Wikipedia talk:Spam blacklist/Archive 1

Discussion on proposal

 * I'm don't see any problems with adopting this proposed procedure as written. Though I say this without prejudice to modifying it if necessary in the future. - BanyanTree 06:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. Andre (talk) 06:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I also agree. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed --Hu12 17:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * How do I find the reason for a particular site being blacklisted? It is not easy to request removal of the ban if you don't know why it is there.  It looks like this procedure is being used to censor material that can easily be found by Google images who incidentally don't blacklist sites.  Dbdb (talk) 14:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violations
Here's another time to blacklist at meta: links to blatant copyright violations. For example, when the domains associated with this discussion all finally get identified, they should probably be blacklisted on meta even if we only find their links only on this wikipedia. That's because these sites are all blatant violations of different magazines' copyrights; Wikimedia can't afford to have links to these sites if we can help it. (See the discussion of "contributory infringement" at Copyrights and Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry). -- A. B. (talk) 23:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The spam filter as a barrier to reporting copyvios
Suggestion: shouldn't the use of  tags as a temporary way of bypassing the spamfilter, for when a wiki page is a copyvio of a blacklisted page and the URL needs to be included in the db-copyvio tenplate, be documented on the project page? See discussion here. -- simxp (talk) 22:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

help!
the spam filter seems to have put me in the awkward bind of not being able to undo one of my edits.

Here's the undo attempt in question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Isonomia&action=edit&undoafter=150944385&undo=174750435

Whenever I try to undo my edit the spam filter blocks me. This started when I was trying to place a comment on an editors talk page and each time I tried to save my comment (which did not contain any URL) the spam filter would block the page save. I used firefox find to locate the url it was complaining about and tried to remove part of it to make sure that my post wasn't somehow at fault. This worked but when I tried to undo the change (since the URL was someone else's earlier contribution on the page) it wouldn't let me undo the change. Does it really make sense to freeze all changes to a discussion page until someone removes a blocked URL? What are we supposed to do? wait for the original editor to remove the link? stop using the discussion page? go altering other peoples edits?Zebulin (talk) 03:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Whats going on?
i have now tried three times to add the following comment to User talk:Baylink Don't worry about it, it was my mistake, i copy and pasted the link from the talk page, but accidentally picked the wrong one. Happy editing--~ and each time, it gave me the spam blacklist message. Why is it doing this?, there's no link in the passage. Thanks--Jac16888 (talk) 14:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ==re Perry Cox comment==
 * It was tinyurl.com tripping the BL filter. I delinked it on his talk page, you should be able to leave your message now.--Hu12 (talk) 18:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks--Jac16888 (talk) 21:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ye what the hell is that?! I can't communicate other users any more!! D@rk talk 00:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

LOOKING FOR SOMEPLACE TO GET MY DOMAIN OFF BLACK LIST
Is this a help page? I have been running around in circles for almost an hour. I went to update page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2 and add a new forum for this device at slug.freeforums.org and I got a message I could not add it because the domain was blocked. Where do I go to get this fixed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Guat (talk • contribs) 22:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Problem
I'm trying to warn a user for vandalism, and my edit is only beer pong, yet it's saying a triggered the spam filter with "spam(dot)jobklub(dot)com". What's going on? --AW (talk) 16:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I figured it out, the link was elsewhere on the page --AW (talk) 16:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

False positive blacklisted link
Umm, I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but for several times when I was trying to edit on Talk:Standard Mandarin, I was prevented from doing so by a notice that says the '''www. chinese-tool. com''' was blocked. But I didn't add that link, and when I checked the blacklist it wasn't there either. I don't know what happened nor what I should do. Can somebody help me out? Keith Galveston (talk) 05:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What is going on??
This is what I am trying to post: "I dont want to drag a great article into a revert war, so I'm bringing it up here. To me, "Rest of the world" seems very off hand-ish.  Almost as though the "rest of the world" doesnt matter.  Whereas "Other parts of the world" seems as though they are being included and not in an afterthought kind of a way.  It could just be me, but since it was reverted, someone else thinks otherwise.  Comments?  (on a side note, this post was blocked twice due to a spam filter... that I was adding some odd link... I'm not, and this was a direct paste of the last time I tried to add this)  Queerbubbles  |  Leave me Some Love  17:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)"  nothing about any link involved.  Queerbubbles |  Leave me Some Love  17:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed it... although the filter shouldnt activate if the link isnt in the post that you personally are trying to insert. Thats just my two cents.   Queerbubbles  |  Leave me Some Love  17:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Post Chronicle
Can someone explain why http://www.postchronicle.com/ is black listed? They seemed to have been OK last week. -- Kendrick7talk 08:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

SS Free
I noticed that the world's most popular community had its url blocked, I don't want a bunch of our members spamming the board with our url, I for one work for SS Free, Inc. and on behalf of the company, am here to look into the problem and fix the problem so the SS Free's article won't have to have SSFREE-DOT-NET-TC not clickable, people could get confused that way, please remove it from the black list. Also why are all 879345 of the SS Free's affiliates blocked, including some major video game companies that we do business with?--4.244.36.149 (talk) 01:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Ignore this message. The user is blocked and the website is repeatedly spammed. -- Manticore   (talk)  20:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Why is a spam blacklist being used to blacklist non-spam websites?
It seems to me that it's common to use criteria completely unrelated to spamming as justification for blacklisting. For the most part, lack of qualification for V/RS is used as a justification. If that were a valid justification, why not simply ban all links that violate them?

Among other websites, such a ban would include: wikipedia, myspace, livejournal, blogger/blogspot, slashdot, boing boing, gnu.org, etc... Many of these websites have self-publishers paid based on page views, and almost all of them involve the people who run the website getting paid.

WP:EL explicitly allows for external links when a web page provides useful information, regardless of whether or not it qualifies under WP:RS. For example, websites like Associated Content, with self-published content, are blacklisted. However, there's no particular reason why a specific article couldn't offer helpful information as an external link. This is true of any self-published website with a large amount of information.

Heck, you can't even put the links on a talk page, regardless of how helpful they are to the discussion.

-Nathan J. Yoder (talk) 10:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If you are referring to point 4 of WP:ELMAYBE, notice that it says "information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources" --Enric Naval (talk) 18:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

That's why my userpage is deleted. (Can't believe some other reason). First rule on wikipedia is to assume good faith... --Rob ten Berge (talk) 17:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

WikiJob
Please can www.wikijob.co.uk be removed from the spam blacklist. It is NOT a spam website - clearly. 86.0.221.59 (talk) 21:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Russianfootage.com
PLease help to remove russianfootage.com from the blacklist please remove from the black list to update stock footage section in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_footage I was editing the page on Stock footage and included Russian Stock Footage Library link russianfootage.com, This link will contribut wikipedia stck footage page because Russian Footage provides archival motion imagery, stock footage and research services for documentary producers who are willing to license video from state Russian archives, other Russian video libraries. Please help me to unblock the web site russianfootage.com Somehow it is blacklisted now. It deserves to be added to Wikipedia stock footage section here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_footage Thank you in advance —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oxana s (talk • contribs) 13:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The Blacklist
hi my site was blocked and added to blacklist, and certanly is the less commercial site of thoes still standing on the category (cuban artists), so, I don't understand why it was blacklisted, because we hanlde the biggest cuban art reference site, an dtose lited as external links are nothing but comercial sites. furthermore the listings and contents i created with tremendous effort almost 400 artists with at list some reference, something none of the currente external links still present have done, were erased with the idea that they where linking to payed content, when the idea was to share the free part of our unique archive. pleas if someone can explain this to me I will be satisfy. the site we are talking about is www.cubancontemporaryart.com

I am not sure if this is the right place for this but anyway, i had my site (www.roomsinscotland.com) blacklisted yesterday and i am not sure why. It is not a spam website, it provides information on Scotland, such as info on walks and castles. I thought these links were appropriate for the relevant wikipedia pages and for the past year they have been. But yesterday with no warnings or reasons all the links were removed and my site has been blacklisted! A little communication would have gone a long way, if the links arent appropriate for whatever reason then why was i not told? some assistance would be appriciated.Nab82ba (talk) 10:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This was not blacklisted on this blacklist but instead it was blacklisted across all Wikipedia on the Metawiki spam blacklist. You can raise the question at meta:Talk:Spam blacklist. The original report was made at meta:User:COIBot/XWiki/roomsinscotland.com and I see you were asked to stop when you added your links on the Dutch Wikipedia. The blacklisting administrator there was Mike.lifeguard.


 * As a general rule, if there's much cross-wiki spamming, it's often blocked without warning.-- A. B. (talk • contribs) 19:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Why Are MySpace Blogs Blacklisted?
I am revamping an article on my favorite band, who consequently maintains a detailed blog at MySpace. I need to reference these important posts, but I do not understand why they are blacklisted in the first place. Can I reference a google cache of the page? -- Noj r (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I know. I was trying to reference something with a myspace blog reference and it wouldn't let me. IHelpWhenICan (talk) 06:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You can request that specific blogs be whitelisted for an article. If the request is approved, this would allow you to use the blog on the article. --Bobblehead (rants) 06:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Nimp
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Islam&diff=prev&oldid=249253857

Should be blacklisted, methinks. -- Manticore   (talk)  20:44, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What is this?
Raziel (Legacy of Kain)

Under the intro paragraph, before the first section, that line is blocking me through the blacklist. I don't want to remove it without knowing what it does, but I wanted to change the first line of the article to use Template:otheruses. --68.161.147.11 (talk) 01:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite
This guideline is a bit out-dated, as common practice has quite some, commonly encountered, exceptions, which are not mentioned here, and maybe we need to extend some other parts and remove in some cases the use of the word 'spam' (a pejorative). This because there are several occasions where good links to reliable sites (which certainly do not qualify as spam) have been (sometimes short-time) blacklisted, or sites which are falling under certain kinds of abuse which are also not spam (off-site requests to push a link, malware sites, redirect sites, sites with a spam-incentive (freehosting sites which pay users when links to the documents they created are followed, I always have problems describing these clearly), etc.

We might want to include some grey areas, and how to positively handle them, like the grey area of totally unreliable sites, sites where the large majority of the documents are copyright violations, sites which are, besides widely used appropriately, hopelessly abused by some others, etc. I do NOT mean that we have to set up too strict rules for these, but more guidelines for emergency and non emergency handling of these.

The rewrite version is Spam blacklist/Rewrite for now, I suggest that when we get to a generally agreed version, that we do a history merge on the rewrite and Spam blacklist. I will drop some more points in there, delete/rewrite/whatever as appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:02, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Exception for special use?
Is there a possibility to allow an exception for use in special cases, like a link to Wikipedia's official merchandise page at cafepress.com in Merchandise, just as in Store, in order to demonstrate the current offer of Wikipedia stuff? Mikael Häggström (talk) 20:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Never mind, it's done now. Thanks Quiddity! Mikael Häggström (talk) 19:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Trojan
Not a spam issue but I'm not sure where else to ask. This url "www.austchartbook.com.au" gets reported on my home PC running Avast! as hosting a trojan horse and blocks access. My other PC uses Trend and is not reporting anything. The site is otherwise useful and is linked to from 79 articles. Is the site a hazard we should be blocking and if so should it be listed here? –Moondyne 04:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The site is all good now, so the question is moot. I have no idea why but there you go ...  –Moondyne 12:50, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Why is www.google.com/cse blacklisted?
I appologize if this is not the right forum, but does anyone know why www.google.com/cse has been blacklisted? (If this is the wrong forum for this question, please point me to the correct place. Thanks!)  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like to know this as well. I have been wanting to link a custom search engine WP:VG made for finding Reliable Sources and it says its blocked. What is the reason for this? Blake (Talk·Edits) 19:19, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

420chan.org
This is a legitimate site that is much larger than other, similar imageboards linked to in articles. There's a section about it in an article, even. Why the blacklist? If this stays, why not blacklist 4chan, fchan, and other similar sites? 65.95.59.5 (talk) 04:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Reason for entries
Is there a way to see the reason why individual entries are in the list? I just wanted to include a link to www.lyricsmode.com /lyrics/f/fred_astaire/lets_call_the_whole_thing_off.html, but I got a Spam filter notice. Now, this looks like a completely innocuous website to me, so I'd like to see how it got on the list. &mdash; Sebastian 20:15, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * lyricsmode.com created a page n their site encouraging people to spam wikipedia with lyricsmode.com links. Additionaly it fails our inclusion requirements along with a host of other policy violations and abuses. 1, 2.--Hu12 (talk) 14:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the comprehensive reply! When I looked at their cached page, I didn't find it as bad as it sounds - I thought with some improvements it could have become a nice tutorial. But I see, the WP:COPYRIGHT is still remaining. When I accessed the page, there was a video clip from a movie, which, when I clicked on it, said that it had been removed because of copyright issues. (If I recall correctly, I also saw an ad for Evony on their page, which fits the picture!) &mdash; Sebastian 18:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Lulu
At Lulu (company) there are various references to that company's web site, but the dots have been replaced by " dot " (for example [http://www dot lulu dot com/]). This results in links not being clickable and not going to the right web page. I tried fixing the URLs, but Wikipedia complained that the URLs are blocked. Why is that? The reference section in that article currently looks very strange. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.11.156 (talk) 14:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Forbidden communication on talk page?
In discussing the Munchausen by Internet article with another editor, I am trying to link to a potential case at amandabaggscontroversy, a blogspot page. I've tried the link and just the text of the link (using dot instead of .) and I am forbidden to do so on my talk page.

Why on my talk page? If it's somehow ideologically impossible to discuss this (feel me rolling my eyes), is there a way around it? --Moni3 (talk) 12:51, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I was able to save the link, and I see that it's linked on your user talk page in the comment by CommunityCenter station2 at 06:15, 22 September 2009 (UTC). What kind of error message are you getting?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Site possibly hosting malware
Could someone look at the discussions here and here about possible malware on the site politickernj.com, which is linked from over 200 pages? The concern is not spamming, but I'm hoping someone who frequents this page will be able to provide feedback about how we might best deal with the situation. So far it appears to be just a single report about a trojan, and I don't know if there is a easy way to validate whether it was a one-off problem or if the site is routinely distributing malware (intentionally or not). --RL0919 (talk) 21:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * http://safeweb.norton.com/report/show?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politickernj.com&.x=13&.y=13
 * http://www.unmaskparasites.com/security-report/
 * Seems clean on these sites, however http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/politickernj.com, did find a IRC/Flood trojan, details here, might have been a bad advert or false positive. However the download comes from ircask.com, which has the IRC/Flood.tool, IRC/Flood.dh trojan, I've added ircask.com to the BL.--Hu12 (talk) 16:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into this. The introduction to "unmaskparasites.com" alone made it worth the effort...a very nice tool.  I guess the malware link at "politickernj" was probably an exception to the rule, so I'll restore the article link.  I do believe the addition of ircask.com to the BL seems warranted. That being said, I'm confident the owner of politickernj.com would be less than happy with the " Warning: Dangerous Downloads " tag SiteAdvisor is applying to Google and Yahoo searches that display his website. Thanks again. JakeInJoisey (talk) 00:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Edit summaries
I've just tried to remove a copyvio from an article and included the url in my edit summary, but it triggered the spam filter notice. Is there any reason why this applies to edit summaries? PC78 (talk) 14:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Holocaust research project
Just tried to add a link to an image that is sourced to this project, and it's on the blacklist. Sorry if I've asked about this before (I have a vague memory of doing so), but I'm wondering why it's on the list. The link I wanted to add is http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/images/des%20greek%20jewry%20photo%203.jpg SlimVirgin  TALK  contribs 07:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Systempause
is just adding links to " http://www.worldinterestrates.info World Interest Rates table " (apparently a commercial site) and nothing else. JRSpriggs (talk) 05:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Archived discussions
Is there a way to search the discussions for the previous proposal that got VBS.tv blacklisted? Cptnono (talk) 10:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Found it.Cptnono (talk) 04:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Completely blocking blacklisted urls is overkill
Edits adding blacklisted urls should just be tagged for review, rather than being totally blocked. At most, we might restrict the adding of these urls to autoconfirmed users. It's an inconvenience to legitimate editors sometimes not to be able to add these urls. Tisane (talk) 07:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

What is a Wikipedia Spam Blacklist?
All articles should start with a definition of their subject, usually in the first sentence. Your first sentence says "MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist is a localized version of m:Spam blacklist."

First, what is a "blacklist" in the first place? Let's say someone accessed this article without knowing what a blacklist was. I doubt that the definition above would help. The two wikilinks in the first sentence directs you to two REGEX lists? What is REGEX? How is it used? The Wikipedia article on blacklist says it's a register of persons yet those two REGEX pages list words and websites.

Second, this is supposedly a "spam" blacklist. What does that mean? Again the article on spam talks about "unsolicited bulk messages"? Does this mean that if you access those websites, you will trigger bulk messages? To whom and by what mechanism? All the users of Wikipedia on their user page?

Or do you mean "Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product". How can the words in MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (such as "xqit") promote anything? How do the websites promote their product? (My guess is that these websites tried, at least in the past, to attach a "virus" (in the widest sense) onto any computer that accessed them. But this isn't stated anywhere!)

As an aside, you say in the "Spam filter notice" that "blacklisting indicates past problems with the link". What problems? Also, this page doesn't seem to be a guideline, except as a reference to other guidelines and talk pages. (I thought we weren't supposed to use talk pages except for discussion of the corresponding project or article page. You seem to be using some of them as actual working pages.)

I really think this is, at least partially, a tech page for REGEX users and/or users of the current blacklist mechanism in MediaWiki. How do these blacklists function in Wikipedia? The whole blacklisting mechanism as it's now constituted seems to be a clandestine office action, without consensus. Until you explain the workings of "blacklisting" as you use it here, you'll always be creating confusion whenever someone accesses this page. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 20:38, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Are you personally uncertain what a spam blacklist is/unable to figure out what's going on/etc, or is this complaint in honor of some hypothetical future reader who knows less than you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * You DO know this isn't an actual article, right? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

EVIDENCE people, EVIDENCE
its nice that wikipedia tries to block spam. HOWEVER when someone adds a link to a website in a reftag, and then their edit gets rejected, and we just see some wikipedia verbiage and jargon ... its not very informative or engaging.

it would be nice to know ---why--- sites are added onto the blacklist. in fact this sort of transparency is at the heart of every civilized organizational social structure for the past 3000 years. when soemone is banned, or ostracized or exiled, the basic fundamental requirement of a civilized culture is that there has to be a reason given.

right now, tht is not happening regarding wikipedia's blacklist.

to wit, i found this while trying to add a 'reflist' tag to some article or another. since someone had moneyweek.com in a reference, this failed. i have no idea why moneyweek.com is banned, but i think that wikipedia should make it rather easy to find out, instead of presenting me with a wall of jargon saying 'your edit was rejected'.

note to commenters: 1. i did not add a moneyweek.com link, someone else had earlier, and it was breaking the references section 2. i dont want a 'link to the list entry'... i want the 'your edit was rejected' page itself to link there. 3. wikipedia already does a somewhat decent effort of this regarding deleted pages, and discussions around that.

Decora (talk) 00:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to second that --Astrocom (talk) 06:18, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Third. Hard to figure out where a source is blacklisted or why. Cesiumfrog (talk) 14:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Why is this blocked
Why is the following link blocked?
 * http://teaching-strategies-mentorship.suite101·com/article.cfm/using_humor_as_a_learning_tool

I wanted to refer to it in policy discussions, regarding the use of humor essays. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * (I'm not sure). Note: Search "suite101.com in all namespaces except article. There are a few entries at MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Research Question: Blacklist stats
Sorry if this is not the right place to ask this question -- but it was the best I could find. I am researching Wikipedia spam. Of course, the nature of the blacklist means that edits containing blacklisted URLs cannot be committed. However, are there any statistics regarding how often the blacklist hits a REGEX match? Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 17:04, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Andrew, I don't know how you'd get that information. Maybe one of these people would know:
 * meta:System administrators


 * You might also look at these if you haven't already:
 * Researching Wikipedia
 * Research
 * Wikipedia talk:Research (your name comes up in a June 2010 discussion of researcher permissions)
 * mw:Extension:SpamBlacklist you might raise your question here:
 * mw:Extension talk:SpamBlacklist
 * mw:Manual:Combating spam
 * mw:Anti-spam features
 * mw:Spam Filter
 * mw:Manual:$wgSpamRegex
 * mw:Extension:SpamRegex


 * You've raised an interesting question. Also useful to know would be how "expensive" in terms of delays and resources our local and meta blacklists are.
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs) 19:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Can't save because of existing url's on blacklist
I just wanted to note that I am having trouble saving a page because of existing URLs in the document which apparently have subsequently been added to the blacklist. the page in question happens to have a lot of links and since the blacklist only tells you one site name at a time, it's really getting annoying, going back and forth, and I didn't even add these links! - Salamurai (talk) 01:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Could you point me to the document, and to the links that you want to insert. Are you talking about a revert of an edit?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 20:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Speedy Deletes with URLs
For copyright violations, the url of the web page is usually included - e.g. - however if the site is on a blacklist, then one cannot use that feature (unless one leaves out the http:// bit (as the example given - one I recently used). It become worse for users using twinkle, as twinkle fails to add the template and no warning is given and the page doesn't change. Would it be more sensible not to apply the blacklist to templated messages?  Ron h jones (Talk) 23:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No. That would circumvent the blacklist: one could add  to get http://tinyurl.com/blah, and that is just why it got blacklisted.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 20:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Dumb filter
I just lost an 2 hours worth of work. The filter told me to go back and remove the offending links which I obviously can't because it just returns back to the old version. I can't believe I'm still subject to blacklist anyway. Marcus  Qwertyus   23:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Amazon.com
Is Amazon on the blacklist? I added a reflist tag to Southern California Chinatowns (which is complaining it's missing a References tag) and the spam filter popped up.

If I edit without adding the reflist tag, it doesn't trip, but should since it's in the article; Shouldn't it trip the next time anyone edits anything, and not just when the reflist tag is added? 76.66.203.138 (talk) 06:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Vkontakte.ru
Why are vkontakte.ru and vk.com on the blacklist? Русские идут! (talk) 00:04, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Other languages/projects spamlists?
Hi, is there a place where the spamlists of other wikis are linked? Thanks Richiez (talk) 10:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

spam vs RS
On the various spam whitelist/blacklist pages, requests are being accepted or denied on the basis of whether the particular item is a reliable source or not. I do not consider this a valid criterion. The question needs to be whether the particular item desired to be whitelisted is spam or not. We should not be blocking sources because they are unreliable, we just remove them. An item in an otherwise unreliable source can be reliable for various reasons, so we judge them individually. There is certainly an overlap between the two, but all that is necessary for whitelisting should be evidence that this particular item is not a pure advertisement, not that it is reliable otherwise.  DGG ( talk ) 18:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Spam blacklist preventing archiving of talk page
I am getting repeated 'Spam filter notice's when attempting to archive an article talk page, due to the fact that there were a number of links to amazon.com on the archived threads. This means that I've got to go and remove all the links by hand (which is a pain). Is there any good reason to blacklist amazon, particularly on talk pages? HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

BLP blacklist
Is there a blacklist against a specific BLP violating domain? I know of a domain that seems to be promoted in places outside of Wikipedia that seems to be an attack site against a living person with many, many unsourced allegations and insults. Should I suggest it for blacklisting? WhisperToMe (talk) 22:38, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You can request it at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. Stifle (talk) 10:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Are jameslincolnray or suite101 blacklisted?
The link to a page on jameslincolnray.suite101.com produces a spam filter notice. Is that website blacklisted or is it an error? Happy editing! –p joe f (talk • contribs) 16:51, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

? Misericords UK blacklisted
I was editing the article Church of SS Peter & Paul, Weston in Gordano and added several citations. When I tried to save I got the banner informing me that I was trying to add a link to a blacklisted site (but not which one). After a process of elimination it seem to be a link to The Misericords UK page on this church (which I can't link to as it fires the filter). How can I tell why that site is on the blacklist and whether whatever the issue was still applies?&mdash; Rod talk 14:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Untrue statement in the subcat template
We should remove the subcat template's statement that this article describes a "Wikipedia behavioral guideline" that "is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow". That is simply untrue, since editors have no choice about this. The first sentence of the article body says it clearly: What this article documents is "a control mechanism that prevents" editors from certain behavior. --Rich Janis (talk) 07:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Need for review of this project page and the blacklist system
Seeing all the comments here that express disapproval of the way the blacklist is managed, or, at least, the way information about its management is presented to editors, I want to add my voice to the call for review of this project page and the blacklist system. I got to this project page from a link in an error message saying that my edit had a "link to a site registered on Wikipedia's blacklist". That error message turns out to have been factually incorrect, because the blocked site is NOT on Wikipedia's blacklist, but is on the global blacklist. So began yet another edior's unwelcome wild-goose chase.

At this project page I first found another untrue statement (see my previous comment, above), that this is just another, familiar, friendly Wikipedia behavioral guideline. That untruth sets up the page for being distrusted as, reading further, I found no option to use my own judgment in citing that URL. This blacklist and its related documentation, procedures, and practices are much more than simply "a control mechanism" to avoid some proven problems. To me, it all seems to be more Machiavellian than Wikipedian, due to the imbalance and unfairness--including internal inconsistency--of some aspects of the system.

If, as the article says, "blacklisting a URL should be used as a last resort against spammers", then it should be EASY for anyone questioning a blacklisting to find full documentation of that blacklisting, and delisting should be FAR easier than blacklisting. Instead, this project page applies the same "compelling evidence" standard to delisting as it does to blacklisting--a standard that is antithetical to free speech and assigns semi-permanent guilt because of original sin--and it further hampers delisting by having inadequate explanation of the process in this project page. As it stands now, this system evinces a distrust for editors by admins. Even this talk page support that conclusion, by the dearth of responses by admins to the issues posted by editors.

Also, I suggest that, since any specific instance of spamming is often a transient behavior, blacklisting, when justified, should first be applied for a limited time and then re-applied, if needed, for a longer time (just as spamming users are blocked temporarily and progressively before being banned).

Thank you. --Rich Janis (talk) 08:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

examiner.com
Odd I saved then a few moments late www.examiner.com was blacklisted. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aida_Rodriguez&action=historysubmit&diff=393456397&oldid=393452115 But no relevant change to the blacklist here or on meta? SRich Farmbrough, 17:16, 28 October 2010 (UTC).


 * Same happened on Buddhist prayer beads. This was saved 1 Nov with the link. Anybody? Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 3 November 2010 (UTC).


 * It's been on the local blacklist for many months, I'm not sure of technical details, so could not guess why links were temporarily allowed to save. WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/examiner.com might have clues. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'm asking for removal as the two links in htose articles looked good. Rich Farmbrough, 16:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC).

Come on, it is ridiculous/disingenuous to have this site in a blacklist! --gatopeich.- (talk) 20:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * What? Anything without the http protocol is fine. This seems like a major loophole. Marcus   Qwertyus   00:27, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * There has been a request at MediaWiki to unblock the url, which was rejected because the block was on English Wiki only. However, the wikilink to 'Proposed removals' leads back to MediaWiki Talk. We're going around in circles! Sionk (talk) 00:04, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean "there has been a request at meta to unblock the url" ? However, I cannot see anything recent over there. ("MediaWiki" is a namespace here at the en: wikipedia. (as well as the name of the software that it all runs on))
 * I searched the archives, and of the couple threads I glanced at, this one seemed the most insightful (giving reasons as to why examiner.com will not be unlisted, and why whitelisting for each link should instead be requested). HTH. —Quiddity (talk) 00:48, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Blacklisted sites as article subjects
Tried to make an Estonian version of the article Metapedia. Unfortunately, that only possible with removing all the references to the site itself. This is actually ridiculous. Some of the blacklisted sites are notable and we should provide information about them. There should be a workaround in this blacklist system, e.g. a possibility for overriding it by admins after an automated warning. --Oop (talk) 08:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree with both of the above comments. Why are we building censorship into the software?! groupuscule (talk) 10:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has a ridiculously biased article, "White Privilege," which suggests that white people enjoy special advantages over black people because of the color of their skin. I was attempting to balance the article by demonstrating areas in which blacks are permitted to engage in certain activities which whites are not, such as creating black-only organizations and alleging racism in response to remarks that are even minutely critical, and included a link to a Metapedia article on "black privilege."  The edit was blocked.  Thank you, Wikipedia, for demonstrating my point.  Biased, slanted articles critical of whites are fine, but attempting to balance them is prohibited.John Paul Parks (talk) 04:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Blacklisted URLs in edit summaries
I just removed a bunch of text from an article, text that had been copypasted from another site, with an edit summary of "removing content copypasted from [url]". But because that url was on the blacklist, I wasn't even allowed to mention it in the edit summary. I was looking for an explanation as to why this is the case (I haven't found one, but I assume there's a good reason), and I noticed that this page says: "Note that the blacklist only affects live links. Non-clickable URLs ... are not affected." Since this apparently isn't true, as urls in edit summaries are non-clickable, shouldn't this page make some mention of the exception? DoctorKubla (talk) 10:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * it prevents someone from using the edit summary as URL spam which would only be able to be acted on by admins. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  21:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Alright, well, I've added a note about this exception. DoctorKubla (talk) 14:51, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Software malfunction
Could someone with appropriate powers please undo edit 524023550 on Kratika Sengar, it triggers the blacklist block although I am actually trying to delete a black-listed blog url. Thank you. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Everything is working correctly. Under the message that pops up, it tells you specifically which link(s) are preventing the ability to save, in this case it was the URL's from www.india-forums.com. I've removed those links.--Hu12 (talk) 22:34, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay, so there were multiple links involved. Thanks. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Someone used the same link multiple times, however now the article needs some reliable sources. cheers--Hu12 (talk) 23:06, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Where is the list itself?
How do I peruse the list itself. Or search if a site is on it? TCO (talk) 21:02, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I would like to know this too. Want to find out why Examiner.com was put on the list and how to get it off? Omgoodnessme (talk) 10:37, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The list is at MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. You can request additions and removals at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. DoctorKubla (talk) 14:53, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

A similar function for disambiguation links?
Greetings. The disambiguation project would like to establish a system by which editors seeking to make an edit that would introduce a new disambiguation link to a page would be alerted to this situation before saving their edit, in much the same way that editors who seek to add a blacklisted external link are warned. I have been told at Edit filter/Requested that this can not be done through the edit filter, but that it may be done in the same way that the blacklist is done, with a library of suspect links. Can anyone provide some insight into how we can institute such a function? Cheers! bd2412 T 03:15, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Amazon marketplace blacklist
I just tried posting www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0201072254/?tag=wwwcampusboocom486-20&condition=used aas part of an answer on the reference desk and discovered it was blacklisted. Can't see what is matching this in the Regex or why it should be blocked.  Spinning Spark  10:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Not on the list, but blocked?
I recently added a link to a fine-looking investmentu article on nuclear power. When I tried to save, the wiki told me this was on the blacklist. After considerably more work than I think is warranted, I managed to find the blacklist, and the wikimedia version too, and the site in question doesn't appear to be on either - at least I can't Find it.

Anyone have any ideas here? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * what link? (remove the "http://" to enable posting it here). –Quiddity (talk) 19:15, 13 November 2013 (UTC)


 * www.investmentu.com/2013/January/us-nuclear-power-plants-going-the-way-of-coal-plants.html Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * (Just a preliminary FYI, I'm not very familiar with the blacklist, nor an admin. I just like hunting around for things, and seem to have this page on my watchlist for forgotten reasons... ;)
 * "investmentu" is in MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
 * My searches via the talkpage's archivebox failed, but manually searching the 5 older log pages yielded MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/log/start_to_2009, which links to this as the reason.
 * (Site search for more details)
 * I think MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist is your next step, if you want it removed. (Or alternatively MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist if you think just a single URL should be whitelisted).
 * HTH. :) –Quiddity (talk) 22:43, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice work Quiddity. Sadly there's not a lot of information recorded with the edit so I'm not sure why everything was blocked. Link wheel perhaps. So once something goes on the list, I guess it's just there forever. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:28, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Link wheel. I was not familiar with that term, so had to look it up. – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:24, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Reference Search
Why won't the soft ware allow me to add this to my subpage? Dloh cierekim  10:49, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * @Dlohcierekim:  I don't understand what you are asking. What specifically are you trying to add to your subpage? Can you post it here? If it's a link, then try removing the http:// so that it's not a link anymore. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:28, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia Reference Search by the WRS project. It was a relic from The Wikipedia Rescue Squadron. I guess it's less well known than I thought. It's a tailored Google search that supposedly filters out unuseful hits. I can click on it on my user page. I was hoping to offer it to other users to help them search for sourcing for their articles. The software won't let me. I cannot add it to the subpage I use to notify users of an article deletion. Thanks.  Dloh  cierekim  21:56, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. Seems like a useful tool... imagine that! a Google search that's devoid of any links to Wikipedia! I tried saving it to my user page: The following link has triggered a protection filter: google.com/cse – I'm guessing that cse means "custom search engine" – I'll see if I can figure it out. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:18, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Dloh  cierekim  02:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

—But I assume you want to know why the first one was blacklisted. – Wbm1058 (talk) 02:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This is blacklisted:
 * Google custom search
 * But if I add coop/ before the cse and remove the /home as you did, then it works:
 * Google custom search Google custom search
 * That curiosity is intellectual due to my OCD. If I can get it to work on new editors pages, and if I'm not violating a policy or consensus in the process, then that would be good. Dloh cierekim  03:35, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I added it to my deletion notification toll. Dloh cierekim  03:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

 \bgoogle\..{1,5}/cse\b  is a line in the Spam blacklist. It has the strings "google" and "/cse" in it, so I think this regular expression matches "google.com/cse". I had to learn enough about regex to support user:RMCD bot but I'm still just a novice at it. I bought Friedl's book (ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6) and sometime I'll get around to studying it. If that's what caused this blacklist, then the next step is to search the logs to find who added it, when and why. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:45, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

De-obfuscating google links
Occasionally editors search for things with Google, find useful references, and try to add Google's horrible long URL as a reference. Wikipedia won't allow the link because it includes (for example) google.com.au/url?. Experienced and/or technically knowledgeable editors extract the real URL from Google's convoluted link, and insert that as the reference but: Two recent examples I've seen discussed are:
 * It's a nuisance, and
 * Not everyone realises that/how it can be done.

Would it be technically possible for whatever software is detecting and blocking the link inclusion to instead remove the Google "wrapper" and simply insert the direct URL (after checking the new direct URL against the blacklist, of course)? The method for doing so is well known (and described in the aforementioned examples), and presumably ought to be able to be automated. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Admin edit to correct instructions needed
Please change should to MUST on MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/log, which is a talk page that is fully protected indefinitely. It will thereby match the "All additions to this blacklist MUST also be logged here" language found in the blacklist itself. --Elvey (talk) 19:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: The Logging entries on the blacklist section explains why they should be logged, based on that as long as the admin knows the reasoning it's their choice. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

remulve my site foxylex.dk to spam list
Please remulve my site foxylex.dk to spam list this site is Law Danish site - this is not spam received was confusion Thanks for understanding — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.204.156.232 (talk) 08:09, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Blacklist Ceiling Fan videos
User:David Beals and his socks have been very, very active recently, even on my own talk page. Since their primary purpose appears to be adding links to videos uploaded by "The Channel of Random Ceiling Fans" on YouTube, I propose that, if possible, we blacklist every one of this channel's videos to preempt more such additions (given there's almost definitely no real reason these would need to be added). Jinkinson  talk to me  22:39, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Blacklist Iranian state propaganda
The sort of funny entry of 2014 Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's speech at UN is based on Press TV, an Iranian state propaganda outlet, Michel Chossudovsky GlobalResearch and an unknown alternative news outlet called sleuth journal. All fail to fullfill basic reliability requirements. Its quite interesting that some users try to push that via DYK Template:Did you know nominations/2014 Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's speech at UN on the mainpage. I ask to blacklist both http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/ and http://www.presstv.ir. Serten (talk) 02:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't think we blacklist news outlets just because we consider them unreliable (and of course there might be legitimate reasons to cite them, e.g. for attributed opinion) - do you have any evidence that they are being spammed? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:04, 31 October 2014 (UTC)


 * The article itself has been spammed around, I haven't checked for Press TV in general. Point is, we need to have redirects for the sites, e.g. in the GlobalResearch case to Michel Chossudovsky. That said, I agree to close the caes here, if no further indication of broad spamming is to be found. Serten (talk) 10:17, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Aviation Business Gazette
Not sure what needs doing here (if anything), but I came across this: Article Claiming FAA Praised Germanwings Co-Pilot as ‘Positive Example’ Is Fake (a Newsweek article). I then did an external links search and based on that removed the site from three articles/drafts:, ,. Should that 'Aviation Business Gazette' site be added to the blacklist to prevent people thinking it is a reliable source? As far as I can tell, it is a (poor) attempt at a link farm (or whatever the correct term is for this spamming-like approach). Carcharoth (talk) 23:39, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Ad load a valid reason to blacklist?
A site, steamlocomotive.com], is being discussed at WP:RSN to discuss the reliability of its content. Regardless of RSN's decision, it has already been listed at Spam-blacklist on the grounds that it "strains credulity given the ad load of the site" and that (despite what RSN might yet decide) it is "Not a reliable source."

What is the "ad load" for a site to be banned? If so, when do we start banning the national newspaper sites? After all, these are chock full of ads. Unsurprisingly we don't question them. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

PDF-files
I've noticed some innocent and useful sources are blocked only because a PDF-file is automatically opened. I haven't been able to see any other reason atleast. No rascism or porno but mainly "dull" stuff. But this is annoying, in cases when one wants to use the source in articles. Especially in topics where good soures are hard to find. Boeing720 (talk) 14:09, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Not a very useful article
This is not a very useful article. It should clearly link to where to find the actual blacklist and, more importantly, how to figure out why a particular site is on it. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 13:49, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It does link to the actual blacklist in the first paragraph, but I had to poke around quite a bit to see why examiner.com is blocked. Not the most user-friendly, I agree. Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 12:01, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

False positive from an old link
An examiner.com link on this page prevented me from saving edits to that page even though I hadn't actually added the link myself. I don't know if that always happens, but I broke up the link and thought I'd bring this to someone's attention so any talk page with a blacklisted link doesn't effectively become super-protected. --BDD (talk) 17:25, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

YouTube blacklisted?
I tried to insert links to youtube videos on the talk part of the article "Danny Gatton", which i believed may documentate a point i wanted to raise... Cannot save as the official redirection service of youtube (youtu.be) seem to be blacklisted. Weird i think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.137.195.164 (talk) 14:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * While youtu.be is blacklisted, youtube.com is not blacklisted. You can still add a link to the video, just copy the address from the address bar. If you want to add a timestamp, you can do that too, but you must add it with an ampersand before it instead of a question mark. Why youtu.be is blacklisted though, I have no idea. —Kri (talk) 21:09, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

You blacklisted the NEW YORK TIMES??
nytimes.com/2016/04/17/magazine/the-battle-over-the-sea-monkey-fortune.html? you people are insane — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.148.107.44 (talk) 22:08, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * No, nytimes.com is not blacklisted. I can link to it here just fine, and it is used as a reference or an external link on literally thousands of pages on Wikipedia.  Deli nk (talk) 10:35, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

URL shortening services should be allowed in edit summaries.
It makes perfect sense that URL redirection services should not be allowed to go into articles.

However, I was surprised to learn that URL shortening services (like TinyURL) can't be used in edit summaries. Given the limited number of characters for an edit summary, this is the perfect place to use a URL shortening service.

How can we get this policy changed? 75.163.136.157 (talk) 14:16, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Avoiding blacklist with protocol relative URLs
Example in the url field. Note also the archiveurl where the source URL protocol was left off entirely and thus wasn't caught by the spam filter, but the URL still works. That is, it should be ../web/20060721151130/http://www.petiti... and not https://web.archive.org/web/20060721151130/www.petitiononline.com.. the later works as a URL but avoids the spam filter. -- Green  C  18:57, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata Query Short URLs are blocked
When you run a query on Wikidata at https://query.wikidata.org there is a links button with a "Short URL to Result" generator option. But as it produces a tinyurl.com link, you then block it from being saved. Can tinyurl.com be whitelisted for use on User pages? I don't want to have to expand the URL to the full code, or save the tinyurl as plaintext, not a link, to be able to save it. Or can Wikipedia/Wikidata/Wikimedia ensure that all of its INTERNAL tools are able to be used effectively across all sites and not use external services that you block. The-Pope (talk) 15:23, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Well
So Danzig's Mother is registered on Wikipedia's blacklist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.230.4.167 (talk) 23:43, 7 December 2017 (UTC)