actively spammed by people with a conflict of interest, then it's a candidate for the blacklist. I cannot say whether or not that's been happening with nndb, but the RSN link referenced by Jytdog suggests that it has — and that is what's relevant here, not the reliability. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Well it is not. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:38, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    unitedmedicalcredit.com

    unitedmedicalcredit.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

    plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:31, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    comicbookmovie.com

    An unreliable source that relies on user-generated content that is frequently used by well-intentioned good faith but uninformed editors.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 12:45, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    @TriiipleThreat: I see that there are 618 instances where this is linked, many of them references - it would be good that the bad references out of that list were removed first. Moreover, this list is mainly concerned with blocking links that are abused, and requests which solely rely on a source being an unreliable source are generally not granted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:12, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Considering the frequent use, it is abuse. Also it being unreliable, makes them all bad references.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 13:21, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure. Let us know when you've reduced the mainspace link count close to zero and we'll blacklist it. Guy (Help!) 13:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @JzG:  Done. Most of the remaining links are to Talk, User, Wikipedia, and File space.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 19:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    JzG, maybe it's best to hold off on the blacklisting in this case, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#Comicbookmovie.com? A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 (talk) 20:14, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    ...until the discussion is closed.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 20:37, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Fine, feel free to ping someone here when it's ground to a halt. Guy (Help!) 21:46, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @JzG: With this edit, I believe we have reached an agreement.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 08:23, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    JzG, as you may have seen, this matter is also being discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Comicbookmovie.com: User-generated source for exclusive interviews?. A WP:Permalink for it is here. So far, the discussion is leaning toward support for using this source for exclusive interviews. My concern is that if it's blacklisted, it will make it more difficult for this source to be used for exclusive interviews. A lot of Wikipedia editors, especially less experienced ones, don't even know about Wikipedia blacklisting and whitelisting. And once a source is blacklisted here, a good case has to be made for getting it whitelisted or an aspect of it whitelisted. An administrator here might feel that an exclusive interview is not enough. At the same time, I understand TriiipleThreat's concern about use of this source, and I don't think it should be used for anything other than exclusive interviews on Wikipedia. Maybe there is a way that you can blacklist the general URLs for this site, but not the type that would pertain to exclusive interviews? Flyer22 (talk) 22:14, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Nitpicking here: The majority of the support is for use of very limited basic information from exclusive interviews. This is compounded by the fact that these exclusive interviews make up only a fraction of the content on comicbookmovie.com. Out of the 400+ links we removed less than a handful were exclusive interviews. The abuse of this website far outweighs its benefits. Blacklisting is the only way to curb this excessive abuse. The few acceptable links can be white listed.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 22:46, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, that you can't just black list the general, you have to blacklist the whole site. And then, if, in the very slim chance there is an exclusive interview that wants to be used, that specific url can be presented to the whitelist. But I feel even in that case, a reliable source would be bound to report on such interview, which could be used in stead. However, as I'm not super familiar with the black list, is there any way to make the text that appears for the black list state the parameters we've sort of defined here? That if it is an exclusive interview, one could go to the white list to request its use? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 22:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I assessed some of the interviews, seeing if reliable sources reported on them, and I saw that reliable sources commonly had not done so (which doesn't mean that the interviews are not worth including). That's why I mentioned a few reliable media sources noting the site and pointing to such interviews. And Google Books sources citing comicbookmovie.com interviews were already pointed to by Erik. I'd have to assess more of the interviews, seeing if reliable sources reported on them to get a fuller picture of the matter. But even with reliable sources reporting on the interviews, we have to go to the original site to get the full interview. So there can also be cases where we cite comicbookmovie.com beside a more reliable source for an interview. Flyer22 (talk) 00:36, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay. But even still in that case, can't a user just bring the URL to the white list talk to get it made available? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 03:34, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. But, like I stated above, "A lot of Wikipedia editors, especially less experienced ones, don't even know about Wikipedia blacklisting and whitelisting. And once a source is blacklisted here, a good case has to be made for getting it whitelisted or an aspect of it whitelisted. An administrator here might feel that an exclusive interview is not enough." I wanted to know about the possibility of blacklisting a site without blacklisting all of it; I got the impression that this could be an option because of what Beetstra (Dirk Beetstra) stated in the aforementioned WP:Film discussion. If it's not an option and blacklisting this site is needed, then go ahead and do it. Like Ryk72, I don't see that blacklisting this site is needed (since I don't see the site as problematic or that editors have been using the site for WP:Spam reasons), but you made a counterargument for supporting blacklisting, and I'll leave this blacklisting matter up to administrators without a fight on it. Flyer22 (talk) 05:15, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    @JzG: It appears discussion has ground to a halt as you predicted. It still seems that we have a loose concensus to blacklist the site and whitelist the few specific links when nessecary.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 02:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi TriiipleThreat, While I respect the intent, and appreciate the frustration with included reference to this site, I do not concur that inclusion here is an appropriate usage of the spam blacklist - links to comicbookmovie.com are not being spammed on Wikipedia. I am happy to elaborate at the other Talk page, and will do so as soon as I have more than a few minutes spare. Of course, if the case can be made that spamming of links is occurring, then I have no issue with inclusion here. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 02:51, 15 October 2015 (UTC) Updated - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 02:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Ryk72, your opinion has been duly noted as seen above. It has not changed my opinion which I've restated several times now. It's time a decesion be made.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 03:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Almost all of the extant links to this site are on Talk pages (including Archives thereof), User or User talk pages and on File pages. I do not believe that there is an issue with the inclusion of this site in either of these spaces; indeed it is appropriate that sources from the site be discussed (and rejected where necessary). The file resources seem to be a worthwhile inclusion. The case for inclusion in the blacklist on the basis of spamming has not (to my knowledge) been made; I am happy for it to be made if possible. Some of the removals of links to this site were not appropriate; as the links were to primary sources in articles where we were documenting the site itself. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 03:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    That's because Favre1fan93 and myself removed over 400 links from article space. The presistent usage of this site is abuse. Also a source is still unreliable even if it's being used as a primary source. Again, there isn't much in way of original content from this site, and can easily be replaced by more reliable sources. But like I said, it appears discussion has come to an impasse. Let's see what the admin thinks.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 03:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    wfplaw.com

    wfplaw.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

    One of the editors spammed this along with:

    Lets get some reports on these links as well. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:45, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    I stand corrected, some of the editors spammed the other links as well. I've added even more to the list, and there seems to be more. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:51, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    londonleathers.com

    londonleathers.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 Spam by throwaway accounts:

    I've deleted lots more links to londonleathers.com from multiple pages from single-use accounts but it's not so easy to search back and find them all. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    I see only three SPA's (including above 2), with three additions. Unless I miss a lot of them, I would say that this is still reasonably controllable. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:45, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there a tool that I can use to search the histories of multiple articles for deleted additions of londonleathers.com? I've been removing these links for something like 5 years from a half dozen article that I watch. I just don't have a list of every example now. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:59, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    It appears then that those additions were already pretty old, our current db is at least since the beginning of 2014 and though it contains some holes due to bot downtime, it would be too accidental if all additions are in those holes. But now that you reported it here, the bots will be alerted by it.
    Regarding the tool, there was once something like wikiblame, which could search in the history of a page who added a certain string of text. I don't know if that is still alive. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:09, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dennis Bratland: Heh, not only does it exist, it is even built in to the history-tabs: Wikipedia:WikiBlame. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:11, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    What? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:16, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dennis Bratland: - you asked for a tool to see if londonleathers.com was deleted/added to certain pages, that is Wikipedia:WikiBlame. Do you recall on which pages you removed it yourself, we can then see by who and when it was added. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:04, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    No, that's the problem. I don't remember which articles besides motorcycle training and motorcycle personal protective equipment. And even with those two known examples, I'm not finding any hits at WikiBlame. It does work if I search for something that's currently in the article, like nytimes.com, but not spam that was removed. The hard part is searching old versions across large numbers of articles, like everything in the motorcycle and clothing categories. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:18, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah .. the tool only works for something that is still there, it is not actually just parsing the each revid of the two pages and see if it was added/removed.
    Let's keep an eye on it for now, and then we can always blacklist it if it returns. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    OK. Thanks for your help! --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:41, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    bfwa.in

    I agree that this is spammy, but the last additions are already some weeks ago, and low-speed. If this continues, we'll pull the trigger. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:42, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Beetstra, I am The Avengers. Anyway I checked the COIbot report and the result shows that User talk:Sukhmeer69 who is blocked as some Orangemoody sock was spamming this website. bfwa.in is being used to create the page Hiral Mei. --Galaxy Kid (talk) 09:39, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    skjbollywoodnews.com

    skjbollywoodnews.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

    Unreliable Bollywood movie website. Spammed by somebody in Bollywood articles. The website is created by a popular movie critic, but the notability of the movie critic doesn't make the website notable. There is no third party source other than itself. Can't track the user who is spamming this. --The Avengers (talk) 16:47, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    There should be a new COIBot report on its way (there is one from 2013 ..), but a direct querying of the database does not show obvious spammers (the editors who added this most seem regulars / are regulars with a wide variety of other links that they add). --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:49, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Beetstra: What is COIbot? I found some links added by a user named Vaibhav.times. Whether he is adding all links in critical reception section or not, needs some time to check. It may not be spam, but it's like Using the popularity of Wikipedia to promote this website.Sometimes experienced spammers edit other articles and add links of some reliable website to avoid being blamed for promoting a single website.--The Avengers (talk) 02:25, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    COIBot = User:COIBot, a tool originally written to catch editors who seemed to have a relation to the data they were adding (most obvious in user 'blah' adding 'blah.com' or user 'blah' editing Wikipage 'blah'), but now also doing all spam-related reporting work. Behind COIBot there is m:User:LiWa3, the linkwatcher, who is constantly parsing every content-related diff on the 700+ wikis for added external links (including references). COIBot reads from that database and saves reports on the enabled wikis (here and meta) that might need attention (say an IP who adds only domain to many pages, a behaviour that might suggest the editor is spamming), and reports that are requested (it monitors e.g. this page for added 'LinkSummary' templates, and when one is added it extracts the domain inside, and saves a report, see the 'COIBot'-links in the template at the top of this section. Off-wiki we have more tools to query the database (by now the report is up-to-date, and that shows).
    It appears indeed that most of the links are added by the user you named (about 1/3 of the total recorded). However, if I go through his edits they seem very genuine, significant upgrades to the pages and using many other domains, and the way these references are added seems genuine and fine - if anything it is that maybe these reviews are irrelevant, but I do not believe that this is spam. I do see however a couple of IPs who just do one edit, or edit one page which includes this link.
    The use of these review sites is endemic, and has been fought before, and some are indeed spammed. I still wonder whether most of these reviews, which are merely opinions of (hopefully) specialists, are encyclopedic information and should be specifically named (a general 'the <subject> obtained good/bad/mixed criticism', with a couple of well-established review websites should be enough). --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:30, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    dcm.in

    dcm.in: 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

    Seems to contain harmful content (i.e. malware, malicious scripts, or trojan exploits). I've removed three links to this site on two occasions, two and one respectively, per WP:ELNO #3. I don't believe those adding them have ill-intent, I assume they either don't realize the content is possibly harmful, or I myself am mistaken.—Godsy(TALKCONT) 18:46, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

     Request withdrawn —Godsy(TALKCONT) 01:10, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    filmymantra.com

    filmymantra.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

    60.254.12.66 (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)

    Swatisharma3193 (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 is still continuing at this time of my report.The Avengers (talk) 12:24, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]


    Another user:
    Enough warnings unheeded. plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    yourstory.in

    Sister domain of yourstory.com (already blacklisted, see archive), directly redirects to .com to the same content. GermanJoe (talk) 21:53, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Still working on cleanup. Almost all links have exactly the same problems: questionable independence and expertise. As mentioned in the COIN discussion, they are thinly veiled PR stories for borderline-notable business ventures - in the vast majority of cases written by bloggers, part-time freelancers and other "start-up enthusiasts". GermanJoe (talk) 12:56, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Done cleanup (except non-article entries amd 2 borderline remainders). GermanJoe (talk) 01:30, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    matpal.com

    Articles of popular Bollywood actors and politicians are under watchlist of many users, so this website exist in articles of lesser known actors. I don't know whether a group or a single user is spamming them.--The Avengers (talk) 00:39, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    sumax.de

    sumax.de: 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

    • Spamming by multiple single-use accounts, e.g.:

    [[12]], [13]], [[14]] Mean as custard (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added MER-C 12:11, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    filmyfolks.com

    filmyfolks.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

    Don't know who is spamming them. Exists in lots of articles with few page watchers. Top actors of Bollywood have fan following and popularity, so it's difficlut to spam wesbites in articles of top celebrities. But new actors who did a few flop movies or supporting roles have few page watchers and it's easy to spam the links. --The Avengers (talk) 09:04, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    This website is always used to create pages of new actors and there are lots of copyright violation reports in link search. --The Avengers (talk) 10:18, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there any encyclopedic value to FILMYFOLKS.COM whatsoever? I see that it is spammed to biographical and film-related Wikipedia articles regularly. Are there any circumstances where this external link would serve any purpose here? For example, IMDb is disallowed as a reference here for biographical content, but is normally allowed as a supporting reference for a filmography listings. Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 19:08, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see any value to FilmyFolks.com. It's yet another faceless blog run by who-knows-whom. There's no presumption of accuracy, no established reputation for fact-checking, they don't even have an About us page. This site is problematic since they include biographical details that may be grossly inaccurate. This means we'd be opening Wikipedia to BLP liabilities. One minor correction, Yamaguchi先生, IMDb is only occasionally allowed as a supporting ref for filmography, typically only when there are credits confirmed with film guilds. For example this film has a WGA (Writers Guild of America) sign-off, and IMDb appears to have verified the cast as well. Otherwise, WP:RS/IMDB strongly discourages the use. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:31, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you Cyphoidbomb for your additional comments. It is my understanding that this domain is being inserted en masse to various Wikipedia articles, and is not suitable as either an external link or a reliable source. If there are no further objections, I endorse the proposition to add this domain to the English Wikipedia blacklist. Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 22:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I equally endorse, and I wish there were a non-spam blacklist for sites that the community has deemed unreliable. That would save an amazing amount of volunteer time by excluding persistently problematic references. I think I'm going to pitch this at the Village Pump, but I suspect I'll be mocked out of town... Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:44, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    ebharat.in

    ebharat.in: 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

    In 20 pages, i found them added together. filmyfolks is just below ebharat.

    And this user admits that he has created ebharat website

    User:Vinayras

    Another user promting ebharat.in User talk:Umesh kumar sharma

    • Observation: a few "filmy" sites seem to have popped up here. Filmybase.com was a site I'd asked to be added to the blacklist a couple of weeks ago, Avengers has reported Filmymantra and now Filmyfolks.com. Not sure what that means, but it's worth noting. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:55, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Cyphoidbomb: I would appreciate if you check my sandbox.
    Articles about popular Bollywood actors are under watchlist of experienced editors. Bollywood movies are watched by many users. It's difficult for them to spam here and get unnoticed. What they do is spam them in less popular TV actors'page. As these pages new TV actors and are watched by two/three users, they can easily spam the website. After that they try to move on to articles of new young Bollywood actors as Kartik Aaryan. The Avengers (talk) 17:34, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    IP grabbers

    These sites are used exclusively to determine the IP addressed of other users. They allow users to create links that when accessed (presumably by an unsuspecting third party) will collect the IP address to email to whoever created the link. This facilitates a crude sort of doxxing and nothing else. I'm sure there are many others, but these are the ones I'm aware of.

    Not strictly spam, but highly malicious and of no benefit to Wikipedia. Hypothetically, even briefly showing the link could cause WP:OUTING or hypothetically lead to off-site harassment, so preventative blacklisting seems appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 07:57, 6 November 2015 (UTC).[reply]

    Interesting catch, Grayfell. I was interested, so I used TOR at whatstheirip.com to generate a few links. It produced one to bvog.com as reported by you, but also links to:
    If the anti-spam guys consider this request, they might want to consider adding these domains as well, since these are the domains that host the personalized, IP-revealing links. bvog and hondachat produce innocuous-looking 404s, while youramonkey.com displays an image of a monkey, your IP, and the grammatically flawed text "Your a monkey, your ip and geo location info has just been emailed to whoever sent you this link." Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:39, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Cool, good finds. bvog has already been added, per this at ANI. Grayfell (talk) 03:01, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    indianetzone.com/

    indianetzone.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 --Aryan from हि है (talk) 10:26, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    lawncaresucks.com

    lawncaresucks.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

    • Spamming by multiple single-use accounts, e.g.:

    [[15]], [[16]], [[17]]. . . Mean as custard (talk) 14:39, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xenoradixde. plus Added MER-C 11:27, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Moivaonhatoi.com

    Currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Moivaonhatoi.com_ref_spamming. Links to the website of a Vietnamese interior construction firm have been spammed into many unrelated articles by multiple accounts. Just blatant spamming. Deli nk (talk) 17:12, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    plus Added --- Barek (talk • contribs) -

    hdradio.com

    This is a commercial HD radio advertising site with hundreds of links to radio station articles added by one user:

    It's not an independent reliable source and it's clear that it's being used for marketing and promotion. I'd like to have it blacklisted so a bot can clean up all the links and block new additions. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:15, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]


    www.durianproperty.com.my

    The website www.durianproperty.com.my is a Malaysian real estate website. In recent weeks I have noticed this website being inserted as if it were an encyclopedic reference, when in fact it just refers back to commercial property listings and provides nothing in the way of encyclopedic content.

    As one example, see 219.92.40.108 (talk · contribs) who proceeds to insert links back to this website in serial. If there are any additional questions or concerns please do not hesitate to ping me or leave a message on my talk page.

    Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 21:37, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    The LinkSearch tool [18] shows that there are 497 articles on the English Wikipedia linking back to this website (www.durianproperty.com.my) at present. Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 21:41, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Since my initial report I noticed that approximately a dozen new links back to www.durianproperty.com.my had been added. Examples of IP addresses inserting these external links include:

    It appears that these ranges are being used primarily for the purpose of spamming at this time. While these may be dynamically assigned IP addresses, there is also evidence of an IP going dormant for a few weeks and then returning to carry on with the same behavior, as with 219.92.42.86. Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 01:41, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    I've hardblocked both /24 ranges for one year for ref spamming. The contribs for 2015 out of both ranges were primarily that.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:22, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Have just hardblocked the 43 range where I see them using it today. Search contribs.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 15:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Found 115.135.77.126 (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)
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:16, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    219.92.43.0/24 hardblocked one year.
    DurianProperty (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)
    plus Added MER-C 20:53, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    John Floyd

    johntfloyd.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

    List of links I found [19]

    Attorney website from Texas that just updated the article on White Collar Crimes at this link [20]. I reverted the edit as the statement made is not true as it was NOT adopted, only proposed. The IP address who added the citation is from...guess where....Texas! A search of Wikipedia shows that there are a half dozen other articles with links to the same website. Not sure if this will ever be a useful site for Wikipedia and would propose adding it to the list to keep future additions from being made. --CNMall41 (talk) 20:04, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    skyscrapercity.com

    skyscrapercity.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

    As detailed in[21], this site is extensively used in mainspace despite being a forum and thus not suitable as a source of information. I woud've just done it myself right away, but that would affect lots of pages so posting here for review instead. Max Semenik (talk) 01:43, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    @Max Semenik: I would suggest to first clean, it looks indeed like there are hundreds/thousands of pages that are going to be affected. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:48, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse blacklist of this domain, which is by definition an internet forum. There are approximately 1,900 links back to skyscrapercity.com (with no valid use case scenario) which need to be removed. Regards, Yamaguchi先生 (talk) 20:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse blacklisting. @MaxSem and Beetstra: I would suggest doing the blacklisting first so that we can't be reverted by the spammers or even well-meaning editors. The scale of this is such that we don't want to have to combat IPs restoring the links before we can get them clean since it will take a significant length of time.
       — Berean Hunter (talk) 20:11, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Completed Proposed additions

    This is a useful website all the time for law careers information. It is a useful resource, but it was blacklisted in 2009. Clearly they had been spamming, but an indefinite ban seems silly when it is a good resource. I guess after 6 years they might have learnt their lesson.

    Proposed removals


    shaded-relief.com

    How can the site be useful Terrain map for https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php currently in use at {{GeoTemplate}}

    Why it should not be blacklisted Any attempt to edit {{GeoTemplate}} (for instance, to correct OpenStreetMap's licence from CC-BY-SA to ODbL) fails as shaded-relief.com and pro-gorod.ru are blacklisted links, despite being in use on the GeoHack page. K7L (talk) 15:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    @A. B.: You added this to the blacklist in 2012 as part of a large group associated with a Fox spamming incident, but the log entry cases linked don't show this domain. Please shed some light. Do you have an objection to removing it from the blacklist? Alternatively we could whitelist the GeoTemplate URL. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:15, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @A. B.: ping! ~Amatulić (talk) 22:56, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    petitions.whitehouse.gov/response

    How can the site be useful Official White House responses are an excellent point for political discussion. People need to know the results of the whitehouse.gov petitions rather than going to a random blog where the petition is analyzed and the actual link to the petition is provided.

    Why it should not be blacklisted This section of the website is responses only. This section only applies to petitions that have already been completed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rbrasga (talk • contribs)

    This is a case for whitelisting, which was already implemented (see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist/Log#September_2014). http://petitions.whitehouse.gov/responses should work (note, you missed an 's' at the end of your url, the site without the 's' is a 404, and will indeed not save on Wikipedia as it is not whitelisted). --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:08, 29 July 2015 (UTC) (adapted --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:18, 29 July 2015 (UTC))[reply]
    And I stand corrected, the 'homepage' is the /responses one, but all the individual responses are in the /response/ 'tree'. Implemented per this thread. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Rbrasga: (should have read this request completely) - ".. rather than going to a random blog where the petition is analyzed .." - if all people have is a random blog and the original, then the fact that the whole petition is performed is likely not notable and should not be included in Wikipedia. If there are no independent, reliable sources mentioning the petition, it should go. Information based on the petition should NOT go by primary sources only. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Beetstra: - Sorry for the confusion. Thank you for looking into my request. I will try to find a reliable source and cite that instead of the petition response. At the time of the request, no reliable sources had mentioned the specific petition response as it was only made public within that hour.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.49.224.62 (talk • contribs)
    You're welcome. I hope that you can find a reliable source to strengthen your statement. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:41, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Do not blacklist this website. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bluerasberry: - the site is blacklisted as it is and was regularly abused (I've recently looked into the blacklist hits, and it showed a case where the petition part was clearly used for soapboxing - which is and was a continuing problem with petition sites ('sign [here] to save the poor wallywolly from being eaten by the president!'). As argued above, the only moment a petition is notable to be mentioned is if independent sources have mentioned the petition. There is simply no need to link to (open) petitions. There may be rare cases where there is reason to primary source the petition after it is closed, but a) then there is the blanket whitelisted /responses, and b) there is the whitelist. The problems with petition sites massively outweigh the minor cases where they need to be linked, and as I said, if you can make your case, those will be happily whitelisted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:13, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    The reason why the site should not be blacklisted is because it is not a petition site. It is unfortunately named. It is primarily a website for publishing personal statements from policy experts and those are worth citing because they are secondary sources written by the most expert government employees which can be identified.
    As you say - petitions are not appropriate for citation, nor are primary sources. This domain is useful because it has so many secondary sources (government interpretations of a lot of primary data) written for a layman audience by a diversity of experts.
    I cannot say how troublesome it is that people link to petitions here when they should not. It is a lot of trouble for users to figure out how to make whitelist requests when they wish to cite a secondary source here. The confusion about this website repeats itself. I agree that petition websites should be routinely blacklisted. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:37, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Also save the wallywollies. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:39, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bluerasberry: About what part of the website are you now talking? If you are talking about petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/ - then you are talking about a petition site which should be blocked. If you are talking about petitions.whitehouse.gov/responses/, then you are talking about the reasonably secondary source. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:29, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    As a clarification to by above question, see e.g. petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/demand-independent-journalism-america-we-simply-cannot-stand-anything-less-truth, "WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: Demand independent Journalism for America, as We simply cannot stand for anything less than the truth ..." .. that is a cause that people want votes for, and that is what Wikipedia has been abused for to get votes for (the site even suggests to promote the petition on twitter and facebook, some did make the step to go to Wikipedia). petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/balanced-approach-reforming-postal-service on the other hand, is the "OFFICIAL OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET RESPONSE TO" .. the petition "A Balanced Approach to Reforming the Postal Service". --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Beetstra Let me confirm that I see the abuse, and that I do not want Wikipedia to link to petitions. I want to clarify that I am not advocating that petitions should be linked here.
    I was unaware of the responses section. I wonder if I missed it, or if it is new. Still, responses appear in multiple places. If there are multiple petitions on the same topic, then they all have the response, and the response will be in the petition space. It seems like the responses will not have a link to the mirror at the /response/ space.
    The first link you gave ("Demand independent Journalism") would be petition spam on Wikipedia because it is just a petition. The second link has no petition ("Reforming the Postal Service"), and is just a response. However, check "Reforming the Postal Service" in this link - petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/preserve-6-day-mail-delivery . It is the same response, just posted on the same page as a petition, and also there is no link from this page that I see to the response page. The petition signatures are there, but it seems like it might not be active and that no one can sign now. I would say that this is also a valid source to which to link. The response is the same. I am not sure which is the original source and which is the mirror. Also it is not easy to know that there is a special /response/ section also giving the information.
    I think it would be find to only link to what is in the responses section, but also, for older petitions (1-2 years ago?) there seems to be no mirror in the response section, or I cannot find them. Not sure... Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:21, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    The /response section is not blacklisted, and can be linked to.
    I agree that there are older petitions that might not have a response, and might be a suitable reference, and that is why we have the blacklist. Same goes for petitions where there is a response answered in the petition page. Unfortunately, barring someone blanket whitelisting all closed petitions preemptively, there is no way to filter those automatically as they are on the same path. I do still think though, that even if the office replied, that it does not mean that the petition itself is notable, or that the petition needs to be mentioned in Wikipedia.
    Therefore, seeing that there is regular abuse of petition sites (up to the official ones like this one of the US government) I think that some form of control is needed, and I think that the whitelist can easily handle those cases where a petition is needed. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:26, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Iotworm.com (removal request)

    My site link was blacklisted 2 months back because I was not having any idea of Wikipedia policy. Now I have read all the link policy information, I am guaranteeing you that this will not happen again. Please remove my site link from blacklist. Site URL: Iotworm.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.176.154.88 (talk) 11:41, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    You say you had no idea, but it did not come into your consideration that every time your links were removed, that there was a reason. I mean, you re-inserted them what, 20, 30 times? no Declined --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:20, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
     Not done You probably should have gotten an idea before attempting to spam your site from 8 different IP addresses and 2 named accounts. OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:59, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Palace Theatre

    to link to Palace Theatre, Melbourne

    palace.com has been blacklisted, however the completely seperate page palace.com.au has been included in this process. This website is very useful as it is the official site for the Palace Theatre, and includes a history section which I propose to be whitelisted. Alfiecooper (talk) 12:23, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Timesofbook.com

    I would like to say, timesofbook.com should be remove from blacklist. Its a very useful website which is provide more info about books and its specifications. I can say its right time to remove from blacklist so that users can add like below useful information url's into wiki and its a big help to others users. timesofbook.com/2015/03/explain-how-sbi-irctc-quick-pay-service.html

    Apart from this this website having technology tutorials like PHP which should help for students and learners also PHP beginners. timesofbook.com/search/label/PHP%20Tutorial

    My consideration it should be in whitelist. Common dude anyone can remove from blacklist. Thanks in advance :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.89.154.131 (talk • contribs)

    Yeah that's not going to happen [22]. -KH-1 (talk) 05:10, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

     Denied MER-C 11:22, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    in-cubator.org

    I was adding in-cubator.org as external link to open source open innovation platform at open innovation wikipedia page. please explain what I did wrong and I'll avoid doing it. Thank you for your help.

    It was added to the blacklist recently due to apparent attempts to linkspam the site to Wikipedia articles.  Defer to Whitelist to request that a specific page on that site be whitelisted for a specific purpose. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:54, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    guru.psu.edu/policies/AD85.html

    How can the site be useful It is a link to an official Penn State policy, I believe

    Why it should not be blacklisted A notice of links on the blacklist was recently added to Rene Portland. The offending link appears to be a link to a Penn State policy. My first thought was that perhaps some organization called "guru" was inappropriately copying material, possibly in violation of copyright, and that was the reason for the inclusion on the blacklist. I decided to search for the policy on the Penn State website.

    I found this general page about affirmative-action which clearly appears to be an official page associated with Penn State: Affirmative-action office

    That page has a reference to policy AD85, and a link but the link goes to the blacklisted site. I don't know whether it is simply a coincidence that the university chose a site naming scheme which included a word commonly associated with problematic sites or if something else is going on.

    If this link does not appear to be exhibiting the problem that led to the blacklist rule, can I asked that he be whitelisted?--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:44, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    some .guru URLs caught by new filter

    In addition to the case, that Sphilbrick mentioned, there are a few more guru-related cases that have been introduced with the latest guru filter-change. I was able to work around some of the easier cases to avoid using the blacklisted links, and have compiled a (hopefully) complete list of the remaining open cases:

    All those cases seem to be valid (or borderline-valid) usages, certainly not spam per se. I am not sure, if anything can be done about them without weakening the guru filter, just bringing those cases to the attention of more knowledgeable filter editors to discuss. Feel free to move this to "Discussion", if necessary. GermanJoe (talk) 22:36, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    filmybase.com

    How can the site be useful This site is useful for Indian users because this site is an Indian Movies Online Database as IMDb.com. Users visits this site and they votes their favorite movies.

    Why it should not be blacklisted The main purpose of the site is to provide a online collection to Indian movies. This site links are only added to Indian movie's Wiki. Users visits this site to give votes and add reviews to their favorite Indian movies. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.229.204.182 (talk • contribs)

    Strongly oppose:
    1. The site is useless as a reference because it doesn't have an established reputation for fact-checking or a clear editorial policy, and there's no indication that anyone of merit (i.e. an established team of experienced journalists trained in honest journalistic skills) is operating the site.
    2. The site is also useless as a resource, because WikiProject Film doesn't care about user-contributed film ratings. Note Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Film#Audience response. We don't include IMDb ratings or Rotten Tomatoes' user ratings in articles, so if that's all that this site can offer, no dice.
    3. The site is useless for external links, per WP:ELNO as the site provides no significant expansion on information already present in our articles. For instance, if you look at *DOMAIN*/movies/63691-mukhtiar-chadha (an article at Filmybase) and compare it to Mukhtiar Chadha, it'll be clear that Filmybase adds nothing to this project. And for all we know, Filmybase is scraping Wikipedia articles for content like many other spam sites do.
    4. Let's not forget that the person who first added this site to Wikipedia resorted to sockpuppetry to attempt to legitimize the site by recreating articles about it. It's clear the user hasn't learned his lesson, hence this disingenuous removal request. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:34, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    xvideos.com

    This website provide lot of information about our life. Every one should aware about this. WOW... What a website. Awesome!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.89.154.131 (talk • contribs)

    3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion

    3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion is DuckDuckGo.com's onion address. On the page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo we see DuckDuckGo's onion address listed in the sidebar. Onion addresses are urls and should be clickable. I went to edit it to reflect that fact but the address is blocked by an overly strict \b[_\-0-9a-z]+\.onion\b. A comment next to it shows it was initially just meant to block the silkroad (which would be retired now anyway, not that we'd want to link to a dead site. I think in the very least prominent and scrupulous onion links should be allowed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.199.219 (talk • contribs)

    @71.62.199.219: After the problems with SilkRoad (mainly editors changing links from the official to other .onion addresses), and seeing similar behaviour with others, the whole set was blacklisted. Specific, properly verified, .onion addresses for those cases where the subject is notable (and the few cases where they are needed as references) can be excluded, but that has to be done through whitelisting. Hence,  Defer to Whitelist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:18, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Completed Proposed removals

    Troubleshooting and problems

    Googleweblight.com

    googleweblight.com is triggering the filter. NE Ent 13:04, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    @NE Ent: I see it does, and don't understand yet why (it is not on en.wikipedia). I'll have a look on meta. Anyway, I don't think there is ever a need to link to the site on Wikipedia (I actually wonder whether it can be used as a redirect service), I think you wanted to link to http://nativepakistan.com/rare-newspapers-and-magazines-about-pakistan/. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:49, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it is on meta, added by Billinghurst. Rationale is indeed that googleweblight.com can be used to avoid checks, see m:User:COIBot/XWiki/googleweblight.com. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    What I wanted to do was create Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive275 (archive bot(s) haven't been working on AN) and got held up because some else had previously used it (making me think it was a recent addition). Anything, it's google, and appears to be used to support low bandwidth mobile connections [23], so perhaps its inclusion should be reconsidered. NE Ent 17:57, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah .. an archiving problem. Yes, indeed, the link is for making pages lighter for mobile purposes or low speed connections. If that is needed for Wikipedia, then our devs should make our own version of that hook, I don't think that we should use an external service for it.
    That it is google does not matter - what matters is that people can abuse a link service for promotional purposes, or to obfuscate links that are blacklisted. And there is no need for this, the original link works perfectly well. Parts of google are rightfully blacklisted as they can be, and have been, abused for blacklist evasion and for search engine optimisation spamming. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:46, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Note that I don't think that this specific case of linking was a problem, many of these links are used in good faith. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:48, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Partial matches: <change.org> blocks <time-to-change.org.uk>

    As discussed here, the regex on <change.org> here on en.Wikipedia blocks the unrelated <time-to-change.org.uk>. Would it be possible to change the regex on <change.org>, but also on all other sites, to reflect actual url specifications, rather than the current approximation, as I won't be the only one to be affected! Cheers. ‑‑YodinT 11:42, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Consider  Done. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:11, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    http://time-to-change.org.uk should now work. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:16, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks :) ‑‑YodinT 12:29, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    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.
    Note: If you do not log your entries, it may be removed if someone appeals the entry 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 who adds 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. This data is available in real-time on IRC.

    Poking COIBot

    When adding {{LinkSummary}}, {{UserSummary}} and/or {{IPSummary}} templates to WT:WPSPAM, WT:SBL, WT:SWL and User:COIBot/Poke (the latter for privileged editors) COIBot will generate linkreports for the domains, and userreports for users and IPs.


    Discussion

    Blacklist handler 'gadget'

    On meta, there is a script available (admins there only) to help adding links to and removing links from the global blacklist. I have some time ago advertised to some that I was working to get this script available here as well (I asked first to have it ported). I have now finished porting it (first to WT:SBL; later to others), and adapting it to the greatly different environment available here on en.wikipedia. Here is serves multiple source pages (discussions here, WT:SPAM, XLinkBot's revertlist and the local COIBot reports), and 2 target pages (the blacklist and the revertlist).

    The script can be found here. The easiest way of activating it on your admin account on en.wikipedia (it should refuse to work on non-admin accounts) is by including importScript('User:Beetstra/Gadget-Spam-blacklist-Handler.js'); as a line in your vector.js (user:<yourusername>/vector.js).

    The script adds buttons next to the respective edit-section-buttons for the specific sections on:

    • WT:WPSPAM, every section
      • 'add RL' to add to XLinkBot RevertList
      • 'add BL' to add to the Spam-blacklist
    • MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist
      • 'add RL' to add to XLinkBot RevertList on the addition request section headers
      • 'add BL' to add to the Spam-blacklist on the addition request section headers
      • 'remove BL' to remove from the Spam-blacklist on the removal request section headers
      • 'decline' buttons to both the addition and removal request section headers (to quick decline addition/removal).
    • the domain pages under the tree 'Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Local' (see Category:Local_COIBot_Reports - especially the open ones which tend to be recent)
      • 'add RL' to add to XLinkBot's RevertList on the addition request section headers
      • 'add BL' to add to the Spam-blacklist on the addition request section headers
      • 'close' to quick-close the report
      • 'reverted' to note that you reverted all additions (also results in the report being closed)
    • User talk:XLinkBot/RevertList
      • 'add RL' to add to XLinkBot's RevertList on the addition request section headers
      • 'add BL' to add to the Spam-blacklist on the addition request section headers
      • 'remove RL' to remove from XLinkBot's RevertList on the removal request section headers
      • 'decline' buttons to both the addition and removal request section headers (to quick decline addition/removal).

    Upon clicking the add/remove buttons, the respective section is opened for editing (and text can be added to both the section text as well as the summary), and the code extracts the domain(s) from the '{{LinkSummary}}' template(s) in the respective sections on WT:WPSPAM, MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist and User talk:XLinkBot/RevertList, or the domain from the pagename for the /Local reports. And after pressing 'save and ..' the domain(s) is/are converted to (a) regex(es), and is/are added to the respective target list. After confirming (whether the addition is processed correctly) it will also automatically create a log-item in the log for the page which includes your username, the source discussion for the decision, and a link to the addition/removal diff (removals are logged as a new log item, it does not remove the old addition from the log).

    Please let me know if there are still things that don't function properly, bugs or considerations. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:22, 7 October 2015 (UTC) cross-posted to WT:WPSPAM; User:JzG is acknowledged for inadvertently showing me bugs and errors while using the script.[reply]

    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist&oldid=693773606"