Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2016 Archive Nov 1

Spam ring
IP adds a spam ref and Dr. Ayesa Hussain comes along minutes later to make minor formatting changes.
 * User


 * IPs

.-KH-1 (talk) 04:16, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Links

Hello! why you put my name in spam. i know i along minutes later to make minor formatting changes. i check that now. but i did't know these ips are spamming. Dr. Ayesha Hussain (talk) 01:24, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * This edit and this edit have Dr. Ayesha Hussain adding the spam directly, in case one isn't convinced by the timing of Dr. Ayesha Hussain's seemingly-innocuous edits that have the effect of masking the IP spam additions. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:01, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Hk-222
This person has only made two edits, and they are both blatantly spam. The first resulted in a Level 4 warning. This user needs to be blocked. Reason is Immortal (talk) 15:44, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

By the way, I used a Level 4im warning on this user. Is that OK, even though it says "only warning"? Reason is Immortal (talk) 15:49, 14 November 2016 (UTC)


 * thanks for reverting the spam! For dealing with the your best option is generally to report them to WP:AIV as a spam-only account.  The AIV page handles users that are vandalism only or spam only.  They're usually dealt with pretty quickly there. Ravensfire ( talk ) 17:03, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

motobolapoker.link

 * links


 * accounts

Repeated addition of commercial linkspam to. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:23, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikinvest???
I found this link in a see also section of Aqua America
 * Aqua America at Wikinvest
 * Aqua America at Wikinvest

It was there from at least 2011, until I moved it to the external links section. What I find odd about it is:
 * It has no little arrow after it, like the usual external links do
 * It's formatted as an internal wiki link, even though it goes to the site of a commercial company

Have I missed something about Wikipedia having a commercial sister site? I have no opinion on the site itself, but ...

Smallbones( smalltalk ) 04:16, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The magic which makes  an external link is at m:Interwiki map. It was added in 2007. The irritating thing is that linksearch does not show Aqua America because it is not processed as an external link by MediaWiki. I'm not sure how links like that could be tracked other than by an insource search or a search of a database dump. Pretty suspect IMHO. Johnuniq (talk) 04:56, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, as usual. I started a removal at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Interwiki_map#Proposed_removals It turns out that the site is pretty much (but not entirely) closed down and moved since 2012. It doesn't look like a bad company at its other website, but financial info from 2012 is essentially useless. I never had any idea that this type of hidden wikilink existed.  Smallbones( smalltalk ) 06:01, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Good! It will be interesting to see if the interwiki link is removed. This kind of issue has been raised at WP:ELN and perhaps there should be some review of what links exist in articles. I could search for them from a database dump, but not this year. Someone here might have an idea on how to find them. Johnuniq (talk) 06:08, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * mw:Talk:Interwiki map where you posted the removal request has a link to a tool to find interwiki links. Entering "enwiki" for the dbname and "wikinvest" for the interwiki prefix gives a table showing 312 links (tool with results). Looking at that shows there are 297 interwiki links in 209 articles. They would have to be manually fixed if the interwiki is removed. And more in other Wikipedias. Johnuniq (talk) 06:26, 25 November 2016 (UTC)