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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ohnoitsjamie (talk | contribs) at 04:21, 13 November 2020 (→‎Proposed additions: adding). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Wikipedia:Spam-blacklist" redirects here. For a description of the spam blacklist, see Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. For instructions on administrating the spam blacklist, see 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 – 988435866 after you have closed the request. See here for more info on logging.


    Proposed additions

    mangaip.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 - Intentionaly remove original valid references then points to random Indonesian blog instead Special:Diff/959900932


    sonyprize.com

    This is both spam and deception. All of the above sites are fakes, just trying to scam folks that visit them. The sony and kbc sites are for a television show Kaun Banega Crorepati (Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire), jioprize is for a lottery. I *think* those are the three being pushed right now, hoping the COIBot reports will give a better idea of anything else being pushed. Ravensfire (talk) 14:23, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I was just about to report one of these myself. plus Added OhNoitsJamie Talk
    Just added another. OhNoitsJamie Talk 13:59, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ohnoitsjamie, thanks - just went here to request that one be added. Determined little gits, aren't they? Ravensfire (talk) 14:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    ehsaashealthservice.com

    Spamming from multiple IPs. plus Added OhNoitsJamie Talk 16:08, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    travelwithmemoment.blogspot.com

    Spamming in several articles a link to a suspicious travel blog. AmericanAir88(talk) 20:08, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    whatculture.com

    I posted this proposal back on October 31, and it has not been answered and since archived, so here it is again. I have no evidence of spam, but WhatCulture is practically useless, with so many listicles, rumors, so much editorialization, speculation, and downright junk news that may or may not be fake, but is not to be trusted anyway. I do have evidence of a consensus considering the source to be useless, so nothing appears to be at stake when it comes to banning the domain. There is a Wikipedia article about it, so if it is notable, its main URL may need to be whitelisted. FreeMediaKid! 06:20, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    csnumbers.com

    plus Added At least 10 throwaway accounts spamming dog med adverts OhNoitsJamie Talk 04:21, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposed removals

    onbibi.com

    Request to unlist onbibi.com from blacklist. Onbibi is a search engine and we don't know why it has been blocked from adding url on wikipedia ?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Giabaodiep (talk • contribs)

    @Giabaodiep: The question for you to answer is: why would we want to link to onbibi.com? --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:44, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    investing.com

    investing.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

    I would like bring up an interesting yet easily solvable case - the website investing.com - a platform providing financial news/resources/tools etc. globally. Frankly I found it is banned by chance as I recently tried to use its link as a source for a trivial claim about economic investments in the developing world, only to get the surprising message that the link triggered a filter. I therefore started digging into it more and conducted a review of the matter; to sum it up here’s my honest analysis of what happened:

    Investing.com has close to 50 million monthly unique visits and is now a top 185 website and one of the most authoritative websites in its field, alongside Forbes and MarketWatch (which are ranked behind at 285 and 443, consecutively). Naturally it also had an article on Wikipedia for many years (until a user proposed it for deletion 4 months ago, and after several rounds that should have ended in clear Keep or no consensus, it kept getting re-listed for some reason and was deleted in a equal overall keep-delete vote, but that’s another matter that can be resolved). After searching hard on MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/log and MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives I found the one incident, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2018 Archive Mar 1 - it was blocked from en:wiki after an editor reported in March 2018 that several dozens website links were added to wiki articles in September 2014 and then again in 2017 by different IPs and should be viewed as a "spamlink campaign". Editors agreed that some of the edits were valid or done in good faith but due to the manner they were added and because most of these links were news-aggregations (at the time) decided they should replaced by the original news, and the closing editor took the rather simple action and banned all news links from the site, effectively all links except of a few I believe such as its about page.

    Today it is clear that the website has original content, analysis, stats and tools and is trusted by millions in the financial community. It had no other "abuses" (the bizarre option that an unrelated third party did it to hurt their competitor is also a possibility that should be noted.) It is probably more notable and known than the vast majority of refs and ext. links on Wikipedia, furthermore it is also widely used in other Wikipedias as a simple search for the domain found endless of uses, for instance in Spanish Wikipedia where it has hundreds of links. Keepting this legitimate worldwide informative website on the black list has no good or logical standing, its moderate use can be useful for Wikipedia in various finance-related articles links as is already happening elsewhere without a problem. Thanks, EliQM (talk) 10:23, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment Here is the spam report. I dropped all of the IPs in a sorted spreadsheet and looked for ranges, finding:
    [1] - blocked proxy (Micfo VPN/ Contina)
    [2] blocked proxy (Micfo VPN / Contina)
    [3] blocked proxy (Micfo VPN / Contina)
    [4] blocked proxy (Micfo VPN / Contina)
    [5] blocked proxy (Micfo VPN / Contina)
    [6] blocked proxy (SUBNET-H-9 (Digital Energy Technologies Ltd., AS61317)
    Hallmarks of a spam campaign (one that would be more challenging to wage again, given that we've put the kabosh on most of the VPNs used since then).
    In any case,  Defer to Whitelist - trusted, established editors are welcome to request whitelisting. OhNoitsJamie Talk 14:31, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Ohnoitsjamie. I understand. As noted, it has been over 3 years from the most recent occurrence. And reviewing some of the diffs, I see quite a few fine edit that wouldn't need a revert - it's the way it was done which was not okay of course; considering how much this platform has changed as it has a became global market source, there is a very good argument that this ban is not longer justified and that the website, if ever used again, would be used positively/moderately.
    I read the guidelines on MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist, and it says "Requests quoting only a domain (i.e. ending in .com or similar with nothing after the / character) are likely to be denied. If you wish to have a site fully unblocked please visit the relevant section of MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist." - which is what I did here... What is the correct thing do do now? Thanks, EliQM (talk) 11:31, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    אליעד מלין, time is not a factor, we have cases that drag on for 10 years or more. It pays your bills to have your links on Wikipedia. SEO is an important job, and seen the spamming here, and the numbers you present, probably the popularity is part of successful SEO.
    The correct way of action is to ask for whitelisting of specific links for a specific target page. I do not foresee yet that we will blanket allow anything here, yet. Dirk Beetstra T C 11:42, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Beetstra thanks for your reply, it's great you oppose spam as well. Respectfully, I believe your assumption is wrong - a company that appears first on Google when you search for the word "investing" and has a daily flow of millions, does not need a few clicks from Wikipedia for SEO and definitely does not rely on spamming. Time has apparently been a factor here (and rightly so) because I have seen requests by other websites turned down when they were brought up a month after entering the blacklist, and others accepted after a while with reasonable reasoning, and like all websites this one should be treated in an objective way. I am asking for a neutral re-consideration/ another opinion. EliQM (talk) 10:01, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    אליעד מלין, '[A] company that appears first on Google when you search for the word 'investing' and has a daily flow of millions. How do you think that they end up there? How did they become so popular in the first place? Google magically decided that they should be at the top? Or is that a matter of advertising?
    And why is time a factor for this website? This was, in my opinion, a rather aggressive spam campaign. Series of single-edit IPs. Either someone on a very, very volatile network (and who may have chosen to be there to avoid scrutiny) or someone who intentionally tries to stay under the radar by doing one edit per IP. Having your links somewhere results in you having high google rankings, large influx of traffic, and hence that you .. make money. SEO does not stop because, e.g. Wikipedia does not like spam. They don't stop, it pays their bills.
    So now you want a third opinion, after two admins (regulars here) state the same: go to the whitelist for specific links and see whether that significantly sticks and we decide that indeed many are not replaceable, valuable, etc.? Well, any other editor is allowed to comment here, and when an independent editor shows there is consensus to delist I will do that. Dirk Beetstra T C 13:21, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    [www.investing.com/about-us/start-contributing 1. Log in. Then click on 'My Account,’ located at the top right corner of the Homepage and go to the 'Add Analysis’ button; 2. Select 'Add Analysis’; 3. Start writing!] --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:26, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Logging / COIBot Instructions

    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

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