MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hu12 (talk | contribs) at 06:04, 18 December 2007 (→‎Proposed additions: spine-health.com). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Protected MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist is a page in the MediaWiki namespace, which only administrators may edit.
To request a change to it, please follow the directions at Wikipedia:Spam blacklist.
Shortcut

Mediawiki:Spam-blacklist is meant to be used by the spam blacklist extension. Unlike the meta spam blacklist, this blacklist only affects pages on the English Wikipedia. Any administrator may edit the spam blacklist. Any developer may use $wgSpamRegex, another method to prevent the addition of spam links. However $wgSpamRegex should rarely be used.

See Wikipedia:Spam blacklist for more information about the spam blacklist.

Dealing with requests here

Any admin unfamiliar with this page should probably read this first, thanks
  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? Is there a Spam project report, if so a permanent links would be helpful
  3. Make the entry at the bottom of the list (before the last line). Please do not do this unless you are familiar with regex - the disruption that can be caused is substantial.
  4. Close the request entry on here using either {{done}} or {{not done}} as appropriate. Request should be left for a week maybe as there will often be further relatede sites or an appeal in that time.
  5. 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 - 178668854 after you have closed the request. See here for more info on logging.

Those interested in contributing to this page may find it helpful to watchlist this page or create their own if they want to watch other pages as well. It effectively watches threads rather than pages.

There are 4 sections for posting comments below. Please make comments in the appropriate section. they are Proposed additions, Proposed removals, Troubleshooting and problems, and Discussion. Each section will have a message box explaining them. In addition, please sign your posts with ~~~~ after your comment.

Requests which have been completed are archived. All additions and removals will be logged.

snippet for logging: {{/request|178668854#section_name}}

Proposed additions

p2pnet.net and loveshade.org

These sites keep being added to Death of Emily Sander and are tribute sites, but are completely unencyclopedic. Diffs: [1] [2][3] [4][5] [6][7] [8][9] [10][11] --Strothra (talk) 18:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ravehaven.com

This link has been repeatedly added to the Rave article by many different IPs and users. Its history goes back as far as the beginning of November, when I first became involved in the article. All diffs are taken from the first two 50-change pages of the history. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 04:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Diffs:

 Done--Hu12 (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

spine-health.com

Accounts

Tammy204 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
66.9.223.118 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
12.64.0.160 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
4.158.105.224 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
64.241.37.140 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
65.31.189.155 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
186.123.225 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
67.162.37.84 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
67.175.243.171 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
68.250.249.126 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
71.228.27.89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
BP2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
160.79.73.30 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
--Hu12 (talk) 06:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed removals

www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg

Ask Greg is the website where Greg Weisman discussess and responds to questions about his work. This includes television shows like Gargoyles_(TV_series) and The_Spectacular_Spider-Man_(TV_series) as well as Gargoyles_(SLG_comic). The latter two are currently in production and news and information about both often are revealed first through Ask Greg. It's a vast archive of information which is often used for citation of various facts relating to these and other projects of Weisman's. By blocking this site you're disabling users to cite references that contain important and relevant information. As a result pages like the Gargoyles_(TV_series) entry are marked as not citing references. The reason for there being no references is because Ask Greg has been blocked.

I believe the reason for the blacklisting in the first place was due to a user trying to promote a "Gargoyles Wiki", which has no affiliation with Ask Greg, but there is a link to it from Ask Greg. The user, after being blocked from linking to the Gargoyles Wiki, started using links to Ask Greg with instructions to use the link on Ask Greg to get to the Wiki. Ask Greg was a victim of someone abusing Wikipedia policy, but not itself an abuser. It's an important resource that deserves to be removed from the blacklist.207.206.239.1 (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

www.kreuz.net unlist request

I can't see why this site was blacklisted in the first place, it would be useful to have some explanation. Anyway it is the only site that has pictures relevant to a story on Pius Ncube and Google images don't blacklist the site.Dbdb (talk) 14:15, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is blacklisted at Meta (the log is here. I'll look around for more info. --Herby talk thyme 14:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I don't agree with the site but can't see why it has been blacklisted. I found some illuminating discussion of the site here 'who is kreuz'. The current Wikipedia blacklisting procedure seems to be a licence for admins to just ban sites and give no reason. Or make the reason very hard to find. Where can I take that issue up? Such sites can be easily found with Google, they don't ban them Dbdb (talk) 01:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that a site can be found on google I personally see as completely irrelevant - effectively any site can be.
The questions are
  1. Have links been placed that were not deemed relevant to Wikipedia
  2. Except with the use of dynamic IPs have warnings been ignored
That really is most of what should be taken into account. Requests are usually made here with evidence supplied (I would never list anything without evidence I assure you). Equally all entries should be logged. If you find anything like the abuse you are suggesting by admins I would be very interested to see evidence of it. Thanks --Herby talk thyme 14:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I quote Google because I found the information by them. If Wikipedia start censoring sites then peole will start using information linkers like Google who don't. That will be a sad day for Wikipedia which is already generating a reputation for being run by and for admins. I am glad you personally do not blacklist without listing evidence, however to me this is completely irrelevant - what I am trying to find are the reasons why kreuz.net has been blacklisted. The fact that you and I both cannot find those reasons is a bit of a disgrace. How can I give reasons for a site to be un-blacklisted if no one knows why it was blacklisted in the first place? And I can't find evidence of the abuse that I think may be going on because the evidence for the blacklisting has not been given by the blacklister and I can't find out who the blacklister is! Kafkapedia! Dbdb (talk) 17:16, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll merely say that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not somewhere to find websites. Google is a search engine and it there to allow people to find websites. The comparison in completely invalid. I'll step back now as the tone of your postings bothers me, thanks --Herby talk thyme 17:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for the tone, no offence meant, must be due to my irriation at seeing Wikipedia blacklisting links. My point is that Encyclopedia Brittanica is an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is more than that, with 2 major differences being the mass editing and the ability to link to other information. If Google don't ban links to sites why is Wikipedia banning those same sites?Dbdb (talk) 01:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To your last point, The nature of Wikipedia means that you can't make a convincing argument based on what other links in articles do or don't exist; because there's nothing stopping anyone from adding any link to any article. Plenty of links exist that probably shouldn't, conversly many links don't exist that probably should. So just pointing out that a link exists in an article doesn't prove that the link in question should also exist. To the first point, links to this site were apperently added for weeks by several IPs and new user accounts to different articles coss wiki. kreuz.net is apparently a fanzine of a fundamentalist sect. Doesn't seem to any reason or consensus to remove it at this point.--Hu12 (talk) 03:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'm happy with your change to the Pius Ncube article but I'm afraid it makes as much sense to me as your first 3 sentences above do. Now the link to a blacklisted site is shown so people can get to the photos (by keyboard) but they can't get there by mouse.Dbdb (talk) 17:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It was being spammed in the German Wikipedia by multiple IPs and single-purpose user accounts in 2006. The archive of the blacklisting request is here. The link provided above said which admin blacklisted the link (User:Pathoschild) and all blacklist requests are archived. As a side note, Google will only stop linking to things that are pretty obviously illegal like internet scams and child pornography. What Wikipedia blacklists is always a result of something involving that link on Wikipedia - links are rarely, if ever, blacklisted due to their content alone (thought that can be a contributing factor) but rather because they are being aggressively added to multiple pages against consensus. Mr.Z-man 03:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explanation. 2 points: Firstly can't the archive of the blacklisting not be provided each time the message pops up telling me the site is blacklisted and I can't add it? Secondly it seems to me that if I don't like a site I can get it blacklisted in Wikipedia simply by repeatedly adding it to pages. This can't be right and stems from the fact that the site is being punished and not the person who puts the link in inappropriately. The result is I have found an article that genuinely needs the link and yet I can't put it in. Wikipedia is starting to go wrong. Dbdb (talk) 16:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What you are describing is a Joe job. That technique has been applied in the past, but we are aware of that possibility, and will do anything to prevent that. Sites can be unlisted if a site is blacklisted because of that action, though that will generally need the input of several established editors (as otherwise the opposite of the Joe job is also possible). If you think the link is worthy of being used, and you need some help, I suggest you contact an appropriate wikiproject for their input (a list can be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject). Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Glad it has a name at least. My blacklisting problem has now been resolved by the technique of adding the balcklisted site link but as plain text rather than as a hyperlink. Now users can get to the pictures I wanted to link to but they have to use a keyboard and type, rather than a mouse and just click the link. I assume this is acceptable or does Wikipedia blacklisting extend to forbidding mention of the site that is blacklisted (if so this page has a problem)? All seems a bit farcical to me but then this seems to be the way Wikipedia is going. Dbdb (talk) 17:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Dirk Beetstra is correct, that would be called a Joe job. Those are usualy easy to spot by experienced users, and won't be blacklisted by experienced admins, or reversed if evidence of it is provided. But thats off point. I removed the false URL kreuzz.net, and comment, "link fails as currently being censored by Wikipedia"[12]. Although this still provides access to the referenced piece, its just not hyperlinked. This discussion seems to headed down the wrong path based on your tone. Please take the above advice. Closing this as  Not done. thank you for your time--Hu12 (talk) 17:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

please remove allhostinginfo.com from blacklist

Please remove allhostinginfo.com from blacklist. This site contains useful information about web hosting, interesting web hosting polls, articles and more. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.112.168.226 (talk) 13:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant background:
I note that this additional domain should be added to the meta blacklist; it was spammed today by the requester above:
As for this removal request:
  • Typically, we do not remove domains from the spam blacklist in response to site-owners' requests. Instead, we de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their encyclopedic value in support of our encyclopedia pages. If such an editor asks to use your links, I'm sure the request will be carefully considered and your links may well be removed.
  • This blacklist is used by more than just our 700+ Wikimedia Foundation wikis (Wikipedias, Wiktionaries, etc.). All 3000+ Wikia wikis plus a substantial percentage of the 25,000+ unrelated wikis that run on our MediaWiki software have chosen to incorporate this blacklist in their own spam filtering. Each wiki has a local "whitelist" which overrides the global blacklist for that project only. Some of these non-Wikimedia sites may be interested in your links; by all means feel free to request local whitelisting on those.
  • Unlike Wikipedia, DMOZ is a web directory specifically designed to categorize and list all Internet sites; if you've not already gotten your sites listed there, I encourage you to do so -- it's a more appropriate venue for your links than our wikis. Their web address: http://www.dmoz.org/.
  • Should you find yourself penalized in any search engine rankings and you believe that to be a result of blacklisting here, you should deal directly with the search engine's staff. We do not have any arrangements with any of the search engine companies; if they're using our blacklist it's purely on their own initiative. --A. B. (talk)
 Not done per A. B. --Herby talk thyme 14:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

brighthub.com

I'm placing this here so that there is some form of on wiki record for the removal of this website from the blacklist. User:Mercury removed the site with this edit citing OTRS ticket number 2007120510014806. It appear that the community will have to make do with that. I imagine that there is some promise not to place future links or removing the listing would be very odd - I would suggest that we watch for any new links carefully. I will use this section as the edit summary for removing the item from the log so it can be seen for future reference & will inform Mercury of this.

 Done by Mercury --Herby talk thyme 19:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beat me to it. :) Thanks for your hard work Herby. Regards, Mercury 03:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

www.tvrage.com

It appears that this site was never blocked because of spamming, but apparently for the reason that it's "not as useful" as TV.com. That's not a good enough reason, and it's not even true! I'm trying to cite tvrage in this article because TV.com doesn't have an article on that show while tvrage does. Yes, the owner of tvrage.com was incivil here but that's no reason to prevent all Wikipedia editors from referencing his web site. Waggers (talk) 13:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is mostly on Meta though with links to here and is here. The link placement here does look quite excessive --Herby talk thyme 13:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The link above is broken - here is the correct one. Also, to clarify, the site was previously on the global blacklist but is now on the local blacklist, making this the right place for the discussion (before anyone tells me to take the discussion to meta!) Waggers (talk) 13:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since this has been here for 5 days and no objections have been forthcoming,  Done. Waggers (talk) 13:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Waggers, please reconsider. First Herby did object above. Second, this site has an extensive history and I doubt that you would find much consensus among other Wikipedia admins to remove this from the blacklist. Third, I'll also go (belatedly) on the record as another person objecting.
Here's some of the background that I'm working from in writing these comments:
Meatpuppeting TVRage.com staff (based on this deleted edit) making inappropriate edits on Wikipedia
  1. JohnQ.Public (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
  2. Wise Crack (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)
  3. Ross_99 (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)
  4. SebDE (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)
  5. Batman_Beyonder2 (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)
  6. Scouxx (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)
  7. Maria01 (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)


Other special purpose editors or disruptive tvrage.com partisans
  1. cs:Speciální:Contributions/CZ.Fox
  2. Khan44 (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)
  3. Amaas120 (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)
  4. Jacobmartin (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)
    • user page with nothing but a plug for TVrage.com. User has no edits
  5. 84.91.31.192 (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)
  6. 67.166.122.233 (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)


Discussions on Meta (no consensus in favor of these links)
  1. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2006/10#tvrage.com
  2. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2006/11#tvrage.com
  3. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/01#TVRage.com
  4. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/02/Removals: Not Done#TVRage.com
  5. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/03#tvrage.com
  6. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/05/Removals: Not Done#tvrage.com
  7. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/05/Removals: Not Done#Tvrage
  8. meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/11#TVRage.com


Templates
  1. Template:TVRage
  2. Template:Tvrage
  3. cs:Šablona:Tvrage


Alternate domains
  1. tvguide.ifastnet.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
  2. tvrage.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
  3. tvrage.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
Google Adsense ID: 8918234119630968


Definitely related domain
  1. imagebay.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


Probably related domains
  1. fierras.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
  2. high.be: 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
    • Google Adsense ID: 1198368960847921
  3. idevhost.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
  4. poke.be: 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


Articles deleted multiple times
  1. Tvrage
  2. TVRage.com
  3. de:TVRage


Deletion discussions
  1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TVrage.com
    • Note the massive sock/meatpuppetry:
  2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TVRage.com (second nomination)


Spam and AfD canvassing on tvrage.com
  1. www.tvrage.com/forums viewtopic.php?mid=5&fid=6635
  2. www.tvrage.com/forums viewtopic.php?mid=12&fid=382
  3. www.tvrage.com/forums viewtopic.php?mid=12&fid=476
  4. www.tvrage.com/forums viewtopic.php?mid=12&fid=477


Other discussions on en.wikipedia
  1. MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2007/02#TvRage (Status: Declined)
  2. Talk:Lost (TV series)/Archive 9#Lost unofficial / Fan sites?
  3. User talk:67.161.252.235
  4. Talk:W.I.T.C.H. (TV series)#TVRage
  5. User talk:Jacoplane/archive2#Deleted Votes
  6. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TV.com
    • speedy kept as a bad faith nomination in revenge for the TVRage deletion
  7. Talk:X-Play#TVRage.com Link
  8. User talk:Amaas120/Archive 1 uncivil editing
  9. Talk:The Office (US TV series)/Archive 3#TVRage.com Link
  10. Talk:Cowboy Bebop/Archive 1#TVRage.com Link
  11. Talk:The Kids in the Hall#TVRage.com Link
  12. User talk:Aaron Brenneman/Archives/5#TVRage.com
  13. User talk:JohnQ.Public
  14. MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2006/11#TvRage.com
  15. User talk:Ambidexter#Re: TVRage
  16. User talk:67.166.122.233
  17. User talk:Renata3/archive4#TVRage.com
  18. User talk:Renata3/archive6
  19. User talk:Jtrost/Archive1#Tv.com -- rant from anon IP who was introducing negative POV material against TV.com
  20. Canvassing from a tvrage.com person:


Recent indication indicating this site may be declining:
  • www.tvrage.com/profiles/JohnQ.Public/blogs/view/?vid=10089
I am concerned that we will lose control of the placement of these links, given my reading of the domain's history and the extent to which multiple meatpuppets, not just one, have spammed Wikipedia whenever they had a chance.
I'd like to respectfully request that you re-blacklist this domain. Thanks, --A. B. (talk) 18:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with what A. B. has said. I would also add that I think it would be preferable (extremely desirable?) to avoid listing something and being the admin that removes the item. Such action would be open to being misunderstood I think. In passing I would add that there is not and never has been a specified time that a request should be open for. Please reconsider this action --Herby talk thyme 19:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll ask this be reconsidered also, and support relisting per AB and Herbythyme.--Hu12 (talk) 19:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A couple more comments:
  • Some prior discussions mentioned tvrage'snon- notability and there were comments that it would become notable someday. Update: checking Google News comes up with neither relevant archived media articles nor current press reports
  • The only reason I recommended removing this site from the Meta blacklist was to allow the site-owners to add their links to several thousand non-Wikimedia wikis use MediaWiki software and have adopted our meta blacklist in their own filtering. This removal was done on the basis that the domain would continue to be blacklisted on this one Wikimedia project (en.wikipedia).
--A. B. (talk) 20:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(remove indent)It's extremely frustrating that this discussion is only beginning now I've removed the item from the blacklist. I'll relist it for the time being based on the arguments above, but I must admit I fail to understand many of the arguments. It's clear that there's some history here, but very little of it seems relevant to why upstanding Wikipedians can't reference this site. Rather than linking to previous discussions (most of which end in "we'll do nothing for now and see what happens later" type responses), and lists of abusive users who may or may not be something to do with the site itself, it would be helpful to have a simple list of reasons why the site should be on the blacklist. As for the recent assertion about notability - since when did notability have to apply to external websites? WP:N is about the subject of articles, and I have no intention of starting an article on tvrage.com - I just want to reference it in The General (TV series) without the {{cite web}} template being mucked up because of an apparently ill-reasoned blacklisting. Waggers (talk) 22:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes, Waggers!
  1. Timeliness: . I'm sorry I did not respond within 5 days as you expected. I've been busy with lots of stuff.
  2. Others inputs: I thought Herby already told you some of the problems. I thought he was part of your discussion. I thought he was one admin saying it was a poor idea.
  3. Likely consequences: The potential problem here is that when the entire domain is removed from the blacklist, then not only will "upstanding Wikipedians" add links here and there, but also a mob of TVRagers. I spent 4 hours putting together this stuff for you and others for this discussion. I looked at all those links. I read the TVRage message boards -- they had members still moaning about the blacklisting and wanting to add links as of just a month or two ago. They're pretty obsessed with exposure on Wikipedia; take a look at this Google search:
  4. "May or may not": I'm not sure why you characterized my edit as "lists of abusive users who may or may not be something to do with the site itself". I don't see the "may or may not" part: I've provided edit histories and links to establish that they were abusive here and that they are listed as "staff" there. (Their "staff" are unpaid sysops).
  5. Notability: I mentioned notability because, when you step through all the discussions I've linked for you, you'll find that one reason TVRage partisans said they should have links was that they either were notable or about to be notable. That's their reasoning, not mine.
  6. The usual approach: Have you considered the alternative just whitelisting the specific deep link at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist? Nobody has said upstanding editors can't add TVRage links; that's why we have the whitelist -- so we can facilitate linking to specific pages by editors such as yourself. That's the way the community normally deals with things like your The General (TV series) link.
  7. Site quality as seen by other Wikipedia editors: Read the assessments of link quality by other Wikipedia editors in the various article and user talk page discussions linked to above. About 15% of our regular editors thought the links might have value. Most did not.
  8. Another view of site quality: A tvrage.com link I provided you above specifically addresses the issue of site quality you questioned above:
    • www.tvrage.com/profiles/JohnQ.Public/blogs/view/?vid=10089
    A former staff member states:
    • "It's no secret that this entire site, and the foundation of its existence, is based on getting information from other websites and formatting it to our standards. Why bother to lie people, we all steal info."
    Read the responses that follow on that page, some from other staff members. Not a pretty picture of TVrage.com.
  9. My assessment of link quality based on what I've seen: The content is self-published with virtually no editorial oversight of content quality. It does not meet our Reliable Sources Guideline. Out of curiosity, what's the specific page you were interested in linking to? Perhaps it's an exception.
I hope this addresses your complaints about my earlier comment. --A. B. (talk) 23:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

www.firefoxmyths.com

Everything on the site is factually correct, and it nicely counteracts the totally positive nature of the article on firefox. I suspect that many wikipedia admins are opensource fanboys, linux fanboys and/or firefox fanboys. And I think this is the only reason FFM has been blacklisted. FFM should be added to the firefox article. There is not one word of negative criticism in the FF article (c.f. internet explorer), I suspect the FF article is written by Fanboys. I'm not arguing with anyone about it, this is a simple test of wikipedia open-source neutrality, firefox needs this link or a criticism section. Good Day. 90.240.18.35 (talk) 13:54, 14 December 2007 (UTC)Mr_FirefoxSucks[reply]

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive97#Ban on a certain user of an open proxy.
Reference: Google Adsense ID# 4949297748371281
Additional domain:
  • http:// mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/
Typically, we do not remove domains from the spam blacklist in response to site-owners' requests. Instead, we de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their encyclopedic value in support of our encyclopedia pages. If such an editor asks to use your links, I'm sure the request will be carefully considered and your links may well be removed.
Unlike Wikipedia, DMOZ is a web directory specifically designed to categorize and list all Internet sites; if you've not already gotten your sites listed there, I encourage you to do so -- it's a more appropriate venue for your links than our wikis. Their web address: http://www.dmoz.org/.
 Not done --A. B. (talk) 03:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Troubleshooting and problems

Problem with the blacklist: I want to use the db-copyvio speedy deletion tag to get an article deleted. The db-copyvio tag has as a parameter the url of the website which is being copied. The website being copied is a blacklisted one, ezinearticles. Oops, the spam filter kicks in. This is bad.--Xyzzyplugh (talk) 19:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try adding without the http:, the checking admin will copy & paste to check it.--Hu12 (talk) 19:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Or don't provide the link in the db template, and add it below it (put <nowiki></nowiki> around). Or put it on my talk page and I'll have a look. -- lucasbfr talk 19:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

archive script

Eagle 101 said he had one running on meta, is it possible to get it up and going here?--Hu12 10:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would be good - Eagle hasn't been working on Meta for a while though & I've not seen anything (there was supposed to be a logging script too!) --Herby talk thyme 12:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

blogspot.com

See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam § Time_for_blacklisting_blogspot.com.2C_with_whitelisting_of_specific_domains.3F

I added countingcrowsnew.blogspot.com, freemodlife.blogspot.com, and googlepackdownload.blogspot.com to the blacklist. I made a previous report about the blogspot sites and they're being spammed by the same blocked sockpuppet who I filed a report about here. Spellcast (talk) 22:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've also added b5050-raffle.blogspot.com, gpd2008.blogspot.com, and itsleaked.blogspot.com. They were being spammed by the same blocked sock in that report. Spellcast (talk) 05:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to blacklist the domain then whitelist where needed but some heavy flak is likely to arrive? --Herby talk thyme 08:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
From an en:Wikipedia mission perspective (though possibly not your personal perspective:) a bigger issue than the flak that will be generated is the disruption to editing. I believe a lot of pages, particularly biographies of living people, contain legitimate links to the subject's blog - many of which are hosted on blogspot. Simply blacklisting and then waiting for whitelisting requests will likely
  1. overwhelm the whitelist page here and on meta (which given you are one of the most active admins on both, may not be ideal for you!)
  2. be confusing and frustrating to a lot of editors especially newbies, but also any who are not familiar with the blacklist/whitelist set up
  3. lead to a loss of legitimate links and legitimate edits as people struggle to work out whether to keep their edit and lose the link or the other way round while any whitelist request is ongoing.
I think a move like that will take some careful planning and preparation to avoid these issues (might also help cut down some of the heat). One way or another, I think we need human editors to assess the current blogspot links on article pages and enter appropriate ones on the whitelist before the blacklisting goes into effect. I don't think such a move will cut out most of the flak though, so we might want to ensure there are other admins involved to help spread the weight, and a nicely presented page of evidence of the issues the domain causes to point people to.
Blogspot certainly gets spammed a lot more than most domains, and I support blacklisting. But It's still a domain that has a lot of good links and I think it's important to think through how a move like that will impact people, and to adjust to the situation. -- SiobhanHansa 13:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Briefly - needs quite a bit of thought but equally is worth that amount of thought --Herby talk thyme 13:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are many, many legitimate links to the domain, not only to blogs belonging to article subjects but to blogs belonging to Wikipedia contributors. Better to blacklist individual blogs as needed. --bainer (talk) 16:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure why Wikipedia contributors would be adding their own blogs? A very limited number of blogs actualy meet WP:RS and even fewer still meet the requirements of WP:EL or are a blog that is the subject of the article or an official page of the articles subject. There are currently 32,916 blogspot.com Blog links on Wikipedia, if whitelisting even a thousand "legitimate links", its worth it.--Hu12 (talk) 17:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You've presented some convincing reasons to leave certain blog links out of Wikipedia, but not a reason to leave all blog links out. Wikipedia contributors might want to link to their blogs because, you know, it is possible for said contributors to frequent websites on the internet other than Wikipedia :P See WP:COMMUNITY. There is also a performance cost to whitelisting and blacklisting; as far as I can tell, 1000 whitelisted entries costs more computationally than 1000 blacklisted entries (instead of using one large regex, which is how the blacklist works, you're doing 1000 individual regex replacements). GracenotesT § 18:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was under the impression server load was something we were supposed to leave up to the developers to worry about. If they see an issue and ask for a reassessment that would be one thing, but its not a good argument against a tactic without their weight behind it.
The suggestion isn't that all blogs should be banned. the suggestion is that this particular domain gets spammed so much it would be beneficial to the project to blacklist it and only white list the ones that are appropriate. -- SiobhanHansa 18:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hu12 I think it's important not to overstate the case here. Not all of the ~32,000 links (assukming the 1K of good links estimate) that are not legitimate external links or citations will actually be harmful to Wikipedia. While editors' own blogs on their user pages aren't necessary to the project, in the vast majority of cases they do no harm and may help editors fell a bond that connects them to the project. Many more will be links from discussions and projects. While I don't think that's a reason for keeping a domain that is also being spammed so much - it's not the case that we do 32,000 links worth of "good" by removing them. For the most part we only really benefit from the spam and poorly placed article links that go. -- SiobhanHansa 18:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent, crosspost my post from WT:WPSPAM)

The rule \bblogspot\.com is (currently) not on COIBot's monitorlist. Some of the sub-domains have been added via WT:WPSPAM, or have been caught by the automonitoring of COIBot (mainly because the name of the editor is the same as the name of the subdomain on blogspot.com).

Still, a linksearch on the resolved IP of blogspot.com (72.14.207.191) results in a mere 118 results (all COIBot linkreports)! Often the multiple use of the single subdomains is not a cause for blacklisting, as they may only have been used once or twice. Also, I suspect there are tens of thousands of blogspot sub-domains out there, but these are only the links that are caught because the wiki username overlaps with the domainname of the subdomain (or have been reported here). Would this cumulative behaviour warrant blacklisting of \bblogspot\.com .. here, or even on meta? --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate links may indeed be a problem, though the majority will fail some or many of the policies and guidelines here (or don't even have to be a notable fact, or do not need to be a working link while being mentioned; "Mr. X has a a blog on Blogspot.<ref>primary reliable source stating that the blog is the official blog</ref>"; we are not a linkfarm), and I would argue that the spam/coi part of the problem becomes a bit difficult to control... --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Crosspost spamlink template for blogspot.com to link this discussion to the linkreports from COIBot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please try to remember how frustrating generic, unexpected spam blocks can be for new and incautious editors. Last time I "checked", if you make an edit with Internet Explorer and you post it directly without preview (two things you should never do), then if the spam blacklist comes up your text is gone. Back arrow gets you the original text of the article. Edits that die that way may not get remade, and they may sour the editor on further contributions. I don't think there should be any blocks on top-level domains or large general purpose Internet sites. 70.15.116.59 23:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have to disagree in this case - there's concern that the dynamic IP spamming it is using it to perpetrate scams or send out computer bugs. -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 04:55, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There's no way we can realistically do this. blogspot has an Alexa traffic rank of 12 - it's higher than Amazon.com - and has well over 30,000 links on en.wp alone. Adding this would be incredibly disruptive to thousands of articles. Unless someone wants to go through all 32,000 links to find the ones that can be kept so we can whitelist them, there's no way we can do this. The ones that are spam should be removed and blacklisted, but WP:EL and WP:RS are not very good reasons to completely forbid links to a domain. Mr.Z-man 16:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wartpictures.blogspot.com

Herby added this one added at my request, but the wrong url ended up because I worded my request a bit confusingly. The domain to be blocked question is wartpictures.blogspot.com . See also Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#skin-disease-pictures.blogspot.com. Han-Kwang (t) 18:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed thanks & no problem I should have checked, cheers --Herby talk thyme 08:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. But now the spammer changed the URL into wart-pictures.blogspot.com. diff The blacklisting did help for all the other ones, though. Han-Kwang (t) 16:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Regex adjusted to include both, and other possible permutations. Mr.Z-man 16:28, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Mr.Z-man, nicely done & appreciated --Herby talk thyme 16:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Citing a band's MySpace blog entries as references

I encountered the black list for the first time when I attempted to cite a band's blog entry as a reference in The Capricorns. Is this a restriction applying only to contributions from the unregistered? If not, is there a recommended way to get pass this black listing for such a reference? Thanks. — 68.167.252.41 (contribs) 07:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No the restriction is applying to everyone (I checked your link, and it is indeed blacklisted). blog.myspace.org seems to be blacklisted globally (ie on all projects using the spam filter, not only Wikipedia), you should probably request assistance there. -- lucasbfr talk 10:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That being said, it appears this was done from a request by Jimbo Wales, I don't know the specifics here. -- lucasbfr talk 10:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - this one has been discussed on Meta and Lucasbfr is correct. That said if an established editor has a valid rationale for a specific link I would certainly consider the request seriously --Herby talk thyme 14:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the information. I'm an "established editor" in the sense that I've edited a lot of article in the past 4½ years (and created quite a few before the Seigenthaler controversy), but most of my contributions are made without logging in so I may not be established enough for the purpose. In The Capricorns, I introduced this reference for a quote and evidence of the band's inactivity (one of the infobox fields). If you follow that link you'll see the workaround was to link to their main myspace page and reference the blog entry by name. It would be better to link directly to the blog entry itself. I know that MySpace distinguishes "MySpace Music" from other areas of its social network, but I wasn't able to figure out if that would help get pass the spam blacklist. 67.100.128.85 (contribs) (fka 68.167.252.41 (contribs)) 06:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Maybe more correctly then a "named user". Nothing personal about you or your IP address but they are transient things and the IP above only has one day's edits on it. I wouldn't say no solely on that basis but more info about why a link is needed, whether the information can be got elsewhere, what specific link would be needed etc would be required. That said I would suggest you do create an account. Thanks --Herby talk thyme 10:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I fail to see the logic in allowing blogspot and disallowing Myspace blogs. Am I missing something? -- lucasbfr talk 14:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Jimmy Wales ordered the ban on Myspace blogs, and he didn't order any ban on Blogspot blogs. Unfortunately, it's as simple as that. (further reading) Mike R (talk) 14:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Per Mike :) --Herby talk thyme 14:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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