MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January 2017

gocinema.in
It has come to our attention that our site has been blacklisted on Wikipedia. This apparently because of the following two reasons.

Primarily, an arbitrary account has been found repeatedly using 'gocinema' as a reference to add information. The links we reviewed that appeared on Wikipedia are genuine news links. We are not aware of why our site was used to cite these facts. In-dubiously,we do not consider that as a reason to penalize the site for posting genuine news content.

@Cyphoidbomb has stated that ‘It appears to be yet another faceless Indian blog. Main page is an endless wall of posts’. None of the statements hold any relevance, besides appear as vacuous vandalism.‘gocinema’ is a private limited company which is set up for more than 2 years. The company is sanguine about its authenticity. The site aims at providing news, assessments and evaluations of motion pictures and song albums for movie enthusiasts. The source of our content is genuine and original as it is either provided directly from the movie production houses or from our editorial team.

The company further disapproves the second charge stating ‘Their GoCinema Exclusive is useless’. A cursory look at the site will amply indicate that the ‘Gocinema Exclusive’ are aggregation of feature articles, related to motion pictures of a particular language. The 'About' section of any and every other movie contains detailed information, which has been ignored.

The company requests for its removal from ‘:Spamblacklist’ and will also look into the process of being listed in the RSN, as we are a genuine source of movie information for multiple Indian languages.

From Soumi Dhar, Content Manager - Gocinema Product of Sky10 Social Media Pvt Ltd.

Soumi22dhar (talk) 15:03, 4 January 2017 (IST)

Soumi22dhar (talk) 11:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Soumi Dhar

devart.com


This one isn't super high volume, but a new account will has shown up every few months since 2008 to add this in various places - the account list in this report is just what I could turn up in a few minutes of searching. Sometimes they start articles on this company's products, too, articles which have been uniformly deleted, sometimes multiple times. I'm reaching the limits of my patience, so assistance would be appreciated. - MrOllie (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Blocked, salted and . MER-C 04:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

thebiglead.com
thebiglead.com/2015/09/14/jalen-and-jacoby-espn-radio/ was used on article David Jacoby (sportscaster) probably innocently by a new editor - removed by me during a NPP check of the article as it tries to add malware to my laptop (blocked by Norton 365) XyzSpaniel  Talk Page  20:49, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * , unlikely the site itself, maybe an add that was transcluded on that page? --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

resumevogue.com


Links to the site are being spammed on multiple articles by multiple IPs. All links added so far have been removed, and warnings have been issued, but the spamming continues. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 11:06, 29 December 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

88health.ru


Russian spammer active on Fertility tourism. When that article was protected due to the spamming, they moved on to In vitro fertilisation. Since warnings and page protection haven't stopped the spamming, blacklisting is needed. Deli nk (talk) 13:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt
I'm adding a citation for Nassim Taleb regarding his academic career at the Oxford Said School of Business but I get the following: "The following link has triggered a protection filter: sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt". The page no longer exists and I'm trying to add the reference to the 2012 version from the waybackwhen machine. The page is the faculty list for the school from 10-12-2012.

It's not clear why this would have been on the list to begin with. Can this be removed from the filter?

VergilDen (talk) 16:40, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looking through the old logs, it appears this site (University of Cambridge, also ends in ac.uk - Oxford appears to be "collateral damage" here. ac.uk is the domain for UK academic institutions, so lots of unrelated sites seem to have been caught in this entry) was added to the blacklist back in 2012, as a result of someone at the university linking to copyrighted university lectures he had uploaded to his "student hosting space" on the University's servers on Wikipedia, or something of that nature. Not sure blacklisting the Uni domain was the appropriate way to deal with this issue, but I'm no admin or expert, just a regular user. Admins, what are your thoughts? The problem individual may have long left the University, or there may be other more appropriate ways to deal with copyright breaches of this sort? I can't imagine that the management of the University would want or expect us to blacklist their site, even if one of their students is posting University copyrighted stuff on it. They'd see it as their problem to protect their own site from being used to host their own copyrighted material. (i.e. the owner of the site is the very same owner of the copyright, so if they objected to a student uploading lectures - they may or may not care - they would just delete the material themselves (and probably caution or discipline the wayward student, were he or she still there), not give a thought about those who linked to it). I can't dream that they'd object to external links, particularly to their entire site, as a response in this sort of situation. Eliyohub (talk) 10:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The problem was more of a large, coordinated sockfarm that was promoting the works and books of a single academic. The sock report is here, and the resulting spam report is here. One of the log entries targets "sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt", which was the "BT Centre for Major Programme Management." All of those links are broken at this point, I would support removing it and we can watch to make sure that farm does not pop up again and target wayback or another archive. Alternatively we can whitelist just the link you were trying to use: "sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt/directory/Pages/default.aspx"., as the resident expert on this sockfarm, do you have a preference or any additional insights? Kuru   (talk)  15:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I would support Bent Flyvbjerg being "blacklisted" by all academic institutions and publications, if it can be shown that he's behind this behavior. I don't think this is a BLP violation, as our report you linked to names him. If it is, just modify this to censor the name. Is there any way we can get him to modify this behavior (if he's behind it), should it resume? How does academia respond to its members resorting to spam to promote their work? Eliyohub (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, collateral damage sums it up. It's been such a long time that I don't recall if we even got a response from a single on of he sock accounts, nor the last time I looked for additional socking. --Ronz (talk) 18:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * So Ronz, in conclusion, you think removal of this site from the blacklist is now safe, and the sock swarm will not attack again? Eliyohub (talk) 21:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I'm just agreeing with Kuru, and don't have a preference between the proposals. I can look to see if there's been any subsequent, obvious socking that has remaining edits, but I don't think these old socking problems should hold us back. --Ronz (talk) 22:34, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It didn't take much work to find the very suspicious looking . --Ronz (talk) 22:57, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * He last struck April 2014. Anything more recent? Eliyohub (talk) 02:23, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, this shouldn't hold us back. I'm not familiar enough with WP:SOCK to have a good feel on how to continue, but I'd like to get experts to look at the content for POV/NOT problems, which I don' believe was ever done because of the spamming and lack of responses from the sock farm. --Ronz (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
 * If I understand this correctly, the consensus is to remove sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt given it is safe. The link is no longer active (the url is dead and links to a 404 Page Not Found) and can only be accessed historically through the waybackwhen archive and so there can be no socking against it. VergilDen (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm reading as well. --Ronz (talk) 18:30, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

✅, per above. Kuru  (talk)  23:51, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

skyscrapercity.com
I WELL understand why this site was blacklisted, even though it is NOT in any way a spam site. The issue was, it's a forum (not a "reliable source"), and people were massively using it as a reference in mainspace. The link to the listing log is.

I AM NOT asking for removal, merely MODIFICATION. Someone asked a question on the refdesk, and I couldn't answer him with a link to a site on this page. Generally, it's accepted that sourcing standards on the refdesks are less strict than those on mainspace. For example, sometimes the best answer to a question is a youtube video.

I AM simply asking that the listing be modified so it only applies to mainspace, which would be fully in accordance with its intended purpose stated in the log discussion. Is this technically feasible under the system?

If not, can you whitelist it for the refdesks?

Eliyohub (talk) 19:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * To underscore your first point, this site was indeed problematic, and it continues to draw hits on the blacklist logs several times a week. I'm not sure if it is possible to modify the target pages; the spam whitelist seems to only allow us to allow individual pages on the blacklisted domain, not target pages here. Maybe I'm wrong on that. You can do a cheesy work-around (like you did) to get the link in there anyways. To be honest, I'm more concerned with maintaining the integrity of the encyclopedia and not really into the ref desk concept; others may want to spend more time on it. Kuru   (talk)  15:42, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * So I was correct with what I said on your talk page about technical issues, as opposed to policy issues, with my request?, is there any ability in the blacklist system to do "target page modification" of a listing that you're aware of, or other method to do what I'm asking? Kuru, from what I gather, you have no objections to another admin doing what I ask, IF it's possible?
 * Just want to make sure that I'm not breaking any rules or policies with my "cheesy work around", as you call it? Can I claim WP:IAR in this situation, as I'm clearly not violating the intent of the listing? You're the admin, what's the rule on this? Eliyohub (talk) 16:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Apologies - didn't mean to imply malfeasance on your part with "cheesy." While I've blocked people for doing that before, they were intentionally trying to slip in spam links by probing the boundaries of the blacklist filters. This particular link simply fails WP:RS, so I really wouldn't get worked up about it unless there was something more problematic happening (linking to a forum post containing outing, copyvios, etc). In all cases, I would bring it up with the person first as long as it was a good-faith edit.
 * At this point, I would support a non-mainspace whitelisting if technically possible. There is good content on the site that could be used to answer ref desk questions; the site does appear to draw a large number of good editors who create very informative posts. I actually killed ten minutes reading about building fires in Dubai...  Kuru   (talk)  17:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * YOU FOLLOWED MY LINK! Wow! Astonishing, eh? Sorry to cause you to kill time. Eliyohub (talk) 17:19, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Happens a lot. Spent an hour re-visiting Taleb's Black Swan material on the report above. If I had a better attention span, I'd be dangerous. Kuru   (talk)  17:27, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * , Could you in turn ping whichever admin or developer is the Wikipedia expert on blacklist issues like mine? If he or she says my request is impossible in technical terms, I will accept it being marked "declined" due to impossibility. I'm not going to ask WP:PHAB to modify the blacklist system unless this sort of issue crops up regularly. Have you encountered this sort of issue before? Otherwise, I'll content myself with "cheesy work-arounds". Edit filters and blacklists can be somewhat blunt and dumb tools. (Just out of curiosity, how often are sites blacklisted for the oddity of being brilliant unreliable sources? At the time of listing, there were over 1800 refs to the site - and probably at least hundreds of hits on the blacklist logs since? Is this site an odd entry on the list, or are there many entries of this sort?) Eliyohub (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I have no idea who that would be., do you have any idea who could evaluate such an issue?
 * I'm not sure how many of this type are in the blacklist; there's probably quite a few that are interesting, but fail WP:RS - most other wikis or large collections of user-generated content. There are several of the forum-style sites blacklisted, but I don't know the origin of those actions. I know that some of them are seriously abusive - there's an insanely annoying spambot that houses spam links on an open forum and proceeds to attempt adding it to articles several times a day as part of it's rotating set of URLs. It would impossible to say how many links in the list are like this without going through the entire archive and evaluating each entry. I can personally say that of the 200 or so entries I've made, only one was similar: a really, really amateur chinese mirror of wikipedia that was tricking people to use it as a "source." It would wind up in an article five or six times a day, so blacklisting made sense. Kuru   (talk)  14:27, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

, per above. We can whitelist individual links if needed, but I'm not in favor of removing this from the list simply to facilitate the ref desk. I've seen too much bad traffic on the blacklist log, so removing it does not seem like a net positive. Kuru  (talk)  23:55, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

tierrasvivas.com
Found it added to a number of articles over the past few years, as recently as this month. Commercial tourism company website. Examples:
 * Ausangate 14 November 2016
 * Ausangate 14 November 2016 (again)
 * Ausangate 23 June 2014 (the former url of this company)
 * Salcantay 28 February 2014 (former site)
 * Huayna Picchu 2 March 2014 (former site)
 * Inca Trail to Machu Picchu 10 April 2014 (former site)
 * Tourism in Peru 10 April 2014
 * Lares trek 4 January 2017
 * Sacred Valley 17 October 2016
 * (there are plenty more)

The company previously had an account (or at least there was an account with the same name) blocked for promotional purposes,. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 22:00, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Update: Added the company's other url (the blogspot one). Looks to primarily use the other one these days, but the site is still active. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 22:02, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * , cross-wiki problem. I have already pulled the trigger there.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:31, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Filmymantra.com
It has come to my attention that website Filmymantra has been blacklisted on Wikipedia. After researching the google i came to know that there is no users with name Swati Sharma (User:Swatisharma3193) exists on wikipedia, and it seems that the User:Swatisharma3193 was intentionally created to spam the website Filmymantra, Also there is no further spam activity, and this domain has lots of useful informations.

So I appeal this to be rechecked because when i tried editing Baahubali article with reference Filmymantra.com/kingfisher-model-madhu-sneha-not-gabriel-manohari-hindi-version/ (Please add a .com after filmymantra) it showed the website is in Spam list Primarily, I feel this website has lots of potential and banning complete domain is not justified.

so banning the complete website does not seems the right decision. !

Worldnpeace (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * RE: "there is no further spam activity", this argument doesn't fly, because the spam activity stopped when the site was added to the blacklist. How would it benefit us to remove this site from the blacklist? It doesn't qualify as a reliable source. It's a blog, and blogs are not considered sufficient references per WP:UGC. If you submitted content based on this site, I'd revert you. Do you know anything about who's behind the site? What reputable editor oversees the content? Can you properly argue that the site has an established reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? If not, then I don't see why we'd release it from the blacklist, since it's yet another faceless site among a sea of faceless sites. Also, I have yet to see any website with "filmy" in the domain that has satisfied WP:RS. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2017 (UTC).

Cyphoidbomb (talk): The website has article written by Jogender Tuteja who is known journalist. They also have interaction and video interview with celebrities which they post. Banning the entire website is a mistake and it should be resolved.

flyguitars.com
There is a deadlink on this page Gibson_Victory to the domain flyguitars.com - it is mispelled flyguitaris.com. The correct domain appears to be blocked - I don't see why it is a guitar information site with a lot of useful info. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.185.112 (talk) 00:29, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * :see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/November_2013. I need to have a better look at this. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 13:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * , for specific links on this domain.  Uncomfortable delisting this for one link for now, as it was part of a sockpuppet spam problem.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 14:38, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

googleboysarimalam.wapka.mobi


Prolific sock operator(s) Sockpuppet investigations/GBA Google Boys Arimalam GBA/Archive have added this to one now-deleted article as far as I know, and there's a possibility that blacklisting might only encourage the addition of more garbage links. So maybe a good approach is to wait and see if this becomes a problem first? I just didn't want to not report it, only to later forget it. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 11:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Let's put this then on hold for 7 days, then pull the trigger?
 * q: what is this wapka.mobi anyway? --Dirk Beetstra T  C 12:37, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Whatever you think is best, . I thought the .mobi was some kinda newfangled TLD for mobile phones. I haven't checked the domain yet. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:40, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * So, to answer your question, Dirk, it looks like wapka.mobi is a free webhosting service for mobile users. I did a cross-Wiki link search for wapka.mobi, because I was curious what sorts of articles were using it. There were about 95 across the entire project, most of the links were in User space, but a number of articles had wapka.mobi links. I guess I could see a weak argument for allowing users to link to their "wap" sites (I think that's what the site calls the pages) but since it's obviously user-generated content/free webhosting, I don't see the value of having these links in article space. Even the links that were in user space were mostly useless, either not resolving, or not containing any information, or just being a generic "presence". Here are some of the links I found in article space:
 * http://apnadal.wapka.mobi/site_about_apna_dal.xhtml
 * http://bristii.wapka.mobi/site_39.xhtml
 * http://chidex2070.wapka.mobi/index.html
 * http://fineloft.wapka.mobi/video/view/20374071 - Video download site (possible copyvio)
 * http://ghy.wapka.mobi/site_renu_saikia.xhtml
 * http://malayalammp3songs.wapka.mobi/site_download_mp3.xhtml?get-com=/music/view/96015&get-file=772 - Song download site (possible copyvio)
 * http://mammootty.wapka.mobi/site_183.xhtml - Song download site (possible copyvio)
 * http://manirampur.wapka.mobi/site_bazars.xhtml
 * http://manirampur.wapka.mobi/site_communication.xhtml
 * http://shituga.wapka.mobi/index.xhtml
 * http://samastha.wapka.mobi/site_2.xhtml
 * http://samastha.wapka.mobi/site_19.xhtml
 * I'll probably wind up removing most of these from articles. Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:08, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Regularly spammed by multiple users, both as in-line links, external links , deadlink-spam , and by replacing other links with their own. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 16:01, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * MER-C 02:23, 27 January 2017 (UTC)