Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Apr

newsmax.com links

See:

I notice we now have 635 newsmax.com links -- is this an increase from earlier this month? --A. B. ^(talk) 02:26, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can see no harm in linking to a reputable news site. WP probably has thousands of links to BBC.co.uk. The question is NewsMax.com a legit/reputable site? Are these links being added by lots of different users or one user (and/or sockpupets)? - Just my two pence. -- Rehnn83 ^Talk 10:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The number of links is up by a couple of hundred. The issues for me are (1) it is a heavily advertised site (2) is seems to be a link campaign by users linked to the site (3) reputation is marginal/second tier. --BozMo talk 10:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bubbles3 (talk · contribs) here's another SPA to check out. Femto 10:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC) (the same "it was reported" routine)[reply]
- Well spotted. I have had a couple of goes of trying to find who is still adding them but its a TDS process. --BozMo talk 11:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Now this is interesting: 64.135.15.195 (talk · contribs) - the familiar style, and note the POV edits to Christopher Ruddy (founder of newsmax). Newsmax.com resolves to 64.135.21.3 (range 64.135.0.0 - 64.135.127.255: BroadbandONE, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida). Femto 11:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Art2006 (talk · contribs) - generously adding 'references' to newsmax's list of 'most influential radio hosts'. This diff shows him edit the same article only 11 minutes after the 64.135 IP. Coincidence, huh? Femto 11:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Aside from the earlier listed Davodavy (talk · contribs), I've found no other recent & obvious suspects, according to Veinor's linkcount [1] Femto 13:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

stats_bot output in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Spam/newsmax.com links; Betacommandbot list Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch/newsmax.com --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just adding User:CharlieTC to this list o' NewsMax editors. --ElKevbo 14:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the site has no special content and it has persistent sockpuppet linkspam campaigners I think we probably will end up having to blacklist it. --BozMo talk 15:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- I've got a question for Femto and this string. Just because someone wants to add insight, does not mean it's spam. For example, the Top 25 list by Newsmax is a true picture of the Talk Radio scene, only their own list. I actually considered adding this stat to all the entries of the list, myself, but just never had the time. I'm glad to see someone else took the time to do so. It might just be that innocent! Talk Radio is all about ratings, and these stats help the individuals stay on top or move up the ladder. To have Femto going around and simply deleting the entry is POV in my opinion. Pose the question on the talk page and go from there. The Boortz article was added by me and not some sock puppet, and was reverted by another editor. It was a good move in my opinion.--Maniwar (talk) 19:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Basically if you wanted me to include a "top XYZ" list on the article entries for the list you would have to convince me the list itself was notable. Otherwise you my as well add "Joe Bloggs likes this band" to random articles. --BozMo talk 17:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bad analogy. I am not including some blog list...comeon! And as mentioned, in the radio industry, ratings is everything, and Newsmax does carry a respect and following in the journalistic community. It is still POV to remove the entries as Femto has. He is the one who has to do the selling, not me. --Maniwar (talk) 18:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"respect and following in the journalistic community"... not what I heard... anyway if true establishing notability for this list should be a piece of cake? --BozMo talk 19:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See above, there is sufficient evidence that the Art2006 account added these links in violation of Wikipedia's neutrality policy. As I already told you, I have no idea why or why not this list would be relevant to some 20 articles. I just removed the entries as the spam that they were. Accusing me of POV for this is just silly. So we're back to square one, and since the notability seems disputed, any good editor who wants to include this content should establish consensus first. Femto 21:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Femto 1) You did not tell me that that you didn't see relevance, however, specifically speaking of the Boortz article, we explained the relevance in it as well as above in this string. 2) You reverted the Boortz entry when this Art2006 person did not even make the entry, so yes, you're rv. was in fact POV. 3) You are one person saying that it is not relevant, however, clearly the consensus and authors quickly reverted your edit to the Boortz entry. In all fairness, if you found that Art2006 is spamming, then you should only focus on his entries and not venture into articles where he did not even make an entry. Then again, as I originally pointed out, it could have been some passerby, who saw the list and wanted to add to the names listed in the article. I thought of it, not as a spam thing, but as additional info for the talk radio circuit. Anyway, think about that next time before reverting someone other than the suspected spammer. --Maniwar (talk) 18:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1) Talk:Neal Boortz#newsmax.com - I assumed that if you replied to my comment, you read it. 2) - Um... [2] ? 3) What exactly is the remaining point? Femto 19:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I added that stat, but it somehow got changed or didn't take. Bygons! --Maniwar (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've just blocked 64.135.15.195 (talk · contribs) one week for continuing the spam. Femto 19:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.funkstyler.com and related

funkstyler.com

Spam sock accounts

58.107.112.146 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
220.239.174.39 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
58.107.107.13 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Other sites spammed

Adsense pub-3733360336386994
http://www.colonoscopy-prep.com

colonoscopy-prep.com

http://www.37minutes.com

37minutes.com
--Hu12 20:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Colonoscopy and dance howto sites by the same spammer seems really odd. I noticed that User_talk:220.239.174.39 has added multiple external spam links to http://www.thecwalker.com which lists NS1.FUNKSTYLER.COM as a domain server. All the links to thecwalker.com are cleaned, not sure who did it, but I thought I should mention yet another link. (Requestion 22:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

http://www.antonkisieldesigns.com

antonkisieldesigns.com

Spam sock accounts

71.241.214.230 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
70.105.253.171 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
71.241.201.86 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
70.105.243.62 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
--Hu12 23:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I received this from one of the most recent IP address adding the links. Just FYI. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Underwater photography

The External Links section becomes excessive list of professional photographer list. I've tried to clean them but I got resistance by the editor. Can anybody weighing in the discussion here? Thanks. — Indon (reply) — 16:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

scriptlogic.com

The company Scriptlogic has been spamming Wikipedia since October 2005. See also MaSaI_Solutions. In total about about 35 external links have been added.

Special:Linksearch/*.scriptlogic.com

socks

65.248.131.254 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) whois reports an owner of Scriptlogic, diffs [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Scot72 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Russell_Pack (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Nealbush (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Unormal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created the Scriptlogic page and has blanked their talk page twice
Mandyfay112 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created 3 Scriptlogic products stubs that were RfD'd

The 4 spam warnings were issued and the final warning was violated multiple times. This persistent link has become very troublesome. I recommend blacklisting of the scriptlogic.com domain and I recommend deletion of the promotional and non-notable Scriptlogic and MaSaI_Solutions articles. (Requestion 21:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I added several diffs for easier verification to the 65.248.131.254 IP address because many of those spam edits are buried amongst good edits. (Requestion 17:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Blacklisting IP addresses.

Many of the proxies on internet which can be used to get around the spam blacklisting on meta or on shadowbot use IP-numbers. Also, all pages accessable via the domain-name can also be accessed via the IP-number, which makes blacklisting double task. A simple and quick solution would be to meta-blacklist all IP numbers. But before that can be done, we might need to make an inventory if there are (many?) IP numbers which cannot be circumvented. I will put Google here, which can (and should) be circumvented). Does anyone know of others that might cause problems, or other reasons why IPs should not be banned? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should the main discussion take place at meta, since this would affect all wikis? Or maybe WP:EL since a prohibition of IP links would also be covered there. I think it's generally a good idea, having seen someone trying to sneak their blacklisted links back in through an IP myself. Sounds like a lot of cleanup work though; I'm currently counting 5652 links referenced by their IP address on the en:wiki. Femto 12:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possible problems with IP blacklisting

Google cache. Google cache pages make use of an IP, but when loading the google cache (e.g. a cached page of the wikiproject spam, it shows in the header "To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:evl_msrvjhQJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam+wikiproject+spam&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=opera". --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect/cache sites

Both tinyurl.com and citebite.com are ways to bypass the blacklist. I've been told both of these sites are blacklisted but I keep seeing them pop up. Plenty of hits from both with linksearch. (Requestion 22:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Citebite is currently not blacklisted, becuase it is being used for the greater good atm. (the site saves a copy of the page that you re-direct to, therefore it is good for saving copies of newspapers ect, that don't up long enough, and are not archived by any of the major archive services. If that situation changes, it will be blacklisted. Tinyurl should be blacklisted. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 02:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure citebite.com works like that? I was under the impression that it is a mashup variation of tinyurl.com with the addition of #anchor names and yellow highlighting. Citebite.com even has obfuscated URL's just like tinyurl.com. (Requestion 17:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

DermAtlas

User:Hu12 and I disagree on how to handle links Johns Hopkins University's DermAtlas, so I wanted to get some feedback from the broader community. Context is available at User talk:Clehmann. (The user is apparently Dr. Christoph Lehmann.) I requested mediation, and he recommended this forum. --Arcadian 01:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recent investigations has revealed a long term WP:COI spam campaign originating from Johns Hopkins U. using wikipedia as a link farm to act as a directory for an external reference (or in this case image library) source. Details are as folows.

Link search dermatlas.med.jhmi.edu

Spam sock accounts

162.129.70.42 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
Clehmann (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
70.22.99.76 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
71.248.12.161 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

The first to appear on my radar was 162.129.70.42 contributions, Reference talk page User talk:162.129.70.42. Note: IP 162.129.70.42 NetRange which added these links originates from The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Baltimore, Maryland, from NameServer: ENS1.JHMI.EDU, and User talk:Clehmann is apparently Dr. Christoph Lehmann, founders of Dermatlas. These two are both the same person as evudenced by the signature on Talk:Acne. 70.22.99.76 is a verizon IP, most likely a home internet connection. All contributions have been external links only, with few other edits outside this topic. Policies on WP:SPAM, WP:EL and WP:COI are quite clear on this matter. Spamming is about promoting a site or a site you love, not always about commercial sites at all. Links to commercial sites are often appropriate. Links added (such as this case) for the purpose of using Wikipedia to promote that site are not appropriate. Only additions from these IP's have been removed, all good faith non- conflicts of interest edits remain as per the guidelines.--Hu12 02:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm pretty aggressive in removing commercial links with medical topics, I think this particular one looks fine. There's no advertising. It's not a promotional vehicle for someone's practice. I have no issue with it Droliver 02:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spamming is about promoting a site you love, not always about commercial sites at all. Links to commercial sites are often appropriate. Links added (such as this case) for the purpose of using Wikipedia to promote DermAtlas are not appropriate. The manner of which they were added was bad faith despite the disposition of the link itself and never confers a license to spam Wikipedia even if it's true. Adding external links to an article for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be WP:SPAM. Repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed.--Hu12 03:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is somewhat the opposite of Droliver's: normally, I give an obvious medical expert some additional leeway in their addition of external links. But do we really need three separate external links for the DermAtlas database in the DermAtlas article, including one for "Submit an image" and another for "Add a link"? Those two seem inappropriately promotional to me.

I haven't yet had a chance to review all of the edits in User:Clehmann's history, and on first glance it does look a little suspicious, but I'm assuming that's not the issue of current conflict between Arcadian and User:Hu12. Query for Arcadian: why do you think all three links should be included at DermAtlas? -- Satori Son 02:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The most obvious problem is the COI. If the editors would just suggest the links be added on the talk pages of the articles instead, there wouldn't be much of a problem. A good solution would be for the editors to first explain that they think DermAtlas is a useful link for a specific group of articles, then propose inclusion of the DermAtlas link on a few article talk pages, with a link to the explanation as well. --Ronz 02:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I'm confused. What specific dispute needs mediation? Does Arcadian support all of the edits made by editor(s) Clehmann (talk · contribs) and 162.129.70.42 (talk · contribs) or is this just about the DermAtlas article? It would perhaps be helpful if Arcadian made a brief statement outlining what resolution they are seeking. -- Satori Son 03:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Throws me off a bit as well. Not sure what needs to be mediated. Other than catching WP:SPA spam accounts and following policy, no action on good faith edits have been taken. I am a little concerned about the statement by Arcadian made on User_talk:162.129.70.42, spam by any means is not appropriate, and definatly not commendable.--Hu12 03:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment If we are having this discussion, why hasn't Dr. Lehmann been invited to participate? I don't think these are sock puppets. He's probably just working from multiple computers, forgetting to login. We want to encourage him to participate while informing him about relevant policies. I can assure you that talking about him behind his back is not the best way to do this! Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 03:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Lehmann did respond here [12] and then 18 days later spammed again here [13]. It should also be noted that the only thing Dr. Lehmann has contributed to Wikipedia so far is a bunch of external links. (Requestion 18:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Comment Hu12 has a sterling record as an anti-spam fighter, yet this situation ought to be handled with considerably more diplomacy and an assumption of good faith. This appears to be a professor from a leading medical school who, in all likelihood, has simply gone a little overboard in supplying links to a reliable online reference he knows well. I'm going to invite him to this conversation and I'm also taking the liberty of removing the final warning from his user talk page, which ought not to have been left without first attempting to engage the editor and inform him of the relevant policies. Perhaps at some juncture it would be appropriate to block him, but ethical standards in both the medical and the academic professions are high and I don't regard blocking as imminent here. Durova^Charge! 03:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure on the appropriateness of User:Durova removing User:Hu12's spam warning. The reasons for the warning are 100% valid but a final warning in this case may be a little harsh. Personally I would of started with a spam2 warning on March 5 and then elevated that to a spam3 warning on March 29. Plus the spam warnings contain helpful links to things like WP:NOT, so removing the warnings also removes the helpful pointers that User:Clehmann evidently needs. (Requestion 18:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Note: Final warning was issued 5 March 2007 [14]. Previous and leading to the final warning 46 link additions by the related IP's were spammed. Subsequently after and ignoring the final warning 24 link additions were added to Wikipedia from the The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions server. --Hu12 04:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fist and formost Spam is Vandalism, however other forms have been found. According to WP:VAND#Types_of_vandalism Link vandalism states Modifying internal or external links within a page so that they appear the same but link to a page/site that they are not intended to. An instance of this appears here. Also a bit of sneaky vandalism occured here [15], in an attempt to change the template to link directly to dermatlas. Both edits were from the NameServer: ENS1.JHMI.EDU at Johns Hopkins --Hu12 04:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've reviewed the link added to tuberous sclerosis. I think it was superior to some of the other link-to-picture entries this article attracts so have restored it and removed the others. Some medical sites concentrate on the gross and extreme cases of a disease, which IMO isn't useful. This one appears to have a random sample of pictures of patients - not just the worse. The link was originally added by 162.129.70.42, which would appear to be registered to The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. I agree with Hu12 that this is unacceptable per WP:EL. I don't accept that "it is useful" is a reason to break policy, which is quite clear that the link should have been suggested on a talk page or the site publicised and discussed on WikiProject Medicine – for others to consider adding. The template {{DermAtlas}} could be useful, but IMO should have two parameters: ID and Name. Colin°^Talk 08:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussing the quality merits of external link spam is a slippery slope. Why should academic link spam be acceptable and other forms not? Just because someone has a PhD doesn't give them some form of entitlement to spam Wikipedia. I've seen quite a few highly respected editors slide in external link references to their published works. Being a distinguished Wikipedia reference increases their academic clout. How is this any different than a common spammer adding a couple links to their pet project? One difference is trying to remove a respected academic <ref> link would start a major revert war which is something the common spammer usually doesn't engage in. I view this troublesome thread as an important precedent and I hope some sort of consensus can be reached. When is it OK to spam Wikipedia? (Requestion 19:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

While I disagree with some of the statements above, I am satisfied with the current state of the messages at User talk:Clehmann. I want to thank the users who helped provide a more appropriate tone there, and I want to thank you all for your contributions to the process. --Arcadian 03:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, You asked for this discussion and haven't stated why. When is it OK to spam Wikipedia?--Hu12 07:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No word from Dr. Clehmann. Linksearch still shows 51 dermatlas external links. No comment on my important academic link spam question. I don't think they want to discuss this. Ignoring the problem is not a way to resolve it. I think some {{spam#}} warnings should be re-added to User talk:Clehmann, at least for the informative value they supply. Do I have a consensus? (Requestion 16:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Link Controversy at Interactive voice response

See Talk:Interactive voice response An anonymous user User talk:68.227.193.153 operating under multiple IPs (one of whose addresses originates from the parent company of Angel dot com, an IVR software company) has been aggressively attempting to add external links to this article. He also has been adding links to other articles and has had at least 5 warnings to stop. After the last warning, he threatens to bring IVR community members in to support him, which apparently he has done (1 new user and another relatively new one). It is difficult to judge the neutrality of these users, but one must assume good faith.

History: Angel dot com has a history of spamming WP over the last few years and has their links removed repeatedly. The last project was buiding a list of IVR terms (copied from other sites) and advertising prominently Angel on the top and then attempting to link this to this article. This same anonymous user attempted this on at least 4 other articles and the links were removed by other editors as well.

The latest attempt by this user is to link to a forum website called gethuman.com authored by an individual Paul English who is promoting himself through blogs and speaking engagements. Several months ago another group of anonymous users attempted to add EL's to this site in an organized attempt to promote this website. There appear to be many issues here including WP:EL (Forum website and links promoting a website), WP:NOT (WP is NOT a soapbox), WP:NPOV and WP:COI.

I have pointed out these conflicts, but the anonymous user still persists and feels he is being censored for not being allowed to add his links to his websites. He is already at the 4 warning limit.

I would appreciate any input and assistance here as I am sure this user is lobbying others. Calltech 12:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my initial comments at Talk:Interactive voice response, I have simply tried to take a neutral role and calm things down a little. It would now be helpful if other Project members could stop by and give their opinion on the link itself. -- Satori Son 13:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your efforts here, Satori Son. Calltech 13:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think I am the 'relatively new' user mentioned above. I think the gethuman.com link is very worthy of consideration, if you have a look at what it is doing (But I don't claim to be up on all the details of the WP guidelines). But I agree User talk:68.227.193.153 hasn't been going about it in an appropriate way... He (can't you smell the testosterone...) needs to calm down if he wants to get anywhere. And 4 warnings already isn't a very good run. I would simply request of the ed's that the link be considered on its merits (perhaps with more appropriate reference context), ignoring the history of the original submitter. Keep up the good work eds. Peter nann 00:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Peter, thanks for contributing here and your comments on the talk page were sound and thoughtful. The resolution may be as you suggested. There appears to be a history of conflict and at time mutual promotion between the Paul English website and his followers and Angel dot com English v. Angel. Angel has a history of dirty tricks, using false ID's to appear to be neutral while promoting themselves, ala Kate Robins.

Any contributions in this area should come from neutral and unbiased editors that are not promoting their products or an agenda WP:NPOV. Calltech 13:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Medical Spam gfmer.ch

Adsense pub-9360421559178622
gfmer.ch

Spam sock accounts

Gfmer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
83.79.53.116 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
Over 127 links were added by the namesake Gfmer(gfmer.ch) and his/her IP. These additions have been removed per WP:SPAM, WP:EL and WP:COI, but watch for future resurgence.--Hu12 02:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there is many links on other wikis, see WP:WPSPAM/CrossWiki. I'm currently busy with other stuff, so if someone wants to go through and verify that those have not been spammed recently feel free. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 20:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to peer-review nominations for editorial review

I have a serious concern: a recent article I consulted had a bright blue box "An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article doesn't satisfy the notability guidelines...".

OK, fine. Someone with the label "editor" thinks that this article "doesn't matter". He (or she) is entitled to his (or her) opinion. But why do I have any reason to think the "editor" has any interest in this area? If I didn't care about math or physics, maybe I'd mark the article on the Lorentz transformation as "doesnt satisfy MY notability guidelines".

Back to my point: the "editor" is entitled to his/her opinion, but I question two facets of Wikipedia:

Why should someone with the term "editor" get to establish this bright blue box?
Why should the editor's name be withheld? If this editor has a passion for squelching articles on a particular topic, then his/her bias might show through, and such nominations for "doesn't matter" should be discarded summarily, or at least peer-reviewed.

Proposals:

Nomination for such markings should be reviewed by an editorial panel. If 5 editors on a random panel of 10 agree that an article is questionable, perhaps only then should the article be nominated for talk
When used, the legend of the box should be changed to "editor [EditorsName] has expressed...".

Thanks for your consideration.... Harasty 13:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry - why is this here? You would probably be better off discussing this elsewhere, particularly the Talk page of the specific template about which you are concerned.

And by the way, we're all "editors" who contribute to Wikipedia. --ElKevbo 14:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And since Harasty is suggesting a fairly drastic change to our policy of allowing any editor to use clean-up tags, they should probably post this at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). My humble opinion is that a requirement so restrictive and cumbersome would get very little traction. Good luck, though. -- Satori Son 17:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

xfile007.blogspot.com (Munblog) spam

Spammed 26 articles despite warningsand was blocked[16] by Hu12. Has since started using dynamically-assigned, shared IPs to slip links back in one edit at a time:

Linking data:

www.xfile007.blogspot.com
- xfile007.blogspot.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

Adsense ID: pub-0200510607275883

Accounts adding these links:

Munblog (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • what links to user page • count • COIBot • noticeboards • user page logs • x-wiki • status • LinkWatcher search • Google) Blocked 21 March 2007
61.6.73.74 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • what links to user page • COIBot • count • block log • x-wiki • noticeboards • LinkWatcher search || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • CompleteWhois • ippages.com • robtex.com • tor • Google)
218.208.199.175 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • what links to user page • COIBot • count • block log • x-wiki • noticeboards • LinkWatcher search || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • CompleteWhois • ippages.com • robtex.com • tor • Google)
- Blacklisted on njabl.org.
124.82.137.70 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • what links to user page • COIBot • count • block log • x-wiki • noticeboards • LinkWatcher search || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • CompleteWhois • ippages.com • robtex.com • tor • Google)

Affected articles:

--A. B. ^(talk) 16:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blacklisted on meta —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 20:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Later stuff:

--A. B. ^(talk) 12:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

whitemountainsworld.com, esperantio.com and survivaltopics.com

Affected articles (English language Wikipedia only):

Linking data:

www.whitemountainsworld.com
- List of pages with these links
www.survivaltopics.com
- List of pages with these links
esperantio.com
- List of pages with these links on en.wikipedia
- List of pages with these links on eo.wikipedia
- List of pages with these links on el.wikipedia
- List of pages with these links on et.wikipedia [17][18]
www.epaleo.com
- List of pages with these links
www.northernforestcanoetrail.com
- List of pages with these links
www.americandiscoverytrail.org
- List of pages with these links

Adsense ID: 5726122914499591

Accounts adding these links:

RobertRogers (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status) previously warned
Rfontaine (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
69.205.8.94 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) Blocked
69.24.8.179 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) previously warned
68.169.217.62 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) many of these edits were actually link deletions
68.169.221.230 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) previously blocked

--A. B. ^(talk) 18:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blacklisted on meta —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 20:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.quantcode.com

Adsense pub-2757884200825666
quantcode.com

Spam sock accounts

Swatiquantie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
131.241.61.30 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
--Hu12 20:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC) [reply]

www.famousamericans.net & related

famousamericans.net is being spammed to articles about figures and events in American history and it appears that someone bought up domains with names of famous Americans.. and redirected them to this site.. http://www.jamesmonroe.net/ is one example.

Spamming in the last 24hrs has been done by Special:Contributions/24.94.139.230, There are over 500 mainspace links to famousamericans.net alone, this doesn't include all of the other domains that redirect there. --Versageek 04:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, User:MichaelBillington beat me and has reverted all the links added by that IP. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 04:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More info: http://www.famousamericans.net is a subsection of http://virtualology.com, the individual name domains go to subpages of this site. This site is probably a useful resource as a reference in some cases, but there is really no need to add links to it and/or it's related domains to every article on Wikipedia that is related to American History (or other topics covered by the Virtualology project) - doing so is a clear-cut case of spamming, especially given that the site makes liberal use of googleAds.

This is a list of > 60 domains related to the Virtualology.com site:
TheDeclarationofIndependence.org, AbigailAdams.net, JohnHancock.org , CharlesThomson.com , JosiahBartlett.com, MatthewThornton.net, WilliamWhipple.com , John-Adams.org, SamuelAdams.net, ElbridgeGerry.com, JohnHancock.org , RobertTreatPaine.com , SamuelHuntington.org, RogerSherman.net, WilliamWilliams.com, OliverWolcott.com , WilliamEllery.com , StephenHopkins.com , WilliamFloyd.net, FrancisLewis.com, PhilipLivingston.com , LewisMorris.com , AbrahamClark.com, JohnHart.net, FrancisHopkinson.com, RichardStockton.net, JohnWitherspoon.com , GeorgeClymer.com, BenjaminFranklin.org, Robert-Morris.com, JohnMorton.net, GeorgeRoss.net, BenjaminRush.com, James-Smith.net, GeorgeTaylor.net, JamesWilson.org , ThomasMcKean.com, GeorgeRead.org, CaesarRodney.net , CharlesCarrollofCarrollton.com, SamuelChase.com, WilliamPaca.com, ThomasStone.com , CarterBraxton.net, BenjaminHarrison.com, Thomas-Jefferson.net, FrancisLightfootLee.com, RichardHenryLee.com, ThomasNelsonJr.com, GeorgeWythe.net , JosephHewes.com, WilliamHooper.com, JohnPenn.com , ThomasHeywardJr.com, ThomasLynchJr.com, ArthurMiddleton.com, EdwardRutledge.com , Georgia - Signers, ButtonGwinnett.com, Lyman-Hall.com, GeorgeWalton.com , JohnDunlap. net, MaryKatherineGoddard.com, TimothyMatlack.com, JohnTrumbull.com, WilliamJStone.com, JohnQAdams.com, George-Washington.org.

--Versageek 17:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have invited the IP who has been posting these links to participate in this discussion, some explaination may be found on his talk page. --Versageek 01:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

traffixsystems.com and open3gpp.org

Both of these domains are owned by a "Ben Volkow." Over the past 2+ months about 25 external links have been added.

socks

3GPP_guru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
62.219.166.199 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
80.178.177.61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
132.66.223.237 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

The 4 spam warnings were issued and the final warning was violated. I recommend blacklisting. (Requestion 21:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I have filed an RFCU request at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/3GPP guru. Based on results there, hopefully all four of these accounts can be blocked as well. -- Satori Son 21:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the checkuser request was declined but that isn't much of a loss. A whois on the two domains reports an owner of "Benjamin Volkow" with either a physical address or a DNS nameserver in Israel. A whois on the three IP sock addresses also resolves to Israel. So that pretty much pinpoints the source. The only unknown is the User:3GPP_guru but spamming behavior looks identical. (Requestion 22:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

healthadel.com

healthadel.com

Healthadel.com linksearch

Several editors, apparently spas, have added links to healthadel.com over the last three months or so:

Jayquan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Danleyton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Boardshwn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Marleene1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Jimjamns (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Harlequoon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

... and there are probably more. They add the links three or four at a time with edit summarys like "small change" or "update new information," then they add more later using a new user account. I caught the pattern today because I watch ulcerative colitis as a patient and as an RN, and that site's article on UC isn't a good article.

The site doesn't have any ads, but it's written by only one person and isn't about science - it's mostly opinion. I've looked at most of their pages and a lot of their info is incorrect or incomplete. ELs to the site don't belong here. I've got it on my list and I'm working through deleting the ELs. - KrakatoaKatie 20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Back today with a new account:

- Maneroof (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)

I will request blacklisting. --A. B. ^(talk) 18:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blacklisting declined. --A. B. ^(talk) 20:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone take a look at Choose Your Own Adventure?

The external links section is loaded with sites not related to the books, I placed a "linkfarm" tag on there 2 months ago but non-specific links are still being added, mostly to promote "similar" games/projects. I'm not sure what to remove. 172.202.30.200 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to mention, someone removed the linkfarm tag without removing any of the unrelated links. I'd try to fix the section myself but I'm not on Wikipedia often enough keep checking they don't get re-added. Thanks. 172.202.30.200 19:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The user who removed the tag actually reverted links back in that had been removed back into the article citing competition concerns [19] [20]. S/He doesn't seem like an unreasonable editor so I've put a proposal to cut the links more drastically on the talk page and asked him/her to comment. Hopefully we can get a good consensus that will be in line with having a good encyclopedia article. -- Siobhan Hansa 00:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

agloco.com spam

agloco.com is the current "hot" affiliate marketing scheme:

mccallsnotes.live.spaces
agloco.com
aglocotest.com
johnchow.com
wegetpaidtosurf.com

These links have been recently added by a number of unrelated editors. This is just the tip of the iceberg":

192.249.47.8 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
- shared IP -- most of the edits are not by an agloco spammer
202.164.198.115 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
70.50.235.7 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
Amahdigital (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
Librahitech (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
RAKESHPPANDYA (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)

In some cases, they were deleting others' referral codes and adding their own.

Blacklisting requested. --A. B. ^(talk) 20:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adult site spamming from a common provider

Please look at contributions for this anon IP. All sites appear to be hosted by a common provider {MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.)

Sites spammed:

RJASE1 ^Talk 02:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested to Shadowbot's blacklist (User:Shadowbot/Blacklist requests). Femto 11:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

traffixsystems.com and open3gpp.org

Both of these domains are owned by a "Ben Volkow." Over the past 2+ months about 25 external links have been added.

socks

3GPP_guru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
62.219.166.199 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
80.178.177.61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
132.66.223.237 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

The 4 spam warnings were issued and the final warning was violated. I recommend blacklisting. (Requestion 21:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I have filed an RFCU request at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/3GPP guru. Based on results there, hopefully all four of these accounts can be blocked as well. -- Satori Son 21:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the checkuser request was declined but that isn't much of a loss. A whois on the two domains reports an owner of "Benjamin Volkow" with either a physical address or a DNS nameserver in Israel. A whois on the three IP sock addresses also resolves to Israel. So that pretty much pinpoints the source. The only unknown is the User:3GPP_guru but spamming behavior looks identical. (Requestion 22:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Links to local sports clubs

I'm a relative newbie, having edited only since Christmas, so would welcome some guidance on this matter. What is WP policy on mentioning local sports clubs by name in articles on towns or regions? One editor working on Mendip Hills unlinked a (named) local gliding club, leaving a link to gliding as a sport in the text & relegating the club to an External Link. Is this the generally approved method; or is it sometimes acceptable to mention a specific (non-profit members') club in the text of the article? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Links within the body of the article should be wikilinks (or inter:wikilinks to other wikimedia projects like wiktionary) or citations backing up an assertion. If it was just an external link to the gliding club's home page, that does more properly sit in the external links section (if it's agreed it's an appropriate link for the article). This used to me quite explicitly stated in the external links guidelines though it's recently come up on the talk page that it dropped out during various changes. The nonprofit status of the club isn't really relevant to whether or not the link is appropriate. Sorry it took so long to respond. Sometimes the questions that aren't very action oriented towards stopping spam get a bit lost. -- Siobhan Hansa 03:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your response. In the meantime I've had a reply very much along the same lines from the Help Desk. In the article on Mendip Hills it certainly seemed relevant to mention the sport of gliding in general, leaving an EL to the club's website for those interested in following it up. I've done the same with Aston Down. Thanks again. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

tolkiengateway.net

I've just come across an IP (70.92.121.114) systematically adding links to tolkiengateway.net, a Tolkien focused wiki. A bit of further investigation indicates that the wiki seems to have at least one proponent on Wikipedia who does nothing here other than promote this other wiki (Hyarion) and that the articles seem to have significant content taken from Wikipedia without attribution. For instance, found using their random page feature, Their Rohan article, started on 2005-10-27 and our Rohan article from 2005-10-19, after the lead the articles are virtually identical. All the articles I found for which we have an article were similar. I could find no attribution to Wikipedia or link back to the original articles for the purposes of identifying the copyright holders). The wiki obviously does go into more depth than Wikipedia does (or should!). I think this link has been spammed, and that a site that violates Wikipedian copyrights shouldn't be linked to, but they seem to have been around for sometime without upsetting Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth. I'd like other opinions before I do the standard strip out links. I'll leave a message at WikiProject_Middle-earth soliciting their input here. -- Siobhan Hansa 19:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't belong to the project but I've edited a number of Tolkien articles and would tend to agree that this is spam. Besides, its inclusion might tempt some editors to use it as a source, which is clearly improper. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what to say here. I've been aware for some time that their articles appear to have been seeded by using our articles, but I assumed they had attributed Wikipedia as the source of the original material. They can indeed go into more depth, particularly on the fan side of things, but ultimately it would be good to see a synergy form between that wiki (which does seem very popular) and the pages here. How is this sort of things handled with, say, the Star Trek and Star Wars wikis? Carcharoth 00:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for responding Carcharoth. If regular editors of the article think a relationship with this wiki can benefit Wikipedia we should probably tackle this in a different manner. Do you know any editors who are involved with both wikis? Would it be better to move this discussion to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth? Thanks -- Siobhan Hansa 00:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure. I've considered getting inolved over there, but there are only so many hours in a day! You've left messages in the right places. Hyarion might take a while to respond. I might drop a note over at that wiki if I have time. I think just wait and see for a bit. I think what would be useful is to lay down some ground rules and distinguish the different styles. Wikipedia is general, the subject-specific wikis are, well, more detailed. For what it is worth, Hyarion is also active at http://tolkiennews.net/, a Tolkien news site. At the end of the day, if our articles are referenced properly (and sadly many aren't), then there is no need to link to other Tolkien wikis or sites like The Encyclopedia of Arda. At the end of the day, places like the Tolkien Gateway will be able to do more with things like fan artwork, and content listings for fan magazines, and so forth, stuff that would never be suitable for Wikipedia. Wikipedia can take a more serious approach, and can concentrate on referencing the articles in a more encyclopedic manner. Also, the linking out to other articles works differently. Joseph Wright (linguist) (someone who taught Tolkien at university), for example, on the Tolkien Gateway would never be its own article, but here we can link to things like that. Carcharoth 01:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone! I must say, I was rather shocked when I saw "Tolkien Gateway" and "spam "in the same sentence, but I suppose if I plan on adding external links I should focus more on improving the article by other means as well, though I still stand behind the links I added and do not believe they should be classified as spam. But by all means, if you feel they are not helpful, please remove them and you won't see anymore of them. I think the main issue here is not the spam but some of the articles on TG that are a bit too similar to Wikipedia's. I will be the first to admit that when I added them I did so without fully understanding the GNU FDL and did not realize a return link had to be added or I would have gladly done so. We were using them as placeholders but I had hoped we would have replaced them at a faster pace than present so we will be adding adding the Wikipedia notices to the articles until we can rewrite them, this is something which is being addressed at our next meeting. I agree with Carcharoth in that the best approach is making sure each wiki has their own benefits as well as downsides. For instance with Joseph Wright, we do have articles such as that but have no need to include information not related to Tolkien, which is where Wikipedia comes in. I'll monitor this discussion and if I can be of anymore help please let me know, and thanks for your time. --Hyarion 03:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for responding. I appreciate your intention is to make good content freely available, and it would be great if that could improve Wikipedia as well as Tolkiengateway! Since there seems to be some respect for this external wiki by at least one editor who spends significant time on the related articles I don't think a spam label is appropriate. However I am concerned about the linking to articles that are mainly repeats of Wikipedia material and about the use of content from Wikipedia without attribution. I'll go through the links and remove the ones to articles that don't have significant new content, and I'll bring up the copyright issue at WikiProject Middle-earth (where they should be better placed to decide on appropriate monitoring or action since more editors whose copyright has technically been violated are likely to be there). Let me know if this doesn't seem reasonable. -- Siobhan Hansa 20:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds about right. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 20:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

healthadel.com

healthadel.com

Healthadel.com linksearch

Several editors, apparently spas, have added links to healthadel.com over the last three months or so:

Jayquan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Danleyton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Boardshwn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Marleene1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Jimjamns (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Harlequoon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

... and there are probably more. They add the links three or four at a time with edit summarys like "small change" or "update new information," then they add more later using a new user account. I caught the pattern today because I watch ulcerative colitis as a patient and as an RN, and that site's article on UC isn't a good article.

The site doesn't have any ads, but it's written by only one person and isn't about science - it's mostly opinion. I've looked at most of their pages and a lot of their info is incorrect or incomplete. ELs to the site don't belong here. I've got it on my list and I'm working through deleting the ELs. - KrakatoaKatie 20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Back today with a new account:

- Maneroof (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)

I will request blacklisting. --A. B. ^(talk) 18:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blacklisting declined. --A. B. ^(talk) 20:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch

What is this?
--A. B. ^(talk) 01:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, next question -- what's Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Report?

--A. B. ^(talk) 02:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check out User_talk:Betacommand/20070301#wikified_avalanche-center.org_EL. I don't completely understand it and this link will probably make "things" seem even more strange to you. (Requestion 02:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I wonder who can add stuff to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch? I notice that an IP in Belgium added a domain to it[21] without comment -- seems sort of fishy. --A. B. ^(talk) 02:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Im developing a method of tracking spam. Eagle 101, Beetstra and others use an IRC based interface to my bot to gather linksearch results and track spam. Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch/List contains all of the sites that have been identified and have links on wikipedia still. if you dont have IRC you can just follow the same format that is on /List and add the site there as the bot reads from that page also. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 02:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool.

Suggestion -- a commenting provision to document why something's on the list and who put it there. I see some links on there that don't seem spammy. The nice thing about both this page's archives and those for m:Talk:Spam blacklist is that we have a record of users, etc to explain why we've previously ID'd something as spammy. --A. B. ^(talk) 02:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The two features that this system needs is accountability of why it is doing something and an audit list of what it did. Like I mentioned on Betacommand's talk page, I've had a couple problems of this system deleting spam that I was currently watching which sort of tossed a wrench into my investigation. I don't have any problems with the spam being deleted but I need a way know that it was deleted. An audit trail would work, so would simply adding the results of the LinkSearch so I can backtrack it myself. As it is now, spam gets found, it is deleted, and the entire process is invisible. (Requestion 22:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

What i have been suggesting is use the talkpage of the linksearch result to track spammers. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 02:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you started doing this on any of the pages? I like the idea of us tracking links together, but could use a little more concrete info on how it would be implemented. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone take a look at Choose Your Own Adventure?

The external links section is loaded with sites not related to the books, I placed a "linkfarm" tag on there 2 months ago but non-specific links are still being added, mostly to promote "similar" games/projects. I'm not sure what to remove. 172.202.30.200 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to mention, someone removed the linkfarm tag without removing any of the unrelated links. I'd try to fix the section myself but I'm not on Wikipedia often enough keep checking they don't get re-added. Thanks. 172.202.30.200 19:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The user who removed the tag actually reverted links back in that had been removed back into the article citing competition concerns [22] [23]. S/He doesn't seem like an unreasonable editor so I've put a proposal to cut the links more drastically on the talk page and asked him/her to comment. Hopefully we can get a good consensus that will be in line with having a good encyclopedia article. -- Siobhan Hansa 00:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

agloco.com spam

agloco.com is the current "hot" affiliate marketing scheme:

mccallsnotes.live.spaces
agloco.com
aglocotest.com
johnchow.com
wegetpaidtosurf.com

These links have been recently added by a number of unrelated editors. This is just the tip of the iceberg":

192.249.47.8 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
- shared IP -- most of the edits are not by an agloco spammer
202.164.198.115 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
70.50.235.7 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
Amahdigital (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
Librahitech (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)
RAKESHPPANDYA (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs • status)

In some cases, they were deleting others' referral codes and adding their own.

Blacklisting requested. --A. B. ^(talk) 20:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the March archives

I like to cruise our archives every so often, just following up with linksearches on old problems. Here are a few worth noting:

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar#naxos.com/composerinfo
Looks like we now have 200+ links, up from 35
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar#News aggregate spam
21 links -- is that an increase?
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar#thepalestra.com
New account: PalestraRyan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar#www.pressarchive.net -- still have about 120 blacklisted links in the article space
These will be real aggravation for regular editors trying to save a page.

I won't have time to work on any of these for several days. --A. B. ^(talk) 00:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've converted all the pressarchive.net links to moviehole links per Eagle101's suggestion. -- Siobhan Hansa 13:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just took a look at the naxos links. I went through the first hundred and only a few of the pages had had the linked added since February 28th (when the report with the 35 links was made). There must have been something wrong with the link search. Of the ones I checked, all the added links were good faith and appropriate. However the accounts that spammed the link back at the time of the report (203.189.8.194 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log); 124.107.8.196 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log); ClassicMusic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log); Classiko (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) have added more links since then. I've stripped those links out. Looks like this one will be a hard one to monitor as the site is used as a reliable source for a lot of classical musicians' articles. -- Siobhan Hansa 05:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adult site spamming from a common provider

Please look at contributions for this anon IP. All sites appear to be hosted by a common provider {MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.)

Sites spammed:

RJASE1 ^Talk 02:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested to Shadowbot's blacklist (User:Shadowbot/Blacklist requests). Femto 11:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TourEgypt.net

Has this one been discussed before? Lots of links

touregypt.net and some aggressive link reverters like Special:Contributions/Thanatosimii. Seems to have been in and out of blacklists and whitelists. What's the history?

--BozMo talk 21:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Using the tool mentioned below, discussion is at

1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/03#Touegypt.net

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#TourEgypt.net

3. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist/Log#March_2007

Enjoy. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New archive searching tool!!!

New reason to report spammers here. GeorgeMoney and I have made a tool that searches some 37 archives of WPSPAM and the meta blacklist. You just put a link like tinyurl.com and it will show you all sections that that link was discussed in. Hopefully this will make digging up past spammers easier. (You can also put in the adsense number, and it will tell you what section that adsense number is in). It also checks live copies of this page, as well as live copies of the most recent archive for the spam blacklist and this page. (as they are archived by bots, and are still active a month after being created). I'm thinking about adding the spam whitelist archives into the database, and any other ideas for locations to search are welcome. I hope this fixes our problems with archives. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note... this is not an april fools prank. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Forgot this very important link to the tool. Its on m:toolserver. :) —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not bad :-) Although that "lightgreen" color is pretty obsolete ;-) -- ReyBrujo 00:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Like it alot, especialy being able to search adsense numbers. Nice work! ;) --Hu12 00:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now updated to search the content of the blacklist, as well as the content of the english wikipedia whitelist, and the related talk page. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 22:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someday it would be great if it could search Veinor's linkcount pages -- then we could find out who was adding links as of whenever Veinor put that tool into place. As it stands, I Google search on a link and I can pull up some of Veinor's pages, although I get the sense that Google doesn't thoroughly index all of those pages. Anyway, that's a wished-for feature, not a complaint; this is a handy tool as it is. The blacklist's talk page archives can be especially hard to search.

All these great tools some of you are developing combined with a better understanding of spammers' methods have brought us a long way since mid-2006. I don't think many of us even knew what an Adsense number was 6 or 7 months ago. Many thanks to all of you who have worked so hard to figure this stuff out for the rest of us to use. --A. B. ^(talk) 22:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear - does that mean it is best to link the urls here rather than nowiki them (or other wise present them as text)? (Also, it would be good to update the tools section of the main page with the many recent additions.) Nposs 05:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple wiki "malfunctioning" spam bot

You guys might want to have a look at this, and keep an eye out for it. Its not inserting links, but its intended to insert links. (it sometimes puts <a href=" and thats it). I'm seeing it very often on #wikimedia-swmt (small wiki monitoring team), and I don't know if it will come to the english wikipedia or not. A link about this bot can be found here. Again, we really don't have much we can do, short of getting something like antivandalbot on it. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 02:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found out that a large number of times bots create articles that have titles with /w/, /wiki/, index.php or ending with / (slash). I have found them in most (if not all) the wikis I have cleaned (including big ones like this one). Some examples are at ie:Wikipedia:Protected titles. -- ReyBrujo 03:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yawn, XRumer again. Unfortunately my friendly and rouge anti-spam administrator has not edited for a month or so, therefore the following IPs need to be blocked indefinitely:

84.9.139.145 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (see [24])
71.119.254.211 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (see [25])
Whoever created Template talk:Reproductive physiology/w/index.php (edit | template | history | links | watch | logs) each of seven times, which needs moving to WP:PT/SPAM.

This stuff has been prevalent on the English Wikipedia for a long time, see the huge list at WP:PT/SPAM, though it's diminished somewhat as IPs posting such spam are blocked indefinitely on the suspicion of being open proxies. MER-C 12:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

webmaxsearch.com

Keep an eye out for this one, it doesn't seem to hit a lot, but it makes a mess when it does, The only other instance that currently exists is on a talk page where a diff isn't available.. but it made a similar, but smaller mess there. I redlisted it on Linkwatcher --Versageek 06:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify by redlist, it is meant that the link insertion is highlighted amongst the other links coming in the feed. All it does is call more attention for human review to that particular link insertion. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 06:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Doing a little checking:

76.178.154.56 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
- This is the vandal that added the links cited above; IP address traceroutes to a Time Warner Cable customer in the U.S.; the exact location is unclear.
  - The account's sole edit was webmaxsearch gibberish.[26]

A Google search on "site:en.wikipedia.org webmaxsearch.com" leads to 4 recent User:Veinor/Link count pages which in turn point to more webmaxsearch.com link additions by:

69.246.128.13 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
- Traceroutes to a Comcast user in the Chattanooga, Tennessee USA area. 17 January's edits are webmaxsearch gibberish, 3 of the others look like schoolkid vandalism.
  - webmaxsearch.com/?qq=education returns random numbers on the screen ... but the source code is full of links.
82.42.217.15 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
- traceoutes to a Telewest/Virgin Media somewhere in the UK. The 9 February edit is webmaxsearch gibberish, the other is OK.
24.14.141.120 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
- Traceroutes to a Comcast user in the greater Chicago area.
  - This is very interesting -- look at the Cody Linley edits.[27][28][29] They're a mixture of webmaxsearch gibberish and classic schoolkid vandalism. The same is true of the other edits except the one to Cheesehead.
71.201.24.72 (talk • contribs • links • count • user logs • user page logs || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
- Also traceroutes to a Comcast user in the greater Chicago area.
  - Of the 8 closely spaced 23 November 2006 edits to Michael Moore and Ozzie Guillén, some are schoolkid vandalism and some are webmaxsearch gibberish. The Eric Forman edit contains webaxsearch junk as does the first Charles "Haywire" Patoshik edit; the second is just blanking.

The webmaxsearch gibberish looks like classic spambot stuff, yet much of these editors' other stuff looks like kiddie vandalism, even within the same edit as webmaxsearch spam. These IPs are served by cable TV systems and most likely residential customers (although cable systems do handle a few commercial accounts). Any ideas as to what this is?

I recommend blacklisting webmaxsearch.com in any event. --A. B. ^(talk) 20:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Slap something up on the blacklist. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 20:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/Theophilus_Grantly

someone please check this fellow (Special:Contributions/Theophilus_Grantly. i'd do more but im at work, sorry! JoeSmack ^Talk 17:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The link addition is www.anthonytrollope.com, and I have dropped a warning by. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 18:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

www.artfacts.net spammer - can some admin roll him back please?

About 50 linkspams added today [30]. Thanks. --CliffC 18:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted and dealt with. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 19:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

www.insearchofheaven.com

Added about 27 times by 208.30.83.3 (talk · contribs). This is a new link (it has not showed up before, see insearchofheaven.com archive searchI have warned. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 19:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

85.82.197.144 (talk · contribs)

socks

search links

Are the added links. User has a history of adding links see user contribs. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 19:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User added a boosttown.com link after your final warning, he got a 24hr time out.--Hu12 02:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The webcast. prefix made your tool miss an IP addr I link tagged. A Special:Linksearch/*.challengeyoursoul.com can see it. No big deal but it might be useful if your archive search tool did some smart stripping of domain prefixes. I tend to add tags in the form of [http://spam.challengeyoursoul.com] so if a www. is specified then both the linksearch and your tool will miss it. It is interesting that all 3 IPs and challengeyoursoul.com all resolve to Denmark with a whois. (Requestion 21:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC))[reply]

New tool, again :)

See this. The new tool allows searching across multiple wikis with one click. Hope this help you all! Think of it as an improved linksearch. :) —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 04:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do note this is different then the prior tool. :) —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 05:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

itsrugby

Hi, The guys over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rugby_union#Link_spam have spotted that a user itsrugby has been adding links to itsrugby.com Could someone remove them with VandalProof or similar? I don't have the tool. Thanks Nelson50 12:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Norcomm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User account has been active since January. The first article created was Norris-Whitney Communications, and all creations and edits since seem to be for publications, people, and events connected with this particular company. I think I'll also post something at the COI noticeboard. RJASE1 ^Talk 15:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

endexploitation.org

Seems like a great cause, but they spammed & were warned/reverted last week. Now they are at it again this week.. current count is 27 and climbing. current ID's are:

Endexploitation (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
74.121.168.204 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

--Versageek 00:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

all-taxquestions.com

This was spammed across 4 wikis, just one entry on each: en (1), nl (1), pt (1), da (1). He registered users on all four wiki's.. on en the user was:

User:Merilici (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I'm not sure if his intent is to run up the hits on the domain, or actually provide tax advice - but with text like this, perhaps he should stick to domain-parking: When Time of Father goes in, the question of what to do with the home comes be a larger one concerns. At times, ruminating in the alternatives can dominate a thought. If a person is aware of the several options and he chooses a path that removes the major party the sense, the tranquility often can be the result. I reverted it on all 4 wiki's.. --Versageek 07:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

focusdep.com

This site contains quotes and google ads (not necessarily in that order).. there is a COI issue - the links were posted by:

Omnem (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

It says right on the site: Powered by: Omnem, Talad, Bruce. The site also mentions these four other domains, which don't appear to have been spammed. (yet).

--Versageek 08:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spam link removal from band "lists"

On my rounds doing work for WP:ALBUM, I obviously come across a lot of spam articles and links – which I delete with mucho gusto! The latest article I came across was List of post-rock bands which consisted of a lot of entries with an external link rather than a link to a Wikipedia article. Here's what I cleared on the first sweep. Just a heads up for this project, really, that this sort of list article (although mainly used correctly) is a breeding ground for spam, which, as I say, I will continue to clean up as soon as I see it. Bubba hotep 08:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

clusterpulse.org (COI)

Promotional links posted by:

Clusterpulse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sites mentioned: clusterpulse.org [31] globaljagat.com [32] --Versageek 08:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC) [reply]

www.famousamericans.net & related

famousamericans.net is being spammed to articles about figures and events in American history and it appears that someone bought up domains with names of famous Americans.. and redirected them to this site.. http://www.jamesmonroe.net/ is one example.

Spamming in the last 24hrs has been done by Special:Contributions/24.94.139.230, There are over 500 mainspace links to famousamericans.net alone, this doesn't include all of the other domains that redirect there. --Versageek 04:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, User:MichaelBillington beat me and has reverted all the links added by that IP. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 04:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More info: http://www.famousamericans.net is a subsection of http://virtualology.com, the individual name domains go to subpages of this site. This site is probably a useful resource as a reference in some cases, but there is really no need to add links to it and/or it's related domains to every article on Wikipedia that is related to American History (or other topics covered by the Virtualology project) - doing so is a clear-cut case of spamming, especially given that the site makes liberal use of googleAds.

This is a list of > 60 domains related to the Virtualology.com site:
TheDeclarationofIndependence.org, AbigailAdams.net, JohnHancock.org , CharlesThomson.com , JosiahBartlett.com, MatthewThornton.net, WilliamWhipple.com , John-Adams.org, SamuelAdams.net, ElbridgeGerry.com, JohnHancock.org , RobertTreatPaine.com , SamuelHuntington.org, RogerSherman.net, WilliamWilliams.com, OliverWolcott.com , WilliamEllery.com , StephenHopkins.com , WilliamFloyd.net, FrancisLewis.com, PhilipLivingston.com , LewisMorris.com , AbrahamClark.com, JohnHart.net, FrancisHopkinson.com, RichardStockton.net, JohnWitherspoon.com , GeorgeClymer.com, BenjaminFranklin.org, Robert-Morris.com, JohnMorton.net, GeorgeRoss.net, BenjaminRush.com, James-Smith.net, GeorgeTaylor.net, JamesWilson.org , ThomasMcKean.com, GeorgeRead.org, CaesarRodney.net , CharlesCarrollofCarrollton.com, SamuelChase.com, WilliamPaca.com, ThomasStone.com , CarterBraxton.net, BenjaminHarrison.com, Thomas-Jefferson.net, FrancisLightfootLee.com, RichardHenryLee.com, ThomasNelsonJr.com, GeorgeWythe.net , JosephHewes.com, WilliamHooper.com, JohnPenn.com , ThomasHeywardJr.com, ThomasLynchJr.com, ArthurMiddleton.com, EdwardRutledge.com , Georgia - Signers, ButtonGwinnett.com, Lyman-Hall.com, GeorgeWalton.com , JohnDunlap. net, MaryKatherineGoddard.com, TimothyMatlack.com, JohnTrumbull.com, WilliamJStone.com, JohnQAdams.com, George-Washington.org.

--Versageek 17:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have invited the IP who has been posting these links to participate in this discussion, some explaination may be found on his talk page. --Versageek 01:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

traffixsystems.com and open3gpp.org

Both of these domains are owned by a "Ben Volkow." Over the past 2+ months about 25 external links have been added.

socks

3GPP_guru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
62.219.166.199 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
80.178.177.61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
132.66.223.237 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)