Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam

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Emblem-important.svg When reporting spam, please use the appropriate template(s):
As a courtesy, please consider informing other editors if their actions are being discussed.
{{Link summary|example.com}} -- do not use "subst:" with this template - Do not include the "http://www." portion of the URL inside this template
  • {{IP summary}} - to report anonymous editors suspected of spamming:
{{IP summary|127.0.0.1}} --- do not use "subst:" with this template
  • {{User summary}} - to report registered users suspected of spamming:
{{User summary|Username}} -- do not use "subst:" with this template

Also, please include links ("diffs") to sample spam edits.

Indicators
Reports completed:
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Defer discussion:
Defer to XLinkBot
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Information:
 Additional information needed
 Note:

New Wikibot BadCitationBot[edit]

I've created a new Wikibot with the aim of checking citations for valid contents (right now it only checks for suspicious journals, social sites and weak or missing dates).

If you would like to test or contribute to it you can clone it from its git repository: https://github.com/awiebe/mw-citation-check

Remember to run pip -r requirements.txt

Just give it a list of articles you want checked and it will spit out information about whether it has things wrong with it. Bad date formats, suspicious journals and social media links

Unusual situation: zipcodezoo.com[edit]

zipcodezoo.com: Linksearch en (https) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:frMER-C X-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: searchmeta • Yahoo: backlinks • Domain: domaintoolsAboutUs.comDomainsDB.netAlexaWhosOnMyServer.com

I've run across an interesting issue; apparently, the "zipcodezoo.com" site, which is used as a reference on a large number of pages, recently expired and was snapped up by an SEO firm. Here's a link to an archive, and the way it looks now. The group that previous ran the site (BayScience Foundation, Inc.) dissolved in 2010. The current domain owner is a "SEO Expert" in Dubai.

The reference is used on 1,167 pages as of this morning. Most, if not all, of these links are broken and re-direct to the root page of the new SEO site. The new site is a small collection of articles, mostly copied from here as far as I could tell.

Is there a bot that can force links to archive pages? All of those active links need to be removed, but I hate to just remove them blindly since they were, at one time, good references (I think). Thoughts? Kuru (talk) 18:48, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

@Kuru: This page is for hard-core spammers and you might not get a good answer here. The situation you describe occurs from time to time. InternetArchiveBot is the tool but I have not used it and I don't know to write a citation which only uses the archive and not the now-SEO page which we definitely want to remove. You could try asking at WP:VPMISC, or WP:AN if desperate. Johnuniq (talk) 08:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

HubSpot (hubspot.com)[edit]

hubspot.com: Linksearch en (https) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:frMER-C X-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: searchmeta • Yahoo: backlinks • Domain: domaintoolsAboutUs.comDomainsDB.netAlexaWhosOnMyServer.com

HubSpot is a company that sells software for inbound marketing and SEO, among other things. The company recommends content marketing to its clients, and also uses the strategy themselves by publishing their own content. Their blog posts are cited in quite a few articles related to marketing, but since the HubSpot blog is a self-promotional self-published source, the citations should be removed. Would blacklisting hubspot.com be appropriate (with the domain whitelisted for the HubSpot article)? — Newslinger talk 16:44, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

[edit]

There are plenty more, but these are the most egregiously spammed ones.

MoneySavingExpert.com is not a reliable source. Owned by Moneysupermarket.com, a price comparison site. Most links are to the site's "blog" and "forums" subdomain, and even the pages on the root domain are highly promotional. — Newslinger talk 09:46, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Added The Points Guy, which is extremely similar. Site consists solely of sponsored content. — Newslinger talk 10:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Added boardingarea.com, a self-published blog network filled with sponsored content. NerdWallet, valuepenguin.com, and WalletHub are also price/product comparison sites with content marketing blogs cited in articles. — Newslinger talk 10:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Proxy spamming[edit]

Sites spammed


Already blacklisted:

Spammers

Blacklisted. MER-C 20:22, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Relevant Community Wishlist Survey proposals[edit]

I think people here would be interested in this proposal to overhaul the spam blacklist, and this proposal for an global integrated anti-spam tool in the Community Wishlist Survey. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:51, 17 November 2018 (UTC)