MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/November 2016

aiouupdates.com

 * Users

Continued despite warnings, while mainly on Allama Iqbal Open University they have spammed link to other articles. Ravensfire ( talk ) 19:22, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Clickexcel.com


We are trying to create page Clickexcel.com on wikipedia but shows that site is black listed please go someone through this and help us to create page and remove domain clickexcel from blacklist — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swatikdm (talk • contribs)
 * . By "we", I assume you mean the company itself? Thank you, but no. Guy (Help!) 11:47, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Sermon Audio
I just tried to create a reference to sermonaudio.com. It told me this site was blacklisted and it would not allow me to save the page. This seems clearly wrong to me, as Sermon Audio is not a spammer but a well-respected source of sermons and other Christian podcasts. Thus, I went to the blacklist log to see why it was blacklisted, and sermonaudio.com does not exist on that list. Is there something wrong with the blacklist check, or is this site actually blacklisted but does not appear in the log, so I should log it in the requested removal section? Fool4jesus (talk) 16:11, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Is it blacklisted on meta-wiki? The Meta blacklist applies to all WMF wikis, English Wikipedia included. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 18:23, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That link, which I'm pretty sure is the same one I checked before, does not have it listed. However, I found another blacklist at []. I'm not that familiar with WP's blacklisting system as this is the first time I've encountered it. Sorry for the confusion! I'll ask for it to be removed. Fool4jesus (talk) 18:56, 19 October 2016 (UTC)


 * , for specific links on this domain.  This was blatantly spammed, and since it is a site that is for uploading sermons, not really a reliable site for general use.   --Dirk Beetstra T  C 19:06, 19 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I am not super experienced in the ways of wikipedia, but I am having a hard time understanding this. I have a hard time believing that, to escape blacklisting, a site has to be of interest to everybody in the world; thus that every special interest site is automatically blacklisted. That would mean an almost infinite number of sites would be blacklisted. What's more, the criteria for blacklisting don't say anything about blocking general use sites. It says it "mostly lists spammers, but also includes URL redirection services (which could otherwise be used to bypass blacklisting)". The main page also says:


 * Blacklisting requests may be made at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. However, blacklisting a URL should be used as a last resort against spammers. You should consider the following before requesting that a URL be blacklisted.
 * Can protection solve the problem? If so, please make a request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.
 * Will blocking a single user solve the problem? If you have given appropriate warnings to a spammer, you should report them on Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, where they can be blocked by an administrator. Open proxies used to spam should be reported to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism or Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies so that they can be blocked.
 * Will blocking a small number of users for a short time to allow conversation help?
 * Can the problem be controlled by other means such as User:XLinkBot?


 * Put it another way: is there any evidence whatsoever that sermonaudio.com has ever hosted spammers? The site was added to the list back in July 2008 by a user not now on Wikipedia with with no comment other than "sermonaudio.com". I cannot find any reference to why it was blacklisted. As to whitelisting individual URLs, that seems like a pretty big hammer (which is no doubt one reason why blacklisting is suggested only as a last resort). I daresay the average wikipedian is not highly skilled on the ins and outs of black/whitelists and formulating whitelist requests and waiting for them to be approved.


 * A search for sermonaudio.com in wikipedia shows three pages that hit against the same problem, so it's not a unique problem to me. As I said, Sermon Audio is a well-respected source of sermons and other Christian podcasts. (No, I have no connection to it, I just use it to download podcasts.) I humbly suggest that this decision requires a bit more consideration than a denial based on "doesn't seem like a general use site to me" and request that it be given that consideration. Thank you for your consideration.


 * (Edit) OK, I have found which seems to list at the bottom several items that somebody  considered spam. I've clicked through all six and, though they express unpopular viewpoints, they certainly do not seem like spam. Even granted that they are spam, fine: block the user, block the particular files. But please don't block the site. Fool4jesus (talk) 20:56, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

In short, this was repeatedly added by IPs, and re-added after they were removed. It involves here in the mentioned edits a period of 3 years. I see multiple reports, with multiple IPs. That is enough to get this listed as blocking the IPs likely is not resolving anything, reverting them (botwise (which was tried) or humanwise) has shown not to work. I can combine that with the observation that in 8 years no-one cared enough to have it linked anywhere (as there are no whitelisting requests). Again, for specific links, .. lets see if some of these stick. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:57, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * diff advertising remark in 2005
 * diff (similar, 2008; three years after the previous edit)
 * Special:Contributions/75.137.110.254 plain spamming
 * diff first editor following second editor
 * Special:Contributions/74.239.177.158 re-inserting links that were removed after a previous IP (75.137.110.254) spammed them
 * Thank you for enumerating these; every other discussion of why Sermon Audio should not be de-blacklisted that I found showed more prejudice to the subject matter, more designed to shut down discussion than explain. I will request whitelist status for my link as well as the other links that I can see people tried to but were blocked by blacklist. I should say that I do not think it wise to assume that just because there were no whitelist requests, nobody would have liked them. I have been editing wikipedia for some time - not heavily, granted, but still - and until now I never knew about the whole blacklist/whitelist process. I am not sure whether the wikipedia policy is to discourage participation by what we might call casual editors, people who are knowledgeable in subject areas but not in wikipedia internal processes. That seems like it would be a bad policy to me. Casual editors would just rephrase their changes as these did, or simply decide the update is not important enough to worry about. In any case, thank you for explaining the rationale, and I will proceed as you suggest. Best wishes. Fool4jesus (talk) 14:20, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding your point whether it is wise to assume that just because there were no whitelist requests that no-one liked them. If it is a rather important link, then editors generally come in and request de-blacklisting or whitelisting.  The lack of that disables to form an idea of how important a link is.  Maybe you are right, just that no-one took the effort, maybe it really is a link that is not adding anything.  I therefore generally want to see some granted whitelistings before considering de-listing altogether, especially on links that were quite persistently spammed.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Just to reinforce Beetstra's point here, this site would almost certainly not be admissible as a source in any article, because uploaded sermons are primary self-published sources and drawing any inference from them is likely to violate WP:NOR. If a religious figure has said some notable thing in a sermon, then we would need reliable independent sources to establish its significance. Guy (Help!) 11:59, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

dyingscene.com
OK, this is long &mdash; really sorry about that. But this has been discussed a few times, and I wanted to do it the right way, and hopefully have all the material here so it's easier to see why I think we should take this site off the blacklist and doesn't take too much effort to go through the history.

Dying Scene is a punk music website with reviews, news, interviews, sessions with musicians, that sort of thing. Since I edit some punk-related music articles, I'd like to cite reviews and interviews from the site (as would quite a few other people, see below). It was blacklisted in November 2009 by User:Ohnoitsjamie (link) for "repeat spamming of NN zine" &mdash; from digging through the record I think everyone agrees that the site spammed Wikipedia around 2009 and so the initial blacklist was deserved. (I'm definitely not defending any of his behavior in spamming Wikipedia, and I have no connection to Dying Scene myself other than as a punk fan who wants to write about punk articles and cite some of their pages.)

Links from the site have been whitelisted on a couple of occasions (whitelist discussion 1, whitelist discussion 2), which implies to me some acceptance that there is citation-worthy material on the site (see also #2 below). There have been discussions about potentially taking it off the blacklist since the owner of the site admitted to spamming, apologized for doing so, and said he wouldn't do it anymore (discussion 1). This was denied, with one of the admins stating that if a "trusted, high volume editor" requested that the site be removed from the blacklist, it would be "considered favourably". This was restated in the next discussion with the original admin who blacklisted the site (User:Ohnoitsjamie) denying the request as a "trusted, high-volume editor" did not make the request and questioning the value of the site (discussion 2, see also discussion 3). A few more editors with more history on the site requested that it be removed from the blacklist, which were again denied (discussion 4, discussion 5). Specifically, one of the admins (User:Beetstra) asked "whether the community, at large, finds individual links useful". The request was again made in 2015 to take it off the blacklist again, which was again denied due to concerns of notability (discussion 6).

Sorry to rehash all that history, but I wanted to try to make this a little clearer since it took me a long time to figure out why this was blacklisted in the first place and I wanted to make it easier on you all when thinking about whether to take this off the blacklist or not. To specifically address the points above that led to this site remaining on the blacklist in previous discussions:


 * 1) Request should come from a trusted, high volume editor with no conflicts of interest: I've been an administrator on enwiki since 2006 and an editor since 2004, and although I'm not as prolific as some I don't have any conflict of interest here.
 * 2) Notability of the site: obscure does not mean not notable, and the site has interviews with major punk figures that aren't available anywhere else. Looking just at posts in the last year, there are interviews with people from My Chemical Romance, Strike Anywhere, Pennywise, The Taxpayers, Less than Jake, and Sick of It All, Fat Mike himself, and so on. All of those are unique interviews that have content that could be used to improve those articles, but probably won't be right now because the whitelisting process is really cumbersome. I'm sure it's second nature to all of you guys that work here but I've been working on stuff with Wikipedia for a long time and found it pretty confusing, and most people won't go to the effort. That's especially true for bands that are deserving of articles but need to use interviews and reviews from sites like Dying Scene in order to prove notability of the band in order to generate an article (such as War on Women and a few other bands interviewed on Dying Scene). Evidence of the value of the site I think can be seen from its use on other language Wikipedias &mdash; people are referencing the site without having issues there. They're even referencing the site on enwiki, they just can't actually link to it.
 * 3) Whether the community finds Dying Scene useful: I can say that as an editor who is currently editing punk articles and wanting to edit more, I find Dying Scene useful. There've been requests to take Dying Scene off the blacklist for some time, including support from two administrators (User:Peteforsyth, see discussion 4 above, and now me). Ultimately, however, I feel that discussions about the "notability" and "usefulness" of the site should be had on the article pages. Blacklisting should primarily be about whether there will be spam problems, hence the most important point:
 * 4) Whether spam will continue: My feeling is that it's been 6 years, it's worth trying at this point. If there are problems with spam, then the site has had its second chance and I'd have no opposition to going back to whitelisting and denying any subsequent requests to come off the blacklist.

So that's my argument for taking it off the blacklist. I think the most likely scenario is that people like me and the above posters are able to use material from Dying Scene to improve Wikipedia, but if it becomes a problem in the future then you can put it right back on the blacklist and be done with the topic for good, since they'll have received their (in my mind, reasonable) second chance. If that doesn't happen, I think people are going to continue to post here asking for it to be taken off the blacklist as they have been intermittently for the last few years. Thanks for considering, Kyle Barbour 06:23, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Aside from the issues that got it listed in the first place, I see no evidence that this meets our guidelines for what constitutes a reliable source. At best, it would rise tot he level of a fan site. Many fansites have interviews, we still don't link them, and frankly if a band has no interviews in the mainstream press then it probably doesn't meet inclusion criteria anyway. Guy (Help!) 11:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. I hear your concern, but I feel that the appropriate place to discuss reliability and notability of links is on the talk pages of articles, in this case by editors of punk articles who may have a better sense of what is and is not notable and reliable in that topic area. The concern I feel we should address here is whether the site is a spam risk. It's been six years and I feel that contrition from the original offender plus a lot of editors asking to take the site off the blacklist for a trial is pretty reasonable at this point. I'm happy to point out why I think the site is reliable and not just a fan site, but I'd rather focus on the spam aspect since that's why it's on the blacklist. Kyle Barbour 17:56, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Prouty.org


This looks to be a valid link for the page of L. Fletcher Prouty (I think he'd be known as the Mr. X of the movie JFK to many people). As far as I can tell, it was his website prior to his death and has been maintained for his legacy. I like to saw logs! (talk) 05:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * http://prouty.org/index.html is whitelisted for this reason. IIRC there have been pretty serious problems with that site resulting in it's blacklisting.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:28, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Ok, gotcha. That was all I was trying to do was include that link anyway. Thanks ! I've been around for awhile, and I don't normally see a plain personal website that's blacklisted. If this needs to be re-examined, fine, but I don't need the whole domain. I don't see the point in a blacklist of this entire site, but so be it if it's got "serious problems." I like to saw logs! (talk) 18:03, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

ikancomel.tk
Garbled blog composed of copyvios from across the net, repeatedly refspammed into species articles. AT least one IP globally blocked but comes back under new IP, most recent here:  -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:40, 6 November 2016 (UTC)


 * , cross-wiki problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:03, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 08:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Change.org
Trying to link to this site, to display of a petition that is mentioned in an article. I can't see where the site was ever blacklisted, but I do think it holds historical data that can be beneficial to readers. There are currently 100's of links to change.org, not sure why I can't add this one to the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Forever_(U.S._TV_series)

--Saariko (talk) 11:31, 6 November 2016 (UTC)


 * , open petitions on petition sites are regularly added for soapbox-reasons (trying to gain votes for the cause). Said petitions are only worth mentioning on Wikipedia if there are independent sources writing about the petition, which are then by definition the sources to use.  There are few occasions where the petition is needed as a primary source (official responses by government on government-owned petition sites as an example), but also that information can often be sourced secondary.  In the end, there are not that many pages on petition sites that are needed, whereas abuse by editors trying to gain votes for their cause is substantial.   for specific links on this domain. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 12:33, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Concur that it is regularly (ab|mis)used and having it removed from the blacklist would be problematic. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:15, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Are there any secondary sources, or any official response to that petition? --Dirk Beetstra T  C 13:31, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

ddfreedishnews.com

 * Persistent history of spamming on DD Free Dish article.
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3
 * 4
 * 5


 * Users

— Preceding unsigned comment added by KhaasBanda (talk • contribs)

Also:

--Dirk Beetstra T C 03:16, 31 October 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:23, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

ddfreedish.blogspot.com


Reporting ddfreedish.blogspot.com spam link which redirects to ddfreedishnews.com. KhaasBanda (talk) 04:28, 10 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:15, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

army-guide.com


This site "triggered a protection filter" while i was trying to use it as a source. I would like to know the reason why it was blocked. Is there a list that shows blacklisted sites with the reasons that we can see? If there is, we may use it before using those sites in the first place. It seemed awkward to me, because there are lots of sites that are similar to this site that are not blocked. Thank you. - Avatar 9n  13:22, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * First caught in 2007: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Dec_1, still at it in 2008: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2008_Archive_Feb_1 when was figured out that it was 3 years (and was blacklisted). Since, reliability of this site has been questioned, and it was shown that alternatives exist.  Basically, it was blacklisted because about 12 accounts found it necessary to spam it for 3 years of time.  The regexes in the MediaWiki-namespace are the list, and there is a log connected to it.  There is not really a clear place that shows which sites one should not use (the Wikimedia software is not set-up like that).
 * There are indeed a lot of other sites that are similar to this (the site seems indeed hardly unique, also since it was deemed to be an aggregator site), however, the other sites were not spammed (and may not be aggregator sites by themselves) and hence not blacklisted. Is the information you need available on these other sites?  If not, maybe MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist is a place to ask for whitelisting the specific link you need.  If you can really make a case why this site is of massive use to Wikipedia (the few whitelisting/de-blacklisting requests in the last 8 years does not really suggest that) then please make that case here.  Thanks.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 13:42, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

expert-editing.org


IP found it necessary to spam a redirect shortly after having been given a final warning. User blocked, but lets see how far this reaches. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:12, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Single editor, blocked for now. The editor tried to spam vk.cc/5Qnd9e and goo.gl/Xjl1n but was blocked by the spam blacklist.  For now, .  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:50, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Exam refspam


And attempting to add bit.ly/2fXnJi3 and bit.ly/2eIcGf8.


 * users

Not of use to Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:56, 17 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:56, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

abcnews.com.co
This is a totally fake news site (for profit, not satire). However, it is easily confused for the legitimate news site http://abcnews.go.com/. Kaldari (talk) 22:37, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

presidency.edu.bd
It is the official website of a bona fide university in Bangladesh. It was blacklisted in June 2012, swept up in a sockpuppet investigation that was linked to a CITESPAMming case.

Whatever spam links to other websites may have been inserted, as far as I can see, the edits of the hypothetical sockmaster, User:Rayhanwm and a hypothetical puppet User:Tanviranik (neither one confirmed or blocked), as well as those by IP addresses, used presidency.edu.bd in a reasonable way, as a reference/external link for Presidency University, Bangladesh. Based on off-site searches, it is likely that one or more of the editors was an alumnus of the university, and at least one was on the university's IT staff at the time (a position they left in mid-2013), so Wikipedia would have strongly preferred that they not edit the article at all to avoid a conflict of interest. Their edits were sometimes unhelpful, even disruptive, but in a bumbling don't-know-any-better way. Neither of the registered suspects has been active in 3+ years.

I believe the original blacklisting of presidency.edu.bd was an overreaction. It was associated with the wrong people at the wrong time, but was never spammed to Wikipedia. Four years later, continuing to blacklist it hurts the university and Wikipedia for no clear reason. It is difficult to source Presidency University, Bangladesh without referencing their official website. --Worldbruce (talk) 21:47, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * You say "It is difficult to source Presidency University, Bangladesh without referencing their official website." Do you mean that there are no independent, secondary sources for this subject?  As it stands, the article is completely unreferenced, and you now say that the only way to verify anything written there is by primary sources?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 04:59, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * You probably won't get any response from . As I wrote above, he hasn't edited in over three years.


 * I am not saying that there are no independent secondary sources for the subject, or that the only way to reference it is by primary sources - the topic's notability is not really in question. However, most sources are offline (when the university was founded, about a decade ago, less than 1% of the population of Bangladesh were internet users, and that has risen only to about 14.5%). Furthermore, most sources are in Bengali. These facts severely limit the utility of most sources, as very few editors have access to them, and can read Bengali fluently, and can write coherently in English.


 * Online, English, indepenent, reliable, secondary sources do exist (for example, , and ) and can be added to the article, but they do not cover the bulk of the routine, non-controversial information that the university website does. It's a non-independent and primary source, but a reliable one, and could be used (if it were not blacklisted) provided it were used properly. I don't believe any university article can be comprehensive and accurate without citing the relevant university website, something university articles always do. That's certainly true of featured articles such as Texas A&M University, Michigan State University, and Ohio Wesleyan University.


 * My two key points are:
 * There was no sound reason to blacklist presidency.edu.bd in the first place. I assume that correctly determined 's real-life identity, that they registered the domain startuptunes.com, and that someone added to Wikipedia inappropriate links to startuptunes.com. Rayhanwm added links to presidency.edu.bd to Presidency University, Bangladesh. But I've seen no evidence that spam links to presidency.edu.bd were ever added to Wikipedia. Blacklisting presidency.edu.bd was collateral damage.
 * No one is going to make the effort to turn the unreferenced mess that Presidency University, Bangladesh is into a decent article - to sort out what content can be sourced to the university website, what can be sourced elsewhere, and what should be removed - if they are not permitted to cite the one indispensible site, that of the university itself.
 * --Worldbruce (talk) 08:39, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * from MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Your second explanation was the one carrying the weight - I am not convinced that a weathered spam-fighter like Hu12 would make these mistakes lightly, they must have felt it was necessary.
 * I do hope that also independent sources will be used. That sources are only off-line is not an issue, there is nowhere written in our policies and guidelines that the sources need to be online.  Neither is low accessibility, or that they are not in English (though the latter is preferred).  (the ping went wrong due to my script picking up the first username and carelessness of me .. I have replaced it).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:04, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

SCCAprotontherapy.com
I am writing a Wiki article on the SCCA Proton Therapy Center and discovered that their website SCCAprotontherapy.com appears to have been blacklisted which I believe to be a misunderstanding. It appears as though the site was blacklisted in June 2015 as part of a mass blacklisting on behalf of # Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Craytonconstanceb - though no specific reason is given with a # next to the listing, I am assuming that someone accused of Sockpuppeting had used this link as a false citation. However, as a Master's level qualified mental health professional (QMHP) I feel confidant in the validity of this website as a source for valid information supported by scientific research. As a Cancer Treatment Center and Medical Facility, there should be no known association with Spam or questionable material, and most importantly, all of their content is scientifically supported with evidence based practices. The SCCA Proton Therapy Center is a part of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in partnership with the University of Washington, Seattle Children's Hospital, and John Hopkins, all of which have active and successful Wikipedia pages that would benefit from the Whitelisting of the SCCAprotontherapy.com website because of their partnerships. This is my first request and I hope I am doing this appropriately. Thank you in advance Emilyrbolen (talk) 01:44, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
 * A single page might be whitelisted if there is an article and it passes WP:GNG. What's your connection with the subject? It's unusual for someone to find their way yo this page before they've even had a welcome message on their talk page. Guy (Help!) 00:18, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi Guy, I found the Whitelist page and have been talking with Dirk Beetstra - I found this page when I tried to post my first article and the primary resource sccaprotontherapy.com came up blacklisted. This was one of two ways, including Whitelisting, recommended to correct the issue so I simply followed both recommendations. I have no affiliation with SCCA Proton Therapy and  am a soon to be stay at home mom with a background in the heatlhcare industry as a mental health provider for adults under jurisdiction of the State of Oregon for crimes committed by reason of insanity. Currently, I manage Blogs and Social Media as a consultant and am hoping to grow my knowledge base of online resources so I can build a business from home. SCCA Proton Therapy seemed like a great opportunity to learn about writing with Wikipedia (citing sources, an making content relevant) as I am a Seattle native, very familiar with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and noticed the Proton Center did not have a Wikipedia Page while the rest of the SCCA was represented here. My Dad's marketing firm did marketing for the Proton Center back in 2013 when they were creating their own separate from the SCCA, so it was a local healthcare provider that I had significant exposure too over the years. As my goal has been learning to engage with the Wikipedia community to a level of proficiency, this whole experience of Blacklisting and Whitelisting has been very informative - Thank you for you help with this process Emilyrbolen (talk) 17:08, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * , for specific links on this domain.  I don' t think this warrants widescale use, let's first see whether an article on the subject sticks and whether there is any need for references beyond the official link of the subject.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 04:54, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

varietycinema.com
I've found at least two people spamming this at articles recently, and. Both have been indeffed, links have been removed, but we should probs blacklist. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 00:05, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

A new guy, has appeared.. Indeffing him and I'm adding the link to the blacklist, since that's the only thing that's going to dissuade this guy. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

alexwiremesh.com
Repeated spamming over a couple of years. Bouncing IP suggests that individual blocks aren't going to cut it. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:50, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * (current)
 * (current)
 * (current)
 * (current)
 * (current)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:08, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

onlinefree.xyz


"Watch free TV shows online" type spam. It has been inserted by multiple spam accounts, (possibly socks?) and has no legitimate purpose on Wikipedia. Sunmist (talk) 02:40, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:09, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

halongbayroyalpalacecruise.com


Spammed, and added to this page. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:55, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

stockholmlackering.se and xn--lackeringkksluckor-m3b.se

 * Links


 * IPs


 * Articles targeted (partial list)
 * Kitchen work triangle
 * Color Field
 * AkzoNobel
 * IKEA
 * Home improvement
 * Kitchen
 * Furniture
 * MyPaint

IP-hopping editor from Stockholm, Sweden spamming two external links. Has continued past level 4 warning, and has persisted even after blocks. Deli nk (talk) 16:05, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Adding:



--Dirk Beetstra T C 09:41, 27 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:42, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

stockholmlack.blogspot.se


one more. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:21, 28 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:21, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

dyingscene.com 2
OK, this is long &mdash; really sorry about that. But this has been discussed a few times, and I wanted to do it the right way, and hopefully have all the material here so it's easier to see why I think we should take this site off the blacklist and doesn't take too much effort to go through the history.

Dying Scene is a punk music website with reviews, news, interviews, sessions with musicians, that sort of thing. Since I edit some punk-related music articles, I'd like to cite reviews and interviews from the site (as would quite a few other people, see below). It was blacklisted in November 2009 by User:Ohnoitsjamie (link) for "repeat spamming of NN zine" &mdash; from digging through the record I think everyone agrees that the site spammed Wikipedia around 2009 and so the initial blacklist was deserved. (I'm definitely not defending any of his behavior in spamming Wikipedia, and I have no connection to Dying Scene myself other than as a punk fan who wants to write about punk articles and cite some of their pages.)

Links from the site have been whitelisted on a couple of occasions (whitelist discussion 1, whitelist discussion 2), which implies to me some acceptance that there is citation-worthy material on the site (see also #2 below). There have been discussions about potentially taking it off the blacklist since the owner of the site admitted to spamming, apologized for doing so, and said he wouldn't do it anymore (discussion 1). This was denied, with one of the admins stating that if a "trusted, high volume editor" requested that the site be removed from the blacklist, it would be "considered favourably". This was restated in the next discussion with the original admin who blacklisted the site (User:Ohnoitsjamie) denying the request as a "trusted, high-volume editor" did not make the request and questioning the value of the site (discussion 2, see also discussion 3). A few more editors with more history on the site requested that it be removed from the blacklist, which were again denied (discussion 4, discussion 5). Specifically, one of the admins (User:Beetstra) asked "whether the community, at large, finds individual links useful". The request was again made in 2015 to take it off the blacklist again, which was again denied due to concerns of notability (discussion 6).

Sorry to rehash all that history, but I wanted to try to make this a little clearer since it took me a long time to figure out why this was blacklisted in the first place and I wanted to make it easier on you all when thinking about whether to take this off the blacklist or not. To specifically address the points above that led to this site remaining on the blacklist in previous discussions:


 * 1) Request should come from a trusted, high volume editor with no conflicts of interest: I've been an administrator on enwiki since 2006 and an editor since 2004, and although I'm not as prolific as some I don't have any conflict of interest here.
 * 2) Notability of the site: obscure does not mean not notable, and the site has interviews with major punk figures that aren't available anywhere else. Looking just at posts in the last year, there are interviews with people from My Chemical Romance, Strike Anywhere, Pennywise, The Taxpayers, Less than Jake, and Sick of It All, Fat Mike himself, and so on. All of those are unique interviews that have content that could be used to improve those articles, but probably won't be right now because the whitelisting process is really cumbersome. I'm sure it's second nature to all of you guys that work here but I've been working on stuff with Wikipedia for a long time and found it pretty confusing, and most people won't go to the effort. That's especially true for bands that are deserving of articles but need to use interviews and reviews from sites like Dying Scene in order to prove notability of the band in order to generate an article (such as War on Women and a few other bands interviewed on Dying Scene). Evidence of the value of the site I think can be seen from its use on other language Wikipedias &mdash; people are referencing the site without having issues there. They're even referencing the site on enwiki, they just can't actually link to it.
 * 3) Whether the community finds Dying Scene useful: I can say that as an editor who is currently editing punk articles and wanting to edit more, I find Dying Scene useful. There've been requests to take Dying Scene off the blacklist for some time, including support from two administrators (User:Peteforsyth, see discussion 4 above, and now me). Ultimately, however, I feel that discussions about the "notability" and "usefulness" of the site should be had on the article pages. Blacklisting should primarily be about whether there will be spam problems, hence the most important point:
 * 4) Whether spam will continue: My feeling is that it's been 6 years, it's worth trying at this point. If there are problems with spam, then the site has had its second chance and I'd have no opposition to going back to whitelisting and denying any subsequent requests to come off the blacklist.

So that's my argument for taking it off the blacklist. I think the most likely scenario is that people like me and the above posters are able to use material from Dying Scene to improve Wikipedia, but if it becomes a problem in the future then you can put it right back on the blacklist and be done with the topic for good, since they'll have received their (in my mind, reasonable) second chance. If that doesn't happen, I think people are going to continue to post here asking for it to be taken off the blacklist as they have been intermittently for the last few years. Thanks for considering, Kyle Barbour 06:23, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Aside from the issues that got it listed in the first place, I see no evidence that this meets our guidelines for what constitutes a reliable source. At best, it would rise tot he level of a fan site. Many fansites have interviews, we still don't link them, and frankly if a band has no interviews in the mainstream press then it probably doesn't meet inclusion criteria anyway. Guy (Help!) 11:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. I hear your concern, but I feel that the appropriate place to discuss reliability and notability of links is on the talk pages of articles, in this case by editors of punk articles who may have a better sense of what is and is not notable and reliable in that topic area. The concern I feel we should address here is whether the site is a spam risk. It's been six years and I feel that contrition from the original offender plus a lot of editors asking to take the site off the blacklist for a trial is pretty reasonable at this point. I'm happy to point out why I think the site is reliable and not just a fan site, but I'd rather focus on the spam aspect since that's why it's on the blacklist. Kyle Barbour 17:56, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry for putting this back &mdash; I'm undoing the bot edit because there wasn't a conclusion on this. Any other thoughts from you or any of the other admins who spend more time than I here? I really feel that this site deserves the opportunity for punk editors to use it and prove its value; I don't think it's unreasonable to give it that chance after a fair bit of advocacy from myself and others after 6 years with an agreement to put it right back on the blacklist if it causes any problems. Kyle Barbour 04:52, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm going to add my voice to this, asking that the site be removed from the blacklist. Like Kyle, I edit mainly articles related to punk rock, and Dying Scene has a similar level of coverage and reliability to comparable sites like Punknews.org and AbsolutePunk, both of which are allowed. I have been able to find information on Dying Scene that I haven't been able to find elsewhere, and would like to cite it in articles, but can't due to the blacklisting. The reliability of the site shouldn't be a factor in blacklisting—this is a spam blacklist, not a reliability blacklist—but if reliability is a factor in convincing someone to de-list, then I would argue that the site meets the requirements of WikiProject Albums/Sources in the same way that PunkNews and AbsoultePunk (the latter is now Chorus.fm) do: namely that is is an "online or print publication having a (paid or volunteer) editorial and writing staff (which excludes personal blogs), and must be from a source that is independent of the artist, record company, etc." --IllaZilla (talk) 06:27, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You say "and Dying Scene has a similar level of coverage and reliability to comparable sites like Punknews.org and AbsolutePunk, both of which are allowed" - Allowed per what? If their reliability is similar to Dying Scene, then WP:RS and WP:V would indicate that Punknews.org and AbsolutePunk should be used similarly.  However, the difference is, that punknews.org and absolutepunk were not spammed/abused (to the best of my knowledge) and hence were not blacklisted.  Also, if Dying Scene has a similar level over coverage, then it is not needed, as the reverse is then true and punknews.org and absolutepunk is not blacklisted either.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 06:59, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Allowed in the sense that neither of those (Punknews and AbsolutePunk) are blacklisted. Having similar levels of coverage and reliability doesn't mean one isn't needed, or we could block the Washington Post by saying it's equivalent to the New York Times. But as I and IllaZilla are both saying, this isn't the place to debate reliability. So maybe I should ask instead &mdash; is there some evidence we're missing about why it's so important that we can't just try taking this off the blacklist? Adding it back seems very trivial to me, and I'm certainly supportive of that happening if there's any problems with spam at all. But I don't see any evidence that there will be problems, especially of a magnitude where even trying to let it off the blacklist would be an unacceptable risk. Kyle Barbour 07:17, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Your 'Washington Post/New York Times' comparison runs afoul from the point that neither were pushed by people with a declared conflict of interest, and both are a reliable source. The site was spammed, not found of much use, and it was blacklisted. And now the argument seems to be 'I want to use yet another unreliable source, since it is mostly carrying the same content as other unreliable sources (and some info is only available here), and this unreliable source is blacklisted' - the only arguments that carry weight around here is that we absolutely need a site (something that I am not convinced off - reliability is questioned), and we have reasonable evidence that the spamming stopped (though I am in for experiments, I do not spend my volunteer time to have the spamming reoccur, having to cleanup and then having to blacklist it again, and then cleanup all good-faith edits as well - especially is it is an unreliable source anyway). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:48, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Just as a note, people related to DyingScene.com were here in July 2015 (some 6 years after blacklisting) promoting material related to them. That probably shows how convinced I am that blacklisting is really not needed anymore. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:55, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi . What mean by "similar level of coverage and reliability" is that it's of a similar nature: DS is a music news and journalism site, with a volunteer staff, covering a particular genre. "Similar" does not mean "identical" or "redundant to". DS sometimes has relevant news items about bands that other sites don't cover, they have exclusive interviews, their own staff reviews, all of which can be useful when trying to source content for a Wikipedia article. For example, how I arrived at this discussion: I'm rewriting the article The Fastest Kid Alive, about an album by the well-known punk band the Adolescents. One of my sources is a Dying Scene news article from 2010 that explains the meaning behind the album title. I can't find that information duplicated anywhere else, although I trust that it's reliable based on DS's other coverage of the band. But because of the blacklist, I can't save my revision (I've had to stash it in userspace for the time being). Both Punknews and AbsolutePunk have been discussed by WikiProject Albums and accepted as reliable sources. I've been working on music-related WP articles for about 10 years, and have cited Punknews hundreds of times. Dying Scene is of the same nature as those sites, so I feel pretty confident it would pass the reliability test. In any case, I take exception to your statement that "the only arguments that carry weight around here is that we absolutely need a site"...the purpose of this blacklist is to prevent spamming, not to sort reliable sites from the unreliable. Spam blacklist says that blacklisting "should be used as a last resort against spammers", when all other options have failed. There was a problem 7 years ago when someone from Dying Scene got spammy. That no longer appears to be a problem, and there are serious editors (myself and Kyle) whose efforts to improve articles are being hampered by the blacklisting of the site and who believe there is no longer a spam concern. That should be enough. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:48, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello thanks for the reply. I think it's notable that in this conversation, the two people who are familiar with punk material and who write punk articles are arguing that the site is necessary and that it is reliable; further, as previously requested by the admins who blacklisted Dying Scene, we are both long-time editors/administrators with no conflicts of interest and who want it delisted in good faith. However, I hear your concern that spam will resume. How about this as a potential compromise to directly address your worry. When we take it off, for the first month or two, I'll search each week for instances of the site being used, potentially as spam. If there are any spam issues, I'll personally resolve them and come back here to advocate for the site returning to the blacklist. If not, then we can stop that monitoring and leave it off the blacklist. That way you don't have to worry about your volunteer time, and the issue can be resolved in a way that addresses both your and our concerns. Kyle Barbour 20:04, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * What you describe may be a perfect case for whitelisting a single link. Wikipedia has a mechanism to stop both spamming, while allowing single links that are absolutely needed.  The purpose of this list is to prevent editors from spamming, and our common goal would need to be to stop self promotion.  Yet, when I go through the history of dyingscene since 2009 (when an account and a couple of IPs were spamming), I see recurring requests by SPAs, some of them declaring that they are related to DyingScene.  I see editors creating pages related to dyingscene (and again, those editors are SPA or near SPA, and some of them are participating in said de-listing discussions).  That makes me feel that the blacklisting is still needed.  Now, if this was a site that was heavily needed, I would be less reluctant to delisting (and note that I still did not decline it .. but I am still utterly unconvinced that the spamming stopped).
 * What about we whitelist what we really need first for a couple of months. I've only seen about 3 requests in the past but none granted.  I do see on one discussion that a replacement was suggested, and for another one it also only takes me 3 seconds to find a replacement (the third one does not give nice search terms, I have to look better).  You say that you want to search for the first month-or-two you'll search each week.  Spammers do a lot of damage in a week, they can do a lot of damage in an hour.  And seen that the editor originally used several IPs, it may even over weeks not be obvious.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:37, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable to me, . I didn't know there was an ongoing history of SPA activity. It would help me for now if you'd whitelist this specific link so I can use it in a citation: http://dyingscene.com/news/adolescents-announce-upcoming-album-the-fastest-kid-alive/ . Thank you. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:18, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ at this edit — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:47, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I've only now started to look further into the situation, but now see pretty continuously people involved in the site being here trying to get their links in, creating pages here, etc. etc. The last editor was accused of harassment in the process. Unfortunately promotion of their information is so important to site owners, that they hardly ever cease their actions, and this is yet another example of those. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:06, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello again! I'm open to us whitelisting what's needed for a while, no problem. If there winds up being a sufficient amount of requests there, I hope we can revisit this discussion and consider de-blacklisting the site then. The whitelist request for me that opened this conversation is this page: http://dyingscene.com/news/album-review-arms-aloft-what-a-time-to-be-barely-alive/ . Thanks for the conversation; we can see where this goes if/once there are a larger number of whitelist requests. Kyle Barbour 22:31, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
 * which is reviewed by all the other punk sites as well. What makes this so needed that all the other reviews I see don't tell about this album?  (note, I am going to blanket decline request if I can see 5 websites reviewing this in the first page of a google search, and there is not a very clear indication which disqualifies all the other easy finds).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:16, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Since you searched for it, you most likely noticed that the Dying Scene article is the #1 result for the album name + review. If you're going to use Google as a standard of notability, I think it's worth including that Google interprets this particular link as the most popular, most important one of them. If you search for punk news Dying Scene is the second link. It's not a small, meaningless site, it's an important part of the presence of the punk culture on the web, and so for albums where reviews are an important component, Dying Scene's review has relevance. That's true even if it's reviewed elsewhere. Kyle Barbour 03:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm .. do you know what SEO means? --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Google searches and numbers. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:12, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Dying Scene, Dyingscene, DyingScene, dyingscene.com, Bob Noxious, Bobby Pickles ... none of these articles was even ever tried to be created. What we did have was Dying Scene Radio, deleted per Articles_for_deletion/Dying_Scene_Radio as late as July 2015 (!) with rationales like "The sources given do not prove the subjects notability: Facebook, iTunes, and their own websites only. No third-party independent coverage"; "no reliable sources given. Nothing suggests notability", "I tried several searches, including HighBeam, and no luck".  Yet the article was repeatedly recreated with spammy content (by people involved by the site), and finally salted.  Notability is not based on Google searches.  If it is notable, it would have a Wikipedia article.  Is this really a source that we want to use and that is so indispensable?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:29, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course I know what SEO is; and I don't agree that every citation should have a Wikipedia page before it's allowed to be used. I've written and rewritten a response to this in the hopes that I could demonstrate why I disagree here and hopefully make you come around, but truthfully, I just don't have any more energy to spend on this debate. All my best to you. Kyle Barbour 05:35, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * No, and that is not what I am saying - not every site needs a Wikipedia article before we can cite it. What I did say was that being the first citation you run into on a Google search result page does not make it the best citation for certain information either.  Dyingscene was spammed for a long time (6 years), and most of their information is easily found elsewhere.  None of you have convinced me yet that the site is needed because it is providing unique information (maybe except for an occasional link).  Those two factors do not justify, in my opinion, to remove it - if you are active for 6 years pushing your site, and the last actions are just over a year ago, then I am not convinced that the spamming will not continue when we de-list it.  If you are so sure that the site is needed so much, then we will now suddenly see a massive influx of granted whitelisting requests.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * To all:, for specific links on this domain - please make requests, with proper arguments why it is needed, there. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

myentranceexam.in
Spammed by several IP's into multiple articles. Ravensfire ( talk ) 13:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

google.co.in shortener
Appears to be a shortener for google.co.in. Found in Akasa Singh, see reference 3. Ravensfire ( talk ) 14:44, 27 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Curious, this one is meta-blacklisted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:45, 29 November 2016 (UTC)


 * , cross-wiki problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:48, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting - article was recently created as well. Leaving link in place until this is resolved on meta (following it over there) and will remove then. Thanks! Ravensfire ( talk ) 13:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

solarmovie.tvhotnews.info


Spammed over the past 30 hours by at least two new users with no other contributions into multiple articles regarding TV shows. Links are created in the form of a section heading: ; ;  are some examples. -  Julietdeltalima   (talk)  02:42, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Julietdeltalima - ✅  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   02:59, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Snooker fansites/blogs

 * (~400 links)
 * (~200 links)

These sites are respectively a fansite and a blog and are mainly being used as sources to provide statistical information about living people. I have tried removing them in the past but they have proliferated to such an extent it is impossible to tackle it manually. Both websites contravene WP:SPS and an RFC at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Snooker concurred with this interpretation. I think the easiest way to deal with the problem would be to proscribe their usage. Betty Logan (talk) 16:34, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I see the first has come up earlier: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2011_Archive_Sep_1. We don't blacklist because something is not reliable, we blacklist because we have too much spam coming in.  Is that (still) the issue with these sites?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:40, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Looking at that discussion in the past I see I participated even though I have no recollection. At the time the site was being added as an external link and it would probably be ok as an external link in the same way IMDB is acceptable as an EL. If you define spam as being the deliberate act of adding these links to promote a particular website then I don't think that's the case because they tend to be added by different editors. That said, I think there is a real problem in using it as a source, especially on biographical articles where it is mainly present. If you remove them manually they end up back in the article eventually, so I don't really know else to tackle the problem. Betty Logan (talk) 16:49, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Some thoughts:
 * This seems to be a similar case to blogspot links. XlinkBot will revert such links when added the first time, because they tend to be used often and are not reliable.
 * We don't blacklist solely for spamming. We blacklist copyvio sites also.
 * If the Wikimedia Foundation would be exposed to legal action because BLP articles are consistently using unreliable sources like fansites as references, I have no objection to blacklisting those fansites if links to them are proliferating out of control in BLP articles. But maybe XLinkBot might be a good first step. ~Anachronist (talk) 17:52, 27 November 2016 (UTC)


 * , for now, let's see how much editors tend to push this. I'll revertlist on XLinkBot.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:24, 30 November 2016 (UTC)