Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2016 Archive Jan 1

Largely self-published author spamming the 'pedia for years now; recently warned; ignored final warning and continuing to spam
User's edits on WP have been almost wholly dedicated to spamming his own books, usually by adding unneeded "further reading" sections with one of his books. User was warned in July about his COI:. User did not respond, and continued with COI spamming after being warned. I came across him three days ago, removed a couple dozen items of spam he had added, and warned him once again about COI and spamming the 'pedia:. Editor did not reply, and is spamming again after a final warning:.

I am asking an uninvolved admin to block this user and blacklist his publications. He is clearly here solely for self-promotion and is violating basic policy. I do not believe he is here to improve the 'pedia and that allowing him to remain or return will simply result in more cleanup work as he violates policy some more. - Co rb ie V    ☊ ☼ 18:58, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Its to bad we could not get this experienced writer to help with content. -- Moxy (talk) 19:42, 1 January 2016 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I haven't had any interaction with this user aside from removing his spam and posting warnings on his page (that he has ignored) but I haven't been doing much blocking lately and I think it would be cleaner for another admin to press the button. - Co rb ie V    ☊ ☼ 20:43, 1 January 2016 (UTC)


 * OK, since things are slow here, and given that I've researched this and reported above, I'm going to block him myself. Any admins feel free to review if you think it should be changed or adjusted. Personally I think he deserves an indef-block, but I'll give him a week and see if he changes his ways if and when he returns. - Co rb ie V    ☊ ☼ 18:55, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

deewaneindia.com - 2nd report
Hi all, my first report on this was in September 2015. Looks like it was archived with no action. Since then I've noticed this 122.169.* IP add the site to an article, calling it the "Official Site" for the movie, which is unsubstantiated and dubious. The link was also added in November 2015 in this article for Lakme (2016 film). (Sorry, only admins will be able to access the link), an article created by a now-indeffed user named "Deewane India". Another 122.169.* IP added the link a few days ago here calling it "Official Page" and another 122.169.* added the link here in December. Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC)








 * See also Sockpuppet investigations/Sirfmovie. Blacklisted. (The site spammed in the SPI, glamsham.com, is unrelated.) MER-C 04:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

pak101.com
Hey all, anybody have any thoughts about

The link is present in a ton of articles: Cross-wiki link search

However, if you click a few random samples, like this Pak101.com article and compare it to this version of the Wikipedia article, they're almost identical. Or Umer Sharif at Pak101 vs this version of the Wikipedia article is pretty close. And Noor Bukhari looks a lot like this article at Pak101. My point being, that it seems Pak101 is likely mirroring or scraping Wikipedia, and our more ignorant users might be inadvertently referencing Wikipedia itself in these articles. Any thoughts for whether or not this should be added yet? Or how to figure out which came first, the Pak101 articles or the Wikipedia articles? Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:30, 1 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Whichever came first - the WP content or the pages on pak101 - the pak101 content linked above does not cite any sources. The content may or may not have come from WP, but that actually matters less, imho, as the issue that the pak101 blurbs do not look to meet the WP:RS criteria. My opinion based on the links you posted is that those pak101 pages are unacceptable as a source on WP. If you can figure out the chronology here, and the WP content is copied and pasted from pak101, I would delete the WP content as copyvio. I'd go through the page history, and see if you can figure out which came first. My hunch is that pak101 swiped it from WP, but I haven't dug into it. I would also look for the account(s) adding this content and see if they are actually contributing to the 'pedia or just here to spam. Additionally, if the pak101 links that are added are simply mirrors, and add no new information or sourcing, they are probably being added as WP:CITESPAM, much as in the case above. -  Co rb ie V    ☊ ☼ 18:54, 3 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I looked up a few Pak101 articles at The Wayback Machine, but I couldn't definitively figure out which content came first, theirs or Wikipedias. I've got some feelers out at WP:RSN and at the noticeboard for Pakistan-related topics to see if anyone has any thoughts about this site. So far the three comments I've received (including yours) seem to dislike pak101.com as a reference. One person pointed out that this article at Pak101 is clearly not written professionally and I would have to agree that it's garbage. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:43, 3 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I removed pak101.com from a number of articles today. That might be all that we need for now until it flares up again. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:29, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I looked again today and I don't see any left. Good job! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronz (talk • contribs)

chclibrary.org
The Technetium-99m page has a citation that looked funny to me, and the link goes to a spam website.

68.52.242.123 (talk) 03:23, 6 January 2016 (UTC) Ricardo Lugo
 * The original webpage no longer exists and has been replaced by a "cybersquatter", so I have just removed the links. ChemNerd (talk) 15:43, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

happyholi2015pictures.com

 * Sites


 * User

The user adding links to multiple pages and the account is only been used to add these links. Cheers GSS (talk) 19:12, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Reelmonk.com
Hey guys, I could use some feedback on this before any action is taken, but this has all the hints of spam. One user, Ivanspeeds, has added numerous references to Reelmonk.com. He's not linking to the site, but it seems rather spammy to me. On the other hand, it's pretty common in Western film articles for people to mention availability through services like Netflix. So, spam or no spam? Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:25, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

After doing a little more research, I noticed Reelmonk has an article, which was created by Ivanshanti, who was indeffed for spam. Ivanspeeds would be a very ducky sockpuppet account just on name alone, and he also threatened on his talk page to return. Based on that plus the behavioral similarities of inserting Reelmonk everywhere, I'm indeffing Ivanspeeds, and I think it might be wise to consider blacklisting. I note also that the article says that the service was created in mid-2015, so naturally there would be a drive to promote. Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:39, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, so in doing more research (sorry) I found this reference. TL;DR: It's quite possible that reelmonk may eventually have long-term relevance, but that's not yet established, since they are basically a startup. They seem to be partnering with film companies to digitally release Indian Malayalam-language films abroad, often on the same day that films are released in India, in an effort to quell piracy. It's an interesting idea, but we still have some spammy stuff happening. I've removed some blatantly spammy additions some of which came with unsupported fluff like "the film was well received to a wide audience" kinda crap. I'll leave it to the spam experts here to figure out whether or not blacklisting is the right approach. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:54, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

travelbirbilling.com
All copyvios, 2x from spammed website, all uploaded by Varuntbb.
 * Spam pages


 * Sites spammed


 * Spammers

Blacklisted. MER-C 08:12, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

User:Xceleo
- already blocked but still trying to spam on talk page (see page history) Matthew Thompson  talk to me bro! 10:13, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Talk page access revoked. MER-C 13:34, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

familytreeguide.com


Looks like a website management and hosting service for creating family trees. Looks self-published and unreliable as a source. Not many links to it, and I've not looked at if there's spamming or just good faith editing with an unreliable source. --Ronz (talk) 20:12, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

URL redirection

 * Links


 * User

User replacing dead links with his own blog links without using Wayback Machine which is not showing good faith. The first link will take you to gibsonsnapshots.blogspot.com which is showing that the user is trying to divert our focus by adding url related to the subject. Cheers – GSS (talk) 19:30, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked. MER-C 13:06, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Self promotion and book spam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambit_(Beyond_Nexus)

Looks like the author wrote the article himself for the book — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.3.147.52 (talk • contribs)
 * He also did a botched userfication on it after AfD started. I have requested page move repair. And started a COIN thread on the editor [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=699761714]. Brianhe (talk) 09:01, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

open4u.co.uk



 * Spammers

MER-C 07:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

artsome.co

 * Previous reports
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2015 Archive Apr 1


 * Sites spammed


 * Spammers

Blacklisted. MER-C 07:03, 8 January 2016 (UTC)


 * It's being used as a source in Jagath Weerasinghe, Jitish Kallat, and Manu Parekh. I've contacted the three editors that added them, asking if they consider it a reliable source. One of those editors added it as an external link to Thukral & Tagra. --Ronz (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Usages have been removed - I didn't see these threads beforehand. All usages should be redundant or easily replaceable (or could be whitelisted, but I don't think it's needed here). GermanJoe (talk) 23:21, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 16:58, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

search4stores.com



 * Spammers
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links
 * Spammer replaced existing links



Blacklisted. MER-C 11:54, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

whosdatedwho.com


Not a reliable source. Not sure if it has been spammed, or added in good faith. Needs cleanup no matter which. --Ronz (talk) 17:44, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Still needs cleanup and investigation. --Ronz (talk) 17:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)


 * A whosdatedwho redirects to famousfix. --Ronz (talk) 16:48, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * A whosdatedwho redirects to famousfix. --Ronz (talk) 16:48, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Possible spamming - x4facts.com


and are both spamming x4facts.com/make-money-online/, associated with nonsense talkpage posts. I suspect it's a spamming attempt.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:55, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Nominated User talk:Reeyiadwioolkm and User talk:Zenilamartin02 for speedy deletion. Brianhe (talk) 09:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Yup, spamming (2 more accounts, for the same root domain, same MO): I have changed the header to include the unique domain name. GermanJoe (talk) 09:11, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * , who blocked 2 similar accounts just 2 posts ago (see User:Zeldaorie). This looks like a recurring problem. GermanJoe (talk) 09:28, 19 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Nuked and blocked these spambots. x4facts.com was globally blacklisted in 2014. MER-C 10:50, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

cinecoffee.in
After some innocuous early edits, user Itssaranya started a campaign to spam the project with "cinecoffee.in" around early January 2016. Some pretty obvious spamming attempts including here and here and here where the user is using external links inline to point traffic at cinecoffee.in. I've indeffed the user. As of this post there were 21 hits here, but I plan to de-spam those articles and tag them "Link spam - cinecoffee.in". (Can't link right now, because the tool is down.) It might be beneficial to add this domain to the list nonetheless. Not sure if the top level domain (*.in) changes based on geolocation. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:11, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

had been spammed in 2012, but is already blacklisted (only as ".com"). GermanJoe (talk) 07:56, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Blacklisted. MER-C 10:51, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Group spam
Stumbled upon a group of spammers. It's from a few years back but it may be worth going through and checking out all the links to see if there are any that we've missed. -KH-1 (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

-KH-1 (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)




 * Additional spammers:


 * Additional domains:


 * Nuked and blocked. Domains that need further attention: ldsmusicnow.com, ssdeurope.com, financeimmo.com, drtattoff.com, zinch.com. MER-C 12:32, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Please blacklist Webworldexpert
 * -KH-1 (talk) 09:22, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. MER-C 10:55, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * -KH-1 (talk) 09:22, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. MER-C 10:55, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

User:Zeldaorie
spam on userpage Matthew Thompson talk to me! 04:53, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * User has since been blocked for socking Matthew Thompson talk to me! 08:31, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a spambot. MER-C 11:32, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

spam
some page reads "Chicken chicken chicken" over 1000 times — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.129.176.134 (talk) 03:56, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Spam in Blog comment hosting service


This user is a spammer. See edit history on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_comment_hosting_service. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jremeika (talk • contribs) 00:28, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Spam reverted and user blocked. Thank you for reporting this. MER-C 08:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Possible spamming, second opinion wanted
Is this acceptable? Edgeweyes (talk) 17:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That's spam that should be removed. --Ronz (talk) 17:24, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Added tracking. MER-C 08:21, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

gocoop.com

 * Sites

A commercial website links founded on 10+ pages that clearly show it's being used for promotional purpose only. The second (market.gocoop.com) link is a redirect link to gocoop.com. Thank You – GSS (talk) 17:44, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Riyasen123 has added most. --Ronz (talk) 21:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Riyasen123 has added most. --Ronz (talk) 21:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * spammed a few. --Ronz (talk) 21:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Cleanup done. --Ronz (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * – GSS (talk) 05:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

familytreeguide.com


Looks like a website management and hosting service for creating family trees. Looks self-published and unreliable as a source. Not many links to it, and I've not looked at if there's spamming or just good faith editing with an unreliable source. --Ronz (talk) 20:12, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Still needs cleanup. --Ronz (talk) 00:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

indiamart.com

 * Discovered while looking at gocoop.com above. --Ronz (talk) 21:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * There are 400+ links on en.wiki; this will need considerable cleanup. I did two just now ;) - Brianhe (talk) 01:23, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * See related discussion at WP:COIN ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard&diff=701354532&oldid=701325895 permlink]). Brianhe (talk) 05:39, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * We've seen this stuff before:
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2010 Archive Feb 1
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2010 Archive Apr 2
 * Some of this domain is a directory and free web host for Indian companies, and they do web design for others (search "Developed and Managed by IndiaMART InterMESH Limited"). MER-C 06:37, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Some of this domain is a directory and free web host for Indian companies, and they do web design for others (search "Developed and Managed by IndiaMART InterMESH Limited"). MER-C 06:37, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

carsautoreview.com



 * Spammers
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Cross-wiki spammer, see
 * Cross-wiki spammer, see

MER-C 09:17, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

bestofhomeremedies.com



 * Spammers

MER-C 12:37, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Blacklisted. MER-C 09:29, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

timg.com iassist.com



 * Spammers
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see
 * Fake citation spammer, see

Blacklisted. MER-C 11:06, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

ohack.co

 * Previous reports
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2015 Archive Nov 1


 * Site spammed


 * Spammers

The spamming isn't (and never was) isolated to one article. Blacklisted. MER-C 06:01, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

dudhwanationalpark.in

 * links


 * accounts

Repeated insertion of commercial tour service website - hijacking the official site link. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 06:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

jimcorbettnationalpark.co.in

 * links


 * accounts

Repeated addition of commercial tour provider website, including hijacking existing refs and insertion into other user's comments on talk page. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 06:10, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I've combined these two reports because WHOIS records indicate the two websites are owned by the same person. Blacklisted. MER-C 10:31, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Possible/likely linkspam
and are both posting nonsense usertalkpage posts with each one link (working or not) to. This may be a spamming attempt.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:01, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * These are spambots. MER-C 10:29, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure that it is appropriate for the Meta blacklist? The link report does not indicate any crosswiki spamming.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep -- it's already been added. Spambot domains are listed unconditionally. The report now says the domain was spammed on mediawiki.org. MER-C 10:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Academics being promoted on Tailings dam
Five paragraphs have been added to the introduction of this article that promote two academics named Bowker and Chambers. The paragraphs introduce the pair giving their roles and distinctions, then stress the importance of a "major interdisciplinary research report" published by the two in 2015, and end with raw hyperlinks that point to their work. This seems like an abuse of the article, but I am not sure what to do.

The additions were made by an unregistered user:.

Here is the difference between revisions: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tailings_dam&type=revision&diff=697440055&oldid=693192818

Thanks, 86.138.107.4 (talk) 20:15, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Lianadelon


's edits are all about linking a reddit link several times on the usertalkpage. I suspect spamming, as well as potentially WP:LINKVIO given the subject of the links.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:59, 30 January 2016 (UTC)