MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/August 2023

uaecorporatetaxes.ae


Being added (slowly) to various articles about Dubai. Doesn't appear to have much in the way of encyclopaedic value as a source – it's a commercial site masquerading as a blog. — Trey Maturin™ 14:36, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Adding to MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json since the domain is simple. Sam Kuru (talk) 13:38, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

travelmykashmir.com


This is a link to a cab service that is being spammed by obvious sockpuppets. Apparition11 Complaints/ Mistakes 11:32, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Adding to MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json since the domain is simple. Sam Kuru (talk) 13:38, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

tnh.gob.hn/rnh
Persistent spamming by a large number of accounts. Many accounts have been blocked or globally locked or both, but each time another one appears. Accounts include, but are not by any means limited to, the following:



Here is a very small sample of the spam linking:. JBW (talk) 09:13, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

rackmountsales.com


Hamfisted socking and linkspamming of a sales site with no encyclopaedic value. — Trey Maturin™ 12:03, 4 August 2023 (UTC)


 * @Trey Maturin, added to BlockedExternalDomains since no Regex is used. Courcelles (talk) 13:26, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @ 62.122.184.126 (talk) 20:36, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Rokhdad.media
Special:Diff/1170287887

Baratiiman (talk) 08:46, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

www.tuaradio.com.br/Tua-Radio-Garibaldi


Some sort of spambot was adding this link. No encyclopaedic value. — Trey Maturin™ 10:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

scientificeuropean.co.uk


Yugjab was blocked as an advertising-only account back in 2018. Recently activity has resumed from a number of sock accounts. - MrOllie (talk) 03:00, 16 August 2023 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --OhNo itsJamie Talk 13:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

radixweb.com


Typical linkspam from sockpuppets. Moves on to new account after being warned. - MrOllie (talk) 16:50, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Compliancehome

 * Link

Recent actvitiy: Long term spamming. Please blacklist.-KH-1 (talk) 04:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Spammers:


 * @KH-1 Added. to blockedexternal. Courcelles (talk) 12:17, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

onlinecasino65.sg


Slipped into Criminal Investigation Department (Singapore) as part of a series of edits, replacing a reference. — Trey Maturin™ 12:05, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * @Trey Maturin added to blockedexternal. Courcelles (talk) 12:19, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Noting here that Oliviatansg attempted to vandlize this report. - MrOllie (talk) 13:38, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Blocked. Courcelles (talk) 13:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

birminghamescorts.co.uk


Added to Coventry, of no conceivable encyclopaedic value. — Trey Maturin™ 11:49, 16 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Added to Blocked external domains. Courcelles (talk) 17:41, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

theodora.com
There are hundreds of links to this site, often replacing links to things like the CIA World Factbook. It's a scraper. Free content, no value added, adverts wrapped around. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:45, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Visa/travel agency spam links regex request


I've been directed here by @Daniel Quinlan at a discussion elsewhere. I have a number of diffs where I removed these external links to spam/third-party visa/travel agency websites. Could a regex be written to cover domains like these ones?

Diffs: Special:Diff/1166556326, Special:Diff/1166557292, Special:Diff/1166556233, Special:Diff/1166557146, Special:Diff/1166556524, Special:Diff/1166557347, Special:Diff/1166558275, Special:Diff/1166556969, Special:Diff/1166557109, Special:Diff/1166556796

Thanks, Fork99 (talk) 01:07, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't see a great regex here, but I've added all these domains to the blocked external domains tool. Courcelles (talk) 17:47, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

1dealaway.com


Socking and/or UPE to add this link to (literally) random articles. — Trey Maturin™ 17:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Added to MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json Courcelles (talk) 17:49, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Money Saving Expert
In a recent discussion on the reliable source noticeboard, the consensus was that Money Saving Expert is a reliable source for UK consumer finance and should be removed from the blacklist. As mentioned in the discussion: the site is used as a source by broadsheet newspapers; it has a paid editorial team with experience in the field (e.g. Which); the executive chair (Martin Lewis) presents a weekly podcast for the BBC; and it has an editorial code of practice. It has very high quality explanations on types of products available to UK consumers (e.g. I wanted to use the page on UK credit unions).

Obviously, Wikipedia is not a price comparison website unlike Money Saving Expert and therefore verbatim copying pages from Money Saving Expert would be inappropriate, or using it to provide details about specific products such as pricing or availability information in most cases. But similarly, Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and we don't exclude all newspapers as sources. I don't think that many users are likely to use Money Saving Expert to provide prices for commercial products as all the discussions I can see are on general product categories or government schemes.

The site was added to the blacklist on the grounds of the assertion that it was unreliable without a discussion of its reliability on the reliable source noticeboard or any other noticeboard as far as I can see, and also without any evidence that it was being used for spam. There was also no evidence as far as I can see that this was done as a last resort against spammers or that the alternatives listed by Spam blacklist were considered.

Some editors on the reliable source noticeboard said that the site had changed since it was added to the blacklist.

As I don't believe there ever was any abuse, I don't think any abuse will resume if it is unblocked. As the consensus it is now a reliable source, any spam problems related to its potential unreliability should be mitigated, as should any issues related to it potentially being some sort of blog network (the only blog on the site I could find is that of Martin Lewis, and he is almost certainly a subject matter expert for consumer issues).

If users believe that the forum is likely to still be abused, then that should be individually blacklisted. However, I note that many far more popular social media sites (like Twitter) are not spam blacklisted.

Yours faithfully, ~ El D. (talk to me) 11:29, 14 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It was being used for native advertising . So, yes, it was being spammed. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:35, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. There are no links on that discussion to cases of it being used for native advertising on Wikipedia, or cases of native advertising on MSE only a vague assertion (it isn't even clear which of these two things it was blacklisted for).
 * Best wishes, ~ El D. (talk to me) 20:09, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * from MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Courcelles (talk) 20:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I’d say it’s clear from RSN we shouldn’t be blocking the entire domain at this time. If non-RS parts of the website get spammed again, we can do something more granular. Courcelles (talk) 20:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this, have a nice day, ~ El D. (talk to me) 22:14, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

rockinformer.com


AI content farm; was subject of a discussion on RS/N after an attempt to insert nonfactual content (diff: ). Should be pre-emptively blacklisted like all AI-generated sites. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 15:26, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

boholcarrental.com.ph
Persistent spam. --Count Count (talk) 17:30, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Courcelles (talk) 15:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

travel2ireland.ie
Used by both an IP (here) and a spam-account (here and ). The Banner talk 10:07, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Support blacklisting. (Noting the repeated link/ref-spamming [and copyvio at Commons] by multiple accounts/IPs, I came here to propose this domain be added to the spamlist. Finding that has already opened this thread/proposal instead, I'll instead endorse this existing proposal.) Guliolopez (talk) 11:05, 25 August 2023 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Courcelles (talk) 12:21, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

naturaltreaser.com


Male genitalia "enhancement" sales site added to Gender sensitivity. No encyclopaedic value. — Trey Maturin™ 09:55, 24 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Added to BlockedExternal. Courcelles (talk) 17:20, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

acslocks

 * Link

Please blacklist.-KH-1 (talk) 00:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Spammers


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:38, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

saltfleetby.com


User is adding their blog to various tangentially related articles, then reverting when it is removed, on the basis that their blog has "current information about the area which will be useful and interesting to anyone wishing to find out more on the subject or visit the area". They have made no other contributions except the addition and the reverting. The blog itself is not a reliable source. — Trey Maturin™ 15:31, 27 August 2023 (UTC)


 * . User has invoked WP:RTV.  Since it is a single user we would normally block the user first, if it then re-occurs we would blacklist.  Please re-report when user returns under another name.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:42, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

ecelebrityinfo.com


Added (with extra bold markup) to Noah Lyles; this type of algorithm-generated nonsense site can never have any value to us. — Trey Maturin™ 12:21, 27 August 2023 (UTC)


 * . Single user, already blocked. If they change accounts we will blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:43, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

happyroms.com


Socking going on to add this apparent warez site to Game Boy Advance. — Trey Maturin™ 09:59, 26 August 2023 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. There are two more editors in the report, one already blocked.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

mustangtreknepal.com


Sales site sneakily added to Mustang Caves, overwriting a legitimate reference but leaving the previous reference's citation data. — Trey Maturin™ 15:59, 25 August 2023 (UTC)


 * , single user with one edit. Lets first see if the warning helps. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:51, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

ukrainisch-uebersetzer.berlin


Socking to add this site advertising a mediation service. — Trey Maturin™ 10:13, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

p3vip88.com


Online casino being repeatedly added to diambig page P3. — Trey Maturin™ 09:03, 28 August 2023 (UTC)


 * to BlockedExternal. --OhNo itsJamie Talk 12:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

passportplaza.com


Nipping a spam campaign in the bud. OhNo itsJamie Talk 21:09, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

mantle.xyz
this is the official website for a blockchain and the related project, a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum

-- Itemirus (talk)  13:47, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This is blacklisted via the  line on enwp. --Count Count (talk) 14:02, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * If Mantle becomes notable, we can whitelist the official link. OhNo itsJamie Talk 14:06, 31 August 2023 (UTC)