MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist

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The Spam-whitelist page is used in conjunction with the Mediawiki SpamBlacklist extension, and lists strings of text that override Meta's blacklist and the local spam-blacklist. Any administrator can edit the spam whitelist. Please post comments to the appropriate section below: Proposed additions (web pages to unblock), Proposed removals (sites to reblock), or Troubleshooting and problems; read the messageboxes at the top of each section for an explanation. See also MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist.

Please enter your requests at the bottom of the Proposed additions to Whitelist section and not at the very bottom of the page. Sign your requests with four tildes: ~~~~

Also in your request, please include the following:

1. The link that you want whitelisted in the section title, like === example.com/help/index.php === .
2. The Wikipedia page on which you want to use the link
3. An explanation why it would be useful to the encyclopedia article proper
4. If the site you're requesting is listed at /Common requests, please include confirmation that you have read the reason why requests regarding the site are commonly denied and that you still desire to proceed with your request

Important: You must provide a full link to the specific web page you want to be whitelisted (leave out the http:// from the front; otherwise you will not be able to save your edit to this page). 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.

Note: Do not request links to be whitelisted where you can reasonably suspect that the material you want to link to is in violation of copyright (see WP:LINKVIO). Such requests will likely be summarily rejected.

There is no automated notification system in place for the results of requests, and you will not be notified when your request has a response. You should therefore add this page to your personal watch list, to your notifications through the subscribe feature, or check back here every few days to see if there is any progress on it; in particular, you should check whether administrators have raised any additional queries or expressed any concerns about the request, as failure to reply to these promptly will generally result in the request being denied.

Completed requests are archived, additions and removal are logged. →snippet for logging: {{/request|345200641#section_name}}

Note that requests from new or unregistered users are not usually considered.

Admins: Use seth's tool to search the spamlists.

Indicators
Request completed:
Done	{{Done}}
Stale	{{StaleIP}}
Request withdrawn	{{withdrawn}}
Request declined:
Declined	{{Declined}}
Not done	{{Notdone}}
Information:
Additional information needed	{{MoreInfo}}
Note:	{{TakeNote}}

Proposed additions to Whitelist (sites to unblock)

Libro d'Oro di Malta

I would request this website(maltagenealogy.com/libro%20d'Oro/lebastardedemezieres.html)to be White listed as it holds some important genealogical information regarding French and English royalty. Here is a list of articles that could benefit from it

• Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier : in this article it would make to us known the pedigree of his mother, Renee of Anjou, who according to the website was a direct male line (albeit illegitimate) descendant of John II of Naples.
• Charles, Count of Maine : This article does not list any illegitimate children, therefore a link could be forged between this article and others, for example the previous one, by naming Charles's illegitimate offspring, and his subsequent descendants form them.
• Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier : This article also does not list any illegitimate children, yet according to the site, Marie had several illegitimate children with a certain Leonor de Orleans, Comte de St Paul, Duc de Fronjac. This would imply she has descendants till today, which was earlier unknown as her only legitimate daughter, La Grande Mademoiselle, died without any issue. Furthermore, her article can be linked to the articles of the Duke of Lennox, the illegitimate son of Charles II of England, as follows...
  • According to the site, Marie's illegitimate granddaughter, Jeanne de Meziere, was a mistress of Louis Joseph de Bourbon, duc de Vendome. The offspring of this liasion, Jacqueline de Mezieres, was mistress to Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond. In turn, their daughter Renée Lennox was mistress of her cousin Charles Beauclerk, 2nd Duke of St Albans and, not surprisingly, in turn, their offspring, Diane Beauclerk-Lennox, became the mistress of a Maltese Baron Alessandro Mompalalao Cuzkeri. Diane has surviving descendants today, but they are generally commoners. Also, through this long chain of illegitimate relationships one can highlight the sexual tendencies of the French Nobility, or in other words, the Ancien Regime....HOwever, that is not very important. What is important is the number of articles that will benefit from this information...Therefore i request to please white list this site, as it is a valuable piece of information for wikipedia...

Thanking You, Nirvaan, Talk Page, Nghosh 20:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

• Where is the evidence that this is a reliable source, please? Also, I can't find the blacklist discussion. Guy (Help!) 11:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• See here. This tool is very handy for finding blacklisting requests. MER-C 11:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• This is the link ([1]). Its clearly says NO ENTRIES for MaltaGenealogy.com. Nirvaan, Talk Page, Nghosh 09:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

thesportsinterview.com

I was trying to make the following change on the talk page for Omar Benson Miller because Wiki has published the error, removed the error, but alas, also released the error into the internet, so it is highly likely to reappear on the Wiki page -- I'd like to forestall that. In the link, OBM says himself that Wikipedia removed it but that it keeps coming round again due to all the sites which picked up Wikipedia's original error. I don't know what the site did to get blacklisted; it looks pretty harmless to me.

==No relation to Forest Whittaker==

At one point, Wikipedia said he was Whittaker's nephew, but OBM refutes the story himself [http://www.thesportsinterview.com/omarb.html here].

—LisaSmall ^T/C 01:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The site was blocked due to massive spamming, IIRC. As an aside, we don't normally do those sort of "retractions", so the edit isn't really needed. --Ckatz^chat_spy 02:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laestadianism

There are missing in the references & sources all the blogs, and informative websites. From the information seekers' point of view there in the source list would be useful service to mention some international sources as following:

Web sites, blogs & discussions [the title of this part]

• laestadian-ism.blogspot.com/ Laestadian-ism - The blog for a Finnish research project focusing on the political dimensions of laestadianism.
• extoots.blogspot.com/ Learning to live free: Life as a former laestadian - An information & discussion website.
• postlaestadianrevival.freeforums.org/ - Postlaestadian Revival the Ex-Firstborn Laestadians' Forum.
• freepathways.wordpress.com/ Omat Polut: Freepathways - A Finnish blog, focus in the Conservative Laestadianism; partly published in English.

(Suggestions by Classiclevi) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Classiclevi (talk • contribs) 21:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

•  Declined. These are blogs of no obvious encyclopaedic value and fail our sources policy. Note that links to freepathways.wordpress.com were reverted by XLinkbot, the user has no edits other than linking this blog. Enough said. Guy (Help!) 20:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

http://revelationspace dot free forums dot org

(above address could not be included in its regular form because it is blacklisted, so I used "dot" instead of "."

To be used on pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space

...and other pages associated with the Revelation Space universe.

I'm assuming the problem is with the forum host, but I'd ask that editors of this page please follow the link where you can see that it is a legitimate fan forum, with several ongoing discussions of this author's work. And more importantly, it appears to be the only fan forum for this author, who is a popular science fiction writer in Europe and the U.S.

I also included (in the same edit) links to book reviews, and hope to add more information on Revelation Space because that entry (and several associated with it) are tagged as requiring more work. Thank you for your time. Stormstrike (talk) 09:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

 Declined, forums are not considered to be reliable sources. Stifle (talk) 09:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

No one's making the case for whether the forum is a "reliable source." I'm not attempting to source any of the material in the article to the forum -- I simply want to put a link to the forum under "External links" so readers interested in Alastair Reynolds and the Revelation Space universe can join in on discussions about the books if they'd like to, and read information about short stories written by Mr. Reynolds.

There are thousands upon thousands of wikipedia entries that have External links to discussion boards and fan sites for various authors, artists and musicians. Notice how the entry for Iain M. Banks (a very similar author of space opera) includes a link a fan site with forums -- that's all I'm asking.

Please read this request carefully, as again, I am not asking to source anything to the forum. Stormstrike (talk) 21:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunatly forums, fansites and social networking sites are all Links normally to be avoided and fails Wikipedias specific inclusion requirements of our External Links policy. As to pointing out that other articles have forum links, doesn't make for an exception that this link should also be included.--Hu12 (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. I read the relevant section, and it seems the main focus of those external "links to be avoided" are things like Myspace, Usenet groups, Yahoo groups, etc. I can understand that.

But in this case, we are talking about the only existing forum and news site for Alastair Reynolds, a British science fiction author. This forum is not only a discussion place, it is also an author-specific news site where information on the author's new stories and collections are posted. Again, nothing is to be sourced to that forum: I simply want to include it for folks who may want to discuss his work and read more about his novels and short stories.

I'm having a hard time understanding how this would lower the quality of the associated Wikipedia pages. I've started cleaning up some of those Reynolds pages, and most of them have very few links to external sources. Including such a link would actually be useful to people who enjoyed reading Mr. Reynolds's books, since the author only maintains a blog (which is not really focused on the books) and there is no "official site" for the series.

It seems the distinction here is about including information vs not including information. On such sparse entries, it's hard to see how a single relevant, small link would increase Wikipedia's noise ratio. Again, I really feel the information would be enormously helpful to folks interested in the subject matter. One other thing to note is that the link *was* allowed while the forum/news site had its own domain -- is that some sort of threshhold for inclusion? That seems a bit inconsistent. Stormstrike (talk) 20:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• No, it's about the quality of the information. This is just a forum, it doesn't matter if it's the only one on the topic or one of a thousand, it's still just a forum. Guy (Help!) 11:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

dreammachineonline.freeforums.org/index.php

the current link on wikipedia points at a now dead page (i have since deleted the 'dead'link) for use on the page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Machine_(band)

dreammachineonline.freeforums.org/index.php is the correct address for the official band forum of which i am the admin/owner the original link to the original forum was allowed. the original forum is no longer in existence and has thus been replaced with the above forum. this can be verified by following the link to the forum from the bands official webpage link Sideards (talk) 04:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

• We don't normally link to forums; see WP:RS. What makes this one worthy of an exception? Stifle (talk) 11:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The page used to link to the bands forum but the forum address has changed, I assume the original link (which I have edited out already) was allowed as an exception? the band themselves are frequent posters on this forum and often news of the band is heard there first. Sideards (talk) 14:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

lulu.com/content/paperback-book/demon-candy-parallel/7624834

I want to reference this for the article for the webcomic Demon Candy: Parallel as this is the publisher of the print edition of the comic. As there are only a few reliable sources out there for this comic, I believe that this would be useful. ISD (talk) 09:38, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Could I request that a decision about this link be made very soon. The article is due to appear on DYK? at midnight GMT on the 29th, and if this source is useable it will help make the article become less likely to be deleted. The article on has one secondry source so far, so this will help. ISD (talk) 15:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

iblogger.org

I wish to change some links to pages moved to sub domains of iblogger.org

Since TPG have taken over MySoul, my site at home.mysoul.com.au/graemecook/ will close on 22 January 2010 Other sites have been moved since the closure of geocites in October 2009.

The new sub domains are:

greatestbattles.iblogger.org smx.iblogger.org dutcheastindies.iblogger.org marmon-herrington.iblogger.org These are the sub domains I would like added to the white list.

Existing links to this material are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipu_Sultan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyder_Ali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history_of_Mysore_and_Coorg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewin_Bentham_Bowring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalorean_Catholics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Scurry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captivity_of_Mangalorean_Catholics_at_Seringapatam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Gettysburg! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies_campaign & 45 more: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&search=geocities.com%2Fdutcheastindies%2F&fulltext=Search&ns0=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmon-Herrington_Armoured_Car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmon-Herrington_CTLS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Gettysburg!

I have previously been unable to cite other material from geocites pages and wish to add these now for .iblogger.org sub domains. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jena-Auerstedt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solferino,_Battle_of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerlitz:_Napoleon%27s_Greatest_Victory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saratoga_campaign

This material includes the only on-line full text of the public domain 1893 book: HAIDAR ALI AND TIPU SULTAN AND THE STRUGGLE WITH THE MUSALMAN POWERS OF THE SOUTH BY LEWIN B. BOWRING, C.S.I. FORMERLY CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF MYSORE;

A large database on the Dutch East Indies Campaign of World War II; A database of Military Vehicles by the Marmon Herrington Company The largest source of user made modifications for the computer games: Sid Meier's Gettysburg, Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle & Austerlitz: Napoleon's Greatest Victory plus supporting historical material on the battles depicted in these modifications.

Graeme Cook (talk) 02:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• How are these reliable sources? Stifle (talk) 11:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Dear Stifle,

Lewin B. Bowring was commisioner for Mysore. As his book was published in 1893 & he is writing about the 1790s he is not a primary source but his book is well foot-noted.

The Official Reports of the American Civil war are primary sources. The officers who wrote them may not be unbiased but they are accurate in the sense that this is what they wrote in their reports and for balance there are the reports of other officers, both Union & Confederate, of the same events. The cross referencing of unit names where they are referred to by their commander's name and the spreadsheet of casualties by regiment is draw from the official reports themselves.

The Dutch East Indies Campaign material is drawn from multiple sources in English, Dutch and Japanese. Contributors & some sources are listed on the credits page, others on the individual pages.

Peter Hofschröer uses German language sources (listed in the Bibliography) rather than the usual English sources for the battle of Jena in 1806 between the French and Prussians.

The Marmon-Herrington Military Vehicles material is from sources (listed on individual pages) including manufacturer's documents, official reports, various books & magazines and contemporary photographs.

etc.

Graeme Cook (talk) 22:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

grangehotels.com

I understand this domain has been involved in some SEO spamming. However we have an legit article Grange City Hotel, covering a notable 5* london hotel, which is missing a link to the hotel's home page. So. Any possibility of whitelisting www DOT grangehotels.com/Hotels-London/Grange-City-Hotel/Grange-City-Hotel.aspx?INT=1 ...? thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I am minded to allow this request and will do so in a few days unless I see a reason not to. I do seem to remember this coming up before, though... Stifle (talk) 09:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the article in question has existed only since 14 December 2009 ... not sure any request has been made whilst that article was extant. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done Stifle (talk) 11:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

petitions.number10.gov.uk

There's a blacklist entry for /\bpetitions?\b/, which seems rather overzealous. It catches the above, which is the official site for online petitions to the UK Prime Minister. The particular thing I would like to be able to link is search.petitions.number10.gov.uk/kbroker/number10/petitions/search.lsim?ha=1159&qt=dihydrogen (to provide a reference for a claim made at Dihydrogen Monoxide hoax).

• If the reason for the very broad blacklisting is that many sites with "petition" in their names are spammy or unreliable or otherwise unlikely to be usable as sources or appropriate for linking, then I think *.petitions.number10.gov.uk should be whitelisted.
• If the reason for the very broad blacklisting is concern that links from WP to online petition sites are themselves likely to be a form of abuse (e.g., people agitating for signatures for their pet causes) then I think search.petitions.number10.gov.uk should be whitelisted.
• If the reason is something else I haven't thought of that makes almost all links to sites with "petition" in their names a Bad Thing, then I request that whitelisting the specific link above be considered.
• If the reason is something that makes it bad to have the URL included on the Dihydrogen Monoxide hoax page even without being a link, I will be glad to remove it again. (At present I've added a <ref> for it that includes the URL without the leading http://.)

Wikipedia will gain from the whitelisting because the fact that a petition has been made, or that it has received a very large number of signatures, or that it has been successful, can easily be worthy of mention in WP. The specific example above is pretty borderline, but consider e.g. the petition mentioned under "Rehabilitation" on the Alan Turing page; it would be good to be able to link directly to the petition there, as well as to articles about the petition. Thanks. Gareth McCaughan (talk) 14:29, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

• We very much intend to block all petition sites, because Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a place to call attention to your cause. If it's your intention to refer to the amount of support some petition has received, you should cite a secondary source that says so. The petition site is not a reliable source for anything. Stifle (talk) 19:53, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

For the avoidance of doubt, it's not my cause; I neither created nor (IIRC) signed any of the petitions mentioned above. (It's possible that I signed the Turing one; I forget. In the present instance my intention was simply to provide a citation for a claim that was already in the article and that had a citation-needed tag on it.) And, also for the avoidance of doubt, neither in the case that actually prompted this request nor the hypothetical one I mentioned does this have anything to do with calling attention to any cause; the DHMO petitions are obvious jokes and that's their point, and the Turing one was closed long ago.

Anyway: the petition site, at least in this case, most certainly *is* a reliable source for (1) the existence of any given petition on it, (2) the support it has received, and (3) the official response, if any, from the UK government. Of course it isn't a reliable source for any claim made in any petition, but I wasn't suggesting that it is. And of course it's a primary source for (1-3) above, and must therefore be used with care; but, to take as an example the DHMO-hoax page I mentioned above, the only claim being made there is that several petitions have been submitted and rejected as not serious, which is (to quote WP:OR) a "descriptive statement[] that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge".

It seems to me that the petition-searching facility at search.petitions.number10.gov.uk is scarcely more soapbox-enabling than the internet-searching facility at www.google.com, which is not blacklisted. (Indeed, the documented purpose of the blacklist is "a last resort for spam which spreads across multiple projects" and it seems improbable to me that a blanket ban on sites with "petition" or "petitions" in their name can be necessary for that purpose; but that's a digression and it is not my purpose to divert this into a discussion of whether the blanket entry is a mistake. My point is only: Here is what seems like an obviously legitimate purpose for linking to this site.) Gareth McCaughan (talk) 23:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Many, many petition sites have been problematic (petitiononline.com the big example, but there are many more), most of them are sites where one can start without any background a 'free' petition, and abuse of those was significant.

That being said, I would be inclined to say that petitions.number10.gov.uk could be different in that regard. You need to be a British citizen to start a petition, contact details are checked, etc. etc. I don't think it will be possible to 'just create a random petition here'. I second whitelisting the whole domain (though we may consider to add it to XLinkBot at the same time just to not have it abused, and to get a bit of an idea of the if and how it is abused). Any second opinions? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I would oppose whitelisting the domain at this time. At first glance, the URL suggested it might be reserved for official matters. If, however, it is for the general public, it would open us up to problematic abuse (even if petitions are vetted there). We can alway whitelist specific notable pages if needed. As for the link in the dihydrogen article, is that bit of trivia even notable? All it really proves is that the office didn't fall for the joke, which doesn't seem terribly notable. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:47, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I (the person who made this request) am not 100% convinced that the DHMO petition thing is notable either; I was just doing some citation cleanup. But I think I'd say: given that we have an article about DHMO at all, and given that the purpose of the DHMO hoax is as a sort of test/demonstration of a certain kind of scientific illiteracy, facts about notable entities that have demonstrated either that sort of illiteracy or its opposite when faced with the hoax are relevant there. But no, the article would hardly be ruined if that claim were simply removed. Gareth McCaughan (talk) 10:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Dirk: you don't need to be a British citizen, you just need to say you're a British citizen. I'm not totally opposed to the concept of whitelisting this one, but it's still a primary source. Stifle (talk) 12:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not here to garner support for (always and necessarily) partisan petitions. Nor are these petitions usable as sources. We can report on what third parties say about them, and that is enough. As tot he specific case, the Number 10 petition site was one of the sites that caused the blacklisting in the first place, and sourcing commentary of the petition to the petition site itself is WP:OR. Guy (Help!) 11:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, again: (1) I haven't the least interest in using WP to garner support for any petition; all the petitions I mentioned above have already closed. Suggesting that links to this site be permitted is not, in any way, the same thing as saying that WP is here to garner support for petitions. (2) The specific instance that prompted the request *is* reporting on a "third party"'s comments, namely the (admittedly unsurprising) official response from the British government to a bunch of hoax petitions. (3) Linking to the No10 petition site to support a statement that (a) several silly hoax petitions of a certain kind have been submitted to it, and (b) they have all been rejected as not serious, is not in any useful sense "original research"; in particular, it does not match the description of "original research" at the start of WP:OR, and constitutes appropriate use of primary sources as prescribed on that page. Having said all that, I'll repeat something else I already said: I can't get terribly excited about whether the Dihydrogen monoxide page is or isn't allowed to source its claim about those petitions, nor about whether it's allowed to make that claim at all. It's obviously of zero importance, near enough. And arguing about this is obviously a waste of everyone's time. I therefore withdraw this request because I don't wish to spend any more time arguing about something I care so little about. But I'm troubled by the bogosity of some of the counterarguments that have been made here. Gareth McCaughan (talk) 03:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

•  Declined since the requesting rationale basically reiterates the kind of uses that led to the original blacklisting, with the No. 10 petition site being one of if not the most prominent example cited in that discussion. As was noted then, genuinely significant and notable petitions can be discussed by reference to reliable independent sources, anything cited directly to the site risks WP:OR and allowing links is an open invitation to a resumption of the long-term problem of canvassing. Guy (Help!) 22:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

examiner.com

I'd like to use this examiner article www.examiner.com/x-13886-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m1d31-New-paper-from-the-Science-and-Public-Policy-Institute-destroys-global-warming-claims-by-CRU to help establish the notability of the argument used.TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:59, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understand this. You use 'original research' without editorial overview to establish notability of an argument? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually I've used news articles, the biggest blog on the internet (of the subject), a scientist, a tv documentary and a few other things to establish the notability of the argument, but the editor in question is making it clear that he doesn't want it in. I added 4 more sources to show him and was surprised when the examiner was blacklisted.TheGoodLocust (talk) 17:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm .. now saying nothing about the specific requests, but if a real hoax is widely covered on blogs, unreliable 'news' sites then that does not make it true. It is not 'I have 50 blog posts (on different blogs), so it is worth mentioning'. This defies our reliable sources guideline, I think, unless there is real merit to include it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Dirk.  Not done Stifle (talk) 11:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

examiner.com 2

I would also like to use examiner.com as a source on the upcoming book by Suzanne Collins, rumored to be called "The Victors". The previous two books (The Hunger Games and Catching Fire) were enormously popular, and were both National Bestsellers.GrandMattster 21:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Rumoured? I am sorry, we need reliable sources, especially for rumors. And Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. But could you be a bit more specific which document you'd like whitelisted? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The exact site is http://www. examiner . com/x-11219-Denver-Young-Adult-Fiction-Examiner~y2009m10d4-Suzanne-Collins-improves-on-The-Hunger-Games-in-sequel-Catching-Fire. GrandMattster 19:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

forums.encyclopediadramatica.com/showpost.php?p=164375&postcount=21

I'm trying to use this specific post as a citation for the Encyclopædia Dramatica section i'm creating concerning a recent problem that has arisen due to the hosting costs of their website. I would like this link to be whitelisted in order to give readers a basic idea of the hosting costs, which i have quoted in the short article but need the citation. Thanks --Bailo26 (talk) 01:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

While the monthly cost of running a website is of some interest, particularly if it means the site may close, the information is of little long-term encyclopedic value, and there is no chance that any statement on ED, particularly a forum posting, could be taken as a reliable source. Johnuniq (talk) 03:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

So is that a no then?--Bailo26 (talk) 02:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There is an exemption from this in WP:ELOFFICIAL. I am somewhat inclined to approve the request but will see what other admins say. Stifle (talk) 09:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• If this is a significant fact then it will be covered in reliable independent secondary sources. If it is not covered in such sources then it's just random forum wibble which can safely be ignored. The ED forums are not a reliable source for anything at all. Guy (Help!) 11:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

2074.banners-4u.co.cc

is it cuz of the .co.cc? i don't know, can some1 help me with this?

i'm trying 2 put the link on my page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mjbennett06 --Mjbennett06 (talk) 06:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep, it is the .co.cc, which is in general just a redirect. I can't find where this could be redirecting, so I presume that this is not one. hence,  Added. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:27, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Mappery

For Fort Teran. What exactly is the problem with this link: http:// mappery.com / map-of / 1849-Texas-Historical-Map? It works and is helpful for locating site. -LlywelynII (talk) 10:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• mappery.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

See

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Dec_2#http:.2F.2Fspam.mappery.com.
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2009_Archive_Jan_1#mappery.com

The link was spammed, and the editor apparently was not willing to stop and started vandalising by removing other external links. Not sure if the 'spamming' will stop, though I do see that the link can be of interest. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Modelinia

I would like to add this link: www.modelinia.com/videos/she--8217-s-with-the-band--damaris-lewis-gets-personal-with-nick-jonas/479 to Damaris Lewis's Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damaris_Lewis. Wikipedia will benefit from this site and this site being whitelisted because Modelinia is a recognized go-to source for access to and factual information on the model community. We have direct, credible, real relationships with the models featured on our site as well as their agents and representation. We do not publish any photos or content without signed release forms and all other requisite permissions.

I would also like to add this link: www.modelinia.com/models/damaris-lewis/182 to Damaris Lewis's page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damaris_Lewis because it provides her date of birth, which Wikipedia does not currently list. Therefore, permitting this page on Modelinia to serve as a source for this basic biographical information.

I would also like to add this link: www.modelinia.com/models/brooklyn-decker/93 to Brooklyn Decker's page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Decker because the basic information such as her height and her date of birth are incorrect on her Wikipedia page.

I would also like to add this link: www.modelinia.com/blog/mayor-bloomberg-hearts-fashion-week-and-modelinia/17998 to Veronica Webb's page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Webb because it is important up-to-date information on how Veronica has been continuing her career as a TV host beyond Tim Gunn's Guide to Style. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.245.138.226 (talk) 23:04, 16 February 2010 (UTC) Ewestlake (talk) 23:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

•  Declined. We typically do not whitelist sites at the request of the site owners and the use case you present is skirting the borders of our policy forbidding original research. Guy (Help!) 10:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Request to Whitelist Single Article on Suite 101.com

The article Riggins, Linda N., The Telescopes Galileo Made: How He Built Them An Original and Replicas Now Touring Museumsat astronomyhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_telescopes_galileo_made can only be found online at sites related to suite101.com, all of which are blacklisted. This particular article, however, appears sound and includes a list of credible sources. The article is the best clear online source for the proposition that Galileo's instrument maker Marc'Antonio Mazzoleni assisted Galileo with the production of Galileo's telescopes, as Mazzoleni clearly did with other instruments invented by Galileo. See further discussion in the DYK nomination for the Mazzoleni article: Template_talk:Did_you_know#Articles_created.2Fexpanded_on_February_13 --JohnPomeranz (talk) 02:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, heck. New to this whole whitelist-blacklist thing, I have only now figured out that I should have searched the past discussions about Suite101.com. Who knew there had been so much furor? I bow to past consensus and withdraw this request. (Although the article in question still looks well-sourced to me. I wish it could have been found elsewhere.)

I also wish that there were more admins working this page. It's been frustrating waiting for a response to my request, although I know we're all volunteers here, so I shouldn't gripe.--JohnPomeranz (talk) 22:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

VBS.tv

VBS.tv seems to be a legitimate site of Vice Magazine's video broadcast.

I was trying to add http:// www. vbs. tv/ watch/ the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-vice-guide-to-liberia-1-of-8 (The Vice Guide to Liberia) to Liberia article and got spam filter notice.

Please whitelist http:// www. vbs. tv/ or explain why it is blacklisted, because I could find anything clear and definitive in the archives.

Thank you. - Zealander (talk) 23:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

medievalhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/hospitality_in_the_medieval_monastery

Could you please whitelist medievalhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/hospitality_in_the_medieval_monastery It would benefit the article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_monasticism because it would allow me to make an external link footnote for a paragraph I wrote. If I could make an external link, it would allow the article to be more reliable. Also, I will not put the paragraph I wrote on Wikipedia without a footnote, and therefore the information that would benefit the article would not be there. Oxfordmom (talk) 20:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Interview with Miracle Laurie at Examiner.com

The alert triggered when I tried to save a page with an interview Examiner.com indicated that I can just request a specific page be allowed. Since this is an interview with Miracle Laurie, and it looks legit, can it be unblocked? The odd thing is that the url was already in that article before I edited it; I just added more material from it, and changed the ref tag into a ref name tag in order to cite it twice. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 05:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the complete URL (you can add some spaces here to be able to save this post)? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

ashtalakshmi.com

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

This site is a good information about hindhu goddess of lakshmi, please check site once approve to purmission to usefull information— Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.200.25.129 (talk • contribs)

 Not done. This request may be considered when a trusted, high-volume editor requests the link for use in a specific article. Stifle (talk) 11:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Interview on justjared.buzznet.com

There is an ongoing edit curfuffle at Miranda Kerr concerning her ethnic background. Numerous sites around the web list one thing while this interview done by justjared (justjared.buzznet.com/2009/09/11/miranda-kerrs-biggest-runway-mishap-flying-shoe/) contradicts that information and appears to set the record straight from the mouth of Miranda Kerr. I don't know anything about justjared or its history on WP other than discovering it's blacklisted (when I tried to add the reference) but perhaps they can be trusted for an interview? I've searched the internet for a couple of hours now (egads!) trying to find any other source for either side that appears definitive and have come up empty. I see here that a similar request was approved but not with a lot of confidence. I would like to remove the contentious part from the article and be done with it but I'm guessing it'll just keep popping up since a lot of people seem to really care about her ethnic background. If this one page were whitelisted maybe the issue would calm down. SQGibbon (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What makes that site a reliable source? Stifle (talk) 11:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

...ttp://uttardayee.freewebspace.com/Accountable_Asia/06%20-%20Accounting%20History,%20Part-1.pdf

I am in a middle of a discussion about a topic and would like to be able to use this pdf file as a matherial for the discussion. I don't know about the rest of the site, but this pdf is all I need from itHammer of Habsburg (talk) 02:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're in a discussion, you can paste the url like you have done in the title of this post (as opposed to having a live link). MER-C 02:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

 Not done, unnecessary. Just use the part after http: in the discussion. Stifle (talk) 11:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Metal Observer review page

I am creating a series of articles for the albums by Dope Stars Inc.. Given the nationality of the band, there are few english reviews for their albums, namely the 10,000 Watts of Artificial Pleasures EP. I am writing the article HERE and it would not let me use the Metal observer review ( www.metal-observer.com/articles.php?lid=1&sid=1&id=5782 ) which would greatly benefit all readers and expand the article. This is a review, so opinion is what is what is being sourced, and therefore it is a reliable source because the information cannot be incorrect or disputable. GroundZ3R0 002 01:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• This does not appear to be a reliable source. Guy (Help!) 22:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
•  Not done, fails WP:RS. Stifle (talk) 11:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Approved Requests

Denied Requests

nemanja.co.cc

The article is about young serbian artist Nemanja Nikolic [nemanja nikolic serbian painter]. Adding his site to the white list would contribute to the promotion of nemanja's work, also serbian art [serbian painters]. Bojan174 (talk) 13:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)user:bojan174Bojan174 (talk) 13:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

"would contribute to the promotion of nemanja's work" => Rejected. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promoting (the works of) Nemanja Nikolic. MER-C 02:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Withdrawn, Invalid, Malformed or Otherwise Past Relevance

Proposed removals from whitelist (sites to reblock)

Fallingrain.com

Myself, Darwinek and many other active editors are well aware that this site contains false information, particularly population and altitude which have regularly been shown to be grossly inaccurate. For instance it would say "771 people" in a 7 km radius yet according to official Chinese census data it actually has 35,000 in the town notincluding surrounding villages. Others include a coastal village in Madagascar which falling rain claimed had an altitude of 360 metres when it is clearly barely above sea level. The site is 15 years out of date and I've seen it used by lesser informed individuals to reference articles which is a major threat to reliability. Worst affected are Pakistan and India. I believe the community expressed concern previously about fallingrain as fialing to adhere to reliable sources. The coordinates are generally accurate but little else actually is. I propose the blacklisting of this website and the removal of links to it from all articles which I believe would be a major cleanup. The shoddy name alone is enough to think the article is false which uses it as a reference or link. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 12:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

True Fallingrain.com cannot be trusted. From my own experience it is grossly unreliable website with simply false information about population, altitudes and even the names of towns/villages. Wikipedia should be a respected source of knowledge, which it cannot be with this website used as a reference in many articles. There are much more reliable statistics and sources (especially official ones), which can be used. Blocking this website and removing all links from Wikipedia would only benefit the project. - Darwinek (talk) 12:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I got a note asking me to come here and comment on this site. I don't remember ever having used it myself. I checked however, and at this moment, 9,530 wikipedia articles have links to it.

If the suggestion is to blacklist this site, are we talking about replacing every instance where it is used with a more reliable link? That is at least 9,530 links. If this is to be done individually, by humans, and it takes a human, on average, one minute per correction, a minimum of 150 person-hours.

Never having used this site, I think I should stay neutral. If, however, it is blacklisted, I will agree to be part of an effort to look for replacement links. I'll sign on for sixty articles.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

LOL Geoswan. You are an old fashioned guy! 9,530 links could be removed in just a few hours using AWB or even better a bot. Nobody is going to be spending 150 hours on that job for sure!!! But the fact it is used in 9530 articles is extremely concerning in terms of reliability....

So, setting a bot to remove the URLs, without trying to replace them with more reliable links is an acceptable option? That's a relief. Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 14:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

A bot or AWB could be used to remove the links. In a lot of cases they are used along side other sources so removing the falling rain website is in my view a case of despamming and avoiding misleading editors by exposing them to unreliable population and altitude data. The most serious cases are those though where no reliable sources are available and falling rain is used as a primary source, often to source population and other data which is unavailable. Relying on fallingrain for population and such figures (as I've myself been guilty of with Tibet for instance) as caused a major reliability problem and mass of errors and should be cleaned up and delisted asap.. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 14:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC) Not to mention that the site still thinking it is 1995-6 still shows some closed railway lines in numerous articles and has been used as a primary source, so in effect it is giving misleading information and implies that certain railway lines and small settlements that have been abandoned still exist. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:21, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

It is with some concern the amount of usage of innacurate information from the site can be found in wikipedia as a 'valid source' - some time ago - the Australian project editors who had reviewed the innacuracy actually voted for and succeeded in getting an article about fallingrain afd'ed - that had been created by an editor who had over-relied upon the fallingrain source - and by any account may well still be doing so - any definite action in reducing reliance upon an unreliable source on the web would be appreciated by those who have to debate with editors who claim it is a useful source - when editors who have sufficient knowledge of context of some of the information - see it as a misleading and often incorrect source SatuSuro 16:00, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the site already in XLinkBot? That seems like the appropriate way to warn editors that the site contains unreliable data when they try to add it, while still allowing editorial discretion. While the RfC showed that unreliability can be a factor in blacklisting, there was little support for blacklisting merely unreliable sites absent actual spamming. Youtube is a similar unreliable site, and IIRC it's in XLinkBot, not the blacklist. Let me see: [2] Gigs (talk) 19:23, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I am in support of the move to remove the site from the whitelist - my understanding is it relies rather heavily on an old list which has got some circulation on the net already (the original version of Mapquest circa 1999 was based on it for non-US mapping, for instance, but more recent versions use their own mapping which is almost exactly accurate). The Fallingrain map of my own city contains towns which have never existed, misspellings/mislocations of places which do exist, a suburban boundary that is around 40 years out of date and a number of key features missing. Orderinchaos 16:04, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Fallingrain.com is neither on the whitelist nor the blacklist. Stifle (talk) 12:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Then can you please put it on the blacklist. Its use in over 9,000 articles should make that an important consideration... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 18:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Please file your request at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed_additions. Stifle (talk) 14:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

lenr-canr.org

The site lenr-canr.org has a lax approach to copyright and was blacklisted for this and other abuses. Some links were whitelisted mainly at the request of user:Abd. Following the usual process of editorial debate and consensus only one of those remained in article space as of today, and I just removed it as it is an article copyright of Elsevier Publishing for which we already have a DOI link. Abd is now topic-banned from cold fusion. There are several regex expressions in the list which support the several requested links mainly as part of his project to rewrite the article in terms more favourable to the pro-cold fusion editors, but it's hard to see how that's actually going to be of any benefit as the three main advocates of this content, Abd, Jed Rothewell and Pcarbonn, are all indefinitely topic banned. The fact that the only link in mainspace was a copyright violation says it all, really. I think we should simply remove these links and discuss again as and when a good-faith editor requests them for some actual content, hopefully without the befuddling walls of text which characterised the earlier discussions. Guy (Help!) 22:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Links for reference:

• first request of two one link (added)
• request for entire site (declined)
• request for transcript of audio interview (added)
• request for 13 papers (9 added)

Note that Pcarbonn's topic ban has expired it has now been placed again and extended to indefinite. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear. We can do without that particular person "helping" us, I think. Guy (Help!) 16:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

1st of all, please don't de-list the transcript of the radio interview.

2nd, Jed (the website's owner) says that he got the permission of the authors of the text, which seems to be correct and true. However, looking at the copyright pages of the journals that published the papers, some say that the authors can only host copies in their own personal websites, while others reserve all rights.

3rd, I understand that in several occasions Jed has taken papers down when requested by its publisher, which seems to imply that he didn't have previous publisher permission for some of the papers, and that those papers only remained there because the publishers have not bothered to complain about them. This could perfectly be the case for several of the whitelisted papers.

4th, they were claimed as convenience copies of article sources, but they are not being used as sources anywhere due to strong disagreements in talk pages with other editors (like myself).

5th, and most importantly, those are all primary sources that were going to be used to counter the points made by secondary sources, aka original research. The secondary sources say that this sort of papers has been ignored by the majority of scientific community since the field was discredited long time ago (~1989). The intention was adding these primary sources to the article, then claim them as examples that the secondary sources are wrong, and list them as examples of what the scientists really thought of the developments in the field. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• The authors do not have the right to give permission to publish material whose copyright they have, by virtue of submission and acceptance of publishing, assigned to the publisher concerned. They are allowed to publish papers on their own websites but not to release the material to other websites. This has been covered before. Guy (Help!) 11:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Troubleshooting and problems

Discussion

This is a very low-traffic page, perhaps we should open a process for it in the Wikipedia namespace. Stifle (talk) 14:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Spam whitelist proposal

A proposal to provide a standardized form when requesting additions to the spam whitelist is at WP:VPR#Change of format for MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist. Your comments are welcome. MER-C 11:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Other projects with active whitelists

I was unable to format this so as to fit in the left column where x-wiki links normally go. This, as well as a similar list for other local blacklists (on our blacklist's talk page) may be useful information. --A. B. ^(talk) 14:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)