Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Webgeek

Community ban of spammer
This was discovered because of the research skills of Nposs. Since 6 May 2005 contributions conists of self promotion by adding links to related sites. Many adsense publishers have several accounts, seems this is one of them. On the surface all of this activity seems like it might be good faith... however, every one of website he's linked to uses the same AdSense accounts and registrar.


 * thisdaythatyear.com pub-6158899834265448 Registrant:VIJAY TECHNOLOGIES.


 * vizaginfo.com, pub-4636414695604775, Registrant:VIJAY TECHNOLOGIES.


 * andhranews.net pub-4636414695604775, (Registration Service Provided By: VIZAGINFO.COM) Registrant:VIJAY TECHNOLOGIES.


 * electionsinfo.com pub-6158899834265448, VIJAY TEHNOLOGIES.

It is our suspicion that this user owns every one of those sites and has engaged in a campaign to increase his websites traffic and advertising revenue though the use of wikipedia.--Hu12 (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Have these websites been blacklisted yet? To this type of spammer, that is a stronger disincentive than mere banning. - Jehochman Talk 21:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ive added them.--Hu12 (talk) 21:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There are over 950 external link references to andhranews.net alone :O - Alis o n  ❤ 22:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have received confirmation that Google reads our blacklist and processes it much like a user submitted spam report. Assuming that our analysis is correct and confirmed by Google, whoever did this is going to regret it very much.  Their websites have been rendered worthless. - Jehochman  Talk 22:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * These are used on multiple wikis, I would suggest that a blacklist request be made at meta as well. Mr.  Z- man  22:08, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm no expert when it comes to the spam-blacklist, but wouldn't it be a good idea to remove the links first? I just had a hell of a time reverting vandalism to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because it contained one of the 950 some links to andhranews.net that Alison referenced above. Is somebody sending a bot or something? - auburn pilot  talk  23:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Can we find the spammers first? This editor has only made 100 edits in the last two years. -- zzuuzz (talk) 23:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just cleaned up some of the vizaginfo ones, listed at meta:Talk:Spam blacklist. is one of the culprits. Guy (Help!) 23:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Here are more IP accounts, not a complete list, however it paints the picture...
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ....Ect..--Hu12 (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hu12, that was the kind of blacklist-worthy list I was looking for. Endorsed. It can be impossible tracing spammers once their links have been removed. Is there a tool for that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Linkwatcher search used to track additions, although it would have had to be a previous issue reported at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, but its down, guss its a resource hog when running. Boils down to just looking through page histories and seeing patterns. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll see what I can find cross-wiki. MER-C 01:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

pl:Georges Watin/fa:بحث ویکی‌پدیا:یادبودهای برگزیده (is this an article?) for thisdaythatyear.com. Both aren't spam. More to come. MER-C 01:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

pl:Indira Gandhi Park/te:విశాఖపట్నం/te:ఆంధ్ర ప్రదేశ్/te:ఇందిరా గాంధీ జంతుప్రదర్శనశాల for vizaginfo.com. All aren't spam, but some may have come through transwiki of spammed articles. nn:Etiopia/sw:Ethiopia for the election one, both from translations. Removed all of the above. The news one stretches the capabilities of my spamsearch tool. MER-C 02:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

1041 cross-wiki links for andhranews.net. I'll just paste the raw output of my program at User:MER-C/andhranews.net. MER-C 02:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Please allow me to tell what i mean. If you see my previous posts none of them are posted with a malified intention of spamming or link baiting. All i was doing is to update wikipedia with the latest info. Giving links to only few specific sites was because i do not have access to all global other websites (except few websites) from my workplace. Do you see any specific update made by me with a specific intention to spam? Webgeek (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Attention: Isn't andhranews.com a news site that reports news primarily from South India? Are we doing a disservice to Wikipedia by removing links/references to genuine news stories from WP articles? I only discovered this after an andhranews reference was removed from an article on my watchlist, and which the editor has proceeded to remove andhranews references from other articles. Please clarify the situation with regards to the use of andhranews.com as a reference for genuine news stories related with that particular WP article. Thanks, Ekantik talk 17:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * dot com seems to be a forum site. dot net is the news service. One is a bit more reliable than the other.  spryde |  talk  17:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

More sites
Adsense pub-3396956829763394 Whois:. No cross-wiki links for this one. I've removed everything on en and reverted couple of andhranews.net links added by these IPs. Note the TLD of the contact email address...

...is registered to Vijay Technologies. There doesn't seem to be an adsense for this one, but someone else should double check. Removed the only spamlink (on all wikis), which was at Nag Panchami.
 * It's the same adsense pub: 4636414695604775. Just mouse over the Ads by Google links and it pops up in the url. Nposs (talk) 05:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Spammers (for these sites)

I'll go post these at meta. MER-C 03:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Superb research, great work. Supporting ban and reaching for a barnstar for this labor.  Durova Charge! 03:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Even more sites


It's going to take me a while to spamsearch all these domains. Please stand by. MER-C 04:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Nothing for vijartechnologies.com or indiahostingreview.com. MER-C 04:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

26 links on en for indiastudycenter.com + hi:विक्रम विश्वविद्यालय (not spam) + Promoting the South Asian languages projects/Gujarati (not spam).


 * Spammers of indiastudycenter.com
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly
 * possibly

All links gone. MER-C 05:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nothing for iitisnapur.com and gajuwakainfo.com. Endorse ban, by the way. MER-C 06:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nothing for edcetinfo.com, aucet.com, icetinfo.com, telanganauniv.com, vizagclassifieds.com and softwaretalk.info. MER-C 06:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Andhranews.com: one link at B. V. Raghavulu, which isn't spam. Removed anyway due to blacklisting. MER-C 08:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Chitoor.com: links at Gajulamandyam x2 (not spam), Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (spam), Chandragiri (not spam) and Alamelu (not spam). Spammer was

All removed. MER-C 08:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Srikakulaminfo.com: just Srikakulam (not spam). Tollywood.info has several links: Lakshyam/Little Soldiers/Premaku Velayara/Ajith Kumar/Vayasu Pilichindi/Yamaleela/Satyagrahi/te:అక్కినేని నాగార్జున. Relevant spammer:



All removed, including the ones in "10 other domains" below. MER-C 10:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

10 more domains

 * More domains spammed:


 * Additional related domains:
 * Wikipedia scraper site
 * Wikipedia scraper site
 * Wikipedia scraper site
 * Wikipedia scraper site
 * Wikipedia scraper site
 * Wikipedia scraper site
 * Wikipedia scraper site


 * Wikipedia scraper site
 * Wikipedia scraper site

-- A. B. (talk) 05:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

-- A. B. (talk) 05:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * More IPs:
 * Heavily shared IP assigned to SAP AG
 * Heavily shared IP assigned to SAP AG


 * Ugh these are coming by the dozen, range block? -  Ca ri bb e a  n ~ H. Q.  05:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Range-blocking would hit a lot of IPs if you blocked 59.93.xx.xx. I think just blacklisting the domains will get the job done without a lot of disruption. -- A. B. (talk) 05:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * yup, A.B. is correct. IP's are NIB (National Internet Backbone). Blacklisting is more effctive without worry of colateral dammage. Added the newer domains to the local BL for now, nothing done on meta so far.--Hu12 (talk) 06:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * (e/c) Actually, I looked up the anonymous edits for the 59.93.112.0/20 range on Wikiscanner - a large amount of the edits are to External Links sections. I've blocked that one for a month for excess spamming. I'll look into the others. Mr.  Z- man  06:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Also blocked 59.93.102.0/24 - those 2 ranges seem to encompass all the 59.93.x.x IPs used without having to block the entire /16 range. Mr.  Z- man  06:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 59.93.112.0/20 block shortened to a week without a block on account creation after consulting with a checkuser. Mr.  Z- man  06:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's worth pointing out that many of the IPs were last used months ago. I suggest we go easy on the range blocks and concentrate on the blacklist. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * IIRC, Wikiscanner uses an old copy of the database, so there could also be more recent ones. But still, that's the most spam I've ever seen on a range that big. Mr.  Z- man  17:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hoo dilly, this takes up a fair amount of space. Anyone want to do one of those Hide/Show thingees? --Edward Morgan Blake (talk) 07:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is one long thread that's worth every line. People should see what this is.  It's important.  Durova Charge! 07:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I didn't mean to suggest it was unimportant, just rather large. It seems you are correct that it should remain.  --Edward Morgan Blake (talk) 08:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No apology needed. It's mainly that a large part of the community doesn't deal with this stuff and isn't aware that we get problems this large.  Once in a while a thread like this is educational.  Normally I like to see things this large written up on a separate page and linked, but this looks like ongoing research.  We need more people to do this kind of work because an unknown number of problems remain undetected.  Durova Charge! 16:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Reporting
I have created some of the linkwatcher reports that COIBot can access (which do not go back too far, unfortunately). Still these contain quite some information. I will create some more later, I don't want to overload the bot. Could someone format this and post the domains and accounts to WT:WPSPAM, it will give COIBot a back-record for the links, when they get added somewhere. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

All sites so far are now blacklisted globally. MER-C 08:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm going to start with the removal of the blacklisted links above. — Save_Us _ 229 09:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Everything except andhranews.net has already been removed. MER-C 10:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm working on :) — Save_Us _ 229 11:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There are hundreds of andhranews.net links on this Wikipedia. To minimize disruption, I recommend temporarily removing that one domain from the blacklist until the deletions are complete. See MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. -- A. B. (talk) 13:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion, A. B. I got caught with this earlier today while editing an article, and it was a major pain scrolling through the entire article until I found the link (which led to a 404, by the way). Jeffpw (talk) 13:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup help needed: still hundreds of andhranews.net links
The other spam domains have either been cleaned up or are being cleaned up. That still leaves the biggest problem, andhranews.net.

We still have, as of this writing, 493 links on this Wikipedia and hundreds more on other Wikipedias:


 * de:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * fr:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up except for user pages. -- A. B. (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * nl:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * it:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * pt:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * sv:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * es:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * zh:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * eo:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * sk:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * da:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ro:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * hu:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * id:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * bg:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ko:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * hr:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ar:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * te:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * 1) * Cleaned up. -- A. B. (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * el:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * fa:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * vi:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * bn:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * simple:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * ka:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * bpy:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net
 * new:Special:Linksearch/*.andhranews.net

These should all really be deleted or disabled before we blacklist this domain. The andhranews.net domain was initially blacklisted but then that was reversed temporarily to avoid widespread editing disruption until all the links were cleaned up.

Once these links are all cleaned up, we can then globally blacklist andhranews.net using Meta's blacklist across all 700+ Wikimedia Foundation wikis -- Wikipedias, Wiktionaries, etc. (The Meta blacklist also covers all 3000+ Wikia wikis plus a substantial percentage of the 25,000+ unrelated wikis that run on our MediaWiki software and have chosen to incorporate this blacklist in their own spam filtering.)

I have spam cleanup accounts on all the other projects and can handle cleanup on the other Wikipedias. Can some other folks work on cleaning up the links here on the English Wikipedia while I work on the cross-wiki spam? Thanks! -- A. B. (talk) 16:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Could you please provide a list of the users who were major contributors to this research so I can hand them all barnstars? Fantastic work!  Thank you all.  Durova Charge! 16:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm starting at the top of the english wikipedia list now. I guess the only way to do it is to open the article and search for the link. If anybody has an easier way, please post it here. Jeffpw (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And do we need to replace the refs with cite needed tags? Jeffpw (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Devil's Advocate
Those IPs that are adding the links appear to be allocated to sancharnet.in which looks to the telecom retail arm of the largest telecom in India (BSNL). Could it be that some of these are valid link additions? Specifically the andhranews.net links as that appears to be a portal for one of the larger states in India (Population: 1/4th the USA?)? We seem to be in a frenzy to purge these while ignoring the question if the purge is a net positive or negative. In fact, Webgeek replied above and nobody seemed to notice or care and the purge frenzy continued.  spryde |  talk  17:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, yes... people aren't simply removing the links, are they? They are news reports mostly that can be found on a not-so-spammy site with little searching at all. If it's linking to a news story, shouldn't the "purgers" just swap the link for one that links to the same news story on a more appropriate site? --Ali&#39;i 17:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * there are almost 500 of these links on the English Wikipedia. Are you suggesting that before the links are removed we search for a replacement ref for each one? Jeffpw (talk) 17:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Addend: This is much more helpful to the encyclopedia than this. --Ali&#39;i 17:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, seeing as I just got a full page Intel Centrino Ad on Yahoo and static ads on Andhra, I will leave the implied question alone. Both have the exact same content as both are press releases released on the same wire. What is worse about the second link?  spryde |  talk  17:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but it's going to take some time to add a replacement references to take the place of the ones under the andhranews.net domain. I'd rather remove them now and add references later than sit down and remove 1 reference at a time and add a replacement for that single piece of news. There was over 700 to begin with and we have to remove them now to get them on the spam blacklist, not wait around for more links to be added to the site to be spammed. If were going to have this blacklisted globally it has to be removed now, not later, otherwise were going to have spam-lock on an awful lot of articles. — Save_Us _ 229 17:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Well then I hope all of you are keeping track of all the links you have removed, because currently all you are doing is removing sources from who-knows-what kind of statements. Are you replacing the links with fact tags? Or are you all just leaving hundreds and hundreds of unsourced statements in the articles? For me, having a couple of spammy refs in place while replacement with un-spammy refs is taking place is much less harmful to the encyclopedia than uncritically removing the spammy refs and leaving unsourced statements (who knows in what kind of nature they are: are the spammy sites sourcing material that would be deleted under BLP policy if not sourced?). I just want people to think a bit rather than insert hundreds of unsourced statements with no critical thought involved. Mahalo. --Ali&#39;i 17:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My contributions with the appropriate edit summary tell me which article is one I removed a link from. No, I didn't replace them with fact tags because either the entire reference section consisted of the spam links, the entire article didn't have a whole lot of refs or the entire section it was added in was unsourced for the most part anyways. If it violated WP:BLP, I removed it. And I hope you seriously aren't suggesting spam is more valued than a single statement (per article) that is without a reference, cause if you do, I would suggest you hit the random button in the left toolbar and see how many statements are unreferenced. I would also like for you to stop criticizing me for 'not thinking' and for not inserting 700 references when you have inserted a grand total of 1 reference to help. — Save_Us _ 229 17:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it's actually 2, not 1, but who's counting? ;-) I just think that removing a reference attached to a statement = inserting an unsourced statement. So I think that it is better to have swapped one reference link (and have the spam on-site for a tiny bit longer) than to have inserted a hundred unsourced statements throughout the encyclopedia. And other statements are unsourced on random pages? Well, saying other crappy articles exist elsewhere does not make a good argument. I do appreciate the work you are doing, please understand that. We don't want spam on Wikipedia... duh. But we also need to have verifiable content and sourcing where appropriate. I am requesting that we have both (no spam and references), and you are arguing that we have only one.  retracted... we just want them in a different order. My apologies. Mahalo, Save Us. --Ali&#39;i 18:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Attention: Isn't andhranews.com a news site that reports news primarily from South India? Are we doing a disservice to Wikipedia by removing links/references to genuine news stories from WP articles? I only discovered this after an andhranews reference was removed from an article on my watchlist, and which the editor has proceeded to remove andhranews references from other articles. Please clarify the situation with regards to the use of andhranews.com as a reference for genuine news stories related with that particular WP article. Thanks, Ekantik talk 17:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's something you should probably ask to the editors who started this thread and who started the investigation on the spamming to begin with, not me (as the editor removing them). All I know is that is going to be blacklisted globally and all the above websites other than andhranews.com have already been blacklisted and removed. These websites appear to be connected to an AdSense account according to the opening section here and that appears to be the main problem with them. — Save_Us _ 229 18:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * if people would stop squawking and start deleting the spamlinks, this would be over a lot sooner. Then we can worry about collateral issues. If necessary every change can be reversed with the push of one button. Much easier than what Save Us and myself are doing now. Jeffpw (talk) 18:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * (ec) We seem to be going off half cocked about a great spammer in our midst. Seeing as there is no deadline for WP and the links have existed for a long while, we can talk a bit about this. Do we have definitive proof that the people adding the sites have connection to the adsense account? At one place of work before, I had access to Yahoo and the Washington Post sites. No other. User:Webgeek claims to only have limited access to a certain set of sites. I want to make sure all the ducks are in a row before a purge that can harm the content of our articles.  spryde |  talk  18:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Again, something you should probably ask User:Hu12, who is probably more technically inclined to know about this than me. Looking at the beginning of this thread and the links, it appears he is right about the AdSense account linking to these string of sites. — Save_Us _ 229 18:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Being a webmaster myself, he is correct about the adsense accounts being linked across domains, not about the link between the domains and webgeek. However, that still does not mean that andhranews.net as a spammy link. Yahoo itself could be considered a spammy link as well based on these criteria given above (ads provider, added by numerous IPs).  spryde |  talk  18:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm replacing the blacklisted references with equivalent, and have noticed that they are the same article found on any aggregated news site ie. No loss to Wikipedia.--Hu12 (talk) 18:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Understood. However what is wrong with that source? That is my question. Have we proven that people are putting that site in for spamming purposes? I feel we might be cutting off a reliable source for people in a region of the world to use in their contributions to WP. Also, others who are removing the links do not appear to be replacing them. This could cause further issues. I feel I am starting to belabor the point so I am going to back off now. I sincerely hope you consider what I have pointed out.  spryde |  talk  18:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * See the above evidence which has been unhidden for improved usability. All the facts are there.--Hu12 (talk) 18:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I've observed studying this and cleaning it up over the course of 5 to 10 hours: -- A. B. (talk) 18:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that IP block belongs to the big Indian telco. If someone were spamming these links from Canada, they'd probably be using IPs in a big block from BellCanada or Shaw Cable. I'm not sure I understand the relevance.
 * Is the spammer limited to access to just that web site?
 * Answer: no. He appears to be limited to that site plus the other sites owned by Vijay Technologies, an SEO firm. Those are the links he's adding. What a coincidence: it's an interesting set of domains to be limited to!
 * Yes, andhranews.net is a portal for the Andra Pradesh area. Is it official? Nope. I can "scrape" together a "portal" for your area in a week or two -- where do you live?
 * That's a silly remark. What constitutes an "official" portal? Cause Wikipedia certainly uses sites as authorities that are community-originated. 131.191.41.218 (talk) 02:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, andhranews.net has some decent content on some of its pages. That's because it appears to be scraped from services such as Asian News International. It's unclear whether it is infringing others' copyrights or not; if we were to keep these links, we'd need to make sure we were properly observing the requirements of Copyrights.
 * We know they've had a lax attitude towards content from our experience with the two Vijay Technologies sites, greatpersonalities.com and knowledgeisfun.com, that scraped Wikipedia's content. They didn't bother observing even the simple requirements of our GFDL license until someone at the Foundation sent them a legal notice.
 * Half-cocked? I can't speak for the others but I know I've been working very hard to figure this all out and separate the sheep from the goats without doing collateral damage. That's why others and I laid out all the documentation with links to domain registrars, traceroutes, etc. It's all above (in the little collapse box labeled "Lengthy evidence and discussion of evidence") for others to double check. I invite critics to go through that record IP by IP, diff by diff as several of us have. Where we've made mistakes, please let us know but please use specifics, not generalities. If there are specific questions about any of this, let me know and I will try to address them. I'd rather get it right than win some sort of argument.
 * From the standpoint of reliable sources and encyclopedic quality: I know it's important to have citations in our articles but just how desirable is it to rely on links added primarily by the site-owner? When he's been warned (some of his IPs) about adding these links and gone ahead and kept adding them?
 * Ugh, I keep getting sucked back in. I could do a point by point rebuttal but I don't think it will do any good. I will say I tried to point out some of the flaws and they have been addressed to somewhat my satisfaction. I still don't see a clear link between Webgeek, the IP addresses, and him being the site owner (has anyone CU'ed them?). But as to your last point regarding reliable sources, seeing as Yahoo is an aggregator and not a content originator, should Yahoo be linked from WP? <small style="background:#ccc;border:#000 1px solid;padding:0 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap;"> spryde |  talk  19:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As I noted above, I'm open to a point-by-point rebuttal; I don't see why you write "I don't think it will do any good". As for your "ugh", there's not a lot I can do about that. I feel a bit on the defensive by the some of what you write but I also want to make sure we do this right. There are many hours of work going into this on the part of a number of volunteers and we don't want to waste them screwing up articles on some sort of link-nazi spree.


 * I got into this late after a lot of work had already been done by others and the first sets of domains were blacklisted. Others looked at Webgeek's edits and I did not; I have not interacted with him but rather have been involved in looking at:
 * The IPs' editing patterns
 * The sites themselves
 * Looking for other related domains that have been spammed
 * All these sites' ownership and registration data
 * Links on other projects
 * The extent to which these links were added by "innocent" editors (that is, editors who were doing something in addition to promoting these sites)
 * "innocent" in this context is a loaded word: my goal was not to ferret out "good" and "evil" editors or IPs -- just to make sure we weren't rushing off to blacklist domains that were being used by a number of other editors beyond those with a vested interest in the site. As far as I can tell, 90+% but not all of these links were added by the IPs and accounts identified above.
 * Whether or not the site-owner got much warning before folks started blacklisting domains. Even if someone is the worst sort of low-down, dirty-dog spammer and a baby-hater to boot, I'm still squeamish about seeing their domains blacklisted at Meta if nobody's explained our standards to them.
 * -- A. B. (talk) 19:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Finished (with the English Wikipedia). A lot of work, but on the bright side, I got a thorough education as to South Asian culture, politics and technology. But I wouldn't want to do this again anytime soon. Jeffpw (talk) 19:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ditto, I just learned more about India, Pakistan, cricket and politics I needed to know for one day :) — <font color="007FFF">Save_Us _ 229 20:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you so very much Jeffpw and SaveUs -- you are saints! There are still a few links on some smaller Wikipedias to cleanup; I'm out of time today but I left a request at meta:Talk:Spam blacklist‎ for someone there to help with the remaining Wikipedias. -- A. B. (talk) 20:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * P.S., I know the feeling plus I got the wonderful chance to study the subjects through Chinese, Arabic, French, etc filters. My eyes were totally glazed over by the time I got to Greek. -- A. B. (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * good lord! English was bad enough! I'd be hanging from the rafters if I had to go through non-Latin alphabets! Jeffpw (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Please replace references
I understand that you have reason to do what you are doing, but you deleted also lot of valid and correct references. By criteria of Wikipedia it accounts as vandalism. May I ask you not to remove references before replacing these with new ones with same content. Thank you. Beagel (talk) 21:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Beagel, you may look through my contribution list and add refs that you think should be replaced. I have no plans to do this myself. As to your statement that it was vandalism, the links themselves were vandalism of a subtle form. With that webserver being on the blacklist, it was impossible to edit those articles without removing the links. Jeffpw (talk) 21:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely agree with Jeffpw. Durova Charge! 07:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree as well. Once the sites are blacklisted per community consensus, they need to be removed from all articles as quickly as possible. Simply replacing them with a fact tag is perfectly acceptable, and certainly not vandalism. — Satori Son 15:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * My two cents:
 * No it's not really vandalism by any definition -- it was a good faith effort at improving the encyclopedia, whether we agree with it or not.
 * I fall into the camp that says these links had been spammed in most cases and that they needed to come out.
 * As I've said elsewhere, I think these were low quality links in some places and scraped content in others.
 * Jeffpw and Save Us 229 were doing the right thing in removing these links, even if some might disagree with their blacklisting. Reason: once these links are blacklisted, the articles are gridlocked until someone removes or disables the link. I appreciate their work on getting this turned around so quickly. I've done this sort of tedious cleanup before where I didn't even agree with a domain's blacklisting. So if anyone is at fault, it's those of us that advocated blacklisting, not the two editors that went along cleaning up after us by purging blacklisted links.
 * I hate citation spam -- it's so much more more insidious than just sticking links at the end of an article. Nobody's likely to ever double-check the link, so it's very "sticky" in link-spammer parlance. Then, if someone goes to remove these links, they may take up to 10 minutes to find them on just one heavily footnoted page. (I cleaned up this spam on the other Wikipedias until I was finally defeated by this Greek page). Finally, once the link's out, you now have a citation hole. If I ever become a spammer, count on me to take the citation-spamming route.
 * Having said all this, Beagel (one of our top editors) is right in stating that we now have a big problem. What's the most sensible approach we can take to begin dealing with this that does not involve our two Good Samaritans spending their weekend filling these holes?
 * -- A. B. (talk) 16:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I think I should apology in case if somebody understood my note as accusation of vandalism. If removing of valid references is considered as vandalism in general, this is not the case here. I agree that Jeffpw and Save Us 229 have done excellent work. Beagel (talk) 07:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Follow up Question
so, did webgeek get a ban/block also? or just the spam domains and spammy ip's? The resolution of that point is unclear to me. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 21:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * FYI, Webgeek has not even been blocked: BlockLog. No opinion at this time as to whether he or she should be. --Ali&#39;i 21:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, A little thing i would like to say and update you. I have no association with Vijay Technologies or any other websites (or even their advertising partners) directly or indirectly. I guess the firewalls at my work location aren't blocking their websites and hence i was able to access their news stories and update Wikipedia articles accordingly. AndhraNews.net is a decent site from what i know since it is in existence for a long time (over 5 years now?) and are carrying news stories from various media outlets (ANI being one of them). Further they seem to have multiple advertising partners (apart from AdSense). I do not see the site to be designed with an intention to spam or so called Made-For-AdSense kinds considering they are giving a decent presentation since a long time now. Please do not mistake me that i am supporting this website but i am presenting my case about this whole thing. Webgeek (talk)
 * Then how do you explain edits like these, when you add links to other Vijay Technologies sites? What about the IP edits above, exemplified by the ones made by 59.93.116.108 and 59.93.102.37, which have very similar edit summaries and are most probably you? I find it almost impossible to believe that your employer would filter all sites except those belonging to Vijay Technologies and Wikipedia. (Heck, if you can edit Wikipedia at work, it isn't that much of a stretch to be able use Google/Yahoo/M$N/whatever to find other sources. Not to mention open proxies.) MER-C 13:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Credit where credit is due
I want to hand a barnstar to everyone who played a significant role in this major undertaking. Excellent work! Please list the usernames of people who deserve that thanks. Durova Charge! 22:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Off hand, Jeffpw and <font color="007FFF">Save_Us did an excellent job doing a large chunk of the cleanup, couldn't have been easy. I'm sure many more were involved in the cleanup portion of this, as there were ton of links. Hope they come forward. Others, of course, MER-C A. B. <font color="#056366">Mr. <font color="#056625">Z- <font color="#054F66">man  .. "mee toos", im sure are welcome. --Hu12 (talk) 22:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Search Engine Optimization
I was concerned that perhaps we were removing well-intentioned links to the Indian equivalent of a Yahoo news aggregator, so I looked into it a bit and found that the company involved, Vijay Technologies, is a privately held firm that, among other things, sells Search Engine Optimization services:
 * "Our SEO experts are constantly engaged in the study of behavior of web search engines. Our proven experience in this field helps us to identify and target for specific keywords for websites across various sections of the industry and ensure that your website comes up at the top positions in leading search engines." at h t t p : / / w w w . v i j a y t e c h n o l o g i e s . c o m / s e r v i c e s / i n d e x . p h p WAS 4.250 (talk) 12:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Rather ironically, this page is now eighth, or fifth depending where you are from, in a Google search for Vijay Technologies. If and when Google nukes them from their index due to the above spamdexing it could be #1. Serves them right. MER-C 12:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Google's use of Wikimedia's blacklists
Following up on Jehochman's comments about Google's use of our blacklists:

There have been rumours in the blackhat SEO community for many months that search engines like Google are or aren't using our lists. There was even a threat on WikiProject Spam's talk page where Jimbo Wales mentioned a casual conversation he'd had with Google's Matt Cutts and Larry Page:
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Oct

As that talk page thread developed, it became apparent that there were many reasons for both Wikipedia and Google that any closely coupled linkage of our linkspam mitigation efforts was a bad idea. Just a few reasons:
 * 1) Our susceptibility to Joe jobs
 * 2) The inconsistency of our blacklistings depending on which editors and admins handle a spam case: one site-owner gets 10 warnings and no blacklisting while another gets blacklisted with no warning
 * 3) Our blacklist includes more than just spam, notwithstanding its name. This includes "attack sites", copyright infringers, etc.
 * 4) Siteowners may spam Wikipedia but no other sites; Google may want to keep those sites in their index.
 * 5) It's a really bad idea for us to try to "play God" with others' property (i.e., sites). There are issues for us involving ethics, mission creep and legal responsibility. To expand a little on the legal part, when the world's largest search engine colludes with one of the world's largest, most important websites in ways that diminish a site-owner's property value, you've got a potentially expensive antitrust case under U.S. law. We may often be foolish and uncoordinated in what we do and say here at Wikipedia, but you can count on Google to act very cautiously in any situation where the word "antitrust" might come up.

I could go on with more reasons, but I'll just end this list with a standing offer to wager this one against 10:1 odds that there's no close coupled linkage here. My bottom line: any search engine that blindly factors in our blacklist in some sort of link-spamming penalty system is making a big mistake.

I will say, however, that it would make a lot of sense for search engines to consider our listings when humans, not servers, are reviewing spamdexing cases. Our blacklisting decisions may or may not be correct, but our blacklisting requests, when properly written up, provide a valuable compilation and distillation of publicly available information in the form of edit histories, IP patterns, etc.

So I think it's very likely that when someone at Yahoo or Google wants to know more about a link-spamming domain, they read our blacklisting entries with interest ... and a grain of salt.

I think we just continue doing what's right for our projects, blacklist-wise, and let other entities draw their own conclusions. I think we should also understand, however, that blacklisting a site is "big deal" for someone and that we must be extra careful in making blacklisting decisions. Not shy, but careful. I think that's our best approach, ethically and legally, and consistent with our core mission (the dissemination of knowledge, not the punishment of spammers). -- A. B. (talk) 14:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)