Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2014 Archive May 1

sumra.in



 * Spammers

MER-C 11:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

See also,. A similar looking edit by inserted link to safi.in/ ···V ani s che nu (mc/talk) 05:45, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted. MER-C 10:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Spam on Talk:TextSecure
--Dodi 8238 (talk) 16:21, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

3dvieweronline.com
Fairly standard External links section spammer. Werieth (talk) 12:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Reporting Spam in George Smitherman Wiki
I was viewing the references in the George Smitherman(politician) Wikipedia page and noticed there is advertisement spam in the references.

The page containing the spam can be viewed at: []

The spam can only be viewed in the footnotes at reference point 19. Here is a summary of the advertisment:

"#1 - Generic viagra from canada pharmacy. Cheapest price, approved canadian pharmacy. Top-quality drugs at discount prices". Wwindea.org. 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2013-12-31.

The advertisement contains a URL to the website, I have not verified if it is malicious. I formally request someone with proper permissions to remove this spam for the safety of users and the value of Wikipedia.

Spam Domain using template:

72.39.148.66 (talk) 15:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * This appears to have been an incorrect ref autofill. The title was incorrectly applied, so I've updated it. Mind  matrix  16:05, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

companieslist.co.uk and others
I have removed hundreds of links to these websites... ...which were all added by single purpose accounts: Any remaining links to these sites (there are a few) appear to have been added in good faith by established users. Deli nk (talk) 18:51, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I have also filed an SPI for the two named accounts: Sockpuppet investigations/HannahBxxx.  Deli nk (talk) 18:55, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Related domain:


 * Blacklisted. MER-C 12:33, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Melanie gaillet
User: Site: This user seems to be a single-purpose account for the purpose of inserting links to the website of Horiba under the 'References' and 'External Links' sections of a number of pages related to industries this company services. I've taken a brief survey of her editing history, and haven't found anything but such edits. This may bear further investigation, as the article on the company (linked above) seems to have quite a few problems related to this sort of shilling behavior, as well There are weasel words, neutrality & primary sources tags on the page, and the page's history shows a number of issues regarding sponsored editing). MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  18:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Toptenreviews.com
19:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Consumersearch.com
Itsalleasy (talk) 19:10, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Pcworld.com
Itsalleasy (talk) 19:23, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Voip-info.org
10+ spam links have been removed by me.

Itsalleasy (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

tomsguide.com
Itsalleasy (talk) 19:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

com-citations.us

 * Link


 * Users:

Seems to be the same MO as previous spammers, with the mirror site com-citations.us imitating the real IPL website. -SFK2 (talk) 13:14, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted. MER-C 11:56, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted. MER-C 11:56, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted. MER-C 11:56, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Sneaky reference spam
Spammer appears to be "recovering" dead links, long after they have gone dead, and in some cases removing legitimate wayback links in favor of their site. They also remove the original URL in the process, see [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acton_School_of_Business&diff=607228365&oldid=597866126 this] for an example of a wayback removal. Spammer also manages to vandalize an article in the process [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aena&diff=607232315&oldid=603091598]. [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ace_Hotel&diff=prev&oldid=602605338 claiming to be co-publisher]. In general this spammer uses some very dirty tactics that can easily slip under the radar. Werieth (talk) 13:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This reminds me of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2014 Archive Apr 1, though the username is somewhat different. Also, there appears to be an alphabetical list going on. I'll check the DB tomorrow. MER-C 13:12, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Similar case from the archive Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2013 Archive Aug 1:

Werieth (talk) 16:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)


 * - I am Alexwants. I thought it would be a good idea to recover references that no longer exist and re-post them on my site, then share these "new" references with Wikipedia. Is that such a bad idea? One of the article's references I edited (Ace Cafe London) has been edited back to the original link which leads nowhere (reference #1). So is it a really bad idea to spend my free time on trying to recover and save old articles so WP would have less dead links?

Sure, maybe I did some edits in a wrong way but I am willing to learn. Thank You 89.72.82.110 (talk) 23:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)Alex
 * First thing is adding links to your site is something you should never do. If your looking to archive links I would suggest using the wayback machine or webcitation.org instead of your personal site as either of those sites already has the infrastructure needed to do the task and is verified and trusted method of doing that. Also when archiving a link you should always keep the original URL intact. Werieth (talk) 01:31, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything else in the DB. I'm not going to blacklist this... yet. The recent spate of archive spam is very concerning, though. MER-C 12:31, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

patlollakarthikreddy.wordpress.com


— Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.83.250.239 (talk • contribs)
 * Timestamp. MER-C 12:12, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

CIlantroCulinaryAcademy06
only 2 edits but clear spam only account with a clear COI. LibStar (talk) 15:30, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Spam At Wikimania 2014
Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project? We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at WIkimania 2014 for all projects that apply. For more information, click the link below. Project leaflets Adikhajuria (talk) 15:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Motorwaygroup (revisited)
See previous report.

-SFK2 (talk) 23:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * IPs
 * Blacklisted. MER-C 10:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

What is this user doing?
This looks like some type of link spamming: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=OptimalWebmaster It looks to me like the editor is replacing dead links with links to (unrelated?) websites that host archived versions of the content at the dead link. Is this some kind of effort to drive traffic to someone's own websites? Peacock (talk) 14:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This is yet another batch of archive spam (similar to, but not quite the same).
 * >Is this some kind of effort to drive traffic to someone's own websites?
 * The username is a dead giveaway. Blocked, and if I see these domains again I will blacklist them. MER-C 02:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Are these archive spamming problems getting to the point where we should mention it in one of the guidelines (or an essay)? --Ronz (talk) 03:17, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Long overdue. -SFK2 (talk) 11:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * >Is this some kind of effort to drive traffic to someone's own websites?
 * The username is a dead giveaway. Blocked, and if I see these domains again I will blacklist them. MER-C 02:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Are these archive spamming problems getting to the point where we should mention it in one of the guidelines (or an essay)? --Ronz (talk) 03:17, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Long overdue. -SFK2 (talk) 11:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

User:Doug Coldwell experienced editor is spamming
The Pony Express company required every rider to have a specific Protestant Bible, and that has an article. Pony Express bible User:Doug Coldwell is spamming multiple articles with a link to that article--articles that have little or nothing to do with the Pony Express and zero to do with its bibles. I find that offensive spamming tinged with religion. (It was a Protestant Bible that Catholics found offensive). see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Doug_Coldwell I complained to him. Rjensen (talk) 17:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * OK that is resolved. :) Rjensen (talk) 06:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

aesencryption.net and base64image.org
spam link spammers Spamming has been continuing for almost a half year on Advanced Encryption Standard, AES implementations, Base64 and Data URI scheme. Related report on Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive233 --Claw of Slime (talk) 12:37, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Refspam clean-up
For anyone who has a bit of free time: -SFK2 (talk) 03:12, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * - commercial travel website

Virtualclinci365 (revisted)
See for more information. It's probably time to blacklist. -SFK2 (talk) 12:20, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Spammers:
 * Nothing since that two week block. We'll see. MER-C 12:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Recent activity: -@MER-C: more activity, now can we blacklist? -SFK2 (talk) 07:50, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. MER-C 10:49, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Falling Rain Genomics
Not exactly spam, because I believe the references to it were added in good faith, but a problem nonetheless. There used to be an article about this company/website (http://www.fallingrain.com) but it was deleted several years ago (Discussion here). I can see why it was deleted; information about it is hard to come by and it's considered not reliable. However, it's used as a reference by around 3,700 Wikipedia articles, so we shouldn't we have a project to replace all our references to it and prevent any new ones being added? Colonies Chris (talk) 09:17, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

beautifulmosque.com



 * Spammers
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MER-C 09:06, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

poderesantapia.com


New user has added a number of external links to poderesantapia.com, website of an agriturismo in Tuscany. The pages of that site have extensive content, all (?) apparently copied verbatim from elsewhere, so there may be a WP:COPYLINK aspect to this as well. Sample diff:. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:44, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

tabletmonkeys.com


These and other IP editors are adding short sections to articles and using this site as a reference. Feezo (send a signal &#124; watch the sky) 05:03, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Recycled. MER-C 12:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Recycled. MER-C 12:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

serifbooks.co.uk


Two apparently distinct editors and a smallish herd of what appear to be socks, linkspam and refspam for Serif Books and its authors and publications. Details at Sockpuppet investigations/WilliamMartin91. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:32, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted. MER-C 10:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks,, I hoped someone might. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:46, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Iambruni
spamming after final warning: - Brianhe (talk) 20:48, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Seo spamming for GarethGoddard.com

 * Editors
 * Links
 * Links
 * Links

SEO spamming. GarethGoddard is an SEO company, and all the other links appear to be their clients. Xyon81 backed down from his most recent spam, saving him from a block. Looks like FoadWax is a long-running client. --Ronz (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

bookcaps.com

 * links


 * accounts

Ongoing campaign over the past few hours to add links into multiple articles. Appears to be possible promotion of a new website. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:43, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

lalalandshirts.com

 * links


 * accounts

Commercial linkspam being added into multiple articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)