Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Apr

archive

newsmax.com links
See:
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar

I notice we now have 635 newsmax.com links -- is this an increase from earlier this month? --A. B. (talk) 02:26, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I can see no harm in linking to a reputable news site. WP probably has thousands of links to BBC.co.uk. The question is NewsMax.com a legit/reputable site? Are these links being added by lots of different users or one user (and/or sockpupets)? - Just my two pence. -- Rehnn83 Talk 10:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The number of links is up by a couple of hundred. The issues for me are (1) it is a heavily advertised site (2) is seems to be a link campaign by users linked to the site (3) reputation is marginal/second tier. --BozMo talk 10:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * here's another SPA to check out. Femto 10:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC) (the same "it was reported" routine)
 * Well spotted. I have had a couple of goes of trying to find who is still adding them but its a TDS process. --BozMo talk 11:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Now this is interesting: - the familiar style, and note the POV edits to Christopher Ruddy (founder of newsmax). Newsmax.com resolves to 64.135.21.3 (range 64.135.0.0 - 64.135.127.255: BroadbandONE, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida). Femto 11:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * - generously adding 'references' to newsmax's list of 'most influential radio hosts'. This diff shows him edit the same article only 11 minutes after the 64.135 IP. Coincidence, huh? Femto 11:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Aside from the earlier listed, I've found no other recent & obvious suspects, according to Veinor's linkcount Femto 13:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * stats_bot output in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Spam/newsmax.com links; Betacommandbot list WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch/newsmax.com --Dirk Beetstra T  C 14:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Just adding User:CharlieTC to this list o' NewsMax editors. --ElKevbo 14:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Given that the site has no special content and it has persistent sockpuppet linkspam campaigners I think we probably will end up having to blacklist it. --BozMo talk 15:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've got a question for Femto and this string. Just because someone wants to add insight, does not mean it's spam. For example, the Top 25 list by Newsmax is a true picture of the Talk Radio scene, only their own list. I actually considered adding this stat to all the entries of the list, myself, but just never had the time. I'm glad to see someone else took the time to do so. It might just be that innocent! Talk Radio is all about ratings, and these stats help the individuals stay on top or move up the ladder. To have Femto going around and simply deleting the entry is POV in my opinion. Pose the question on the talk page and go from there. The Boortz article was added by me and not some sock puppet, and was reverted by another editor. It was a good move in my opinion.--User: (talk) 19:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Basically if you wanted me to include a "top XYZ" list on the article entries for the list you would have to convince me the list itself was notable. Otherwise you my as well add "Joe Bloggs likes this band" to random articles. --BozMo talk 17:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Bad analogy. I am not including some blog list...comeon! And as mentioned, in the radio industry, ratings is everything, and Newsmax does carry a respect and following in the journalistic community. It is still POV to remove the entries as Femto has. He is the one who has to do the selling, not me. --User: (talk) 18:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * "respect and following in the journalistic community"... not what I heard... anyway if true establishing notability for this list should be a piece of cake? --BozMo talk 19:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * See above, there is sufficient evidence that the Art2006 account added these links in violation of Wikipedia's neutrality policy. As I already told you, I have no idea why or why not this list would be relevant to some 20 articles. I just removed the entries as the spam that they were. Accusing me of POV for this is just silly. So we're back to square one, and since the notability seems disputed, any good editor who wants to include this content should establish consensus first. Femto 21:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Femto 1) You did not tell me that that you didn't see relevance, however, specifically speaking of the Boortz article, we explained the relevance in it as well as above in this string. 2) You reverted the Boortz entry when this Art2006 person did not even make the entry, so yes, you're rv. was in fact POV. 3) You are one person saying that it is not relevant, however, clearly the consensus and authors quickly reverted your edit to the Boortz entry. In all fairness, if you found that Art2006 is spamming, then you should only focus on his entries and not venture into articles where he did not even make an entry. Then again, as I originally pointed out, it could have been some passerby, who saw the list and wanted to add to the names listed in the article. I thought of it, not as a spam thing, but as additional info for the talk radio circuit. Anyway, think about that next time before reverting someone other than the suspected spammer. --User: (talk) 18:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Talk:Neal Boortz - I assumed that if you replied to my comment, you read it. 2) - Um... ? 3) What exactly is the remaining point? Femto 19:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * For the record, I added that stat, but it somehow got changed or didn't take. Bygons! --User: (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just blocked one week for continuing the spam. Femto 19:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

http://www.funkstyler.com and related

 * Spam sock accounts


 * Other sites spammed

Adsense pub-3733360336386994 http://www.colonoscopy-prep.com http://www.37minutes.com
 * --Hu12 20:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Colonoscopy and dance howto sites by the same spammer seems really odd. I noticed that User_talk:220.239.174.39 has added multiple external spam links to http://www.thecwalker.com which lists NS1.FUNKSTYLER.COM as a domain server. All the links to   are cleaned, not sure who did it, but I thought I should mention yet another link. (Requestion 22:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC))

http://www.antonkisieldesigns.com

 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 23:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I received this from one of the most recent IP address adding the links. Just FYI. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Underwater photography
The External Links section becomes excessive list of professional photographer list. I've tried to clean them but I got resistance by the editor. Can anybody weighing in the discussion here? Thanks. &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 16:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

scriptlogic.com
The company Scriptlogic has been spamming Wikipedia since October 2005. See also MaSaI_Solutions. In total about about 35 external links have been added.


 * Special:Linksearch/*.scriptlogic.com

socks
 * whois reports an owner of Scriptlogic, diffs
 * created the Scriptlogic page and has blanked their talk page twice
 * created 3 Scriptlogic products stubs that were RfD'd
 * created the Scriptlogic page and has blanked their talk page twice
 * created 3 Scriptlogic products stubs that were RfD'd
 * created 3 Scriptlogic products stubs that were RfD'd

The 4 spam warnings were issued and the final warning was violated multiple times. This persistent link has become very troublesome. I recommend blacklisting of the scriptlogic.com domain and I recommend deletion of the promotional and non-notable Scriptlogic and MaSaI_Solutions articles. (Requestion 21:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC))


 * I added several diffs for easier verification to the 65.248.131.254 IP address because many of those spam edits are buried amongst good edits. (Requestion 17:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC))

Blacklisting IP addresses.
Many of the proxies on internet which can be used to get around the spam blacklisting on meta or on shadowbot use IP-numbers. Also, all pages accessable via the domain-name can also be accessed via the IP-number, which makes blacklisting double task. A simple and quick solution would be to meta-blacklist all IP numbers. But before that can be done, we might need to make an inventory if there are (many?) IP numbers which cannot be circumvented. I will put Google here, which can (and should) be circumvented). Does anyone know of others that might cause problems, or other reasons why IPs should not be banned?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 22:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Should the main discussion take place at meta, since this would affect all wikis? Or maybe WP:EL since a prohibition of IP links would also be covered there. I think it's generally a good idea, having seen someone trying to sneak their blacklisted links back in through an IP myself. Sounds like a lot of cleanup work though; I'm currently counting 5652 links referenced by their IP address on the en:wiki. Femto 12:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Possible problems with IP blacklisting

 * 1) Google cache.  Google cache pages make use of an IP, but when loading the google cache (e.g. a cached page of the wikiproject spam, it shows in the header "To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:evl_msrvjhQJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam+wikiproject+spam&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=opera".  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 22:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Redirect/cache sites
Both and  are ways to bypass the blacklist. I've been told both of these sites are blacklisted but I keep seeing them pop up. Plenty of hits from both with linksearch. (Requestion 22:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC))
 * Citebite is currently not blacklisted, becuase it is being used for the greater good atm. (the site saves a copy of the page that you re-direct to, therefore it is good for saving copies of newspapers ect, that don't up long enough, and are not archived by any of the major archive services. If that situation changes, it will be blacklisted. Tinyurl should be blacklisted. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 02:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you sure citebite.com works like that? I was under the impression that it is a mashup variation of tinyurl.com with the addition of #anchor names and yellow highlighting. Citebite.com even has obfuscated URL's just like tinyurl.com. (Requestion 17:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC))

DermAtlas
User:Hu12 and I disagree on how to handle links Johns Hopkins University's DermAtlas, so I wanted to get some feedback from the broader community. Context is available at User talk:Clehmann. (The user is apparently Dr. Christoph Lehmann.) I requested mediation, and he recommended this forum. --Arcadian 01:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Recent investigations has revealed a long term WP:COI spam campaign originating from Johns Hopkins U. using wikipedia as a link farm to act as a directory for an external reference (or in this case image library) source. Details are as folows.


 * Link search
 * Spam sock accounts

The first to appear on my radar was 162.129.70.42 contributions, Reference talk page User talk:162.129.70.42. Note: IP 162.129.70.42 NetRange which added these links originates from The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Baltimore, Maryland, from NameServer: ENS1.JHMI.EDU, and User talk:Clehmann is apparently Dr. Christoph Lehmann, founders of Dermatlas. These two are both the same person as evudenced by the signature on Talk:Acne. 70.22.99.76 is a verizon IP, most likely a home internet connection. All contributions have been external links only, with few other edits outside this topic. Policies on WP:SPAM, WP:EL and WP:COI are quite clear on this matter. Spamming is about promoting a site or a site you love, not always about commercial sites at all. Links to commercial sites are often appropriate. Links added (such as this case) for the purpose of using Wikipedia to promote that site are not appropriate. Only additions from these IP's have been removed, all good faith non- conflicts of interest edits remain as per the guidelines.--Hu12 02:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * While I'm pretty aggressive in removing commercial links with medical topics, I think this particular one looks fine. There's no advertising. It's not a promotional vehicle for someone's practice. I have no issue with it Droliver 02:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Spamming is about promoting a site you love, not always about commercial sites at all. Links to commercial sites are often appropriate. Links added (such as this case) for the purpose of using Wikipedia to promote DermAtlas are not appropriate. The manner of which they were added was bad faith despite the disposition of the link itself and never confers a license to spam Wikipedia even if it's true.  Adding external links to an article for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be WP:SPAM. Repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed.--Hu12 03:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * My opinion is somewhat the opposite of Droliver's: normally, I give an obvious medical expert some additional leeway in their addition of external links. But do we really need three separate external links for the DermAtlas database in the DermAtlas article, including one for "Submit an image" and another for "Add a link"? Those two seem inappropriately promotional to me.
 * I haven't yet had a chance to review all of the edits in User:Clehmann's history, and on first glance it does look a little suspicious, but I'm assuming that's not the issue of current conflict between Arcadian and User:Hu12. Query for Arcadian: why do you think all three links should be included at DermAtlas? -- Satori Son 02:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The most obvious problem is the COI. If the editors would just suggest the links be added on the talk pages of the articles instead, there wouldn't be much of a problem.  A good solution would be for the editors to first explain that they think DermAtlas is a useful link for a specific group of articles, then propose inclusion of the DermAtlas link on a few article talk pages, with a link to the explanation as well. --Ronz 02:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess I'm confused. What specific dispute needs mediation? Does Arcadian support all of the edits made by editor(s) and  or is this just about the DermAtlas article? It would perhaps be helpful if Arcadian made a brief statement outlining what resolution they are seeking. -- Satori Son 03:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Throws me off a bit as well. Not sure what needs to be mediated. Other than catching WP:SPA spam accounts and following policy, no action on good faith edits have been taken. I am a little concerned about the statement by Arcadian made on User_talk:162.129.70.42, spam by any means is not appropriate, and definatly not commendable.--Hu12 03:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment If we are having this discussion, why hasn't Dr. Lehmann been invited to participate?  I don't think these are sock puppets.  He's probably just working from multiple computers, forgetting to login.  We want to encourage him to participate while informing him about relevant policies.  I can assure you that talking about him behind his back is not the best way to do this!  Jehochman (Talk/Contrib) 03:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Dr. Lehmann did respond here and then 18 days later spammed again here . It should also be noted that the only thing Dr. Lehmann has contributed to Wikipedia so far is a bunch of external links. (Requestion 18:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC))


 * Comment Hu12 has a sterling record as an anti-spam fighter, yet this situation ought to be handled with considerably more diplomacy and an assumption of good faith. This appears to be a professor from a leading medical school who, in all likelihood, has simply gone a little overboard in supplying links to a reliable online reference he knows well.  I'm going to invite him to this conversation and I'm also taking the liberty of removing the final warning from his user talk page, which ought not to have been left without first attempting to engage the editor and inform him of the relevant policies.  Perhaps at some juncture it would be appropriate to block him, but ethical standards in both the medical and the academic professions are high and I don't regard blocking as imminent here.  Durova Charge! 03:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure on the appropriateness of User:Durova removing User:Hu12's spam warning. The reasons for the warning are 100% valid but a final warning in this case may be a little harsh. Personally I would of started with a spam2 warning on March 5 and then elevated that to a spam3 warning on March 29. Plus the spam warnings contain helpful links to things like WP:NOT, so removing the warnings also removes the helpful pointers that User:Clehmann evidently needs. (Requestion 18:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC))


 * Note: Final warning was issued 5 March 2007 . Previous and leading to the final warning 46 link additions by the related IP's were spammed. Subsequently after and ignoring the final warning 24 link additions were added to Wikipedia from the The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions server. --Hu12 04:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Fist and formost Spam is Vandalism, however other forms have been found. According to WP:VAND Link vandalism states Modifying internal or external links within a page so that they appear the same but link to a page/site that they are not intended to. An instance of this appears here. Also a bit of sneaky vandalism occured here, in an attempt to change the template to link directly to dermatlas. Both edits were from the NameServer: ENS1.JHMI.EDU at Johns Hopkins --Hu12 04:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment I've reviewed the link added to tuberous sclerosis. I think it was superior to some of the other link-to-picture entries this article attracts so have restored it and removed the others. Some medical sites concentrate on the gross and extreme cases of a disease, which IMO isn't useful. This one appears to have a random sample of pictures of patients - not just the worse. The link was originally added by 162.129.70.42, which would appear to be registered to The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. I agree with Hu12 that this is unacceptable per WP:EL. I don't accept that "it is useful" is a reason to break policy, which is quite clear that the link should have been suggested on a talk page or the site publicised and discussed on WikiProject Medicine – for others to consider adding. The template DermAtlas could be useful, but IMO should have two parameters: ID and Name. Colin°Talk 08:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Discussing the quality merits of external link spam is a slippery slope. Why should academic link spam be acceptable and other forms not? Just because someone has a PhD doesn't give them some form of entitlement to spam Wikipedia. I've seen quite a few highly respected editors slide in external link references to their published works. Being a distinguished Wikipedia reference increases their academic clout. How is this any different than a common spammer adding a couple links to their pet project? One difference is trying to remove a respected academic link would start a major revert war which is something the common spammer usually doesn't engage in. I view this troublesome thread as an important precedent and I hope some sort of consensus can be reached. When is it OK to spam Wikipedia? (Requestion 19:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC))


 * While I disagree with some of the statements above, I am satisfied with the current state of the messages at User talk:Clehmann. I want to thank the users who helped provide a more appropriate tone there, and I want to thank you all for your contributions to the process. --Arcadian 03:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait, You asked for this discussion and haven't stated why. When is it OK to spam Wikipedia?--Hu12 07:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * No word from Dr. Clehmann. Linksearch still shows 51 dermatlas external links. No comment on my important academic link spam question. I don't think they want to discuss this. Ignoring the problem is not a way to resolve it. I think some warnings should be re-added to User talk:Clehmann, at least for the informative value they supply.  Do I have a consensus? (Requestion 16:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC))

Link Controversy at Interactive voice response
See Talk:Interactive voice response An anonymous user User talk:68.227.193.153 operating under multiple IPs (one of whose addresses originates from the parent company of Angel dot com, an IVR software company) has been aggressively attempting to add external links to this article. He also has been adding links to other articles and has had at least 5 warnings to stop. After the last warning, he threatens to bring IVR community members in to support him, which apparently he has done (1 new user and another relatively new one). It is difficult to judge the neutrality of these users, but one must assume good faith.

History: Angel dot com has a history of spamming WP over the last few years and has their links removed repeatedly. The last project was buiding a list of IVR terms (copied from other sites) and advertising prominently Angel on the top and then attempting to link this to this article. This same anonymous user attempted this on at least 4 other articles and the links were removed by other editors as well.

The latest attempt by this user is to link to a forum website called gethuman.com authored by an individual Paul English who is promoting himself through blogs and speaking engagements. Several months ago another group of anonymous users attempted to add EL's to this site in an organized attempt to promote this website. There appear to be many issues here including WP:EL (Forum website and links promoting a website), WP:NOT (WP is NOT a soapbox), WP:NPOV and WP:COI.

I have pointed out these conflicts, but the anonymous user still persists and feels he is being censored for not being allowed to add his links to his websites. He is already at the 4 warning limit.

I would appreciate any input and assistance here as I am sure this user is lobbying others. Calltech 12:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * In my initial comments at Talk:Interactive voice response, I have simply tried to take a neutral role and calm things down a little. It would now be helpful if other Project members could stop by and give their opinion on the link itself. -- Satori Son 13:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your efforts here, Satori Son. Calltech 13:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think I am the 'relatively new' user mentioned above. I think the gethuman.com link is very worthy of consideration, if you have a look at what it is doing (But I don't claim to be up on all the details of the WP guidelines). But I agree User talk:68.227.193.153 hasn't been going about it in an appropriate way... He (can't you smell the testosterone...) needs to calm down if he wants to get anywhere. And 4 warnings already isn't a very good run. I would simply request of the ed's that the link be considered on its merits (perhaps with more appropriate reference context), ignoring the history of the original submitter. Keep up the good work eds. Peter nann 00:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Peter, thanks for contributing here and your comments on the talk page were sound and thoughtful. The resolution may be as you suggested.  There appears to be a history of conflict and at time mutual promotion between the Paul English website and his followers and Angel dot com English v. Angel.  Angel has a history of dirty tricks, using false ID's to appear to be neutral while promoting themselves, ala Kate Robins.


 * Any contributions in this area should come from neutral and unbiased editors that are not promoting their products or an agenda WP:NPOV. Calltech 13:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Medical Spam gfmer.ch
Adsense pub-9360421559178622
 * Spam sock accounts

Over 127 links were added by the namesake Gfmer(gfmer.ch) and his/her IP. These additions have been removed per WP:SPAM, WP:EL and WP:COI, but watch for future resurgence.--Hu12 02:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes there is many links on other wikis, see WP:WPSPAM/CrossWiki. I'm currently busy with other stuff, so if someone wants to go through and verify that those have not been spammed recently feel free. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to peer-review nominations for editorial review
I have a serious concern: a recent article I consulted had a bright blue box "An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article doesn't satisfy the notability guidelines...".

OK, fine. Someone with the label "editor" thinks that this article "doesn't matter". He (or she) is entitled to his (or her) opinion. But why do I have any reason to think the "editor" has any interest in this area? If I didn't care about math or physics, maybe I'd mark the article on the Lorentz transformation as "doesnt satisfy MY notability guidelines".

Back to my point: the "editor" is entitled to his/her opinion, but I question two facets of Wikipedia:


 * Why should someone with the term "editor" get to establish this bright blue box?
 * Why should the editor's name be withheld? If this editor has a passion for squelching articles on a particular topic, then his/her bias might show through, and such nominations for "doesn't matter" should be discarded summarily, or at least peer-reviewed.

Proposals:


 * Nomination for such markings should be reviewed by an editorial panel. If 5 editors on a random panel of 10 agree that an article is questionable, perhaps only then should the article be nominated for talk
 * When used, the legend of the box should be changed to "editor [EditorsName] has expressed...".

Thanks for your consideration.... Harasty 13:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry - why is this here? You would probably be better off discussing this elsewhere, particularly the Talk page of the specific template about which you are concerned.
 * And by the way, we're all "editors" who contribute to Wikipedia. --ElKevbo 14:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * And since Harasty is suggesting a fairly drastic change to our policy of allowing any editor to use clean-up tags, they should probably post this at Village pump (policy). My humble opinion is that a requirement so restrictive and cumbersome would get very little traction. Good luck, though. -- Satori Son 17:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

xfile007.blogspot.com (Munblog) spam
Spammed 26 articles despite warningsand was blocked by Hu12. Has since started using dynamically-assigned, shared IPs to slip links back in one edit at a time:

Linking data:
 * www.xfile007.blogspot.com

Adsense ID: pub-0200510607275883

Accounts adding these links:
 * Blocked 21 March 2007
 * Blacklisted on njabl.org.
 * Blacklisted on njabl.org.
 * Blacklisted on njabl.org.

Affected articles: --A. B. (talk) 16:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Anorexia nervosa
 * Aqua Aerobics
 * Arthritis
 * Asbestos
 * Bedwetting
 * Benign prostatic hyperplasia
 * Binge eating disorder
 * Body fat percentage
 * Cholesterol
 * Coronary heart disease
 * Cramp
 * Eating disorder
 * Exercise-induced asthma
 * Halitosis
 * Herpes zoster
 * Hyperhidrosis
 * Migraine
 * Miss Universe 2006
 * Nut allergy
 * Peanut allergy
 * Pick-up line
 * Prostate
 * Prostate cancer
 * Scoliosis
 * Steroid
 * Wrinkle
 * Blacklisted on meta —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Later stuff:
 * meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/04
 * meta:Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/05/Additions: Done
 * meta:Talk:Spam blacklist (permanent link)
 * -- A. B. (talk) 12:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

whitemountainsworld.com, esperantio.com and survivaltopics.com
Affected articles (English language Wikipedia only):
 * Berlin, New Hampshire
 * Capilene
 * Clothing terminology
 * Combustion
 * Covered bridge
 * Crawford Notch
 * Debris shelter
 * Dorn
 * Esperanto
 * Filter (water)
 * Fire
 * Fire classes
 * Fire extinguisher
 * Fire triangle
 * Fossil
 * Four-thousand footers
 * Hypothermia
 * Imp Mountain
 * Insect repellent
 * Jerky (food)
 * Meal, Ready-to-Eat
 * New Hampshire
 * Nuclear warfare
 * Pemmican
 * Presidential Range
 * Red Adair
 * Sea kayak
 * Search and rescue
 * Sleeping bag
 * Solar water disinfection
 * Survival kit
 * Survival knife
 * Survival skills
 * Survivalism
 * Ten Essentials
 * Urban warfare
 * Water
 * White Mountain National Forest
 * White Mountains (New Hampshire)
 * White Mountains Region
 * Wildfire

Linking data:
 * www.whitemountainsworld.com
 * [ List] of pages with these links
 * www.survivaltopics.com
 * [ List] of pages with these links
 * esperantio.com
 * [ List] of pages with these links on en.wikipedia
 * List of pages with these links on eo.wikipedia
 * List of pages with these links on el.wikipedia
 * List of pages with these links on et.wikipedia
 * www.epaleo.com
 * [ List] of pages with these links
 * www.northernforestcanoetrail.com
 * [ List] of pages with these links
 * www.americandiscoverytrail.org
 * [ List] of pages with these links

Adsense ID: 5726122914499591

Accounts adding these links:
 * RobertRogers (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status) previously warned
 * Rfontaine (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * 69.205.8.94 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) Blocked
 * 69.24.8.179 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) previously warned
 * 68.169.217.62 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) many of these edits were actually link deletions
 * 68.169.221.230 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) previously blocked

--A. B. (talk) 18:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted on meta —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

http://www.quantcode.com
Adsense pub-2757884200825666
 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 20:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

www.famousamericans.net & related
famousamericans.net is being spammed to articles about figures and events in American history and it appears that someone bought up domains with names of famous Americans.. and redirected them to this site.. http://www.jamesmonroe.net/ is one example.

Spamming in the last 24hrs has been done by Special:Contributions/24.94.139.230, There are over 500 mainspace links to famousamericans.net alone, this doesn't include all of the other domains that redirect there. --Versageek 04:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Just a note, User:MichaelBillington beat me and has reverted all the links added by that IP. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 04:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

More info: http://www.famousamericans.net is a subsection of http://virtualology.com, the individual name domains go to subpages of this site. This site is probably a useful resource as a reference in some cases, but there is really no need to add links to it and/or it's related domains to every article on Wikipedia that is related to American History (or other topics covered by the Virtualology project) - doing so is a clear-cut case of spamming, especially given that the site makes liberal use of googleAds.

This is a list of > 60 domains related to the Virtualology.com site:

TheDeclarationofIndependence.org, AbigailAdams.net, JohnHancock.org, CharlesThomson.com , JosiahBartlett.com, MatthewThornton.net, WilliamWhipple.com , John-Adams.org, SamuelAdams.net, ElbridgeGerry.com, JohnHancock.org , RobertTreatPaine.com , SamuelHuntington.org, RogerSherman.net, WilliamWilliams.com, OliverWolcott.com , WilliamEllery.com , StephenHopkins.com , WilliamFloyd.net, FrancisLewis.com, PhilipLivingston.com , LewisMorris.com , AbrahamClark.com, JohnHart.net, FrancisHopkinson.com, RichardStockton.net, JohnWitherspoon.com , GeorgeClymer.com, BenjaminFranklin.org, Robert-Morris.com, JohnMorton.net, GeorgeRoss.net, BenjaminRush.com, James-Smith.net, GeorgeTaylor.net, JamesWilson.org , ThomasMcKean.com, GeorgeRead.org, CaesarRodney.net , CharlesCarrollofCarrollton.com, SamuelChase.com, WilliamPaca.com, ThomasStone.com , CarterBraxton.net, BenjaminHarrison.com, Thomas-Jefferson.net, FrancisLightfootLee.com, RichardHenryLee.com, ThomasNelsonJr.com, GeorgeWythe.net , JosephHewes.com, WilliamHooper.com, JohnPenn.com , ThomasHeywardJr.com, ThomasLynchJr.com, ArthurMiddleton.com, EdwardRutledge.com , Georgia - Signers, ButtonGwinnett.com, Lyman-Hall.com, GeorgeWalton.com , JohnDunlap. net, MaryKatherineGoddard.com, TimothyMatlack.com, JohnTrumbull.com, WilliamJStone.com, JohnQAdams.com, George-Washington.org.

--Versageek 17:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I have invited the IP who has been posting these links to participate in this discussion, some explaination may be found on his talk page. --Versageek 01:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

traffixsystems.com and open3gpp.org
Both of these domains are owned by a "Ben Volkow." Over the past 2+ months about 25 external links have been added.


 * Special:Linksearch/*.traffixsystems.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.open3gpp.org

socks

The 4 spam warnings were issued and the final warning was violated. I recommend blacklisting. (Requestion 21:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC))


 * I have filed an RFCU request at Requests for checkuser/Case/3GPP guru. Based on results there, hopefully all four of these accounts can be blocked as well. -- Satori Son 21:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like the checkuser request was declined but that isn't much of a loss. A whois on the two domains reports an owner of "Benjamin Volkow" with either a physical address or a DNS nameserver in Israel. A whois on the three IP sock addresses also resolves to Israel. So that pretty much pinpoints the source. The only unknown is the User:3GPP_guru but spamming behavior looks identical. (Requestion 22:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC))

healthadel.com

 * healthadel.com

Healthadel.com linksearch

Several editors, apparently spas, have added links to healthadel.com over the last three months or so:



... and there are probably more. They add the links three or four at a time with edit summarys like "small change" or "update new information," then they add more later using a new user account. I caught the pattern today because I watch ulcerative colitis as a patient and as an RN, and that site's article on UC isn't a good article.

The site doesn't have any ads, but it's written by only one person and isn't about science - it's mostly opinion. I've looked at most of their pages and a lot of their info is incorrect or incomplete. ELs to the site don't belong here. I've got it on my list and I'm working through deleting the ELs. - Krakatoa  Katie  20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Back today with a new account:
 * Maneroof (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * I will request blacklisting. --A. B. (talk) 18:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Blacklisting declined. --A. B. (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at Choose Your Own Adventure?
The external links section is loaded with sites not related to the books, I placed a "linkfarm" tag on there 2 months ago but non-specific links are still being added, mostly to promote "similar" games/projects. I'm not sure what to remove. 172.202.30.200 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, someone removed the linkfarm tag without removing any of the unrelated links. I'd try to fix the section myself but I'm not on Wikipedia often enough keep checking they don't get re-added. Thanks. 172.202.30.200 19:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The user who removed the tag actually reverted links back in that had been removed back into the article citing competition concerns .  S/He doesn't seem like an unreasonable editor so I've put a proposal to cut the links more drastically on the talk page and asked him/her to comment.  Hopefully we can get a good consensus that will be in line with having a good encyclopedia article.  -- Siobhan Hansa 00:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

agloco.com spam
agloco.com is the current "hot" affiliate marketing scheme:
 * mccallsnotes.live.spaces
 * agloco.com
 * aglocotest.com
 * johnchow.com
 * wegetpaidtosurf.com

These links have been recently added by a number of unrelated editors. This is just the tip of the iceberg": In some cases, they were deleting others' referral codes and adding their own.
 * 192.249.47.8 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * shared IP -- most of the edits are not by an agloco spammer
 * 202.164.198.115 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 70.50.235.7 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Amahdigital (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Librahitech (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * RAKESHPPANDYA (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)

Blacklisting requested. --A. B. (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Adult site spamming from a common provider
Please look at contributions for this anon IP. All sites appear to be hosted by a common provider {MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.)

Sites spammed:



RJASE1 Talk  02:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Suggested to Shadowbot's blacklist (User:Shadowbot/Blacklist requests). Femto 11:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

traffixsystems.com and open3gpp.org
Both of these domains are owned by a "Ben Volkow." Over the past 2+ months about 25 external links have been added.


 * Special:Linksearch/*.traffixsystems.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.open3gpp.org

socks

The 4 spam warnings were issued and the final warning was violated. I recommend blacklisting. (Requestion 21:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC))


 * I have filed an RFCU request at Requests for checkuser/Case/3GPP guru. Based on results there, hopefully all four of these accounts can be blocked as well. -- Satori Son 21:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like the checkuser request was declined but that isn't much of a loss. A whois on the two domains reports an owner of "Benjamin Volkow" with either a physical address or a DNS nameserver in Israel. A whois on the three IP sock addresses also resolves to Israel. So that pretty much pinpoints the source. The only unknown is the User:3GPP_guru but spamming behavior looks identical. (Requestion 22:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC))

Links to local sports clubs
I'm a relative newbie, having edited only since Christmas, so would welcome some guidance on this matter. What is WP policy on mentioning local sports clubs by name in articles on towns or regions? One editor working on Mendip Hills unlinked a (named) local gliding club, leaving a link to gliding as a sport in the text & relegating the club to an External Link. Is this the generally approved method; or is it sometimes acceptable to mention a specific (non-profit members') club in the text of the article? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Links within the body of the article should be wikilinks (or inter:wikilinks to other wikimedia projects like wiktionary) or citations backing up an assertion. If it was just an external link to the gliding club's home page, that does more properly sit in the external links section (if it's agreed it's an appropriate link for the article).  This used to me quite explicitly stated in the external links guidelines though it's recently come up on the talk page that it dropped out during various changes.  The nonprofit status of the club isn't really relevant to whether or not the link is appropriate.  Sorry it took so long to respond.  Sometimes the questions that aren't very action oriented towards stopping spam get a bit lost.  -- Siobhan Hansa 03:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for your response. In the meantime I've had a reply very much along the same lines from the Help Desk.  In the article on Mendip Hills it certainly seemed relevant to mention the sport of gliding in general, leaving an EL to the club's website for those interested in following it up.  I've done the same with Aston Down.  Thanks again. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

tolkiengateway.net
I've just come across an IP (70.92.121.114) systematically adding links to tolkiengateway.net, a Tolkien focused wiki. A bit of further investigation indicates that the wiki seems to have at least one proponent on Wikipedia who does nothing here other than promote this other wiki (Hyarion) and that the articles seem to have significant content taken from Wikipedia without attribution. For instance, found using their random page feature, Their Rohan article, started on 2005-10-27 and our Rohan article from 2005-10-19, after the lead the articles are virtually identical. All the articles I found for which we have an article were similar. I could find no attribution to Wikipedia or link back to the original articles for the purposes of identifying the copyright holders). The wiki obviously does go into more depth than Wikipedia does (or should!).  I think this link has been spammed, and that a site that violates Wikipedian copyrights shouldn't be linked to, but they seem to have been around for sometime without upsetting WikiProject_Middle-earth.  I'd like other opinions before I do the standard strip out links.  I'll leave a message at WikiProject_Middle-earth soliciting their input here.  -- Siobhan Hansa 19:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't belong to the project but I've edited a number of Tolkien articles and would tend to agree that this is spam. Besides, its inclusion might tempt some editors to use it as a source, which is clearly improper. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure what to say here. I've been aware for some time that their articles appear to have been seeded by using our articles, but I assumed they had attributed Wikipedia as the source of the original material. They can indeed go into more depth, particularly on the fan side of things, but ultimately it would be good to see a synergy form between that wiki (which does seem very popular) and the pages here. How is this sort of things handled with, say, the Star Trek and Star Wars wikis? Carcharoth 00:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responding Carcharoth. If regular editors of the article think a relationship with this wiki can benefit Wikipedia we should probably tackle this in a different manner.  Do you know any editors who are involved with both wikis?  Would it be better to move this discussion to WikiProject_Middle-earth?  Thanks -- Siobhan Hansa 00:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure. I've considered getting inolved over there, but there are only so many hours in a day! You've left messages in the right places. Hyarion might take a while to respond. I might drop a note over at that wiki if I have time. I think just wait and see for a bit. I think what would be useful is to lay down some ground rules and distinguish the different styles. Wikipedia is general, the subject-specific wikis are, well, more detailed. For what it is worth, Hyarion is also active at http://tolkiennews.net/, a Tolkien news site. At the end of the day, if our articles are referenced properly (and sadly many aren't), then there is no need to link to other Tolkien wikis or sites like The Encyclopedia of Arda. At the end of the day, places like the Tolkien Gateway will be able to do more with things like fan artwork, and content listings for fan magazines, and so forth, stuff that would never be suitable for Wikipedia. Wikipedia can take a more serious approach, and can concentrate on referencing the articles in a more encyclopedic manner. Also, the linking out to other articles works differently. Joseph Wright (linguist) (someone who taught Tolkien at university), for example, on the Tolkien Gateway would never be its own article, but here we can link to things like that. Carcharoth 01:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello everyone! I must say, I was rather shocked when I saw "Tolkien Gateway" and "spam "in the same sentence, but I suppose if I plan on adding external links I should focus more on improving the article by other means as well, though I still stand behind the links I added and do not believe they should be classified as spam. But by all means, if you feel they are not helpful, please remove them and you won't see anymore of them. I think the main issue here is not the spam but some of the articles on TG that are a bit too similar to Wikipedia's. I will be the first to admit that when I added them I did so without fully understanding the GNU FDL and did not realize a return link had to be added or I would have gladly done so. We were using them as placeholders but I had hoped we would have replaced them at a faster pace than present so we will be adding adding the Wikipedia notices to the articles until we can rewrite them, this is something which is being addressed at our next meeting. I agree with Carcharoth in that the best approach is making sure each wiki has their own benefits as well as downsides. For instance with Joseph Wright, we do have articles such as that but have no need to include information not related to Tolkien, which is where Wikipedia comes in. I'll monitor this discussion and if I can be of anymore help please let me know, and thanks for your time. --Hyarion 03:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responding. I appreciate your intention is to make good content freely available, and it would be great if that could improve Wikipedia as well as Tolkiengateway!  Since there seems to be some respect for this external wiki by at least one editor who spends significant time on the related articles I don't think a spam label is appropriate.  However I am concerned about the linking to articles that are mainly repeats of Wikipedia material and about the use of content from Wikipedia without attribution.  I'll go through the links and remove the ones to articles that don't have significant new content, and I'll bring up the copyright issue at WikiProject Middle-earth (where they should be better placed to decide on appropriate monitoring or action since more editors whose copyright has technically been violated are likely to be there).  Let me know if this doesn't seem reasonable.  -- Siobhan Hansa 20:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds about right. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

healthadel.com

 * healthadel.com

Healthadel.com linksearch

Several editors, apparently spas, have added links to healthadel.com over the last three months or so:



... and there are probably more. They add the links three or four at a time with edit summarys like "small change" or "update new information," then they add more later using a new user account. I caught the pattern today because I watch ulcerative colitis as a patient and as an RN, and that site's article on UC isn't a good article.

The site doesn't have any ads, but it's written by only one person and isn't about science - it's mostly opinion. I've looked at most of their pages and a lot of their info is incorrect or incomplete. ELs to the site don't belong here. I've got it on my list and I'm working through deleting the ELs. - Krakatoa  Katie  20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Back today with a new account:
 * Maneroof (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * I will request blacklisting. --A. B. (talk) 18:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Blacklisting declined. --A. B. (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch
What is this? --A. B. (talk) 01:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, next question -- what's WikiProject Spam/Report?
 * --A. B. (talk) 02:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Check out User_talk:Betacommand/20070301. I don't completely understand it and this link will probably make "things" seem even more strange to you. (Requestion 02:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC))
 * I wonder who can add stuff to WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch? I notice that an IP in Belgium added a domain to it without comment -- seems sort of fishy. --A. B. (talk) 02:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Im developing a method of tracking spam. Eagle 101, Beetstra and others use an IRC based interface to my bot to gather linksearch results and track spam. WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch/List contains all of the sites that have been identified and have links on wikipedia still. if you dont have IRC you can just follow the same format that is on /List and add the site there as the bot reads from that page also. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool.


 * Suggestion -- a commenting provision to document why something's on the list and who put it there. I see some links on there that don't seem spammy. The nice thing about both this page's archives and those for m:Talk:Spam blacklist is that we have a record of users, etc to explain why we've previously ID'd something as spammy. --A. B. (talk) 02:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. The two features that this system needs is accountability of why it is doing something and an audit list of what it did. Like I mentioned on Betacommand's talk page, I've had a couple problems of this system deleting spam that I was currently watching which sort of tossed a wrench into my investigation. I don't have any problems with the spam being deleted but I need a way know that it was deleted. An audit trail would work, so would simply adding the results of the LinkSearch so I can backtrack it myself. As it is now, spam gets found, it is deleted, and the entire process is invisible. (Requestion 22:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC))


 * What i have been suggesting is use the talkpage of the linksearch result to track spammers. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you started doing this on any of the pages? I like the idea of us tracking links together, but could use a little more concrete info on how it would be implemented. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at Choose Your Own Adventure?
The external links section is loaded with sites not related to the books, I placed a "linkfarm" tag on there 2 months ago but non-specific links are still being added, mostly to promote "similar" games/projects. I'm not sure what to remove. 172.202.30.200 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, someone removed the linkfarm tag without removing any of the unrelated links. I'd try to fix the section myself but I'm not on Wikipedia often enough keep checking they don't get re-added. Thanks. 172.202.30.200 19:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The user who removed the tag actually reverted links back in that had been removed back into the article citing competition concerns .  S/He doesn't seem like an unreasonable editor so I've put a proposal to cut the links more drastically on the talk page and asked him/her to comment.  Hopefully we can get a good consensus that will be in line with having a good encyclopedia article.  -- Siobhan Hansa 00:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

agloco.com spam
agloco.com is the current "hot" affiliate marketing scheme:
 * mccallsnotes.live.spaces
 * agloco.com
 * aglocotest.com
 * johnchow.com
 * wegetpaidtosurf.com

These links have been recently added by a number of unrelated editors. This is just the tip of the iceberg": In some cases, they were deleting others' referral codes and adding their own.
 * 192.249.47.8 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * shared IP -- most of the edits are not by an agloco spammer
 * 202.164.198.115 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 70.50.235.7 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Amahdigital (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Librahitech (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * RAKESHPPANDYA (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)

Blacklisting requested. --A. B. (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the March archives
I like to cruise our archives every so often, just following up with linksearches on old problems. Here are a few worth noting:
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar
 * Looks like we now have 200+ links, up from 35
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar
 * 21 links -- is that an increase?
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar
 * New account:
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar -- still have about 120 blacklisted links in the article space
 * These will be real aggravation for regular editors trying to save a page.

I won't have time to work on any of these for several days. --A. B. (talk) 00:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've converted all the pressarchive.net links to moviehole links per Eagle101's suggestion. -- Siobhan Hansa 13:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I just took a look at the naxos links. I went through the first hundred and only a few of the pages had had the linked added since February 28th (when the report with the 35 links was made).  There must have been something wrong with the link search.  Of the ones I checked, all the added links were good faith and appropriate.  However the accounts that spammed the link back at the time of the report  have added more links since then.  I've stripped those links out.  Looks like this one will be a hard one to monitor as the site is used as a reliable source for a lot of classical musicians' articles.  -- Siobhan Hansa 05:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Adult site spamming from a common provider
Please look at contributions for this anon IP. All sites appear to be hosted by a common provider {MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.)

Sites spammed:



RJASE1 Talk  02:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Suggested to Shadowbot's blacklist (User:Shadowbot/Blacklist requests). Femto 11:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

TourEgypt.net
Has this one been discussed before? Lots of links --BozMo talk 21:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * and some aggressive link reverters like Special:Contributions/Thanatosimii. Seems to have been in and out of blacklists and whitelists. What's the history?
 * Using the tool mentioned below, discussion is at


 * 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/03#Touegypt.net
 * 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#TourEgypt.net
 * 3. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist/Log#March_2007
 * Enjoy. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

New archive searching tool!!!
New reason to report spammers here. GeorgeMoney and I have made a tool that searches some 37 archives of WPSPAM and the meta blacklist. You just put a link like tinyurl.com and it will show you all sections that that link was discussed in. Hopefully this will make digging up past spammers easier. (You can also put in the adsense number, and it will tell you what section that adsense number is in). It also checks live copies of this page, as well as live copies of the most recent archive for the spam blacklist and this page. (as they are archived by bots, and are still active a month after being created). I'm thinking about adding the spam whitelist archives into the database, and any other ideas for locations to search are welcome. I hope this fixes our problems with archives. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Note... this is not an april fools prank. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Forgot this very important link to the tool. Its on toolserver. :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Not bad :-) Although that "lightgreen" color is pretty obsolete ;-) -- ReyBrujo 00:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Like it alot, especialy being able to search adsense numbers. Nice work! ;) --Hu12 00:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Now updated to search the content of the blacklist, as well as the content of the english wikipedia whitelist, and the related talk page. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 22:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Someday it would be great if it could search Veinor's linkcount pages -- then we could find out who was adding links as of whenever Veinor put that tool into place. As it stands, I Google search on a link and I can pull up some of Veinor's pages, although I get the sense that Google doesn't thoroughly index all of those pages. Anyway, that's a wished-for feature, not a complaint; this is a handy tool as it is. The blacklist's talk page archives can be especially hard to search.
 * All these great tools some of you are developing combined with a better understanding of spammers' methods have brought us a long way since mid-2006. I don't think many of us even knew what an Adsense number was 6 or 7 months ago. Many thanks to all of you who have worked so hard to figure this stuff out for the rest of us to use. --A. B. (talk) 22:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear - does that mean it is best to link the urls here rather than nowiki them (or other wise present them as text)? (Also, it would be good to update the tools section of the main page with the many recent additions.) Nposs 05:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Multiple wiki "malfunctioning" spam bot
You guys might want to have a look at this, and keep an eye out for it. Its not inserting links, but its intended to insert links. (it sometimes puts <a href=" and thats it). I'm seeing it very often on #wikimedia-swmt (small wiki monitoring team), and I don't know if it will come to the english wikipedia or not. A link about this bot can be found here. Again, we really don't have much we can do, short of getting something like antivandalbot on it. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 02:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I found out that a large number of times bots create articles that have titles with /w/, /wiki/, index.php or ending with / (slash). I have found them in most (if not all) the wikis I have cleaned (including big ones like this one). Some examples are at ie:Wikipedia:Protected titles. -- ReyBrujo 03:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yawn, XRumer again. Unfortunately my friendly and rouge anti-spam administrator has not edited for a month or so, therefore the following IPs need to be blocked indefinitely:

This stuff has been prevalent on the English Wikipedia for a long time, see the huge list at WP:PT/SPAM, though it's diminished somewhat as IPs posting such spam are blocked indefinitely on the suspicion of being open proxies. MER-C 12:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (see )
 * (see )
 * Whoever created each of seven times, which needs moving to WP:PT/SPAM.

webmaxsearch.com
Keep an eye out for this one, it doesn't seem to hit a lot, but it makes a mess when it does, The only other instance that currently exists is on a talk page where a diff isn't available.. but it made a similar, but smaller mess there. I redlisted it on Linkwatcher --Versageek 06:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify by redlist, it is meant that the link insertion is highlighted amongst the other links coming in the feed. All it does is call more attention for human review to that particular link insertion. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 06:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Doing a little checking:
 * 76.178.154.56 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * This is the vandal that added the links cited above; IP address traceroutes to a Time Warner Cable customer in the U.S.; the exact location is unclear.
 * The account's sole edit was webmaxsearch gibberish.
 * A Google search on "site:en.wikipedia.org webmaxsearch.com" leads to 4 recent User:Veinor/Link count pages which in turn point to more webmaxsearch.com link additions by:
 * 69.246.128.13 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Traceroutes to a Comcast user in the Chattanooga, Tennessee USA area. 17 January's edits are webmaxsearch gibberish, 3 of the others look like schoolkid vandalism.
 * webmaxsearch.com/?qq=education returns random numbers on the screen ... but the source code is full of links.
 * 82.42.217.15 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * traceoutes to a Telewest/Virgin Media somewhere in the UK. The 9 February edit is webmaxsearch gibberish, the other is OK.
 * 24.14.141.120 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Traceroutes to a Comcast user in the greater Chicago area.
 * This is very interesting -- look at the Cody Linley edits. They're a mixture of webmaxsearch gibberish and classic schoolkid vandalism. The same is true of the other edits except the one to Cheesehead.
 * 71.201.24.72 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Also traceroutes to a Comcast user in the greater Chicago area.
 * Of the 8 closely spaced 23 November 2006 edits to Michael Moore and Ozzie Guillén, some are schoolkid vandalism and some are webmaxsearch gibberish. The Eric Forman edit contains webaxsearch junk as does the first Charles "Haywire" Patoshik edit; the second is just blanking.
 * The webmaxsearch gibberish looks like classic spambot stuff, yet much of these editors' other stuff looks like kiddie vandalism, even within the same edit as webmaxsearch spam. These IPs are served by cable TV systems and most likely residential customers (although cable systems do handle a few commercial accounts). Any ideas as to what this is?
 * I recommend blacklisting webmaxsearch.com in any event. --A. B. (talk) 20:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Slap something up on the blacklist. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Theophilus_Grantly
someone please check this fellow (Special:Contributions/Theophilus_Grantly. i'd do more but im at work, sorry! JoeSmack Talk 17:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The link addition is www.anthonytrollope.com, and I have dropped a warning by. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 18:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

www.artfacts.net spammer - can some admin roll him back please?
About 50 linkspams added today. Thanks. --CliffC 18:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Reverted and dealt with. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

www.insearchofheaven.com
Added about 27 times by. This is a new link (it has not showed up before, see insearchofheaven.com archive searchI have warned. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

socks

search links
 * webcast.challengeyoursoul.comarchive search
 * www.boosttown.com archive search

Are the added links. User has a history of adding links see user contribs. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * User added a boosttown.com link after your final warning, he got a 24hr time out.--Hu12 02:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The webcast. prefix made your tool miss an IP addr I link tagged. A Special:Linksearch/*.challengeyoursoul.com can see it. No big deal but it might be useful if your archive search tool did some smart stripping of domain prefixes. I tend to add tags in the form of so if a www. is specified then both the linksearch and your tool will miss it. It is interesting that all 3 IPs and challengeyoursoul.com all resolve to Denmark with a whois. (Requestion 21:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC))

New tool, again :)
See this. The new tool allows searching across multiple wikis with one click. Hope this help you all! Think of it as an improved linksearch. :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 04:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Do note this is different then the prior tool. :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 05:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

itsrugby
Hi, The guys over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rugby_union have spotted that a user itsrugby has been adding links to itsrugby.com Could someone remove them with VandalProof or similar? I don't have the tool. Thanks Nelson50 12:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

User account has been active since January. The first article created was Norris-Whitney Communications, and all creations and edits since seem to be for publications, people, and events connected with this particular company. I think I'll also post something at the COI noticeboard. RJASE1 Talk  15:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

endexploitation.org
Seems like a great cause, but they spammed & were warned/reverted last week. Now they are at it again this week.. current count is 27 and climbing. current ID's are: --Versageek 00:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

all-taxquestions.com
This was spammed across 4 wikis, just one entry on each: en (1), nl (1), pt (1), da (1). He registered users on all four wiki's.. on en the user was:



I'm not sure if his intent is to run up the hits on the domain, or actually provide tax advice - but with text like this, perhaps he should stick to domain-parking: ''When Time of Father goes in, the question of what to do with the home comes be a larger one concerns. At times, ruminating in the alternatives can dominate a thought. If a person is aware of the several options and he chooses a path that removes the major party the sense, the tranquility often can be the result.''  I reverted it on all 4 wiki's.. --Versageek 07:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

focusdep.com
This site contains quotes and google ads (not necessarily in that order).. there is a COI issue - the links were posted by: It says right on the site: Powered by: Omnem, Talad, Bruce. The site also mentions these four other domains, which don't appear to have been spammed. (yet). --Versageek 08:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Special:Linksearch/*.cyberdunk.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.talkdep.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.lastsmoke.info
 * Special:Linksearch/*.buylib.com

Spam link removal from band "lists"
On my rounds doing work for WP:ALBUM, I obviously come across a lot of spam articles and links – which I delete with mucho gusto! The latest article I came across was List of post-rock bands which consisted of a lot of entries with an external link rather than a link to a Wikipedia article. Here's what I cleared on the first sweep. Just a heads up for this project, really, that this sort of list article (although mainly used correctly) is a breeding ground for spam, which, as I say, I will continue to clean up as soon as I see it. Bubba hotep 08:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

clusterpulse.org (COI)
Promotional links posted by:

Sites mentioned: clusterpulse.org globaljagat.com    --Versageek 08:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

www.famousamericans.net & related
famousamericans.net is being spammed to articles about figures and events in American history and it appears that someone bought up domains with names of famous Americans.. and redirected them to this site.. http://www.jamesmonroe.net/ is one example.

Spamming in the last 24hrs has been done by Special:Contributions/24.94.139.230, There are over 500 mainspace links to famousamericans.net alone, this doesn't include all of the other domains that redirect there. --Versageek 04:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Just a note, User:MichaelBillington beat me and has reverted all the links added by that IP. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 04:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

More info: http://www.famousamericans.net is a subsection of http://virtualology.com, the individual name domains go to subpages of this site. This site is probably a useful resource as a reference in some cases, but there is really no need to add links to it and/or it's related domains to every article on Wikipedia that is related to American History (or other topics covered by the Virtualology project) - doing so is a clear-cut case of spamming, especially given that the site makes liberal use of googleAds.

This is a list of > 60 domains related to the Virtualology.com site:

TheDeclarationofIndependence.org, AbigailAdams.net, JohnHancock.org, CharlesThomson.com , JosiahBartlett.com, MatthewThornton.net, WilliamWhipple.com , John-Adams.org, SamuelAdams.net, ElbridgeGerry.com, JohnHancock.org , RobertTreatPaine.com , SamuelHuntington.org, RogerSherman.net, WilliamWilliams.com, OliverWolcott.com , WilliamEllery.com , StephenHopkins.com , WilliamFloyd.net, FrancisLewis.com, PhilipLivingston.com , LewisMorris.com , AbrahamClark.com, JohnHart.net, FrancisHopkinson.com, RichardStockton.net, JohnWitherspoon.com , GeorgeClymer.com, BenjaminFranklin.org, Robert-Morris.com, JohnMorton.net, GeorgeRoss.net, BenjaminRush.com, James-Smith.net, GeorgeTaylor.net, JamesWilson.org , ThomasMcKean.com, GeorgeRead.org, CaesarRodney.net , CharlesCarrollofCarrollton.com, SamuelChase.com, WilliamPaca.com, ThomasStone.com , CarterBraxton.net, BenjaminHarrison.com, Thomas-Jefferson.net, FrancisLightfootLee.com, RichardHenryLee.com, ThomasNelsonJr.com, GeorgeWythe.net , JosephHewes.com, WilliamHooper.com, JohnPenn.com , ThomasHeywardJr.com, ThomasLynchJr.com, ArthurMiddleton.com, EdwardRutledge.com , Georgia - Signers, ButtonGwinnett.com, Lyman-Hall.com, GeorgeWalton.com , JohnDunlap. net, MaryKatherineGoddard.com, TimothyMatlack.com, JohnTrumbull.com, WilliamJStone.com, JohnQAdams.com, George-Washington.org.

--Versageek 17:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I have invited the IP who has been posting these links to participate in this discussion, some explaination may be found on his talk page. --Versageek 01:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

traffixsystems.com and open3gpp.org
Both of these domains are owned by a "Ben Volkow." Over the past 2+ months about 25 external links have been added.


 * Special:Linksearch/*.traffixsystems.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.open3gpp.org

socks

The 4 spam warnings were issued and the final warning was violated. I recommend blacklisting. (Requestion 21:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC))


 * I have filed an RFCU request at Requests for checkuser/Case/3GPP guru. Based on results there, hopefully all four of these accounts can be blocked as well. -- Satori Son 21:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like the checkuser request was declined but that isn't much of a loss. A whois on the two domains reports an owner of "Benjamin Volkow" with either a physical address or a DNS nameserver in Israel. A whois on the three IP sock addresses also resolves to Israel. So that pretty much pinpoints the source. The only unknown is the User:3GPP_guru but spamming behavior looks identical. (Requestion 22:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC))

Links to local sports clubs
I'm a relative newbie, having edited only since Christmas, so would welcome some guidance on this matter. What is WP policy on mentioning local sports clubs by name in articles on towns or regions? One editor working on Mendip Hills unlinked a (named) local gliding club, leaving a link to gliding as a sport in the text & relegating the club to an External Link. Is this the generally approved method; or is it sometimes acceptable to mention a specific (non-profit members') club in the text of the article? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Links within the body of the article should be wikilinks (or inter:wikilinks to other wikimedia projects like wiktionary) or citations backing up an assertion. If it was just an external link to the gliding club's home page, that does more properly sit in the external links section (if it's agreed it's an appropriate link for the article).  This used to me quite explicitly stated in the external links guidelines though it's recently come up on the talk page that it dropped out during various changes.  The nonprofit status of the club isn't really relevant to whether or not the link is appropriate.  Sorry it took so long to respond.  Sometimes the questions that aren't very action oriented towards stopping spam get a bit lost.  -- Siobhan Hansa 03:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for your response. In the meantime I've had a reply very much along the same lines from the Help Desk.  In the article on Mendip Hills it certainly seemed relevant to mention the sport of gliding in general, leaving an EL to the club's website for those interested in following it up.  I've done the same with Aston Down.  Thanks again. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

tolkiengateway.net
I've just come across an IP (70.92.121.114) systematically adding links to tolkiengateway.net, a Tolkien focused wiki. A bit of further investigation indicates that the wiki seems to have at least one proponent on Wikipedia who does nothing here other than promote this other wiki (Hyarion) and that the articles seem to have significant content taken from Wikipedia without attribution. For instance, found using their random page feature, Their Rohan article, started on 2005-10-27 and our Rohan article from 2005-10-19, after the lead the articles are virtually identical. All the articles I found for which we have an article were similar. I could find no attribution to Wikipedia or link back to the original articles for the purposes of identifying the copyright holders). The wiki obviously does go into more depth than Wikipedia does (or should!).  I think this link has been spammed, and that a site that violates Wikipedian copyrights shouldn't be linked to, but they seem to have been around for sometime without upsetting WikiProject_Middle-earth.  I'd like other opinions before I do the standard strip out links.  I'll leave a message at WikiProject_Middle-earth soliciting their input here.  -- Siobhan Hansa 19:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't belong to the project but I've edited a number of Tolkien articles and would tend to agree that this is spam. Besides, its inclusion might tempt some editors to use it as a source, which is clearly improper. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure what to say here. I've been aware for some time that their articles appear to have been seeded by using our articles, but I assumed they had attributed Wikipedia as the source of the original material. They can indeed go into more depth, particularly on the fan side of things, but ultimately it would be good to see a synergy form between that wiki (which does seem very popular) and the pages here. How is this sort of things handled with, say, the Star Trek and Star Wars wikis? Carcharoth 00:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responding Carcharoth. If regular editors of the article think a relationship with this wiki can benefit Wikipedia we should probably tackle this in a different manner.  Do you know any editors who are involved with both wikis?  Would it be better to move this discussion to WikiProject_Middle-earth?  Thanks -- Siobhan Hansa 00:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure. I've considered getting inolved over there, but there are only so many hours in a day! You've left messages in the right places. Hyarion might take a while to respond. I might drop a note over at that wiki if I have time. I think just wait and see for a bit. I think what would be useful is to lay down some ground rules and distinguish the different styles. Wikipedia is general, the subject-specific wikis are, well, more detailed. For what it is worth, Hyarion is also active at http://tolkiennews.net/, a Tolkien news site. At the end of the day, if our articles are referenced properly (and sadly many aren't), then there is no need to link to other Tolkien wikis or sites like The Encyclopedia of Arda. At the end of the day, places like the Tolkien Gateway will be able to do more with things like fan artwork, and content listings for fan magazines, and so forth, stuff that would never be suitable for Wikipedia. Wikipedia can take a more serious approach, and can concentrate on referencing the articles in a more encyclopedic manner. Also, the linking out to other articles works differently. Joseph Wright (linguist) (someone who taught Tolkien at university), for example, on the Tolkien Gateway would never be its own article, but here we can link to things like that. Carcharoth 01:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello everyone! I must say, I was rather shocked when I saw "Tolkien Gateway" and "spam "in the same sentence, but I suppose if I plan on adding external links I should focus more on improving the article by other means as well, though I still stand behind the links I added and do not believe they should be classified as spam. But by all means, if you feel they are not helpful, please remove them and you won't see anymore of them. I think the main issue here is not the spam but some of the articles on TG that are a bit too similar to Wikipedia's. I will be the first to admit that when I added them I did so without fully understanding the GNU FDL and did not realize a return link had to be added or I would have gladly done so. We were using them as placeholders but I had hoped we would have replaced them at a faster pace than present so we will be adding adding the Wikipedia notices to the articles until we can rewrite them, this is something which is being addressed at our next meeting. I agree with Carcharoth in that the best approach is making sure each wiki has their own benefits as well as downsides. For instance with Joseph Wright, we do have articles such as that but have no need to include information not related to Tolkien, which is where Wikipedia comes in. I'll monitor this discussion and if I can be of anymore help please let me know, and thanks for your time. --Hyarion 03:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responding. I appreciate your intention is to make good content freely available, and it would be great if that could improve Wikipedia as well as Tolkiengateway!  Since there seems to be some respect for this external wiki by at least one editor who spends significant time on the related articles I don't think a spam label is appropriate.  However I am concerned about the linking to articles that are mainly repeats of Wikipedia material and about the use of content from Wikipedia without attribution.  I'll go through the links and remove the ones to articles that don't have significant new content, and I'll bring up the copyright issue at WikiProject Middle-earth (where they should be better placed to decide on appropriate monitoring or action since more editors whose copyright has technically been violated are likely to be there).  Let me know if this doesn't seem reasonable.  -- Siobhan Hansa 20:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds about right. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

healthadel.com

 * healthadel.com

Healthadel.com linksearch

Several editors, apparently spas, have added links to healthadel.com over the last three months or so:



... and there are probably more. They add the links three or four at a time with edit summarys like "small change" or "update new information," then they add more later using a new user account. I caught the pattern today because I watch ulcerative colitis as a patient and as an RN, and that site's article on UC isn't a good article.

The site doesn't have any ads, but it's written by only one person and isn't about science - it's mostly opinion. I've looked at most of their pages and a lot of their info is incorrect or incomplete. ELs to the site don't belong here. I've got it on my list and I'm working through deleting the ELs. - Krakatoa  Katie  20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Back today with a new account:
 * Maneroof (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * I will request blacklisting. --A. B. (talk) 18:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Blacklisting declined. --A. B. (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch
What is this? --A. B. (talk) 01:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, next question -- what's WikiProject Spam/Report?
 * --A. B. (talk) 02:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Check out User_talk:Betacommand/20070301. I don't completely understand it and this link will probably make "things" seem even more strange to you. (Requestion 02:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC))
 * I wonder who can add stuff to WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch? I notice that an IP in Belgium added a domain to it without comment -- seems sort of fishy. --A. B. (talk) 02:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Im developing a method of tracking spam. Eagle 101, Beetstra and others use an IRC based interface to my bot to gather linksearch results and track spam. WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch/List contains all of the sites that have been identified and have links on wikipedia still. if you dont have IRC you can just follow the same format that is on /List and add the site there as the bot reads from that page also. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool.


 * Suggestion -- a commenting provision to document why something's on the list and who put it there. I see some links on there that don't seem spammy. The nice thing about both this page's archives and those for m:Talk:Spam blacklist is that we have a record of users, etc to explain why we've previously ID'd something as spammy. --A. B. (talk) 02:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. The two features that this system needs is accountability of why it is doing something and an audit list of what it did. Like I mentioned on Betacommand's talk page, I've had a couple problems of this system deleting spam that I was currently watching which sort of tossed a wrench into my investigation. I don't have any problems with the spam being deleted but I need a way know that it was deleted. An audit trail would work, so would simply adding the results of the LinkSearch so I can backtrack it myself. As it is now, spam gets found, it is deleted, and the entire process is invisible. (Requestion 22:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC))


 * What i have been suggesting is use the talkpage of the linksearch result to track spammers. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you started doing this on any of the pages? I like the idea of us tracking links together, but could use a little more concrete info on how it would be implemented. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at Choose Your Own Adventure?
The external links section is loaded with sites not related to the books, I placed a "linkfarm" tag on there 2 months ago but non-specific links are still being added, mostly to promote "similar" games/projects. I'm not sure what to remove. 172.202.30.200 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, someone removed the linkfarm tag without removing any of the unrelated links. I'd try to fix the section myself but I'm not on Wikipedia often enough keep checking they don't get re-added. Thanks. 172.202.30.200 19:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The user who removed the tag actually reverted links back in that had been removed back into the article citing competition concerns .  S/He doesn't seem like an unreasonable editor so I've put a proposal to cut the links more drastically on the talk page and asked him/her to comment.  Hopefully we can get a good consensus that will be in line with having a good encyclopedia article.  -- Siobhan Hansa 00:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

agloco.com spam
agloco.com is the current "hot" affiliate marketing scheme:
 * mccallsnotes.live.spaces
 * agloco.com
 * aglocotest.com
 * johnchow.com
 * wegetpaidtosurf.com

These links have been recently added by a number of unrelated editors. This is just the tip of the iceberg": In some cases, they were deleting others' referral codes and adding their own.
 * 192.249.47.8 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * shared IP -- most of the edits are not by an agloco spammer
 * 202.164.198.115 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 70.50.235.7 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Amahdigital (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Glomage (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * Librahitech (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)
 * RAKESHPPANDYA (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)

Blacklisting requested. --A. B. (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the March archives
I like to cruise our archives every so often, just following up with linksearches on old problems. Here are a few worth noting:
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar
 * Looks like we now have 200+ links, up from 35
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar
 * 21 links -- is that an increase?
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar
 * New account:
 * 1) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Mar -- still have about 120 blacklisted links in the article space
 * These will be real aggravation for regular editors trying to save a page.

I won't have time to work on any of these for several days. --A. B. (talk) 00:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've converted all the pressarchive.net links to moviehole links per Eagle101's suggestion. -- Siobhan Hansa 13:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I just took a look at the naxos links. I went through the first hundred and only a few of the pages had had the linked added since February 28th (when the report with the 35 links was made).  There must have been something wrong with the link search.  Of the ones I checked, all the added links were good faith and appropriate.  However the accounts that spammed the link back at the time of the report  have added more links since then.  I've stripped those links out.  Looks like this one will be a hard one to monitor as the site is used as a reliable source for a lot of classical musicians' articles.  -- Siobhan Hansa 05:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Adult site spamming from a common provider
Please look at contributions for this anon IP. All sites appear to be hosted by a common provider {MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.)

Sites spammed:



RJASE1 Talk  02:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Suggested to Shadowbot's blacklist (User:Shadowbot/Blacklist requests). Femto 11:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

TourEgypt.net
Has this one been discussed before? Lots of links --BozMo talk 21:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * and some aggressive link reverters like Special:Contributions/Thanatosimii. Seems to have been in and out of blacklists and whitelists. What's the history?
 * Using the tool mentioned below, discussion is at


 * 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/03#Touegypt.net
 * 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#TourEgypt.net
 * 3. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist/Log#March_2007
 * Enjoy. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

New archive searching tool!!!
New reason to report spammers here. GeorgeMoney and I have made a tool that searches some 37 archives of WPSPAM and the meta blacklist. You just put a link like tinyurl.com and it will show you all sections that that link was discussed in. Hopefully this will make digging up past spammers easier. (You can also put in the adsense number, and it will tell you what section that adsense number is in). It also checks live copies of this page, as well as live copies of the most recent archive for the spam blacklist and this page. (as they are archived by bots, and are still active a month after being created). I'm thinking about adding the spam whitelist archives into the database, and any other ideas for locations to search are welcome. I hope this fixes our problems with archives. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Note... this is not an april fools prank. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Forgot this very important link to the tool. Its on toolserver. :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 23:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Not bad :-) Although that "lightgreen" color is pretty obsolete ;-) -- ReyBrujo 00:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Like it alot, especialy being able to search adsense numbers. Nice work! ;) --Hu12 00:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Now updated to search the content of the blacklist, as well as the content of the english wikipedia whitelist, and the related talk page. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 22:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Someday it would be great if it could search Veinor's linkcount pages -- then we could find out who was adding links as of whenever Veinor put that tool into place. As it stands, I Google search on a link and I can pull up some of Veinor's pages, although I get the sense that Google doesn't thoroughly index all of those pages. Anyway, that's a wished-for feature, not a complaint; this is a handy tool as it is. The blacklist's talk page archives can be especially hard to search.
 * All these great tools some of you are developing combined with a better understanding of spammers' methods have brought us a long way since mid-2006. I don't think many of us even knew what an Adsense number was 6 or 7 months ago. Many thanks to all of you who have worked so hard to figure this stuff out for the rest of us to use. --A. B. (talk) 22:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear - does that mean it is best to link the urls here rather than nowiki them (or other wise present them as text)? (Also, it would be good to update the tools section of the main page with the many recent additions.) Nposs 05:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Multiple wiki "malfunctioning" spam bot
You guys might want to have a look at this, and keep an eye out for it. Its not inserting links, but its intended to insert links. (it sometimes puts <a href=" and thats it). I'm seeing it very often on #wikimedia-swmt (small wiki monitoring team), and I don't know if it will come to the english wikipedia or not. A link about this bot can be found here. Again, we really don't have much we can do, short of getting something like antivandalbot on it. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 02:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I found out that a large number of times bots create articles that have titles with /w/, /wiki/, index.php or ending with / (slash). I have found them in most (if not all) the wikis I have cleaned (including big ones like this one). Some examples are at ie:Wikipedia:Protected titles. -- ReyBrujo 03:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yawn, XRumer again. Unfortunately my friendly and rouge anti-spam administrator has not edited for a month or so, therefore the following IPs need to be blocked indefinitely:

This stuff has been prevalent on the English Wikipedia for a long time, see the huge list at WP:PT/SPAM, though it's diminished somewhat as IPs posting such spam are blocked indefinitely on the suspicion of being open proxies. MER-C 12:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (see )
 * (see )
 * Whoever created each of seven times, which needs moving to WP:PT/SPAM.

webmaxsearch.com
Keep an eye out for this one, it doesn't seem to hit a lot, but it makes a mess when it does, The only other instance that currently exists is on a talk page where a diff isn't available.. but it made a similar, but smaller mess there. I redlisted it on Linkwatcher --Versageek 06:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify by redlist, it is meant that the link insertion is highlighted amongst the other links coming in the feed. All it does is call more attention for human review to that particular link insertion. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 06:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Doing a little checking:
 * 76.178.154.56 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * This is the vandal that added the links cited above; IP address traceroutes to a Time Warner Cable customer in the U.S.; the exact location is unclear.
 * The account's sole edit was webmaxsearch gibberish.
 * A Google search on "site:en.wikipedia.org webmaxsearch.com" leads to 4 recent User:Veinor/Link count pages which in turn point to more webmaxsearch.com link additions by:
 * 69.246.128.13 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Traceroutes to a Comcast user in the Chattanooga, Tennessee USA area. 17 January's edits are webmaxsearch gibberish, 3 of the others look like schoolkid vandalism.
 * webmaxsearch.com/?qq=education returns random numbers on the screen ... but the source code is full of links.
 * 82.42.217.15 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * traceoutes to a Telewest/Virgin Media somewhere in the UK. The 9 February edit is webmaxsearch gibberish, the other is OK.
 * 24.14.141.120 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Traceroutes to a Comcast user in the greater Chicago area.
 * This is very interesting -- look at the Cody Linley edits. They're a mixture of webmaxsearch gibberish and classic schoolkid vandalism. The same is true of the other edits except the one to Cheesehead.
 * 71.201.24.72 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Also traceroutes to a Comcast user in the greater Chicago area.
 * Of the 8 closely spaced 23 November 2006 edits to Michael Moore and Ozzie Guillén, some are schoolkid vandalism and some are webmaxsearch gibberish. The Eric Forman edit contains webaxsearch junk as does the first Charles "Haywire" Patoshik edit; the second is just blanking.
 * The webmaxsearch gibberish looks like classic spambot stuff, yet much of these editors' other stuff looks like kiddie vandalism, even within the same edit as webmaxsearch spam. These IPs are served by cable TV systems and most likely residential customers (although cable systems do handle a few commercial accounts). Any ideas as to what this is?
 * I recommend blacklisting webmaxsearch.com in any event. --A. B. (talk) 20:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Slap something up on the blacklist. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Theophilus_Grantly
someone please check this fellow (Special:Contributions/Theophilus_Grantly. i'd do more but im at work, sorry! JoeSmack Talk 17:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The link addition is www.anthonytrollope.com, and I have dropped a warning by. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 18:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

www.artfacts.net spammer - can some admin roll him back please?
About 50 linkspams added today. Thanks. --CliffC 18:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Reverted and dealt with. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

www.insearchofheaven.com
Added about 27 times by. This is a new link (it has not showed up before, see insearchofheaven.com archive searchI have warned. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

socks

search links
 * webcast.challengeyoursoul.comarchive search
 * www.boosttown.com archive search

Are the added links. User has a history of adding links see user contribs. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * User added a boosttown.com link after your final warning, he got a 24hr time out.--Hu12 02:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The webcast. prefix made your tool miss an IP addr I link tagged. A Special:Linksearch/*.challengeyoursoul.com can see it. No big deal but it might be useful if your archive search tool did some smart stripping of domain prefixes. I tend to add tags in the form of so if a www. is specified then both the linksearch and your tool will miss it. It is interesting that all 3 IPs and challengeyoursoul.com all resolve to Denmark with a whois. (Requestion 21:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC))

New tool, again :)
See this. The new tool allows searching across multiple wikis with one click. Hope this help you all! Think of it as an improved linksearch. :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 04:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Do note this is different then the prior tool. :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 05:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

itsrugby
Hi, The guys over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rugby_union have spotted that a user itsrugby has been adding links to itsrugby.com Could someone remove them with VandalProof or similar? I don't have the tool. Thanks Nelson50 12:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

User account has been active since January. The first article created was Norris-Whitney Communications, and all creations and edits since seem to be for publications, people, and events connected with this particular company. I think I'll also post something at the COI noticeboard. RJASE1 Talk  15:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

endexploitation.org
Seems like a great cause, but they spammed & were warned/reverted last week. Now they are at it again this week.. current count is 27 and climbing. current ID's are: --Versageek 00:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

all-taxquestions.com
This was spammed across 4 wikis, just one entry on each: en (1), nl (1), pt (1), da (1). He registered users on all four wiki's.. on en the user was:



I'm not sure if his intent is to run up the hits on the domain, or actually provide tax advice - but with text like this, perhaps he should stick to domain-parking: ''When Time of Father goes in, the question of what to do with the home comes be a larger one concerns. At times, ruminating in the alternatives can dominate a thought. If a person is aware of the several options and he chooses a path that removes the major party the sense, the tranquility often can be the result.''  I reverted it on all 4 wiki's.. --Versageek 07:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

focusdep.com
This site contains quotes and google ads (not necessarily in that order).. there is a COI issue - the links were posted by: It says right on the site: Powered by: Omnem, Talad, Bruce. The site also mentions these four other domains, which don't appear to have been spammed. (yet). --Versageek 08:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Special:Linksearch/*.cyberdunk.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.talkdep.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.lastsmoke.info
 * Special:Linksearch/*.buylib.com

Spam link removal from band "lists"
On my rounds doing work for WP:ALBUM, I obviously come across a lot of spam articles and links – which I delete with mucho gusto! The latest article I came across was List of post-rock bands which consisted of a lot of entries with an external link rather than a link to a Wikipedia article. Here's what I cleared on the first sweep. Just a heads up for this project, really, that this sort of list article (although mainly used correctly) is a breeding ground for spam, which, as I say, I will continue to clean up as soon as I see it. Bubba hotep 08:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

clusterpulse.org (COI)
Promotional links posted by:

Sites mentioned: clusterpulse.org globaljagat.com    --Versageek 08:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

ratebeer.com and beeradvocate.com
These two are similar sites, both having a commercial background, giving information on beers. Partially professional reviews, but also in part personal reviews ('bloggy'?).



I have been removing a whole set of beeradvocate.com links but stopped when I was contacted by the Beer wikiproject (they disagreed with my cleaning). There now is a discussion there about these links, one of the contributors to the discussion is involved in beeradvocate.com. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, User:Beetstra claimed that those links were blacklisted, and when asked to show where or by whom didn't do so...meanwhile, the user in question from BeerAdvocate, User:Jalstromb, has not been adding the links at all. The links to RateBeer, BeerAdvocate, and QuaffAle satisfy every one of WP:EL's criteria, and nobody is trying to promote any of the sites for commercial reasons; they're simply the best online resources out there in terms of completeness for contact information and pictures of the breweries. As for the reviews, yes, they're a mix of professional and amateur, but it's not the reviews we're linking to, it's the extended beer and brewery info beyond what can reasonably be put on the page. --Stlemur 15:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

When seeing "What should be linked", it could satisfy point 4, when linked to the professional reviews (though that is not what is being linked, most, if not all, links are to brewery profiles. Information that is also available from the official website, no need to link to beeradvocate.com/ratebeer.com.  Same goes for contact details, that is also available from the official homepage of the brewery (and we are not the yellow pages).  When looking at "Links normally to be avoided":
 * 1. Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article - I do not see where this gets satisfied, the information is available from the official homepage, no need to link to any of these three.
 * 4. Links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services. For example, instead of linking to a commercial bookstore site, use the "ISBN" linking format, giving readers an opportunity to search a wide variety of free and non-free book sources. - The sites exist to sell the magazines, see the banners.
 * 5. Links to sites with objectionable amounts of advertising. - OK, this one is not very strong, but it does contain a couple of banners. We can argue if it is 'objectable'
 * 11. Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority. - a part of the site is written by people not connected to the site, volunteers.

In conclusion, only the professional reviews would be usable as external links. But it does lead also to linkfarms, as e.g. on Independence_Brewing_Company (see WP:NOT.

Regarding the blacklisting, the blacklisting has been performed after 66.31.138.220 added a long list of links in a short time. Blacklisting was performed while the additions occurred, see User talk:66.31.138.220, where shadowbot clearly states "However, your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove spam from Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert a good link, please accept my creator's apologies, but note that the link you added, matching rule beeradvocate\.com, is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia.".

When seeing the discussion on the homepage, the owners of the website apparently have enough interest in the links (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Beer). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 *  1. Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article - I do not see where this gets satisfied, the information is available from the official homepage, no need to link to any of these three. 


 * This is, unfortunately, not true. Many breweries' official homepages are outdated, incomplete, or nonexistent; this is particularly so in the case of produc lists. The BeerAdvocate and RateBeer links are often much more up-to-date. As an example, Marble Beers' site has been like this for over a year, while the equivalent BeerAdvocate page is clearly much more useful.


 *  4. Links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services. For example, instead of linking to a commercial bookstore site, use the "ISBN" linking format, giving readers an opportunity to search a wide variety of free and non-free book sources. - The sites exist to sell the magazines, see the banners.


 * This is an incorrect assessment. The website's been around since 2000, but the magazine only started in January 2007. While the magazine is currently the New Thing, the website has never been a commercial venture for commerce's sake.


 *  5. Links to sites with objectionable amounts of advertising. - OK, this one is not very strong, but it does contain a couple of banners. We can argue if it is 'objectable'


 * No, it's not very strong indeed. There's a banner ad at the top, one at the bottom, and maybe one on the side; there are some Wikia pages with more advertising.


 *  11. Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority. - a part of the site is written by people not connected to the site, volunteers.


 * There are user submissions, yes. That doesn't make it a blog or a personal page; the portions of the site that we're making use of, contact information and product lists, are maintained and verified by designated regional moderators. --Stlemur 05:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

That the information on the homepage of a brewery is not complete or outdated says something about the notability of a brewery. Moreover, we are not the yellow pages, so linking to an address information is questionable anyway. Seen the link that is provided on the brewery sites, these pages hardly contain necessary information. The address cannot be included and it is not necessary to link to it, and the list of beers can be incorporated.

I am following the discussion on the wikiproject beer, and I see there that also its reliability is questioned. Indeed, the people keeping the beeradvocate site running are not specialists (see the about page, one of the maintainers dropped his daytime job last August to work full-time on the site). So I think also WP:EL point 2 applies. As a response to 4: they are now commercial, before that they were 'a personal website', that does not make them reliable, and 11: there are 100,000 users submitting their reviews. I see on the wikiproject beer the point from Jalstrom "Be Consistent Or Remove All Links" .. I would say, remove all links to these personal or bloggy sites, except where they are used as a reference to attribute something. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The more I look at wiki and see the inconsistencies I'd rather not have my site (Beeradvocate.com) listed anywhere here. Jason Alstrom 17:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Spam link removal from band "lists"
On my rounds doing work for WP:ALBUM, I obviously come across a lot of spam articles and links – which I delete with mucho gusto! The latest article I came across was List of post-rock bands which consisted of a lot of entries with an external link rather than a link to a Wikipedia article. Here's what I cleared on the first sweep. Just a heads up for this project, really, that this sort of list article (although mainly used correctly) is a breeding ground for spam, which, as I say, I will continue to clean up as soon as I see it. Bubba hotep 08:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice work on clearing this up Bubba. A lot of these lists become directories, and I imagine some of the band lists could be worse than average.  If you ever need assistance, let us know.  -- Siobhan Hansa 01:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In general, I can always find a great deal of external link spam and non-notable entries to clean up in the entire category of Category:Lists of musicians by genre. I'll go ahead and add this to the Project "To Do" list. -- Satori Son 01:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Poweroid
I'd like some suggestions of what, if anything, should be done about 's inclusion of external links. See COI/N for some details and background (that's not very well organized).

Poweroid has been editing with this account since 15 October 2004. He appears to have edited earlier as. He admits to adding external links to his clients' websites to many articles. These client sites include bestpricecomputers.ltd.uk, bestpricecomputers.co.uk, experienced-people.co.uk. There also many others that he's not yet confirmed as clients such as techbooksforfree.com, dogtraininghq.com, pregnancyetc.com, and bringingupbaby.com.

I've estimated he's added these links to over 80 articles, mostly around December 2006. At this point, I think almost all of his external link additions have been removed.

He often doesn't log in, instead appearing at what I assume is a dynamic ip:
 * May-Sep'06 rstrd experienced-people to Creative accounting, etc
 * Dec   '06 added bestpricecomputers to Market risk etc
 * Dec   '06 added bestpricecomputers to Customer service and Cartography and Map
 * Nov   '06 added dogtraininghq.com  to Crate (pet), Housebreaking, etc
 * Mar   '06 appears to be Poweroid - didnt add any ELs
 * Dec   '06 added bestpricecomputers to Disk array       and Business continuity planning
 * Jan   '07 added bestpricecomputers to Supply chain
 * Nov-Dec'06 ? dogtraininghq.com
 * Nov   '06 added bestpricecomputers to Product Manager, etc
 * Jan   '07 added bestpricecomputers to Process management
 * Dec   '06 added bestprice...ltd.uk to Ultra-Mobile PC, LG XNOTE, Toughbook, etc; added bestpricecomputers to Overclocking
 * Aug   '06 added techbooksforfree   to Computer networking
 * Dec   '06 added bestpricecomputers to Systemic risk, Depreciation, etc
 * Dec   '06 added bestpricecomputers to Relationship marketing  and Asset
 * Nov   '06 added bestpricecomputers to Fixed assets management and Acadian Asset Management
 * Jan   '07 added bestpricecomputers to Voice over IP; added bestprice...ltd.uk to Multiprocessing
 * Dec-Jan'07 added bestpricecomputers to OpenDocument           and Decision support system
 * Dec   '07 added bestpricecomputers to Intranet strategies
 * Oct-Nov'06 added experienced-people to Business broker and Emergency management (added allaboutiq to Inventive step and non-obviousness), added bestpricecomputers to Dashboard (interface)

I've a list of articles too.

If nothing else, this is an interesting case of an editor adding a large amount of spam for an extended period of time without notice. --Ronz 16:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like the extensive discussion over at *Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Poweroid resulted in removal of the links by that noticeboard's editors based on COI concerns. Seems like a good call to me. -- Satori Son 13:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (Now in *Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 4.) — Athaenara 00:06, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * See also Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 1.  — Athænara   ✉  01:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Linking data: --A. B. (talk) 01:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Special:Linksearch/*.bestpricecomputers.co.uk
 * Special:Linksearch/*.bestpricecomputers.ltd.uk
 * Special:Linksearch/*.experienced-people.co.uk
 * Special:Linksearch/*.techbooksforfree.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.dogtraininghq.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.pregnancyetc.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.bringingupbaby.com


 * Cross wiki Spamming data 

bestpricecomputers.co.uk adsense pub-0083282091908573

experienced-people.co.uk adsense pub-2491622037548813

techbooksforfree.com

bestpricecomputers.ltd.uk adsense pub-0083282091908573

bringingupbaby.com --Hu12 02:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hu12 Im running a full crosswiki linksearch on all websites and shall post them if you want you can remove those many links above I'll provide the data. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * PS I checked all wikis and linked above Hu12 I hope you dont mind. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * LOL. Already ran a full 57 wiki search with the Crosswiki linksearch, and posted the ones with current hits. Apreciate the effort, but how do these differ with these? --Hu12 02:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Its a cleaner group of links for this page and it checks 220+ wikis not just the 57. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 220+ wikis, crap thats alot..--Hu12 02:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Correction 249 different languages. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 02:57, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: techbooksforfree.com - editors other than Poweroid have added these links to it as well. I didn't investigate the site carefully, but it appears to republish materials available online, though often in disregard to the copyrights of those materials. --Ronz 02:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I ran 57-wiki checks earlier on several of these domains and then spot checked who had added them -- all seem to be added by established editors, frequently at the article's start; I think many were just taken from the en.wikipedia article at the time. --A. B. (talk) 03:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Additional domains:
 * Special:Linksearch/*.poweroid-video-editing.co.uk
 * Special:Linksearch/*.radioblack.com
 * Special:Linksearch/*.righthanddrivejeeps.us
 * and possibly:
 * Special:Linksearch/*.pcnineoneone.com
 * based on: http://www.searchforecast.com/google_adsense_publisher_directory/soens,_wj,_mr/experienced-people.co.uk
 * --A. B. (talk) 03:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I forgot to add pcnineoneone.com. Poweroid admitted a coi with it, but said there are many links to it that he didnt add.  --Ronz 03:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

metalfromfinland.com
Link, added by , cross wiki (COIBot report). English additions reverted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Removed last nine links; clear for now. -- Satori Son 13:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Rootsweb.com
Rito Revolto is adding a bunch of links to genealogies on rootsweb.com. It may be a legit website and a good reference but the volume and timing makes me suspicious; I defer to those more knowledgeable and experienced. --ElKevbo 22:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * He's adding the link where it's unnecessary (eg the information is already verified from existing sources). --Ronz 23:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * And most of the added links are to the site's forum, which is obviously not appropriate even if it is an otherwise acceptable website resource. Still over 200 links, so assistance with evaluation and, where justified, removal would be greatly appreciated.  See linksearch results at . -- Satori Son 14:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, upon looking more closely, there are over 5,050 links to this website! Most are appropriate, but a great many clearly are not. If you dive in, please use discretion. Thanks, Satori Son 14:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

www.dswarnerlibrary.com
Any thoughts on these? Many of them seem to have been added by this new user yesterday. I am reluctant to act purely on instinct in the religious area, but I did leave some related questions at Talk:List of Protestant authors. --CliffC 14:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Question withdrawn. User has removed his non-notable additions from Talk:List of Protestant authors and on closer review I have no problem with the other edits.  Perhaps I was too hasty.  --CliffC 13:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Possible link problem at Rule of Rose
This link http://spam.geocities.com/ruleoftherose/index.html has led to huge edit wars on Rule of the Rose, ridiculous, I know. I am just an observer, I noticed the first problems at GAC. Can't we just ban this link from ever being added again or something. It has resulted in off wiki canvassing, vote stacking and relentless edit wars, all over the fact that someones stupid Geocities site keeps getting added back. The article even has some kind of protection on it, absolutely out of control for a "low" importance, start class video game article. Any help in this area would be appreciated. IvoShandor 01:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Dystopos seems to be intent on letting the link stand, which is a very bad idea if we ever want to see peaceful collaboration on this article again. The link is certainly spam, but whether editors will let it die is another question entirely. Shadow1  (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * More input on this is warrented, seems to have gone over the edge. --Hu12 05:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the link as the usual method is to discuss contentious material and then add it not the other way around. This is completely out of hand over there though. IvoShandor 12:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have added the dmoz template and suggested what I believe to be a reasonable solution at Talk:Rule of Rose. Let's hope it sticks and be done with it. -- Satori Son 17:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Note:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/SirShiek --Hu12 18:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Link spam - thebabybistro.com - anon SPAs
Link spam (Special:External links) for The Baby Bistro added to cuisine articles by the following SPA userIPs in the past week:


 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)
 * + (11th found after AIV report & blocks)

Thirty articles hit so far—I'm not sure I found all the userIPs. — Athænara  ✉  23:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * All gone. Also . MER-C 04:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yowza, that's great - you reverted the last one (201.252.9.121) while I was warning the talk page and adding it here.   — Æ.   ✉  05:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC) (and you found a ninth one too, WTG!)

An AIV report got ten blocked for two days each. — Athænara  ✉  06:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

nearthworth.com - marcfiszman.com
User first added nearthwood over a period of time: And today the links were all renamed to marcfiszman I have cleaned them all (all mp3-files). --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Socceraust.co.uk
Forgot to report this one. User adds continuously: All to the domain, not to specific documents. No reactions of user to explain his actions after several warnings. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * user:90.240.106.1‎ has now two times removed all links and images from pages where user:socceraust has added the links to. Seems like a WP:POINT.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 23:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

fundistraction.com
User has added this link to several articles over the last couple of days: User notified of spamming and coi. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

flomotions.com
User is inserting: Looks like a COI, I have reverted and left the user a message. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

parallelperception.com / geert-hofstede.com / nourishingperspectives.com
is now adding numerous links of parallelperception.com, earlier also other links:
 * I have cleaned his latest additions. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have cleaned his latest additions. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have cleaned his latest additions. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have cleaned his latest additions. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

carandbikeforum.com
Adsense pub-0574651796382489 carandbikeforum.com/ is a scrapper site that violates the copyright of other automotive news sites. There has been an ongoing spam campaign for several months that is only beginning to come to light.

Today:
 * Example diff: carandbikeforum.com/cnbforum/2006/11/new-fiat-palio-in-india-by-jan-2007/ vs.


 * Example diff: carandbikeforum.com/cnbforum/2007/03/863 vs.


 * diff - www.carandbikeforum.com/cnbforum/2006/10/indica-silhouette/ vs.

Can't find who added it to Audi TT, but another example of copyvio:
 * www.carandbikeforum.com/cnbforum/2006/11/audi-tt/ vs.

This suggests to me that there is no reason to ever link to this site. If others agree, I'll propose it for the blacklist.

P.S. is unrelated, but their links to http://www.fourtitude.com should be investigated, too. Nposs 17:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

New anonymous IP spam today (looks like its cleaned-up at the moment: Nposs 14:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)



According to his userpage, the user operates the above website. Over a period of time, the user has apparently added numerous links to his own website in citations and links for several articles.


 * 1) diff
 * 2) diff
 * 3) diff
 * 4) diff
 * 5) diff
 * 6) diff
 * 7) diff
 * 8) diff
 * 9) diff
 * 10) diff
 * 11) diff
 * 12) diff

I could add many more examples, but I think the above is enough to make my point, along with the fact that this is still continuing today - diff.

I'll also file a report at WP:COIN but cleanup will be difficult as many of the link additions are embedded in material citations. I'm not even going to get into the WP:SPS problems here. RJASE1 Talk  19:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Additional info at WP:COIN, including an apparent IP address. For anyone who hasn't already made the connection, this Wikipedian is apparently Dennis King. RJASE1 Talk  20:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

See also. RJASE1 Talk  21:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing spam
, and  point to some complicated spam going on, which I don't have time to look at. Notinasnaid 22:01, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This is odd. I've removed all the links and warned the users. As far as I can tell there are 5 sites involved and 4 IP addresses that I've found so far:


 * Sites:


 * afifpoem.com linksearch
 * afif.ws linksearch
 * afif2.com linksearch
 * afifup.com linksearch
 * afifchat.com linksearch


 * IP addresses:



All the sites are in an Arabic script, so I can't tell exactly what they do, but they are clearly incompatible with WP:EL. They're also all registered to AFIF GATE ENTERPRISE (except afif.ws which is anonymous - but the others all use the afif.ws name servers...) which says it's based in New York. 3 of the 4 IP addresses are based in Saudi Arabia but one is UK.

Is there a way to add afif* to the spam bot's pattern search?

Also there are some on other wikis (see the results from Eagle's fabulous tool:afif.ws on the top 20 wikis but I don't know how to get help checking and removing these. -- Siobhan Hansa 23:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Please add to the list who added www.afif.ws/sahat to Rochester, New York -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 12:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.carscoop.blogspot.com
Adsense pub-1597089000639545
 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 00:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

anti-slaverysociety.addr.com
Here is yet another good cause, spamming links to articles, with 14 added as external links in the last 24hrs. This site is clearly non-commercial, has worthwhile information and could be a good reference if used appropriately.



--Versageek 07:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It also seems to be completely copied content from anti-slaverysociety.org (which does not appear to have been spammed). -- Siobhan Hansa 19:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Up-selling
I'm posting here, but probably just to get direction on a more appropriate venue for discussion.



This user started spamming mekashron.com, but now has changed to just promoting the company, Mekashron Business, directly by mentioning it as part of an edit. I'd like recommendations on how to handle such situations, as well as techniques for finding similar edits. I'm classifying it as a NPOV violation, and have warned the editor.

This same article had a more sophisticated version of what I consider this type of promotional editing, internal link spamming of GoDaddy. These problesm are a bit easier to find, but I figured I'd ask for help since it's the same article and a similar problem. --Ronz 18:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats WP:SPAM. Go ahead and warn the user, and request blocking if they won't stop promoting. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 17:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 88.152.22.165 just added another one, a link this time, which I've removed as well as given another warning. --Ronz 17:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)



While taking a look at 88.152.22.165 edits, this article appears which is nothing but a link farm List of SIP software. These are virtually all commercial websites and editors are simply adding external links, sometimes multiple times in different categories. To be consistent with the removal of this editor's link, all should be removed (my recommendation). There has been several discussions regarding these types of lists and I'm not sure one good DMOZ link wouldn't be better and delete this article. Thoughts? Calltech 18:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I only took a glance at it. I started to change external links to internal ones, explained why, and asked for help.
 * Would the article be worth keeping if it were changed so that there were no more inappropriate external links, and most of the software listed had valid internal links? I'm not sure.  It would certainly be a big waste of time to go through all the work of fixing the article, only to delete it.
 * List of portable software is another such article, in the process of having the external links changed to internal ones. At least it has a nice description of what portable software is, though it needs a statement about why it's valuable as well. --Ronz 18:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I noticed after I posted here that you were already converting the external links. The only problem I see is now having so many red links to organizations or sites that would probably never pass mustard for WP:NOTABLE.  I agree that is far better than having so many clearly commercial links being added.  The article has no description - just various categories with links.  I'll help as well.  Thanks!  Calltech 19:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That List of portable software is a beast and a spam magnet. I put the tag on it about a month ago and it seems like the big spam warning sign only magnifies the problem. It is like spammers see the big spam warning sign and think of it as an open invite to spam even more. Crazy. Maybe the wording of the  tag should be modified?


 * The spam rate should drop when all the external links are removed. I've found that most spammers tend to emulate and if they don't see external links then they might never figure out how to add one. My opinion is that all lists of software should be AfD'd if they become a problem. So if a spam fighter wants to spend the effort to clean up a list then we should give it a chance. My experience is that most external link free lists tend to stay clean.  It is like spam attracts spam and internal blue links drive spam away. (Requestion 03:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC))

foodwishes.blogspot.com
Editor has been spamming external links to video-recipes of several dishes. All his edits are reverted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

learningtorah.org
Many link additions over time by. Link: Hardly any hits in mainspace is almost clean, apparently all have been cleaned already. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

(always)alwaysmaiarawalsh.net.ms
User and IP  were continuously adding: Clear case of WP:COI, followed by vandal edits. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * User and sock are already blocked for 1 week and 48 hours, respectively. -- Satori Son 00:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

wpe-pro.net and wpepro.net
On Winsock_packet_editor

This is an odd situation, either some sort of content dispute or spam on the part of posting.

The page was created by: who claims authorship of the application, and states the official site is. Most of the mainstream information I could find via Google, suggests this to be a valid claim - however, this application is popular with the warez crowd - and the number of Warez site hits far outnumber mainstream hits..

An issue of concern, is that this application is also recognized my most antivirus/anti-spyware groups to be   spyware and/or a trojan (because it can be used that way) so, it is in the interest of Wikipedia users that the page display the correct information - and not some alternate site.

I have no idea what to do with this, so I'm tossing it up here.. maybe you can help :) --Versageek 02:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

medicalcomputing.net
Adsense pub-3271807191893451

Looks very spammy and don't have time to investigate right now. The one I removed from Usability had only a couple more links in it that weren't already in the article. The next article I looked at with it was Web Ontology Language, to which I decided I didn't have the time for. --Ronz 02:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

--Ronz 02:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (a proxy) added a few 29 March 07 and 2 April, and one 15 May 2006.
 * appears to be owner of the site, since many of the pages and articles are copyright Alex Amies
 * appears to be owner of the site, since many of the pages and articles are copyright Alex Amies
 * appears to be owner of the site, since many of the pages and articles are copyright Alex Amies
 * I've removed them all. --Ronz 03:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

mineral.galleries.com
A commercial site being promoted as a "reference"

Adsense pub-7274148257589054
 * mineral.galleries.com

Jefferson Anderson 21:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That site is most definitely not a reliable source. It should be removed from all articles it is in. Dr. Cash 21:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yikes! Almost 200 linksearch hits to a site that seems very spammy. I did some digging (pun intended) and this is going to be a big problem. Spot checking about a dozen of those articles shows that a User:Vsmith added all those links. Vsmith is a geologist, an active Wikipedian (almost 50 edits today), and is a content contributer to all of those articles. My guess is that he isn't going to be happy with us deleting all these links. I am going to invite him to this conversation. (Requestion 00:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC))


 * Hi, and thanks for the note. Back in 2004 I started adding and updating mineral articles. Back then, I used three websites as online references in addition to my mineralogy texts: Mindat.org, Webmineral.com and mineral galleries (also known as amethyst galleries). I was aware that mineral galleries was the most commercial of the three. About a year ago +/- Mineral galleries changed their appearance and became even more commercial with even more ads. At that time or shortly after I basically stopped using them as a reference - preferring the other two as well as PDF files from the University of Arizona's Handbook of Mineralogy. As for more recent additions, I have noted a few other editors using Mineral galleries as a source, in those instances I usually try to add more reliable refs. 'though I seldom remove the mineral galleries links. Now regarding wholesale removal of the site, I'd suggest using caution (the info provided isn't that bad) and in cases where it may be the only ref (there may be a few) I'd suggest not removing it without replacing with a better source providing the same information. As I mentioned the info there isn't bad (in fact usually quite good), the problem is with the increasing commercial and advertizing nature of the site.
 * Now - the solution. Is the site bad enough that all links need to be removed immediatly - I don't think so, but have not been following this Project Spam page. Note, as a part of my daily scan of the 5000 + pages on my watchlist, I routinely revert blatant spam as well as vandalism. Note also that the links I added to Mineral galleries were in no way intended as a promotion of that site as I have no connection to it - just saw it as a source of information at the time.
 * Is the mineral galleries site reliable? The point was raised above and I'll simply add that I have found few errors in the info available on the site. Some disagreement with other sources at times, but that is not really unusual - my mineralogy texts disagree with each other in a few instances.
 * So, is it too commercial? Yes, and I've stopped using it except for rare instances. Vsmith 01:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

spam.brazilpostcard.com.br

 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 02:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Aversion.com
This is an album review site that doesn't even have it's own Wikipedia article. I left a note at WT:ALBUMS to confirm this is spam before I remove the review links. RJASE1 Talk  03:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * According to them, this is a non-notable review website. Cleaning the links. RJASE1 Talk  16:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

paraparapu.com
IP is adding this external link, page is not in English. Contributions of IP have been cleaned. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

List of Groups on Ultras
I've come across the article Ultras, section 8 is just a list of all the known Ultra's group with a link to each website. I don't believe that this is an appropiate use of external links on Wikipedia, primiarly as these are purely there as a links database. All I have done so for is to tag the section with and added comments on the articles discssion page. I'd appreciate any comments from other members of this project before taking any action. -- Rehnn83 Talk 14:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Mathsisfun.com (crossposted from WP:COIN)
According to his userpage, the editor maintains the above website. (The website article has survived an AfD.) Also, this editor is apparently adding links to his website in various math-related articles. RJASE1 Talk  14:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I removed all the mainspace links (over 40 of them) with the exception of the links on the article above. Personally I think it might be time for another AfD on this one. RJASE1 Talk  16:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

More COI spamming from long-established user
In the same vein as and  above, COIBot has uncovered another person who has been adding links to his own website - in this case for a period of about 3 years. RJASE1 Talk  20:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Any ideas on how we should go about dealing with these? —— Eagle 101  Need help? 21:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Any idea how many there are? --BozMo talk 21:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure how many still exist, but User:Gsociology has already self-reverted their last addition and has contacted an admin (sorry) experienced Project member to inquire about how to properly suggest the link so that other editors can consider it for addition. Sounds like a reformed and reasonable contributor for now, so let's hope this is resolved. -- Satori Son 21:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I keep finding long standing editors who started on WP before there were volumes of policy and never really read or caught up with them all. It is even true of some of the first generation admins... I would always suggest we approach the editor first... --BozMo talk 21:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It is a more difficult situation with above. He is still actively editing but apparently ignores his talk page. (He has never once edited it.) I'm tempted to just remove all of his links. RJASE1  Talk  21:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: After checking, all links that still remain in the search are in articles edited by this individual, with the exception of one IP adding these, which is . --Hu12 21:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been talking with this editor and s/he seems to be taking the comments on board. I've pointed out the need to use the talk pages. The site isn't a homegrown opinion piece, it has support from several institutions, and the articles s/he's trying to post on are heavily under sourced and over OR'd so this user and their site could be a great help. I think we just have to help him/her understand the structure and that this isn't a portal. -- Siobhan Hansa 21:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.illustrated-topics.com
Adsense pub-9054763690688566
 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 22:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

bellevuelinux.org
Another one I found that was recently added to Usability that looked questionable. I left it in, but the linksearch looks a bit questionable. Putting it here in case someone wants to investigate before I get the time. --Ronz 03:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's a problem here, other than these links being used as references. --Ronz 20:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Nasty link trick
Observe the technique used to add the link removed in this diff. This is not innocuous apart from the link. It adds vast quantities of white space to the end of the article. Not sure if anything can be done. Notinasnaid 10:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, thats a new one to me. Good catch. Anyone seen this in the wild used to promote? JoeSmack Talk 12:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have reverted another one, but I can't find it back anymore. Did not realise it was a trick at that point (it was just annoying, thought it was a render-error). --Dirk Beetstra T  C 12:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I would suggest taking that to the devs and see what they can do about blocking that... that is a nasty trick. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 17:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just snagged another one. -- Satori Son 05:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * From the above example, it looks like it would be helpful to the project for someone to comb through all of the links. A quick check found news.com.com OK, but others are dead links or redirects to the real article. ✤ JonHarder talk 20:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks as if http://tools.wikimedia.de/~eagle/spamArchiveSearch.php finds the hidden code in the archives, wonder if this search can be adapted to main article space?--Hu12 07:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * If all else fails, maybe we should report these cases to antivandalbot? --Dirk Beetstra T  C 08:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Altermike
This editor has added spam to Design, Automotive design, Free software, and Green tuning. Looking further, the editor to be an extremely sophisticated and prolific, for an account created 26 February 2007. Looks like there is much, much more spam by this account. I feel in over my head with this one, but gave him a spam2 warning for the few articles above. --Ronz 16:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

A little humor
Thought everyone might enjoy this. If you have any diffs you'd like to add as examples of the different stages, feel free! Kafziel Talk
 * Kudos! This, unfortunately, may become the most linked to article in Wikipedia! LOL Calltech 19:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * That piece is brilliant. Femto 19:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I see a diff of my talkpage has made it to that page .. and I think I should have responded with 'With my basic skills of pattern recognition we clearly identify that as conflict of interest spam'. Great page!  Cheers!  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 21:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Milos related COI spammer
Search Search Search Search
 * hxxp://spam.milos-island.com
 * hxxp://spam.milos-hotels.org
 * hxxp://spam.milosisforlovers.com
 * hxxp://spam.iMilos.com
 * Spam sock accounts

User has been warned, and the discussion can be found User_talk:Vsmith (including sub cats). This is also conflict of interest. milos-island.com and the others (milos-hotels.org, milosisforlovers.com, welcometomilos.com and iMilos.com, are all registered to a Andreas B., who is also posting under all the above IP's. --Hu12 16:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Sites have been added to the spam blacklist. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 17:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I have been a contributor to wikipedia, specifically on the listing of my native island of Milos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milos. On several occasions, I corrected some existing information (corrected spelling of names of some villages) added missing information (such as additional villages of the island), contributed book references (Prof. Colin Renfrew's notable books) and even removed vandalism, i.e., after someone wrote: "Ellgal imgrant from Kroatia" under "Description".

I have even contributed on external links, by editing errors and removing irrelevant links that would have been considered link spam by most logical people. Lately, however, I have been a victim of persecution by a couple of your editors, namely VSmith and Hu12.

I admit I have not read ALL wikipedia rules and I have no idea how absurd, nonsensical, or self-conflicting they might be (and it sounds as if some of them are) simply because I have a life and no time to read every web site's rules. I try to make decisions in life based on common sense. Invariably, however, I find that common sense isn't very common.

I'd like to submit that you ought to know your enemies, and recognize, as opposed to persecute, your friends. What Hu12 and VSmith have done, is to alienate a contributor and a wikipedia friend through hypocrisy and unjustified power trips. It seems that you were rather quick to respond to Hu12's and VSmith's outrageous accusations:

1) My links are not spam.  They are relevant, informative, non-commercial, popular websites about the island of Milos, and therefore appropriate as external links on the wikipedia listing:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milos .  To equate my websites with the garbage spammers and vandals inflict on wikipedia is gravely insulting to me, and hurts wikipedia's credibility.

Some of your editors obviously do not know, or have an extremely loose definition of, what spam is. I'd be happy to forward to your editors a few hundreds of the garbage I receive in my personal mailbox daily, in order to educate them as to what spam really is.

2) I was informed that I posted "link spam", and my contributions were summarily deleted.  I countered that my websites were not commercial.  After seeing my contributions disappear a couple of times, I was informed that I should not be "touting my own stuff" so I stopped.  Others, totally unrelated to me on either a personal or business level, on their own free will, have added references to the aforementioned websites, but their contributions were summarily deleted as well.  It seems that reason is not the criteria here but rather, some editors' egomaniac agenda.

3) I was notified not to post in external links again, but to discuss the matter on the editor's talk page. What a joke!  My concerns were not addressed, I only received laconic responses, my last post there was deleted as well, and I was asked to discuss the matter on some other, different, wikipedia forums.  A classic case of passing the buck, in other words.

4) Hu12 posted an outrageous comment on your talk page: "...the spammer (who owns all these sites) essentialy states he will not stop".  That's an outright lie.  I've kept records of all posts of mine on wikipedia, even posts unscrupulously deleted by your editors, and I challenge anyone to point out where I've claimed any such thing.

With all the time he expended removing my contributions, Hu12 obviously should know better. Calling me a "spammer" is yet another grave insult against my person. Hu12 should be ashamed of himself. So offended I am over this unjustifiable accusation and defamation of character, that I seriously consider this as grounds for a lawsuit.

A comment regarding myself on VSmith's talk page was the I have not made any other contributions. This is of course, not true. I simply have changed ISPs in the past, inheriting different IPs as a result. How short-sighted can a person be, to assume that because I have not signed up with a wikipedia handle, I must have made no contributions in the past, whatsoever?

5) Another outrageous comment by Hu12: "...who is also posting under all the above IP's". This is also a lie, which is as outrageous as it is absurd.  Take a look at the IPs in question:  In order for me to post from these different IPs, I'd have to travel to multiple locations half across the globe in a matter of a few hours!  Again, Hu12 should be ashamed of himself, that is, if he had a shred of decency in him.

It has been other people, on their own free will, adding these same websites under external links, obviously because they feel these websites are worthwhile contributions. I have no relationship to those people. In the meantime, discussion is stifled, and rampant accusations fly. So now, since the supposedly "commercial" character of my websites and "conflict of interest" claims of your editors have been totally obliterated, I'd be curious to find out what VSmith's and Hu12's *new* excuse for deleting the relevant and informative Milos external links is or will be.

In any case, I hereby demand that you, unconditionally:

a) remove any and ALL references on wikipedia to my websites as associated with spam or black/brown/block lists, b) retract any of your submissions to 3rd parties including but not limited to websites, where my websites are portrayed as link spam, c) remove ALL accusations on wikipedia against my person as a "spammer", and d) have an official apology issued to me from wikipedia, regarding the lies of your editors, defamation of my character, and misrepresentation of my contributions. - Andreas Belivanakis — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.202.130.26 (talk • contribs)
 * The links fail WP:EL and WP:NOT. Repeatedly adding the links is WP:SPAM and vandalism. Using multiple accounts or editors to repeatedly add them is sock puppetry.  There also appears to be a conflict of interest in Andreas adding them directly to articles. --Ronz 19:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Ronz, you are utterly wrong! My links do NOT fail the wiki guidelines referenced above.  Instead of merely mentioning wiki rules, I challenge you to quote specifically where my links violate any wiki guidelines, and watch me rip your weak claim to shreds.


 * I have NOT used multiple accounts or editors! Your unsubstantiated accusation of "sock puppertry" is outrageous!


 * And you are also lying outright: I have NEVER added any links (COI or no COI) directly to ANY articles!  How dare you!87.202.130.26 00:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Note, this issue has also been brought to my talk page here. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Do not make legal threats on Wikipedia (WP:LEGAL). Its clear from both discusions (this and on User_talk:Vsmith) there is contempt for Wikipedia guidelines and policies.


 * ...it is a no-brainer that the contribution(s) should be accepted. After all, that's what "external links" is for. Or should I add the URLs one at a time, over a course of 4-5 days, as opposed to all 4 at the same time? 85.74.254.176 05:18, 31 March 2007


 * By definition, every single website is used for advertising or promotion in one way or another, be it for a product, service, place, concept or idea, person, project, cause, or whatever, so this statement is both contradictory and renders the "rule" unenforceable. 85.74.254.176 06:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Which Harvard MBA, Phi-Betta-Kappa, MENSA honorary member thought of that all-encompassing, self-contradictory, unenforceable and utterly nonsensical rule? 85.74.254.176 06:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * non-commercial, cannot be considered SPAM... 85.74.254.176 13:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I will not get drawn into pointless discussions on wikipedia policy... 85.74.254.176 18:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * There is absolutely nothing inappropriate with the -relevant, non-commercial- external links I provided, plain and simple. 85.74.254.176 18:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I could have my girlfriend or a friend from across the ocean post external links instead. 85.74.254.176 18:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The above statements made by this individual, its not difficult to reason that he feels the rules do not apply, and had no intention of discontinuing his behavior. proof of this is the continuing addition of these links after sufficient warnings were given.


 * This individual has in fact read in length the policies on WP:EL, based on this "interperative" post outlining them.


 * In summary; Advertising and conflicts of interest states You should avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent, even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked, which is in line with the conflict of interest guidelines. The contributions to wikipedia under various sock IP accounts, consist mainly of adding external links and is considered WP:Spam. Spamming is about promoting your own site or a site you love, not always about commercial sites. Links to commercial sites are often appropriate. Links to sites for the purpose of using Wikipedia to promote your site are not.--Hu12 22:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * From the wiki guidelines: "A polite, coherent complaint... is not a "legal threat"."  I may have been justifiably upset at the treatment and my defamation of character suffered by you, and my complaint may be characterized sarcastic at times, but it was coherent and not a legal threat.  I simply made a statement.  Having used the word "lawsuit" is not in itself a legal threat, even though I continue to reserve my rights, legal or otherwise.


 * Hu12, you seem to be a master of selectively taking quotes out of context from my postings in order to bolster your weak argument and unsubstantiated claims.


 * Yes, ignoring my initial indignant response re: wikipedia rules, I have actually read the rules and as it turns out, they are well-written and in a scholarly fashion. It is the selective interpretation in bad faith of the wiki guidelines by VSmith and Hu12 that is causing all the problems here, not the wiki rules themselves.87.202.130.26 00:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Where do I begin to show you the error of your ways?

Your first quote of the COI guidelines is immediately followed (but conveniently skipped by you) with this:

"If the link is to a relevant and informative site that should otherwise be included, please consider mentioning it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it. This is in line with the conflict of interest guidelines."

Of course, you in particular, have proven to be neither neutral nor independent as you have exhibited bad faith and selective interpretation of the guidelines, so you are NOT to be the one to decide!

I am not sure what you mean by "Sock accounts", but here is what wikipedia's rule is on the subject:

"A sock puppet is an additional username used by a Wikipedian who edits under more than one name. The Wikipedian who uses a sock puppet may be called a sock puppeteer. Use of sock puppets is discouraged in most cases."

None of the above is what I've done, so put a sock in it. Other, third parties have added the same links as I did, acting independently under their own free will. Anyone can look up the "offending" IPs for heaven's sake and determine they originate from across the globe. It is physically impossible for me to have been the one posting under those IPs, and it would have been too low an act on my part. To accuse me of using "sock" accounts is unfounded at best, an outright absurdity at worst, and I resent the accusation!

"Spamming is about promoting your own site or a site you love..." No! You do not know what spamming is! Spamming is using unsolicited, illicit methods (such as indiscriminate mass-posting or emailing) to promote something. I did no such thing and strongly and emphatically resent the outrageous accusation! I only posted relevant, informative external links on the appropriate section of the appropriate page!

I have read carefully "Advertising and conflicts of interest", "What to link", "What should be linked", "Links to be considered", "Links normally to be avoided" and I find that my submissions violate NONE of these guidelines. I challenge you, or anyone for that matter, to prove me wrong. However, it is stated that: "There is no tidy list of criteria to help editors determine what counts as a conflict of interest.", and that's where your own personal bias comes into play. Do not confuse my refusal to let you ram down my throat your personal, subjective opinion with my alleged intent to keep "spamming" or "violating the rules".

Moreover: "When editors write to promote their own interests, their contributions often show a characteristic lack of connection to anything the general reader might want to consult as a reference." And my submissions are exactly the opposite. They are links to relevant, informative websites, posted on the appropriate section, on the appropriate topic, and clearly not intended to promote my own self-interests!

The final blow to your weak, unsubstantiated argument comes with the last line in COI: "Conflict of interest is not in itself a reason to delete an article, but lack of notability is."

Hu12, you need to immediately remove yourself from this conflict resolution as a biased individual with limited understanding of wiki's rules, selective interpretation of same, and marked personal bias against my person, not to mention outright lying. Let's get some reasonable, competent person to mediate this. Please do us all a favor and walk away. 87.202.130.26 00:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The editors who've added the links have been unable to demonstrate how the links are appropriate. --Ronz 00:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps because the burden is not on any contributors to do so? There is no template or any indication whatsoever that while contributing to wikipedia, one must also demostrate how a link is appropriate. On the contrary, according to wikipedia itself regarding removal of links: "Err on the side of caution..." 87.202.130.26 01:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The situation has been explained politely, at this point Please do not feed the troll--Hu12 00:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The situation has not been explained adequately, and there has been no resolution. In fact, you keep piling up the insults against me, and I won't tolerate that! How dare you call me a spammer? How dare you call me a troll, while you hide behind a 4-character handle and do not even provide a way (such as a talk page) to be contacted? How dare you? 87.202.130.26 01:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Please calm down. I know you're upset, but you're making demands and regarding people in a very accusatory tone which isn't very civil (WP:CIVIL). I'd like to request that all others involved in this matter follow suit and remain civil as well please. JoeSmack Talk 02:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Incidents like this should be reported on WP:COI/N. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 23:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

(pagesubject)###.info
This pattern is common in bot spam, but in this case appears to be from a human. I expect we will see further attempts - please keep an eye out for links following this pattern.

Today's attempt was:



--Versageek 16:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * From a preliminary search using DNSStuff.com, these domains are all owned by the same person. I have also written a primitive Java program that gets the IP address of given host names, and I have determined that the (current) IP address of the server the domains are running on is 69.65.125.10. I'm not sure if this will help in uncovering any other domains, but it is something to note. Kyra~(talk) 07:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.patternrecognition.co.za
Adsense pub-7013775604640369
 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 06:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The user has left a message on my talkpage, to which I responded. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 10:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought you're reply was excellent, by the way. And their "I am currently doing my PhD" and "you should stick to your area of expertise" is yet another reason I hope that Ignore all credentials achieves guideline status. -- Satori Son 13:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Cvdwalt does not recognise that his additions have a pattern of spam and coi (but coibot now does), as well as that these links breach other policies and guidelines, I guess we will have to keep an eye on this. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Search Engine Strategies 2007 Conference and Expo's agenda creeping me out
Please see the relevant part of the agenda here. I first searched for Wikipedia in Google News here. I found two articles relating to SEO strategies on Wikipedia. I then found more scary articles with this search. If I had known about the conference beforehand, I would have suggested that we send some moles to New York City pronto so we could learn about the tactics SEO types used so we could defeat them. However, the relevant portion of the conference is over. I think that it would be a good idea for dedicated spam fighters like this WikiProject to try to dig up what went on in the conference on April 12, 2007 (which is today in my time zone as of this writing). I get rid of obvious spam when I stumble across it, but I cannot fight it all the time like members of this project do. Jesse Viviano 03:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * eww! nice job though, we will see if this causes an increase in spam or not. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 05:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Patel added that Wikipedia ranked fourth in a Google search for ‘Web 2.0’ and that links contained within the listing were receiving a good amount of traffic, thus reinforcing the potential of how the site can be used as a resource.

hmm.. should take a closer look at Web 2.0. Especialy the contribs in the history.--Hu12 06:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Their lives are about making money by messing with search engine results, and wikipedia is seen as a way to influence it. Many of them are still behind the times, however.  They're trying to help themselves realise how to deal with the fact that they cannot just add links to articles, they get removed just as quickly.  Most of it emphasized trying to act normal from comments about it.  One tactic they mentioned was to edit 'normally' for awhile before resorting to spam.  Hence, we ought to see more people who seem to be normal editors in their history, then turning to their standard activity after some period of time.  Since they probably don't have the constitution to actually edit productively for a long period of time, the time they spend editing normally will be quite short.  One interesting thing I just found out I'm outlining below. Kevin_b_er 07:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I just cross-posted a similar message to the administrators' noticeboard here. Jesse Viviano 15:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Adsense pub-8434586543731520

 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 07:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Use WPSPAM to increase your reputation for SEO purposes
I found this guy, User:Jdevalk. His quote is as follows on an SEO forums: Rand: the most authority I got within the Wikipedia community was actually by joining in their spam prevention program :) Doing a fair bit of spam prevention, removing the really ugly stuff, is the best way to make sure people will believe you when you say some content ought to be there. I've been able to save quite a few people's wiki pages because of that... Interesting, isn't it?  Joined our project, and used it as a crutch to try to be a VestedContributor and possibly defend certain articles.  This guy is upfront about it, but I doubt others are.  We may have moles.  --Kevin_b_er 07:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, great work uncovering this! Did a little digging also, heres a bit more info on


 * http://spam.css3.info
 * Search


 * http://spam.joostdevalk.nl
 * Search
 * Spam sock accounts


 * Other sites owned

--Hu12 09:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * http://spam.seoheroes.com/rss/
 * http://spam.cssdirectory.net/
 * http://spam.altha.nl/


 * Whoa. Before we all go running off with torches and pitchforks, I want to say that Jdevalk and Jehochman have done a lot to improve relationships between "white hat" side of the SEO community and Wikipedia. They've both educated me in SEO and Wikipedia. Both were among the strongest proponents of nofollow on Wikipedia. Yes, Jdevalk did get his start here with a little COI spamming -- just as many of us got started here with what we now understand in retrospect to have been innocent COI edits (our high school's entry or an article about a relative or a friend).


 * As for saving people's pages, Jdevalk was talking about saving articles on notable SEO figures such as Matt Cutts during periodic purges on Wikipedia of anything to do with SEO. That was a good thing and I voted to keep some of these articles in their AfDs.


 * Off-Wikipedia, I do a certain amount of SEO myself in connection with a couple of websites. I actually pay money for the services of some of the people at that conference and I wish I could have attended it (and not just as a "mole"). The core of whitehat SEO is about improving your own web site to make it more search engine friendly which most of the time means making it more user-friendly. Every SEO thing I've done with my own sites (which don't have links here, by the way) has also made my sites better, content and usability-wise.


 * Our problems with the SEO community lie with white hat SEOs not understanding our rules and with "black hat" SEOs that don't care. White hats hate black hats because the black hats steal site visitors and page rank from white hat sites using tactics the white hats won't use. Jdevalk and Jehochman have spent a lot of time trying to educate their white hat peers on our rules.


 * I spend a lot of time on both white and black hat SEO sites trying to get a better handle on who's who and how they operate. It's really helped me with my work here and I encourage others to consider doing the same. --A. B. (talk) 11:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the testimonial, A. B.. Wikipedia is going to be much better off if we educate search marketers and provide them with constructive suggestions, rather than declaring war on all SEOs.  I'd like to point all of you to the Hanlon's razor article.  If you look through my edit history, you can find some ignorance-induced COI edits.  These have all been cleaned up, by the way.  The cure for this problem is education, not scorn. If that fails, I happen to know a great deal about most of the "likely suspects," so feel free to contact me if you ever need help with an investigation. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 17:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Not sure if education is the answer. I'm worried that the professional spammers read this page and are getting smarter. I've been seeing lots of new and wiley tricks. I've also been running into more professional spammers too. Unfortunately I don't have a solution but spammer training camp is probably a really bad idea. (Requestion 21:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC))


 * Sure, some read this page -- I see some of our comments quoted in black hat forums. So we might as well read some of theirs -- Google "Black hat" + seo and start registering for forums. Also, see any of the big webmaster sites such as http://forums.digitalpoint.com. I've been doing this (at Jdevalk's suggestion) and it's been really helpful in my work here. It's been an education. --A. B. (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * What are we attempting to protect with this project? We focus a lot on external link spam but I think the problem is much bigger than that. Is getting all the professional spammers to follow the WP:RULES a good thing? The end result is still the same, i.e. more spam on Wikipedia. I don't have a solution but I believe that as spamming techniques evolve our definition of WP:SPAM needs to evolve as well. (Requestion 01:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC))

More4 News
213.219.44.247 has been adding a lot of links to More4 News this morning. I'm sorry that I don't have the time right now to investigate this further but I trust that someone else might be able to look at it and figure out if it's spam. --ElKevbo 13:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * They all look like spam to me, but I don't have the Special Powers to whack them all at once. Anyone?  --CliffC 18:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Rexresearch, comments?
this was proposed to the spam blacklist. I would like a few comments before blacklisting the site. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 14:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Consider cross-posting to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pseudoscience to attract a qualified crowd dealing with these topics on a regular basis. Femto 16:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Consider cross-posting to WikiProject Paranormal attract a neutrality seeking crowd dealing with these topics on a regular basis. J. D. Redding 22:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sweet jebus, are you kidding? Post it there to likely get an overwhelmingly POV response.  Heck, just read the talk page there.  If you post it to all three projects mentioned above and average the responses, you might get something vaguely neutral.  Or better yet, post it somewhere neutral in the first place for outside opinions.  From what I've seen of it, it seems to be an awful source/link, but it may be useful to document some fringe points of view or convenience links to other material (although it would be much preferable to just cite the originals).  It may not be a spammer, but it's way overused as a source.  --Minderbinder 22:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Paranormal? I had no idea it's that bad. Nah, we're not here for neutrality, for a change, but to assess whether there's a spam problem. Currently, the "consensus equilibrium" is that there's 1 (one) link in the article space. That means, any possible spam was removed as soon as it was added, and to get concrete numbers on the incoming flow of links one should best ask those who removed them. Femto 13:49, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd really love to see this banned as it is crackpottery in its finest form and shouldn't be used as a source anywhere. But unfortunately it doesn't completely match the description of the spam blacklist's intent. Even User:Reddi who would like to re-insert some dozens links to rexresearch isn't motivated by a desire to promote rexresearch but to promote his POV. --Pjacobi 16:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It isn't crackpottery. Unless the Kansas City Public Library is crackpottery, too. His site has online copies of newspaper articles and other public information. I did verify that, atleast on some of the Kansas City newspapers, that they are faitful copies.
 * Your POV is clear ... aka "crackpottery". He is just a reference for me ... a source of where, if I can, attain original copies of documents [like the patents, newspapers, and books ...]. J. D. Redding 21:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thats what I was having a hard time figuring out, is this a POV issue or a spam issue, hence the post here. :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 16:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say it's a job for WP:FACT. Kafziel Talk 17:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.mindsalt.com
MindSalt Corporation
 * Spam sock accounts

Seems to apear under different user names and IP's. Last IP on he list recieved a 3RR warning for persistant additions to Comparison of time tracking software, dodging warnings under various socks.--Hu12 00:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to remove reference to mindsalt.com in this talk page? I am new to Wikipedia and had no intentions for spamming. The reference to me using multiple IPs was only because I was at a different location and did not log into my account. I had no idea that was considered to be dodging warnings - I will be sure log into my account from now on before posting anything. In reference to spamming. I had added an entry to Comparison_of_time_tracking_software just as others had and I created an external link, just as others had as well. I also created a new unbiased article for MindSalt and added an external link (I had seen others do the same). When the article was removed I did not attempt to recreate it. I'll respect the decision to have it removed, although, I do feel there are many others that should be removed as well. The numerous attempts to create an entry on Comparison_of_time_tracking_software was simply because I felt Hu12 did not understand my intentions. I attemped to ask Hu12 why my entry kept being removed and what I could do differently (I did this through both the discussion on my Talk page as well as the one on the Comparison_of_time_tracking_software talk page). I'm uncertain of what I am doing wrong and did not mean for this to become a spam issue. Is it possible to be removed from this WikiProject Spam talk page? Also, can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong on the Comparison_of_time_tracking_software article and how I can create an entry similar to all the other entries in the article? Thank you for any advice you have to offer. Fred970 20:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Your contributions, to wikipedia, using accounts, , , consist soley of adding external links to http://spam.mindsalt.com and creating Vanispamcruftisement articles such as MindSalt Corporation, and is considered  WP:Spam. Looking through your contributions as a whole, all seem to be mindsalt.com related only. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a link farm nor is it a promotional vehicle. Please do not add promotional material to Wikipedia, as you did . Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Any further spamming may result in your account and/or your IP address being blocked from editing. Remember this is an encylopedia. You're here to improve Wikipedia -- not just to funnel readers off to mindsalt.com, right?--Hu12 21:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your response, Hu12, I was beginning to think I wouldn't get any response on the topic. I would appreciate if you could give me some feedback as to how to add a post to Comparison_of_time_tracking_software without violating the Wikipedia rules.  Other postings had external links and I had thought mine was just the same... but there is obviously something different.  How can I change the posting?  Also, I didn't post anything to http://spam.mindsalt.com as that domain doesn't even exist. I really don't want mindsalt.com to be related to SPAM as that was completely not the direction I meant to head - I am very apologetic and was hoping that I could have mindsalt.com spam related items removed -- I will not make any more postings until I can get some clarification as to how I can post the item. Thanks for your understanding and I would appreciate any feedback you can give on how I might change my posting on Comparison_of_time_tracking_software -- feel free to move this conversation to my Talk page. Fred970 22:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

www.librivox.org
I can't make up my mind about Special:Contributions/192.102.230.142, but someone may have a view. All links to http://www.librivox.org, but the links adding promotion of the site in each case. Notice, replacing a link, but in some cases e.g. the link existed and was just reformatted. Further note: LibriVox exists, so it is clearly not appopriate to add an external (second) link to it, when a wikilink could be used. But that doesn't make it spam. Notinasnaid 10:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The shear number remaining, librivox.org, 300 is huge. looks as if all the ones added by that IP are removed.--Hu12 11:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam. bboyzone.com and sock spam accounts
Adsense pub-6727179243066924 fr.  nl.  eo.  it. --Hu12 03:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

(something)-for-you.com
Editor has been adding links with end with 'for-you.com', from his questions on user talk:shadowbot and on my talkpage it seems he has a conflict of interest. Links: I have reverted the additions, and the user is discussing now on mentioned talkpages. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * once, on bookkeeper:
 * many additions:
 * The editor recently removed 4 similar links to other domains from 4 pages. Notified user of WP:POINT.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 08:12, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/38.97.130.2
I'm not sure what to make of all the external link contributions by User talk:38.97.130.2. The choice of links seems random but the one link added to Search engine marketing looks interesting. Other than that SEM hint I have no idea what is going on. All those links probably should be deleted but I only felt comfortable adding a spam2 warning and deleting the bostonmachinelofts.com link. (Requestion 21:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC))
 * Appears good faith even down to the link correction  in the article Sylvan Learning. However, the labelscar.com additions ( Adsense pub-7963114957883787 ) peaks an interest. The only addition that isn't a one time addition.  to Fredericton,  to Washington Mall,  to Latham Circle Mall.--Hu12 23:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks Hu12. I tagged and deleted those labelscar.com links. Then I did some more digging. I discovered through an AfD that a User talk:DanAbnrml9 is the owner of the labelscar.com site. Those links have been cleaned too. I checked the other existing link search hits but I didn't find anything concrete. (Requestion 06:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC))


 * Special:Linksearch/*.labelscar.com



Re: A problem with the World Bank Group?
A while ago this topic came up... (archived) and since then I've been in contact with a few representatives from the world bank. I've checked out their site and spoken with their Senior Information Officer. (Yes, I verified their identity).

I know this might seem strange, but I'd like to encourage link spam to doingbusiness.org. The website qualifies as a reliable secondary/primary source and I think it could be successfully used to help expand hundreds of articles. The website provides a resource unknown anywhere else... on the internet or otherwise. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * When I brought this up originally I mentioned that it could be a useful resource, and many good faith additions do exist. But there's still a huge issue with World Bank Group staff adding it as an external link - The World Bank Group takes a POV position on development, their ability to use paid individuals to add this link (and indeed to edit Wikipedia) will skew our coverage of development subjects.  I think this is a hard problem, because as well as being POV - they're also well informed and our current coverage is often pretty terrible.  But I really don't think we should be making an exception for them.  There is no reason their staff can't follow our guidelines and add the link to the talk pages of the articles instead.  -- Siobhan Hansa 11:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * They know now. I talked with the SIO about that issue and they understand the purpose of our rules in that regard.  I'm inviting our friend from the world-bank to weigh in on the conversation.
 * What I'm concerned with here is throwing out the baby with the bath water. If we all agree that the site is a reliable resource and falls within the guidelines of what we SHOULD be linking to per WP:EL then doesn't the COI concern become moot?  ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 15:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * How would it become moot? If They edit pages about the organizations associated with the group - rewriting to make the articles sound less negative .  They add links to webpages that articulate their point of view to articles.  And they ensure their site is linked to from all sorts of articles where regular editors have not decided to do so.  This for of COI andPOV pushing is not different from any good information source doing the same.  If Nature or the New York Times decided they should go through articles and add links whenever they could that would still be COI.


 * I'm not suggesting we should blacklist the site or go through and remove every link We'd have way worse articles if we didn't include their perspective and they have great resources - But I do think World Bank Group staff editing articles to promote its perspective or its websites is as problematic as Tate and Lyle staff editing articles on Sugar and Sucralose. -- Siobhan Hansa 18:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I just finished reading that Jan 2007 archive. The number of worldbank.org external links has increased from 872 to 981 since then. We need to remember that the purpose of blacklisting is to make troublesome spam stop. It is great that we have an open line of communication with World Bank. So I need to ask; have they promised to stop spamming? and has the spamming stopped? (Requestion 19:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC))


 * they may not have been added by the World Bank Group. I've been keeping an eye on some of it from time to time and most links are added by editors not from the World Bank Group IP address range.  I'd also like to stress I think blacklisting for this site would be a very bad thing for Wikimedia.  I don't like the spamming but the sites provide important information, both as a source and an additional resource.  Some of our articles would be worse off without them and other projects may well use them too.  I'm not sure the damage from the spamming at the moment is worse than removing the links. -- Siobhan Hansa 00:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * SiobhanHansa, up above did you just say that World Bank pays people to add Wikipedia links? Or do you mean that they encourage their paid staff to add Wikipedia links? Do we have any proof of this other than the contribution logs? I had a similar problem with Penton Media a while back where I suspected a corporate spam policy but I couldn't prove it. Since then I've received a couple spooky talk messages about it, but that's a different topic. So what do we know and what is your gut feeling about World Bank spam? (Requestion 19:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC))


 * I've spoken with the gentleman from world bank on the phone and verified his identity. One person, the Webmaster of the site in question, added about 20 links.  He didn't realize it was against the rules at the time, but they stopped after it was pointed out to them.
 * Siobhan Hansa, their website is a reliable source on country information. This is much the same as when a person from the Washington post added links from people's names to news stories about them.  Yes, a COI, but it also advanced our goal as a project. Our interests and their interests coincide. If WP:EL is any guide, we WANT to link to websites like DoingBusiness.org.
 * This isn't someone's personal homepage people... this is a website developed by the World Bank Group. The World Bank isn't a business... it's a semi-government agency founded by the United Nations.  This website was developed as a database of information detailing national business environments in third world nations.
 * Oh, DYI, it takes an average of 2.8 years to file bankruptcy in Moldova? ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 21:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * JS I agree it's a site that can generally be considered a reliable source.  When I went through and removed the links apparently added in contravention of our policies I generally moved them to the talk page and suggested other editors decide if they were appropriate for the article, that's extra effort I rarely go to.  But if we're going to have a site used as a consistent data link across articles - I don't believe the people deciding that should be the site owners.  I disagree that allowing organizations to push their own sites in articles advances our cause.  I believe the POV issues are too great.  You talk about the World Bank Group not being a "business" as though that makes their motives pure.  But if they're promoting their site, they're promoting their mission over ours - and that's not in our best interests.  Organizations, even the ones we most admire, generally have a point of view. The World Bank Group has a lot of critics, so skewing of our coverage through paid editing is as problematic as for any for-profit business. -- Siobhan Hansa 00:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, but the WP:COI guidelines (note that it's not a policy) were primarily aimed at financial side of things. The doing business page is there as a public service.  Ok ok, for the sake of not setting a bad precedence in the future, I finaly see that "letting" them spam would be a bad idea.  ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 00:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I see this as a POV issue rather than COI (which I only really care about because of spam and POV). I do a lot of work on nonprofit articles (which is the sector I work in) and some of these organizations are as heavily motivated to promote themselves and their POV as any for-profit.  Hmm.  I appear to have been ranting again.  Perhaps I should get something else to do on Sunday evenings :-)  I think the right way to encourage this link as a standard resource is to talk to the Geography WikiProjects.  They're much better placed to decide whether the use of the link is appropriate accross all country articles.  Plus there are lots of them to do the work... -- Siobhan Hansa 01:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Requestion - World Bank IP address (all address in the 138.220.x.x range are registered to the World Bank Group) add links to various World Bank Group Websites to Wikipedia. The organization is huge and there must be all sorts of groups working on their own projects.  World Bank Group websites include:
 * Also
 * which are actually Development Gateway Foundation sites, but Development Gateway Foundation was set up by the World Bank Group.
 * I have no evidence that this is any kind of huge organized campaign on the part of the World Bank Group - and I highly doubt that it is. The World Bank Group is also an important organization for people who are serious about development work and there are probably people there who add World Bank links to Wikipedia off their own bat, without even thinking about it from a work perspective, because they believe in what they do and they (probably correctly) think the link is a good thing. So no, I don't think it's something Paul Wolfowitz has been spending time strategizeing about.  But there do seem to be sporadic but persistent attempts to add different sets of links.  I suspect it's more a matter of the managers of individual websites and programs thinking from time to time that it would be a good idea to provide this information to the world through Wikipedia.  I see it as more like some of the academic site spamming we get from time to time - not a corporate policy, just someone in the communications department.....-- Siobhan Hansa 00:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Also
 * which are actually Development Gateway Foundation sites, but Development Gateway Foundation was set up by the World Bank Group.
 * I have no evidence that this is any kind of huge organized campaign on the part of the World Bank Group - and I highly doubt that it is. The World Bank Group is also an important organization for people who are serious about development work and there are probably people there who add World Bank links to Wikipedia off their own bat, without even thinking about it from a work perspective, because they believe in what they do and they (probably correctly) think the link is a good thing. So no, I don't think it's something Paul Wolfowitz has been spending time strategizeing about.  But there do seem to be sporadic but persistent attempts to add different sets of links.  I suspect it's more a matter of the managers of individual websites and programs thinking from time to time that it would be a good idea to provide this information to the world through Wikipedia.  I see it as more like some of the academic site spamming we get from time to time - not a corporate policy, just someone in the communications department.....-- Siobhan Hansa 00:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * which are actually Development Gateway Foundation sites, but Development Gateway Foundation was set up by the World Bank Group.
 * I have no evidence that this is any kind of huge organized campaign on the part of the World Bank Group - and I highly doubt that it is. The World Bank Group is also an important organization for people who are serious about development work and there are probably people there who add World Bank links to Wikipedia off their own bat, without even thinking about it from a work perspective, because they believe in what they do and they (probably correctly) think the link is a good thing. So no, I don't think it's something Paul Wolfowitz has been spending time strategizeing about.  But there do seem to be sporadic but persistent attempts to add different sets of links.  I suspect it's more a matter of the managers of individual websites and programs thinking from time to time that it would be a good idea to provide this information to the world through Wikipedia.  I see it as more like some of the academic site spamming we get from time to time - not a corporate policy, just someone in the communications department.....-- Siobhan Hansa 00:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no evidence that this is any kind of huge organized campaign on the part of the World Bank Group - and I highly doubt that it is. The World Bank Group is also an important organization for people who are serious about development work and there are probably people there who add World Bank links to Wikipedia off their own bat, without even thinking about it from a work perspective, because they believe in what they do and they (probably correctly) think the link is a good thing. So no, I don't think it's something Paul Wolfowitz has been spending time strategizeing about.  But there do seem to be sporadic but persistent attempts to add different sets of links.  I suspect it's more a matter of the managers of individual websites and programs thinking from time to time that it would be a good idea to provide this information to the world through Wikipedia.  I see it as more like some of the academic site spamming we get from time to time - not a corporate policy, just someone in the communications department.....-- Siobhan Hansa 00:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, thats basically the story I got as well. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.hkc22.com
Helmut Kaiser Consultancy
 * Search current
 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 08:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Also a Cross wiki spamming; --Hu12 09:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * de:hkc22.com IP 80.129.71.133 80.129.124.235
 * es: hkc22.com
 * ro: hkc22.com
 * id: hkc22.com
 * nn: hkc22.com
 * simple: hkc22.com

tutorialspoint.com talentgroups.com amrood.com
Adsense pub-7133395778201029
 * meta:Special:Contributions/Tutorialspoint

tutorialspoint.com is already blacklisted however after further research talentgroups.com and amrood.com are owned by the same individual, per Adsense. This comes up because there is a recent request by tutorialspoint.com for de-blacklisting (see ).--Hu12 10:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The lengthy Meta whitelist request cited, among other things, that 206.126.170.20 is not an Indian IP address. 206.126.170.20 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search) appears on at least two Internet blacklists. It's registered to Convergys, an American multinational with a big (20,000+ employees) outsourcing operation in India. Meanwhile, the IP requesting whitelisting, 122.169.135.190 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search), also appears on two major blacklists; I recommend checking to see if it's an open proxy. --A. B. (talk) 20:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Mar
 * meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/03
 * meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/04 (declined)
 * meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/05 (declined)
 * meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/05/Removals:_Not_Done(declined)
 * meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/07(declined)
 * meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/10(declined)
 * MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2007/11 (declined)
 * MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist (declined)
 * --Hu12 (talk) 18:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Cross Wiki
 * http://ar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://ar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://cs.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://da.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://eo.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://ml.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/206.126.170.20
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/122.169.162.75
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/91.186.209.76
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/122.169.143.102
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/202.129.187.15
 * http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/158.234.250.71
 * http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/158.234.250.71
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/59.144.74.128
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/122.169.136.89
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/59.144.74.128
 * http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/59.144.69.194
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Tutorialspoint
 * --Hu12 (talk) 18:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Break.com
I draw editors attention to the Break.com page. It is blatant advertising. hence Wikipedias description thereof, "Pages which exclusively promote a company, product, group, service, or person and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company, product, group, service, or person as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion; an article that is blatant advertising should have inappropriate content as well. If a page has previously gone through a deletion process and was not deleted, it should not be speedily deleted under this criterion".

There is an obvious conflic ot interest as will become evident when you view the discussion page Talk:Break.com. Additions have been made by break.com sock puppets Mtwang and IP: 69.108.152.153 both located in California, the same State (and area) as the office of Break.com!

This whole page is clearly advertisement/spam and it is beyond me why it is still here at all. I ask editors to have a good look at this page and the discussion page Talk:Break.com and break.com's attempts via its unsigned sock puppets to discredit me in an attempt to gain an upper hand whilst I tried to create an even balance of information in relation to this page. --Pollyfodder 01:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Report this on WP:COI/N if you think there is a conflict of interest. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 14:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I posted the above on WP:COI/N today. "Someone" deleted it!

I think the only way I can see to resolve this is to go to Admin. --Pollyfodder 06:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Pollyfodder, you are being kind of funny (and not in a good way) by posting this complaint in many different places, and even posting it twice to WP:COIN. I suggest you reduce the shrillness of your post and provide some facts.  Right now, all I see is a naked allegation without any specifics.  Jehochman (talk/contrib) 07:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Let's take all the discussion over to Conflict of interest/Noticeboard so everybody can be fully informed. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 07:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

An essay to scrutinize
I believe that you will want to read and scrutinize WP:SEO. It is an essay on what SEOs and SEMs should and should not do on Wikipedia. It is written by an apparently white hat SEO who presented a summary of it in the conference that I discovered and reported on in an earlier topic. Please scrutinize it and do one of the following: improve it, offer suggestions in its talk page, or write a counter-point essay. Also, please resist the urge to vandalize it. I hate George W. Bush for all his war crimes and his domestic crimes even though I am an American, but I do not vandalize his page. Jesse Viviano 17:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Jesse Viviano, surely you aren't suggesting that I am the equivalent of a war criminal or domestic criminal because I wrote this essay? You don't have to agree with me, but you do have to observe WP:NPA.  My sense is that you misunderstand the nature of people who make a living as Internet marketers.  Perhaps you should read Search engine optimization (a good article) to learn what it's really about.  Most of us hate spam as much as you do, so let's work together, eh.  Jehochman (talk/contrib) 18:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I think he was merely suggesting that those of us who feel that any SEO/SEM activity on Wikipedia is wrong, and seriously detrimental to the project - not make changes to your essay to reflect that POV. --Versageek 19:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * No problem. I welcome all edits.  If somebody wants to add a section to present that point of view, that's fine with me.  Please do. In that essay you'll see a quote from Jimmy Wales stating that it is perfectly acceptable for corporations to leave comments on the talk pages requesting certain kinds of edits.  That's the stuff I am recommending to people.  Jehochman (talk/contrib) 23:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Jimbo suggests mentioning the link on the talk page first and so do our tags. It seems like a logical and sensible method of dealing with link spamming. I question if this method is really a good idea. I have just recently encountered talkspam where a user spams the talk pages of many slightly relevant articles asking if an external link could "please" be added. See Special:Contributions/Memyselfmax for an example. The funny thing is that a few regular editors will WP:AGF and add the link. I estimate the success rate of this spam strategy to be about 20% but the better the talk page plea the better the percentage.  I often run into these talkspam links after I track the link that was spammed in the usual way. I delete the standard spamming but I can't delete the talkspam links because a "regular" editor added it. This "safe haven" needs to be addressed and I think WP:SPAM needs to be modified to deal with this new spam tactic. (Requestion 22:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC))


 * I was just asking that people keep their dark urges at bay. Some people consider all SEOs and SEMs to be scourges to be eradicated, so I brought up a topic that gives many people the same sense of loathing to show that we need to resist the urge to vandalize it. I know that there is a difference between white hat and black hat SEOs and SEMs, and that we should only focus on making the black hat SEOs' and SEMs' efforts futile with tags and spam removal. As for George W. Bush's page, I will not edit it except to revert obvious vandalism because I hate him and his administration enough that I have a potential conflict of interest when editing that page. Jesse Viviano 01:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.f1racing.us
Adsense pub-7042355047873605
 * Spam sock accounts


 * Cross wiki Spam

http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speci%C3%A1lis:Contributions/82.78.199.197
 * 

http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Gurde_com
 * 
 * 

--Hu12 10:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Adsense pub-1456781963794036
IPs (presumably cable/semi-static. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) linking a set of domains registered to Elaine Evans, Victoria, Australia.

(cleaned up for now) Femto 15:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

macdroitwich.com
Adsense pub-6411102925994822 search link
 * Spam sock accounts

--Hu12 18:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

203.81.192.67
appears to be a shared account, but a lot of spam is coming from it, mostly for --Ronz 19:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

PanelWiz Spam
One of the creator's of PanelWiz was reported at WP:COIN. If you look at the edit history, you will find what may be a large number of spam links. - Jehochman (talk/contrib) 19:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

✅ Nuked--Spartaz Humbug! 19:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

goodoldtoronto.com spam
Link added:

Accounts known to have added these links on this Wikipedia:
 * 70.27.88.137 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Listed as a bogon IP
 * Traceroutes to: p6-0.sjbr1.global-gateway.net.nz. (New Zealand)
 * 72.56.115.178 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Listed as a bogon IP
 * Traceroutes to: p5-1.sjbr1.global-gateway.net.nz. (New Zealand)
 * 75.33.225.189 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Traceroutes to: adsl-75-33-225-189.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net. (AT&T DSL subscriber in or near Chicago)
 * 141.117.2.239 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Traceroutes to: unknown.ryerson.ca (Ryerson University, Toronto)
 * Bluebear2364 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)

Spam added to other Wikipedias:
 * nn:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * it:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * ko:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * zh:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * ru:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * de:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * fr:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * it:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * pt:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239
 * es:Special:Contributions/141.117.2.239

Articles spammed on this wikipedia:
 * Art Gallery of Ontario
 * Bata Shoe Museum
 * Black Creek Pioneer Village
 * Bloor West Village
 * Boston, Massachusetts
 * Canada's Wonderland
 * Casa Loma
 * Chinatown, Toronto
 * CN Tower
 * Corso Italia, Toronto
 * Culture in Toronto
 * Geography and climate of Toronto
 * Greektown, Toronto
 * History of Toronto
 * Hockey Hall of Fame
 * Koreatown, Toronto
 * Little Italy, Toronto
 * McMichael Canadian Art Collection
 * New York City
 * Ontario Science Centre
 * Oshawa, Ontario
 * Regional Municipality of Durham, Ontario
 * Royal Ontario Museum
 * Toronto Maple Leafs
 * Toronto Raptors
 * Toronto Transit Commission
 * Toronto Zoo
 * Toronto's name
 * Toronto

This is the first time I've seen a bogon IP used for spam. --A. B. (talk) 22:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Blacklisting requested. (Permanent link). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by A. B. (talk • contribs) 22:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Special:Linksearch/*.blogspot.com
The link search reports that there are 22496 external blogspot.com links. About half of them are in main space and most of those have patterns that look like spam. WP:EL says that blogs are links normally to be avoided. It doesn't seem like anybody has been avoiding that domain to me! A person could spend a lifetime cross-referencing and deleting all the blogspot.com spam. It seems like an automated blanket removal is the only solution that is viable but that sort of mass deletion would create a riot.

So what are peoples thoughts on the blog spam problem? I think it would be great if we could get some form of consenus here and then take that to the WP:EL forum. Maybe blanket removal is the solution, maybe the "avoid blog" wording should be changed, maybe blogs should be banned. I don't know. What are your thoughts? (Requestion 04:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC))


 * Feel free to begin removing them all. Very few will be missed, I can assure you. -- ReyBrujo 04:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree. I think a blanket removal of all those blogspot.com links would generate an angry mob of editors who would seek some sort ban or blocking punishment. I've had a couple cases were I deleted 100+ linkspams in a surgical manner (i.e. spammer identified, spam deleted) in a single day and everytime a couple regular editors complain about what I just did, some even start reverting my edits! User:Betacommand has had a couple 1000+ blanket linkspam deletion days and his talk page ignites in a firestorm after every one. Personally I think a blanket deletion is the only way to make a dent in the blogspot.com spam problem but the fallout would be horrendous. Update: today there are now 22601 blogspot.com links. (Requestion 22:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC))


 * Update: there are now 22752 blogspot.com external links. (Requestion 21:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC))


 * I'd be against just a blanket removal - as I do not doubt there may be one or two articles of note on blogspot (or any blog sites) - however I do not doubt that most of them are controbuting nothing. I feel the problem with a a ban on blogs is that some companes/groups (especially technival ones) use blogs and distribution tool for scientific information. While these are not "blogs" in the orignal sense of the word there are blogs. However there is the argument that blogs of this nature construe Original Research. It's certainly a topic that needs to be discussed. IMHO I would avoid blogs rather than ban blogs. While slightly ambiguous this gives reason to include blogs of note and reason to remove blogs that are not of note (i.e. don't positvely contribute). -- Rehnn83 Talk 09:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd say a blanket removal of blogs that aren't attached to names (two worded articles with capital first lettered words) would be pretty darn accurate. JoeSmack Talk 18:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Unless there is a blog written by the subject of the wikipedia article, there is no reason why the blog should be there. Therefore the solution by JoeSmack would solve this. Just do a blanket removal besides for the two or three worded articles with first letters capatalised. There may be a little collateral damage but those edits would be quickly reverted. Chocolatepizza 21:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Three words - You Tube Deletions .... Shudder..... That wasn't contentious was it? Spartaz Humbug! 07:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Funny that you should mention YouTube. There is a stalled thread over at Wikipedia_talk:External_links which I've cross-linked. Can't avoid them, can't blanket delete them, what can we do? Change the rules? (Requestion 17:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC))

double linking
hi everyone. at work, so my tools are limited, but i noticed was double linked on Casino Royale (2006 film). this bears some investigation. also, not sure if this could be considered a authoritative source. It does have an article (SuperHeroHype.com), still feels kind of fishy JoeSmack Talk 16:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

betteroralhealth.org/info
A Wrigley's Gum site, found while browsing Veinor's fantastic logs. Appears to be being spammed by Wrigley's as part of a campaign to promote the use of sugar free gum. See also the COI I filed at the conflict of interest notice board. Users found so far: Would appreciate updates on any other accounts involved and related websites if anyone spots them. Thanks -- Siobhan Hansa 14:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * COIBot is monitoring the links. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Dirk. -- Siobhan Hansa 15:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

cmswatch.com
In addition to help cleaning up after 216.164.33.95, I'd like to hear what others think of cmswatch.com in general as a source or external link. --Ronz 16:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Done cleaning up after 216.164.33.95. --Ronz 17:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Vliegervaringencom / Flightopinions.com
Strange case, two links vliegervaringen.com (Dutch, translates into 'flightopinions.com' or 'flightexperiences.com'), and flightopinions.com. Links are sometimes changed (see diff and diff, both on Martinair). Accounts: --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Ourstory
A user has been adding links to this site and has created the template Template:OurStory as well. Most of the links look like they should go, I assume the template probably doesn't need to stay either? --Minderbinder 21:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

jesusfreakhideout.com


At the risk of sounding like a spam-apologist - the site isn't overly commercial, and may be the only source of reviews for some of these Christian music cds/albums.. However, the addition of these links to so many pages in a serial & repetitive fashion makes them spam. --Versageek 04:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Spamming is about promoting a site someone loves, its not always about commercial sites. Links to commercial sites are often appropriate. Links to sites for the purpose of using Wikipedia to promote a site, such as these are not.--Hu12 05:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Spamming is about promoting a site you're a fan of. But I believe this site is favored by WikiProject Contemporary Christian music because it's considered one of the best (i.e. most independent and reliable) sites for reviews of Christian music.  So DantheCowMan mightbe trying to provide comprehensive and comparable coverage that has the approval of a significant number of editors who concentrate on that field.  Which is different from promoting a site you like.  Might want to check with the wikiProject and see if they'll help out with any clean up should it be necessary. -- Siobhan Hansa 13:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

search current spam ; --Hu12 05:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * possibly, for whatever project this falls under... creating a template, linking this site, with appropriate consensus of course. if its imprtant and notable enough to the 100+ article, ect.--Hu12 13:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

So, what's the verdict here? For further background, see (unprompted) discussion at User_talk:Hu12. Dan, the CowMan 07:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've responded at the discussion on Hu12's talk page to try and keep this in one place. -- Siobhan Hansa 14:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Courtesy notice template?
Is the a template available for notifying editors of discussions here about their edits? --Ronz 17:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just leave them a note on their talk page. Templates are a very poor way of communicating (says the man who just issued a test2). --Spartaz Humbug! 17:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Asside from adding this page to your the wachlist, and actualy watching it, I don't think so. I'm currently topping 2700 pages on my wachlist, as a result, I've now developed Telepathy, which allows me to see out of my ears...--Hu12 17:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hu12 I'd like to direct your attention to Special:Recentchangeslinked. You can maintain a list of commonly watched pages and it will show recent changes for all linked pages.  --Kevin_b_er 03:01, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Can someone explain how the Special:Recentchangeslinked page works? Nposs 02:08, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It is the related changes link. Special:Recentchangeslinked/PageName is the way to use it. Its output format is shown when you click a related changes link in the wiki toolbox in the sidebar if you want to see what happens.  Any page internally linked on the page will show in the related changes/recentchangeslinked page, except for pages that are not local wiki editiable pages, of course. Kevin_b_er 03:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

urls in image wikilinks?

 * home.comcast.net/~milazinkova/Fogshadow.html
 * home.comcast.net/~milazinkova/Fogshadow.html
 * home.comcast.net/~milazinkova/Fogshadow.html

I'm not sure what the policy on this is, this user uploaded some rather nice images, which properly have his information on the actual image page, but he is also putting a link to his website on the article pages where the images are being used (as comments inside the image wikilink). The site itself is just a personal homepage.. (many large images.. ). --Versageek 04:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Should be able to just remove all the links from the articles and satisify it that way. Kevin_b_er 04:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

irelandliteratureguide.com linkspam
Could somebody look at this: links to irelandliteratureguide.com ? --Jdevalk 07:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The site itself appears to be a non-commercial, home grown collection of reasonable content. But the IP addresses adding it weren't regular editors of the articles and they both added the link on several occasions without making other edits on the subject.  Looks like it was spammed back in august 2006 by  and .  193.120.148.177 was warned for spamming (3 times) but the links were not all removed.  I'm not sure about the non en: wikis, but it looks more like editors there copied the links from the :en pages on at least one of the articles and in all cases they appear to have been added by registered, regular editors.  I think removing the links and pointing to this discussion in the edit summary makes sense.  If regular editors of the article think it is a valuable resource that should be in the article regardless, they can add it back. -- Siobhan Hansa 15:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

snow.prohosting.com/usarail

 * snow.prohosting.com/usarail
 * snow.prohosting.com/usarail
 * snow.prohosting.com/usarail

This site appears to be a copy (or perhaps the original copy) of . It doesn't appear to be commercial in anyway, but it is being added as an external link to many pages for Amtrack train stations. The user is also making improvements to the pages when he adds the external link, so if removal is deemed necessary, it should be done carefully. --Versageek 16:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

amics2000.com


There's a tie-in with, who was spamming Infotech Systems, Inc. before being blocked for doing so. 72.156.246.186 removed the block notice on Amics2000's talk page, and AMICS is software developed by Infotech Systems, Inc. Enough evidence for a checkuser? --Ronz 23:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I used to do clerk stuff for the requests for checkuser page, this sounds like something they'd reject as obvious. 72.156.246.186 reverse-dns'es to www.amicssql.com, which has an administrative contact e-mail of vasu@amics2000.com  Almost certainly the same person or company. Kevin_b_er 03:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Ronz 20:25, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Followup to my link count archives
I developed a search for my link count archives; it can be found here. Currently, it will parse everything literally (searching for proboards\d\d will only return pages that have proboards%5Cd%5Cd in their URL), but I hope to have a safe regexer up soon (1 week or so). Also, it won't warn you if it finds any missing archives. Basically, it's still in beta. Veinor (talk to me) 04:42, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

myspacegraphicshelper.com
This has been repeatedly added to Graphics. It's getting annoying. Suggestions? --Ronz 20:29, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

spam from snesclassics.com and affilitiated sites
87 article-space edits, 54 articles, 11 warnings, 8 domains, 6 accounts, 3 languages, 1 block.

Thoroughly documented and warned by SiobhanHansa in February, back at it again today.

Accounts adding one or more of these links: IPs traceroute to the U.K.; some more specifically to Sheffield
 * 82.38.169.97 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 82.38.170.82 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 86.140.95.231 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 86.146.76.255 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 86.147.210.28 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Snesclassics (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)

Cross-wiki spamming:
 * fr:Special:Contributions/82.38.170.82
 * it:Special:Contributions/82.38.170.82

Adsense ID: 2908570604091410 Bidvertiser ID: 30359290

Domains spammed:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:
 * Comment:

Same owner:
 * http://gaming-memories.com
 * http://funny-finds.blogspot.com
 * http://funny-finds.blogspot.com

Blacklisting requested. (Permalink) --A. B. (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

hiphopjazzproduction.com
Look this is slanders accusations if I want to take off my copyrighted content that I have added to wikipedia haven donated as well I am a real contributer not just an idiot with nothing to do. Do not comment on the quality of my site. There is only one page were i didnt do citation and I explained. that. putting me on a blacklist damages my domains. There is nothing wrong with my content I have explained it. This blocked user (block log | autoblocks | unblock | contribs) asked to be unblocked, but an administrator has reviewed and declined this request. Other administrators can also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy). This unblock request continues to be visible. Do not replace this message with another unblock request nor add another unblock request.

Request reason: "sockpuppetry is a fact of life, no one use static ips.Ip servers dont use them Domain names cost money real money if you blacklist someone and that is used by someone else you are asking for a world of pain. You can not make that list public use your head. My links were and are appropriate I do a sound engineering site geared towards the basics, I added relevant links to topic areas on wikipedia a site I have donated to, and provided content for. Nposs and cronies have taken it upon themselves to block my external links because it was felt my site looked professional. While doing this they have chosen to pass judgement on sites they have no expertise to decide whether or not. It is appropriate. Pedia is all well and good but sometimes people want an overview or geniune depth. I offer both on certain topic areas. Areas that this pedia doesnt get. Example microphones. And being from Trinidad calypso music etc. I want my domains unblocked, I do varied content that is readable. After adding links to wikipedia my visits went up but time per visit went up. While click through went down way down. So my pages where directly appropriate and being West Indian I understood knowledge areas like Dancehall etc. just look at these too links and it proves that my links were appropriate and proving useful. My time per visit will no doubt slide. but for a none commercial site that has donated monies and content, I do not want respect but the disrespect of NPoss and cronies is ridiculous. They have allowed full commercial catalogues to stay on. While links they have removed of mine have been more appropriate. No one wants traffic not interested in content. http://hip hopjazzproduction.com/modlogan/m_usage_200704_000_000.html I have added my links appropriately and I know my domains of content. I have done a specific site. and it has its place in the external links. I am a knowledge engineer I understand what people want and how they want. Everyone has there place. For example you talk about samplers but skim over mpc1000 which are the main thing. In that area. Calypso music Coming from trinidad my article was pertainent and included technology in genre CarnivalComing from trinidad my article was pertainent and included technology in genre Dancehall I work with dancehall act and your piece did not catch the spirit Hip hop Hip hop production Microphone Case study comparing the main condenser microphones over the main dynamic shure58 it is also described in to detailed away. I work in studios etc. This is not the level of detail people are going to want.

Music industry A list of 90 indsutry contracts, and a list of uk charity status organisation to do with music industry that all artist/musicians have interact with your list was not complete Musical Instrument Digital Interface Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan I manage classical musicians who have recieved awards etc. Record producer Recording studio Reggae Sampler (musical instrument) Synthesizer I could go on and on. I know my domains dont threaten me with blacklisting the fact that you put this project in jepeordy, that I have given money to and content by doing a public blacklist is ridiculous

I do a sound engineering site geared towards the basics, I added relevant links to topic areas on wikipedia a site I have donated to, and provided content for. Nposs and cronies have taken it upon themselves to block my external links because it was felt my site looked professional. While doing this they have chosen to pass judgement on sites they have no expertise to decide whether or not. It is appropriate. Pedia is all well and good but sometimes people want an overview or geniune depth. I offer both on certain topic areas. Areas that this pedia doesnt get. Example microphones. And being from Trinidad calypso music etc. I want my domains unblocked, I do varied content that is readable. After adding links to wikipedia my visits went up but time per visit went up. While click through went down way down. So my pages where directly appropriate and being West Indian I understood knowledge areas like Dancehall etc. just look at these too links and it proves that my links were appropriate and proving useful. My time per visit will no doubt slide. but for a none commercial site that has donated monies and content, I do not want respect but the disrespect of NPoss and cronies is ridiculous. They have allowed full commercial catalogues to stay on. While links they have removed of mine have been more appropriate. No one wants traffic not interested in content. http://hip hopjazzproduction.com/modlogan/m_usage_200704_000_000.html I have added my links appropriately and I know my domains of content. I have done a specific site. and it has its place in the external links. I am a knowledge engineer I understand what people want and how they want. Everyone has there place. For example you talk about samplers but skim over mpc1000 which are the main thing. In that area.

Nposs you are consistent in your harrassment. I have explained to you many times to leave me alone. You are intelligent enough to understand my content. And my site is full css so hold your tongue. Everyone has to start somewhere and a little respect to donator and contributor to this site. The content deleted was a commercial cataloge that you would find on amazon from an amazon style site. I know this guys I have been to the shop. I also know many musicians ripped of by them. Nposs you are a liar. And a twister. which you did on every point —The — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.255.71 (talk • contribs)



A determined spammer with a dynamic IP address (crosswiki spam):
 * see also spam and WP es
 * see also spam on WP es
 * see also spam on WP es
 * see also spam on WP es

Low content, promotional site featuring content scrapped from Wikipedia and YouTube. Example: Link added to webpage with content copied from the Wikipedia article without proper citation. Nposs 01:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I am going to list this at m:Talk:Spam blacklist for blacklisting:
 * Persistent spam additions despite warnings
 * Use of multiple IPs. This is not in itself wrong, since IPs can change, but harder for us to manage and watch for spam.
 * Cross-wiki spam
 * Content deletion to make a POINT
 * Abusive attacks
 * Legal threats
 * I don't see this getting better or stopping until these links are blacklisted. Persistent spammers don't respond to warnings, discussions, etc. That's especially true of the abusive kind -- discussion only eggs them on, from my own hard-learned experience. I've learned to stick to just cut-and-dried interactions. --A. B. (talk) 18:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * See m:Talk:Spam blacklist (permanent link). --A. B. (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * 84.13.241.54 still spamming.--A. B. (talk) 19:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * also it's the same site --Versageek 19:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The redirect site has been blacklisted :) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 22:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The hiphopjazzproduction.com spammer is back spamming harmonicazone.com crosswiki (en, pt, es, it, fr). harmonicazone.com redirects to the blacklisted hiphopjazzproduction.com domain.
 * Can an admin please block:
 * 84.13.245.61 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Thanks --A. B. (talk) 16:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Blocked. IrishGuy talk 21:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Blocked. IrishGuy talk 21:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Adsense pub-7280967257355669 --Hu12 07:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

autocrust.blogspot.com

 * Adsense pub: 3509832972481320

Just scrapes content from other automotive blogs and reposts it with adsense.

Two single-purpose accounts so far:

Reminiscent of: Nposs 04:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

postchronicle.com
I came across a bunch of articles that use links to this site as references. The site has the appearance of a real newspaper, but it is quite ad-heavy. However, upon closer inspection, to me it seems to be just a masquerade. I don't know if links have been added to promote the site, or by well-intentioned editors that were fooled by it. Can others please take a look and let me know if you agree with me, or if you think I'm mistaken? I want to make sure before I start removing links (per WP:RS), which would be the appropriate response if I'm right. Deli nk 18:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I think an effort should be made to re-source the information, rather than deleting a possibly unreliable source. This is a deep and major change, and should probably go to talk pages of articles. I only routinely remove sources if I can confirm they are part of a campaign, added by editors without connection to the article.
 * Looking at the specifics: the disclaimer on http://www.postchronicle.com/ suggests they are an unauthorized news aggregator. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that, if it is true, everything they report should have a higher level equivalent. I'd support finding the original. I wouldn't support deleting any link to them cold. Notinasnaid 18:39, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * In addition to the concerns above, considering that they solicit content from their readers, this site clearly does not qualify as a reliable source. Links should be replaced with reliable sources; and where not available, the link should be replaced with a fact tag.  In cases where Wikipedia editors are using it to source material that may violate WP:BLP, such as here, the edit should be removed completely.  Slideshow Bob 19:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Banner at top of page
Is this really needed, I just now noticed that it was added without much discussion here on this page. The diff of the addition is here. I think if we want a header, perhaps a more detailed one as to what this page is about is in order, not just something that assumes that members here do not know what WP:BITE etc are. Any ideas? —— Eagle 101  Need help? 20:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The banner looks good faith and mostly harmless, and was added by someone who helps: I assume it is to try to contain comments by occasional visitors? I guess if I got it quoted at me I would be more motivated to remove it...--BozMo talk 20:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Mostly harmless. Very well said. And we all know what happens next. (Requestion 21:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC))


 * While I agree with BozMo, I think the language is a little strong for something that was never discussed. I suggest the following instead (changes are italicized): "As a courtesy, please consider informing other users and editors if they are mentioned in a posting, or if their actions are being discussed."
 * Whether or not another editor should be informed of a discussion here is a decision best left to the discretion of the poster. Many times, alerting an uncivil serial spammer of this page serves no useful purpose whatsoever, and doing so has never been strictly required.
 * In a similar vein, we have never been required to inform an editor they have been reported to WP:AIV or WP:RFCU. Since this page has essentially become the de facto spam noticeboard, it should be subject to the same standard. -- Satori Son 21:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. Not sure if it's a good idea to invite every spam conversation here. He've had a few problems in the past with this talk page getting flooding by some very wordy individuals. There are also times when mentioning a discussion here would provoke a situation even more. It definitely shouldn't be standard policy, at least not without a consensus. (Requestion 02:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC))


 * I got all bold and such, and I retoned it. I think it sounds better.  We should *not* be making it a psuedo-policy of the project to tell the worst of spammers that they've been 'reported.'  That is silly.  However, for those that may just not be aware of the guidelines and policies and don't understand conflict of interest, we should inform them.  There's been lots of 'oops ok, I didn't know' saved by a little bit of courtesy.  But make no mistake, the serial spammer needs to be sent to an administrator for blockage.  Kevin_b_er 06:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Not sure if changing "As a courtesy" to "For good faith" is an improvement. It sort of implies that failure to do so is a violation of WP:AGF which it is not. I agree with User:Eagle 101 that the regular posters here do not need to be reminded of WP:BITE, WP:AGF, and WP:CIVILITY. I motion that the entire banner be removed. (Requestion 21:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC))
 * "Feel free" would be better. -- ReyBrujo 21:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed back to "As a courtesy..." for now. -- Satori Son 14:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

ongoing porn linkspam
Way too much info to reproduce here, but it has been well documented on Meta on several occasions.


 * one, two, three, four --Versageek 05:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This is really getting nasty, its up to 30+ domains... if one of you guys can work some magic with adsense ids or whatnot I'd be indebted to you. (Also note this is using multiple IPs, so a simple block is not going to work) —— Eagle 101  Need help? 06:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I looked up the ips of these domains, and the ranges seem to be 209.85.22.* abd 209.62.0.* a reverse dns on these ips reveals it is hosted at ev1servers.net. No idea how this info could be useful, eagle just asked me to put it up here. GeorgeMoney (talk) 06:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There are no adsense IDs on the few sites I looked at. But it was pretty foul, I didn't stay on the sites very long.  All the sites are registered with monkier privacy protection services, and they seem to use ns1.pammmy.com and ns2.pammy.com for nameservers.  Beyond that, not much.  I'd recommend just blacklisting everything on this google search: search record Kevin_b_er 06:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Very nice! I'm going to work on getting those onto User:Shadowbot :) Thanks! —— Eagle 101  Need help? 06:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Parsed out that google search: www.ayanaangel.org www.anetabuena.org www.justinejoli.org www.nadianyce.org www.masonmarconi.org www.jennaheart.org www.amberrayne.net www.victoriaparis.org www.sarahjames.org www.janamiartusova.org www.nikkyblond.org www.lilimarlene.net www.phoenixray.net www.lizhoney.net www.summerlynn.net www.tarawild.net www.aikotanaka.net www.kittyyung.org www.melissawolf.net www.kellyerickson.net www.sarahblue.org www.karinschubert.net www.nicoleparks.net www.courtneyculkin.org www.kristarabarrington.net www.millydabbraccio.org www.victoriapink.net www.sadiejones.org www.mandymichaels.org www.klarasmetanova.net www.loripleasure.net www.aliceogura.net www.linsiyee.net www.kamiandrews.net www.taylorlynn.org www.bobbibliss.org www.akihoyoshizawa.net www.mandyashford.org www.victoriasin.net www.chrissytaylor.org www.michelleraven.net www.ayamisakurai.net www.angelastone.org www.michellelay.org www.zsanettegerhazi.org www.sakuraakane.com www.kimberlyfranklin.org www.xxxena.org www.kirstenprice.org www.tianalynn.org www.kimberleyrogers.net www.alexaweix.net www.veronicabrazil.org www.nikkiblonde.org www.hyapatialee.org www.lenajuliette.net www.sarahjanehamilton.net www.aliciaalighatti.org www.desirae.org www.yasminevega.net www.lanitodd.org www.haleypaige.org www.nicoleoring.org www.kinakai.org www.kellyjean.net www.kaylapaige.org www.veronicacarso.org www.yuisarina.net www.mistyknights.org www.momomizutani.com www.saorikamiya.net www.rayveness.org www.cristinabella.org www.mandymay.org www.victoriasweet.org www.ranmonbu.org www.aubrielemon.net www.belicia.org www.nikiblond.org www.orsolya.org www.terabond.org www.roxetta.org www.kyokoayana.net www.monicasweet.org www.savannahstern.org www.anitaqueen.net www.wendydivine.net www.leademae.net www.rosacaracciolo.net www.jessicacanizales.org www.sarahmercury.net www.sunnycruz.org www.cherrypoppens.org www.feliciafox.net www.nikkihot.net www.autumnbliss.org www.aurorajolie.org www.cherryjul.org www.oliviawinters.net www.kellyfire.net www.nancylane.net www.maihoshino.com www.carolgoldnerova.net www.veronicarayne.org www.shannonsunderlin.net www.nicolevoss.org www.amandaemino.net www.rileyshy.org www.rickiwhite.net www.sugarchanelle.org www.audreybitoni.org www.carmelmoore.org www.carmenkinsley.org www.krystaljordan.net www.tiffanyprice.org www.kylierichards.net www.jennypoussin.org www.rebeccalinares.org www.paulinajames.org www.boroka.org www.kiadrayton.org www.demidelia.org www.veroniquevega.net www.reganreese.net www.janafoxy.org www.angiesavage.org www.barbiecummings.org www.tyramoore.org www.tiffanyholiday.net www.emilianna.org www.racqueldevonshire.net www.hannahhilton.org www.mayahills.org www.ivakleinova.net www.tanyahardin.net www.lanawoods.net www.abbeybrooks.org www.tjpowers.org www.sophialucci.org www.kimmykahn.net www.karinvonkroft.net www.ingridswede.net www.sydneecapri.net www.tianarose.net www.marimisato.net www.sammirhodes.net www.sashamonet.net www.joanneguest.net www.sophiemoone.org www.chantarose.net www.krystaldeboor.net www.rikoakina.net www.alliesin.net www.hollyhollywood.org www.alexandranice.org www.petramorgan.net www.tiffanymillion.net www.megumiosawa.net www.izumihasegawa.net www.brittanylove.org www.daniellederek.org www.jadefeng.net www.tobipacific.net www.priyarai.org www.moniquefuentes.org www.harleydavis.net www.jessisummers.org www.pattyplenty.net www.yuikawai.com www.laurenphoenix.net www.lexilove.net www.hikarukoto.net www.bunnyluv.net www.terajoy.net www.reiitoh.net www.paulaprice.net www.alexarae.net www.naooikawa.net GeorgeMoney (talk) 07:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Can you do me a favour? Can you do a similar back search on the links on my User:Tabercil\Porn Linkspam page? That was an earlier set of links which that person added. Tabercil 11:57, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The there was one link in Tabercil's list with Overture (yahoo) text ads using ID 1845416180. next batch search list.  I assume you've got a nifty method to grab the URLs as before, GeorgeMoney? --Kevin_b_er 21:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I can publish the script if you want. The links are:

www.nicolesheridan.org www.veronicavanoza.org www.suediamond.net www.masonstorm.org www.lauriewallace.org www.marieluv.net www.alishaklass.net www.nikkichao.net www.laceyduvalle.org www.ashleylong.org www.katiegold.net www.nikkifairchild.org www.nadiastyles.org www.sondrahall.org www.zuzanadrabinova.org www.ninaferrari.org www.adrianamalkova.org www.ryanconner.org www.sativarose.org www.tylerfox.org www.adinajewel.net www.daytonrains.net www.alexarden.org www.jessicadarlin.org www.monicamayhem.org www.mikatan.org www.candymanson.org www.jessicafiorentino.org www.sabrinemaui.org www.laylajade.org www.sindeecoxx.net www.daisymarie.net www.adrianasage.org www.sophiesweet.org www.michellethorne.org www.britneyskye.org www.nikiblonde.org www.silviethomas.org www.szilvialauren.org www.bridgettekerkove.net www.jeweldenyle.org www.sonjaadams.org www.nauticathorn.org www.felixvicious.org www.mandyfisher.net www.stacysilver.org www.cassiecourtland.org www.randiwright.org www.bettieballhaus.net www.ashtontaylor.org www.avenalee.org www.shylastylez.net www.anitablond.org www.karmarosenberg.org www.amberrain.net www.daniwoodward.org www.ashleyrobbins.org www.caileytaylor.net www.clarahamilton.net www.amyreid.org www.britneyluv.net www.britneyfoster.net www.nikitablonde.org www.crystalray.net www.aliciarhodes.org www.avyleeroth.org www.bambibliss.net www.sharonwild.org www.alyssalovelace.net www.tjhart.net www.sophieparis.org www.alauraeden.net www.katerinahovorkova.net www.daniellarush.net www.kitanajade.org www.angelcassidy.org www.marisadiaz.net www.janedarling.org www.lilythai.org www.dillanlauren.org www.roxycarter.org www.sinnamonlove.org www.anetasmrhova.org www.roxannehall.org www.autumnaustin.org www.evelawrence.net www.bridgetbanks.net www.tanyajames.org
 * GeorgeMoney (talk) 22:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. This idiot user has been a thorough nuisance with his spamming, and I do appreciate tackling the older list. I reckon the sites in the older list were done by the same person simply due to their identical layout. As for the current spam that's being posted, I have a couple more links to add to the bot: www.rebecalinares.net www.nikkitaylor.org www.nyomimarcela.org www.veronicahart.net Again, thanks for acting! Tabercil 22:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Heh, shadowbot is doing a very good job here... at least one IP address has been blocked as a result of spamming these. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 16:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * That may be the case, but the spammer is very persistent - check the history. I've had to pull the links for those four sites out several times since Shadowbot started watching. I think it's time to blacklist those four links (rebecalinares.net et al). Tabercil 21:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to get independent link review as part of peer review?
I am wondering if there is any process for calling in outside link reviewers to rate external links relative to standard Wikipedia policies. I see this as a specialized type of peer review. We have a League of Copyeditors, but is there a League of Link Reviewers? Having a neutral party look at certain articles could be useful. This could look at WP:RS issues in addition to linkspam issues. Buddhipriya 19:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ugh, spam is spam and should be easily seen when evidence is presented. Links are either useful to building the encyclopedia, or they are not. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that linkspam should be removed whenever possible. However as a member of WikiProject Spam, in doing link removal I have noticed that sometimes people do not agree if a link is spam.  Asking my question another way, is there any existing process to get independent examination of links to determine if those links comply with the policies for WP:EL? Buddhipriya 19:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure the talk page of the external links policy, lets try to avoid process creep. —— Eagle 101  Need help? 19:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You could alwase request a third opinion. WP:RF3O. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

smashits.com
Present in over 30 articles, and recently spammed by.

Shows streaming video of Bollywood movies. Is this a copyright violation? If not, the amount of advertising alone would suggest that this link doesn't meet WP:EL. Any thoughts? Nposs 00:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

"agent for speaking engagements" links
I found these links for a speaker/artist agency after this user spammed Motivational speaker. I reverted a couple of them, but would like an admin to look at the rest before I get too carried away. Thanks. --CliffC 17:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking remove them; the sites don't count as reliable sources due to the obvious conflict of interest, and they're offering a product. Veinor (talk to me) 17:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Done, thanks. --CliffC 21:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Not linkspam - but over 50 external links in one article?!
The external links section of Dramarama (band) just seems exist as a directory of links to reviews and sites about this band. I know it's not spam, but is there a limit on the amount of links in one article? I've never seen such a huge amount before. 172.206.122.130 19:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This may be a more appropriate question for the external links guidelines talk page. 50 links as simple external links and not references is excessive, the guidelines say "a few".  Some of it probably is spam - fan sites people want to promote and the like.  But in any case our not a directory policy would indicate drastic cuts are in order. I see User:Betacommand has just done some well needed pruning. -- Siobhan Hansa 21:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This might be a good place to apply the "Nuke and watch" tactic. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

sunnymonkey stuff spammed to Wikipedia
Domains spammed to Wikipedia:
 * www.mikafanclub.com
 * mikafanclub.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.kartingextra.com
 * kartingextra.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.wlingo.com/?referral=113
 * Note -- I don't think this domain is owned by sunnymonkey -- he was just trying to snag revenues from the referral code
 * wlingo.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.yourmycrush.com
 * yourmycrush.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.dateburn.com
 * dateburn.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.brightonvibes.com
 * brightonvibes.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.waterutopia.com
 * waterutopia.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.eatingbritain.com
 * eatingbritain.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.hyundaisportsclub.com
 * hyundaisportsclub.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * onlyfinance.redclaim.com
 * redirects to http://www.onlyfinance.com
 * redclaim.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * onlyfinance.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.dashboardmonkey.com
 * dashboardmonkey.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.urbanindustry.co.uk
 * urbanindustry.co.uk: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.mercedesbenzcarinsurance.com
 * Swiftcover Insurance Services Ltd
 * mercedesbenzcarinsurance.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages


 * www.duvetland.com
 * duvetland.com: Linksearch • Linkreport • COIBot Linkreport • Eagle's spam report search • Eagle's interwiki link search • Google search • Google search Veinor pages

Adsense IDs:
 * 9321341301641620
 * 8644026233666675

Accounts:
 * 82.195.160.59 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * 81.98.154.174 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
 * Itrends (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)

Owns many additional domains not spammed to Wikipedia (that I know of). I was able to identify 59; see User:A. B./Sandbox9 (permalinks: ) --A. B. (talk) 00:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * New account spamming again today:
 * Yumikuga2 (talk • contribs • links • count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= user logs ] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: user page logs ] • status)


 * Blacklisting requested. (Permanent link) --A. B. (talk) 18:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * COIBot is monitoring these links. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 10:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Vliegervaringencom / Flightopinions.com
Strange case, two links vliegervaringen.com (Dutch, translates into 'flightopinions.com' or 'flightexperiences.com'), and flightopinions.com. Links are sometimes changed (see diff and diff, both on Martinair). Accounts: --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (Pulled from archive)Another link in the same pages:
 * Also see skytrax
 * Pages all are just forums where people can leave their opinions. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Pages all are just forums where people can leave their opinions. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Packt publishing
Did a lot of spamming for their books a while back apparently (ended Nov 2005); I saw that the talk page had been blanked by and he documented it at User:Here/templates/packtpub-spam. Today, I just cleaned out the new ones listed at the bottom of that page, copied here: Those were only from. &mdash; RevRagnarok  Talk Contrib 10:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * dotProject
 * Joomla!
 * qmail
 * Comparison of integrated development environments for Python programming language
 * MediaWiki
 * WordPress
 * Moodle
 * Alfresco
 * Thank you. The individual(s) promoting this publisher have been persistent over many months...  it seems they remain so.  I have no doubt this will remain a long term spam source.  Thanks for picking up the chase..  &there4; here&hellip;&spades; 17:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted and monitored on COIBot. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 10:24, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the notice, I will stop adding links to our books from now on. I didn't realise that they would be considered as Spam. My assumption was that as I was adding information about books where there was already information about other books. As with the case of Joomla!, I assumed it wouldn't be considered as an act of Spam, but merely as a useful addition for users. 217.207.125.60 13:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed removal of DMOZ mention in WP:EL
After being in WP:EL since October, there's a proposal (and revert war) at EL over the mention of substituting a link to open directory category to try and keep the number of external links down. Since this is a potential linkspam fighting tool, editors here should be aware of the proposed change. Feel free to weigh in there (EL talk page) if you have an opinion on the matter. Thanks. --Minderbinder 12:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The revert war ended up with the page getting a full protection with the entire segment out. Based on some of the discussions I have had during EL wars trying to stop spammers come in, we could be in for some rough times ahead, since I know many have used that clause over the past six months to avert some pretty nasty arguments.  I hope that some sort of alternative language is put in there very soon. -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 17:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

http://spam.inciner8.com

 * Related
 * http://spam.wasteoilheaters.eu
 * http://spam.inciner8uk.co.uk
 * Spam sock accounts
 * http://spam.inciner8uk.co.uk
 * Spam sock accounts
 * Spam sock accounts

 --Hu12 19:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Monitored (blacklist) by COIBot. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Publisher Spam, Incisive Media Investments Ltd.
Note: this company owns searchenginewatch.com and searchenginestrategies.com. Finding all the sock accounts, and methods of insertion will not all be obvious spam. I don't believe this is a complete list of sites ect., however I do believe this will take months to unravel the complexity of Incisive Media's integration within Wikipedia. --Hu12 12:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Spam sock accounts

changed to


 * Incisive Media articles


 * Risk Waters Group
 * Risk (magazine)
 * Computeractive
 * Computing (magazine)
 * IT Week
 * Legal Week
 * Incisive Media sites

http://spam.re-world.com http://spam.structuredproductsonline.com http://spam.fxweek.com http://spam.baselalert.com http://spam.riskwaters.com http://spam.incisivemedia.com http://spam.incisivecommunications.com http://spam.cift.com http://spam.risk.net http://spam.asiarisk.com.hk http://spam.energyrisk.com http://spam.creditmag.com http://spam.life-pensions.com http://spam.opriskandcompliance.com http://spam.structuredproductsonline.com http://spam.risknews.net http://spam.riskbooks.com http://spam.journalofcomputationalfinance.com http://spam.journalofrisk.com http://spam.journalofcreditrisk.com http://spam.journalofoperationalrisk.com http://spam.imdreference.com http://spam.imdindex.com http://spam.insidemarketdata.com http://spam.irdonline.com http://spam.incisive-events.com http://spam.activehome.co.uk http://spam.computeractive.co.uk http://spam.gizmodo.com http://spam.pcmag.co.uk http://spam.pcw.co.uk http://spam.webactivemagazine.co.uk http://spam.whatpc.co.uk http://spam.accountancyage.com http://spam.bestpracticemagazine.co.uk http://spam.financialdirector.co.uk http://spam.managementconsultancy.co.uk http://spam.accountancyagejobs.com http://spam.computingcareers.co.uk http://spam.inqjobs.co.uk http://spam.computing.co.uk http://spam.computingbusiness.co.uk http://spam.channelweb.co.uk http://spam.theinquirer.net http://spam.itweek.co.uk http://spam.vnunet.com http://spam.marketing.vnu.co.uk http://spam.dealingwithtechnology.com http://spam.dwt-event.com http://spam.searchenginewatch.com http://spam.searchenginestrategies.com http://spam.watersonline.com http://spam.waters-conferences.com http://spam.hfitechnology.com http://spam.bjp-online.com http://spam.postmagazine.co.uk http://spam.legalweek.com http://spam.professionalbroking.co.uk http://spam.reinsurancemagazine.com http://spam.insuranceage.com http://spam.covermagazine.co.uk http://spam.insurance-directories.com http://spam.investmentweek.co.uk http://spam.intinv.com http://spam.realadviser.co.uk http://spam.masteringmoney.com http://spam.yourmoney.com http://spam.ymitv.co.uk http://spam.yourmortgage.co.uk http://spam.mortgageedge.co.uk http://spam.mortgagesolutions-online.com http://spam.unquote.co.uk http://spam.deutscheunquote.com http://spam.franceunquote.com http://spam.nordicunquote.com http://spam.beneluxunquote.com http://spam.southerneuropeunquote.com http://spam.hedgefundsreview.com http://spam.financialmarketingonline.com http://spam.wealthmagazineonline.com http://spam.ifaonline.co.uk http://spam.privateequityinsight.com


 * Incisive Media site search

--Hu12 11:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * COIBot is monitoring these links. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 10:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Interlink Networks
The company Interlink Networks LLC has been spamming Wikipedia since September 2006 either directly, by proxy, or both. I suspect that User:Wikiboy121 was hired to create the Interlink networks Wikipedia article. The interlinknetworks.com, lucidlink.com, companycrafters.com domains are all connected by ownership and/or management.

Socks
 * - created Interlink networks article, 2 linkspams
 * - Mobilkom Austria AG ?, 7 linkspams
 * - IP2GO.NET Ann Arbor Michigan, 29 linkspams
 * - Comcast Michigan, 23 linkspams
 * - Sprint PCS Reston VA, 1 linkspam

Domains
 * Special:Linksearch/*.interlinknetworks.com - Interlink Networks LLC, Vern Smith, Ann Arbor Michigan
 * Special:Linksearch/*.lucidlink.com - ILN Holdings Inc., Vern Smith, Ann Arbor Michigan
 * Special:Linksearch/*.companycrafters.com - Mike Klein, managing partner, is also the CEO of Interlink Networks

Megasearch

See User_talk:Requestion for an interesting conversation with Wikiboy121 and the CompanyCrafters connection. The final warning has been violated twice. In total 62 linkspams have been added. A whole lot of spooky stuff has happened because of this de-spamming. There are some crosswiki hits and I recommend blacklisting. (Requestion 23:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC))
 * COIBot is monitoring these links. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 10:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

spam of CMPMedia / MillerFreeman publications from MillerFreeman IP
Socks
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - CMP Media links + some diycalculator.com
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - only home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin
 * - CMP Media links + some diycalculator.com
 * - CMP Media links + some diycalculator.com

CMP Media

Not CMP Media

This is probably only the tip of the iceberg, these guys have hundreds of publications.. most of which are fairly decent for the niche subjects they cover, shame of them for spamming Wikipedia! --Versageek 00:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for listing this. My thoughts exactly. --Ronz 00:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if all these media companies that have been discovered spamming wiki in the last week - share a marketing / advertising firm that has given them some really bad advice.. --Versageek 00:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I just ran into the Miller Freeman / CMP Media connection today. I added 9 more users and 10 more URLs to the above list. All of the above IPs are registered to Miller Freeman. All of the above domains are owned by CMP Media except the last two which I believe are personal websites. I've been tracking some of the diycalculator.com and {dsp|eda|pl}designline.com links for a couple weeks. This is an extremely complicated and intertwined web of spam. The home.ix.netcom.com/~dfirmin link is very interesting in that it originates from a Miller Freeman IP and two hours after I deleted those links another Miller Freemean IP added a couple of them back. So someone is definitely keeping a close eye on their spam. I predict this is going to get a lot bigger and I suggest creating a home base like I did with Talk:Penton Media to hold all the information. (Requestion 05:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC))

In case it wasn't known: Miller Freeman is CMP Media. --Versageek 06:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * If the new functionality of COIBot is working, these are all monitored (blacklist) by COIBot. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 08:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Might not be relevant: --Ronz 18:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * has a coi with diycalculator.com, but was only suggesting the links be added per WP:COI


 * User:Memyselfmax is related to User:Maxalot who also did some CMP Media spamming. This is one complicated spam tree. Memyselfmax was doing some unique talkspam that I mentioned in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Apr. At the time I thought we couldn't touch the diycalculator.com link because of some talk page "safe haven" clause but WP:SPAM seems to imply that we can. (Requestion 20:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC))