Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2019 Archive Oct 1

missosology.org


missosology.org is a beauty pageant blog being used in a crazy number of citations. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:46, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Large scale WP:CITESPAM usage
Domains User Since registering on July 17, 2019, this user has been adding links to two online comic book retailers (Mycomicshop.com and Atomicavenue.com) as WP:CITESPAM to eight newly created articles.

See the following articles:


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (A–C) - 704 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 20 citations to Atomicavenue.com


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (D–G) - 651 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 32 citations to AtomicAvenue.com


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (H–L) - 429 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 12 citations to AtomicAvenue.com


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (M) - 481 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 14 citations to AtomicAvenue.com


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (N–R) - 330 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 92 citations to AtomicAvenue.com


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (S) - 17 citations to Mycomicshp.com and 587 citations to AtomicAvenue.com


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (T–V) - 20 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 319 citations to AtomicAvenue.com


 * List of Marvel Comics publications (W–Z) - 20 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 520 citations to AtomicAvenue.com

That's at least 2,652 citations to Mycomicshop.com and 1,596 citations to AtomicAvenue.com (a total of 4,248) spread across just eight articles. Please note that the main Marvel Comics article (which has not yet been affected by this) has 125 inline citations and none of them are to comic book retailers. While I would like to assume good faith, the sheer volume of hundreds-per-page makes this look very odd. Imagine if the hamburger article had 587 "citations" to McDonalds.com or the shirt article was filled with 481 "citations" to Walmart.com or Target.com. Giving WP:WEIGHT to two retailers through thousands of citations has rendered these eight articles into WP:SPAMHOLE

In addition, this user rarely uses edit summaries and rarely makes any edits which do not involve adding a link to the Mycomicshop.com or AtomicAvenue.com. It has the appearance that the eight articles in question were created as WP:COATRACKs for the massive links to the two retailers as a not-so-subtle advertisement. The eight articles largely duplicate information which can be found at Category:Marvel Comics titles and its associated subcategories.

Mtminchi08 (talk) 01:42, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * , those refs should all be replaced (my first guess: by primary refs to marvel themselves). Let’s see what remains after that.  Wilkinswonkins should be issued a final warning on the use of this link.  —Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:29, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I assume I am allowed to respond to this here? This issue has a long history: the lists of Marvel Comics publications were initially two articles, which I split into eight, because they were getting too long and unwieldy. I did not originally create these lists (though I have added many titles to them); these lists have been on Wikipedia since 2006. Please see the histories of List of Marvel Comics publications (A–C) and List of Marvel Comics publications (W–Z). When I split the lists, they then came to the attention of two different editors who both moved the lists to draftspace because they initially did not contain any citations at all. Please see these two talk pages for the history of the issue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CASSIOPEIA/Archive_29#List_of_Marvel_Comics_publications_(J%E2%80%93R) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Whispering#List_of_Marvel_Comics_publications_(J%E2%80%93R)


 * I then spent the next 2+ weeks personally adding the 4,248 citations to the eight lists. Each individual comic title requires a citation to prove that it exists, accounting for the large number of citations. The problem with finding citations for comic book titles is that there are only three potential sources: user-generated databases like comics.org, which are not allowed under the WP:UGC policy, and which I was explicitly told by the two above-mentioned editors would not be allowed; the comics companies themselves, which are not allowed because they are primary sources (WP:RSPRIMARY); or online comic book stores, which ARE allowed under the WP:AFFILIATE policy, and may be used "in order to verify such things as titles and running times", exactly what I am doing in these lists. Due to Wikipedia's strict sourcing requirements, I had no choice but to use online comic stores as my sources. I selected those two stores because they had the easiest to use layouts for quickly grabbing the information that I needed to use for source citing purposes, especially since, as mentioned, 4,248 of them needed to be done all at once in order to get the lists back to mainspace as quickly and efficiently as possible (where, as previously mentioned, they had been publicly available since 2006). Frankly, many online comic stores are a mess, poorly laid out and difficult to use, especially for research purposes. There was also no reason for me to randomly use multiple different stores when those two had all of the information that I needed; any and all comic stores will have the same information that those two have, and I felt that those two sites more than sufficed for my purpose of simply grabbing citations. There was no spam intended whatsoever. I have no personal affiliation with either of those sites. I do not benefit in any way, shape, or form by using them as sources here. All I am doing with these citations is trying to prove that a given comic title exists, along with basic information, like issue numbers and publication dates. That's all. Once again, due to Wikipedia's strict sourcing policies, I had no choice but to use online comic shops to do so, and, for the previously mentioned reasons, those were the two that I selected.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 03:32, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the hard work you have done to complete these lists. Looking at the A-C list, I guess about 2/3 of the titles have their own wikipedia article with references that show they exist.  As mentioned above for one example, some without links to any stores.  Those entries that have a bluelink to an own article do not need a reference per sé, or can have a leading reference from the article duplicated.  For the others you need references to show they belong in the list, but a webshop would be the very last choice, far after even the primary reference to Marvel itself.  And most must have been subject to neutral, independent reviews, which are also preferred over any webshop.  —Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:43, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I think I've been saying "primary source", when what I mean to say is independent source. Marvel is very much a non-independent source for a list of Marvel Comics titles, so wouldn't citing Marvel.com then not be allowed? (WP:IS) The comic stores would be independent sources in this case. I have no problem using Marvel.com as my source going forward (I've been updating the lists weekly with new titles), if I'm wrong and it is allowed. But I would appreciate some concurrence with other editors to confirm that Marvel itself would be an acceptable source for the lists.


 * As for the two comic stores, I have no problem if you all feel the citations should be removed and/or replaced, but I probably won't be able to do it myself; I've already invested too much time in this project. All I ask is that the lists please not be deleted outright. Thanks.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 03:57, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * , I don’t think the lists should be deleted and would likely !vote against deletion if we would get there. Primary sources are to be used with care, but these are ‘.. by Marvel’ lists, for showing that the list is notable you would need independent sources (which is covered by Marvel itself being notable and many of their comics being individually notable.  For each item then the requirement is more ‘does this item belong in this list’.  As I said, I would consider a webstore the last place to show that, after independent reviews and the primary source.  —Dirk Beetstra T  C 04:07, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * A few additional points. Please know that I believe your explanation but there are still some problematic things here. I know some of this can read harshly on a screen, so I hope you understand that I'm not trying to offend you.


 * The statement that "The problem with finding citations for comic book titles is that there are only three potential sources" is simply not true. There are news websites which focus on the comics industry. The blue-linked articles generally have existing citations to stories from Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, Bleeding Cool, and various other sites which meet WP:RELIABILITY. Those citations could have been readily used. There have been *numerous* books and magazine articles written about the history of Marvel Comics and the American comics industry. Many of those are also cited in existing articles. Claiming that "I had no choice but to use online comic stores as my sources" is wrong. There are publishers who have dozens of books in print focusing on comics history. Not having proper reference material is not an excuse to plaster retailer advertisements by the hundreds or thousands. WP:AFFILIATE *might* apply to the use of one or two citations per article but hundreds per article? That strains credulity.


 * If your focus was adding citations to the above listed articles, what was the purpose of this and this edit to Marvel Graphic Novel? Those edits added 87 retailer links to the article. That article had 16 existing citations and has been stable since its creation in 2007 with no threats to its existence. Additionally, MOS:DATEFORMAT. Marvel Comics is a U.S.-based company. U.S. date format of MM-DD-YY should be used per MOS:TIES. Spammers usually ignore existing date formats in an article. That, in part, made you look like a match for the profile.


 * Finally, as noted above, the Marvel Comics article has 125 citations. DC Comics has 135 citations. Generally speaking, one needs to look at an "real world" article such as Christianity (421 citations) or United States (719 citations) to find 200+ citations in a single article. Having 608 citations in List of Marvel Comics publications (S) is complete overkill. A comic book article doesn't need more citations than the world's largest religion (and I'm saying that as a nonbeliever). Mtminchi08 (talk) 04:56, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * , please allow me to address some of your points individually:


 * - "Claiming that 'I had no choice but to use online comic stores'... That strains credulity.". Again: this was an extenuating circumstance. As previously stated: the original "List of Marvel Comics publications (A–M)" and "List of Marvel Comics publications (N–Z)" had existed on mainspace since 2006. They were moved to draftspace by both and  simply because I split them and they contained no citations. My goal was to get the lists back to mainspace as quickly and efficiently as possible, and I reasoned that using those two comic stores, under the WP:AFFILIATE policy would be the best way to do that. Searching for news articles or books to cite each and every one of the 4,000+ comic titles would have taken months, far more time than the weeks I felt were needed simply to get the lists back to mainspace.


 * - "If your focus was adding citations to the above listed articles, what was the purpose of this and this edit to Marvel Graphic Novel?" Simply: to bring it in line with the Lists of Marvel Comics publications. I had previously made edits to the MGN page on July 30, adding a few dozen titles that had not previously been listed (but should have been). Since I was adding citations to the Lists of Marvel Comics publications, I felt they should similarly be added to the Marvel Graphic Novel article, since I had previously been responsible for adding titles to it, and because it is linked to as a further reference in List of Marvel Comics publications (M).


 * - "Additionally, MOS:DATEFORMAT. Marvel Comics is a U.S.-based company. U.S. date format of MM-DD-YY should be used per MOS:TIES." I was using the cite web template in the source editor. The automatic date entry button inserts the date in DD-MM-YY format.


 * - "Having 608 citations in List of Marvel Comics publications (S) is complete overkill. A comic book article doesn't need more citations than the world's largest religion (and I'm saying that as a nonbeliever)." I was directed to List of current UFC fighters as an example of a good list by . Each fighter on that list has a citation, with nearly 700 citations in the article. A list of UFC fighters doesn't need to have more citations than an article on the world's largest religion either, but yet, it does. It was my impression, based on that example, that each entry in a list needed a citation. Doesn't each comic book title need to be cited, to verify that it exists? If not, I wish I would have known that weeks ago before I wasted all my time adding the 4,000+ citations to the lists. I didn't do that for fun, I assure you.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 05:56, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Wrestling, maybe especially here on Wikipedia, is another religion, and possibly even bigger than Christianity and Islam together. But there, the handful of references I checked are all to news items, not to the primary source or to a commercial site on match memorabilia or something similar.  I would indeed see that as a good example of a list.
 * Wikipedia does not really have deadlines, but you've now spent a humongous amount of work on getting references from one site and now we run the risk that we have to just kill that whole reference column, make an empty one and fill them, at least for all non-blue-linked items in the lists, with citation needed. I strongly oppose keeping these commercial references there on all these articles.  I am going to ignore the reasons why you chose this site as the reference, but, I am sorry, it is better that they are removed ASAP.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 06:08, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * , from my point of view, one of us is seriously misinterpreting the WP:AFFILIATE policy: "inline citations may be allowed to e-commerce pages such as that of a book on a bookseller's page or an album on its streaming-music page, in order to verify such things as titles and running times." There is nothing at all stated in the policy about the same one or two e-commerce sources not being able to be used repeatedly as a source. Yes, the policy says that "Journalistic and academic sources are preferable". But news articles are easily found for UFC fighters; they are simply not available for many, many comic book titles, in particular obscure one-shots and/or limited series from the 1970s or '80s. And, obviously, news articles are preferable, if not required, when citing the existence and information of living persons. Here, we are discussing physical, published items that can be purchased. In that particular circumstance, it's like comparing apples and oranges. I was only using List of current UFC fighters as an example of a good list that had been shown to me by a fellow editor, one that has (almost) every entry cited, leading to hundreds of citations in the article. Nothing more.


 * If this were a text article that we were discussing, with multiple points of view that needed verification, I could certainly understand where you are coming from, and an e-commerce source should most definitely not be used in that case. But this is a simple list of titles we are talking about here, with only the most basic information about those titles provided. All that the citations in that list do is verify the existence of the titles and the "running times" (issue numbers and publication dates when it comes to comics). If I am the one misinterpreting the policy (and I certainly concede that that may be the case), and what I have done is not allowed, then the WP:AFFILIATE policy seriously needs to be heavily re-written and made much clearer and more explicit about exactly what is and is not allowed when it comes to using e-commerce sources, because as far as I can tell, I followed the policy to the letter as currently written.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 11:56, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * What, 'they are simply not available for many, many comic book titles?' Most of the comic book titles that have their own articles (50% at least, likely more than 2/3rds of them) have sufficient references on sites which are not existing majorly to sell a product.  I can see that you need some of the citations, but with hundreds to thousands of such citations you did not even try to find the best sources available.  And there is also certainly nothing wrong with using primary sources when used appropriately.  This use of references is totally inappropriate, there are for many of those much, much better references available that should replace these commercial references.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 12:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)




 * - Actually, I believe e-commerce sources are the best source for a list of comic titles, barring the use of a user-generated database, which is not allowed under Wikipedia policy (WP:UGC). Believe me, I would have vastly preferred to have used comics.org or comicbookdb.com as my sources, but I could not, as they are UGDs. There is, at this time, unfortunately no professional, academic, independent cataloging of every comic series title that Marvel has ever published. I would have loved to have used that as well, but it simply does not exist. Additionally, e-commerce sites are more of an accurate and appropriate source for a list of titles than news articles would be, since news articles about a comic series would verify that the title exists, but likely would not include specific information on the publication dates and issue numbers for the range of the entire series. Only an e-commerce source, a UGD, or the comic company itself, would provide that information, since those sources display all of the issues published in a series, and the dates that they were published. All that being the case, with the latter two sources not being allowed by Wikipedia policy, and in the absence of an accurate academic or journalistic source for comic book titles, I was left with no recourse but to use e-commerce sites as my sources.


 * - Marvel is a primary source (it was my mistake initially using that term), but the problem is that it is NOT an independent source, as required by Wikipedia policy, for a list of Marvel Comics titles. It can't possibly be. If I were to use Marvel.com as my source for the lists, I would inevitably be challenged on that by another editor, and then those citations would have to be removed. My sources needed to be independent, thus necessitating the use of e-commerce sites with no direct connection to Marvel itself.


 * - Whether or not the e-commerce sites I chose are the "best sources" or there are "better sources" is irrelevant, since we are discussing whether the sources I chose are spam or not. And I would hardly call my use of those sources "totally inappropriate". I have already explained why I chose the sources that I chose, and why there needed to be so many citations. Under the WP:AFFILIATE policy, as currently written and as I understand it, my use of those sources was absolutely appropriate.


 * - As I stated previously, I have no problem if you feel individual citations need to be replaced or even removed. But removing all 4,000+ citations would be an overly drastic remedy, especially as I guarantee you that you will not find an alternate appropriate source to verify the existence, publication dates and issue numbers for many of the titles on the list, other than an e-commerce source.


 * - edit: Just to refute the point that you and Mtminchi08 have made about bluelinks, the WP:UGC policy specifically states that "a wikilink is not a reliable source". Therefore, as I understand it, a link to another Wikipedia article, even one containing reliable sources, is not in itself a reliable source for another article, and therefore the mere existence of the article would not be allowed to stand alone in the list as a reference by itself without another, separate outside citation to verify the existence of the title. Again, I could be wrong, and if I am, please correct me.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Sigh, I have never said that a bluelink is a reliable soutce. And primary sources are just fine depending on what they are used for.  And still, most of these can be sourced to independent non-commercial sources that satisfy our sourcing requirements.  These commercial sources are NOT reliable.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 17:35, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * - "And primary sources are just fine depending on what they are used for." Again, I am not discussing primary sources here (once again, my mistake in initially using that term); I am referring to independent sources. Marvel.com is clearly not an independent source for a list of Marvel Comics. Quoting directly from the policy: "You're writing about…a book, music recording, movie; Non-independent: publishing company website"; "Material available from sources that are self-published, primary sources, or biased because of a conflict of interest can play a role in writing an article, but it must be possible to source the information that establishes the subject's real-world notability to independent, third-party sources."
 * - "These commercial sources are NOT reliable." Commercial sources are perfectly reliable. That's why they have their own sub-section explicitly stating that they are allowed to be used for citations on the Reliable Sources policy page. E-commerce sources are reliable because they contain the cited items in question available for purchase, thereby proving/verifying that they do indeed exist. You cannot purchase a non-existent product. The very fact that it is available for purchase proves that it exists. Again, since this is simply a list of titles, and not a text article, proving the existence of the titles is really all we're trying to do here. An e-commerce source should suffice for that purpose.
 * - "And still, most of these can be sourced to independent non-commercial sources that satisfy our sourcing requirements." Please believe me when I say I did my due diligence in looking for acceptable sources for use in these lists. I did not find any outside of e-commerce sites. If you can find me an independent, secondary, non-commercial source for all 4,000+ Marvel Comics titles, from 1961-present, that contains the comics' titles, dates of publication, and issue numbers, that is not user-generated or self-published, that is not out-of-date, that is constantly and consistently kept up to date with the most recently released titles, and that fully complies with all of Wikipedia's sourcing policies, I will happily concede the point and use that instead. Believe me when I say I looked. It simply does not exist outside of e-commerce sites, as far as I am aware.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 18:07, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Sigh, the primary source = dependant source in thiscase. Still, there is NOTHING wrong with that in this case.
 * I will stand corrected on that fact.
 * No, I do not believe that, especially since you did not locate a single other reference, only thisone. The bluelinked articles are all having a plethora of non-e-commerce sources which are better than the sources that you used,  And still, the primary, dependent source to marvel itself is more than acceptable here.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 18:56, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * - "Sigh, the primary source = dependant source in thiscase. Still, there is NOTHING wrong with that in this case." Not according to the General notability guideline: "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. For example, advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent. I would have happily used Marvel.com as my main source, but specifically avoided it because of this policy. By the way, Marvel.com is essentially an e-commerce site in itself: you can buy the comics directly from their site. That definitely would be a violation of the independent sources policy, because of their vested financial interest in the topic. Yet another reason to avoid them as a source for these lists.
 * - "No, I do not believe that, especially since you did not locate a single other reference, only thisone." As previously noted, I used two different comic shop sites as my sources, both totally independent of each other, using one for the first half of the lists, and one for the second half of the lists. Any and all comic store websites will contain the same information that those two sites do, but I chose those specifically because they presented the information in the most concise and well-laid-out fashion, and they were the easiest to quickly grab citations from. They were essentially databases of titles, similar to the user-generated ones that are not allowed, but they had the added benefit of being e-commerce sites, which are allowed by policy and provide the verifiability that UGDs lack, in that the titles they feature are verified to actually exist because of the fact that they are available for purchase. I saw no requirement anywhere that multiple sources were necessary, whether when using e-commerce sources or not. Although "multiple sources are expected", as per the policy, they are not required. Nevertheless, I used two main sources overall (considering the eight separate lists as parts of a single whole). And, in fact, I did use other sources when necessary, including previewsworld.com and g-mart.com. They just did not happen to be necessary all that often, when my two main sources were sufficient for the majority of the lists.
 * - "The bluelinked articles are all having a plethora of non-e-commerce sources which are better than the sources that you used". Those bluelinked articles need non-e-commerce sources because they are text articles providing detailed information and descriptions of the comics; e-commerce sources would of course not be sufficient for those articles. I stand by my belief, backed up by the WP:AFFILIATE policy, that an e-commerce source is sufficient for a simple list of titles.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 19:24, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * No, it does not exclude.
 * Yes, and excluded hundreds of other sites.
 * No, they don't even need references, and you could have used references already used in the articles if you really wanted to reference them.
 * It remains an excess of these e-commerce sites where there are many alternatives. I remain that they need to be replaced, but I wll leave it to someone else than you or me to give more insight.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 19:35, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Let's look at other Marvel comic book list articles, shall we? List of Avengers titles, List of Captain America titles, List of Daredevil titles, List of Deadpool titles, List of Hulk titles, List of Iron Man titles, List of Nick Fury comics, List of Punisher titles, List of Spider-Man titles, List of Thor (Marvel Comics) titles, List of Venom titles, List of X-Men comics, and List of X-Men limited series and one-shots. No retailer-citations on ANY OF THOSE.
 * "Commercial sources are perfectly reliable" Look at History of the hamburger in the United States. Are there hundreds of "citations" to McDonalds.com or BurgerKing.com? Does the Fried chicken article use KFC.com as a source?
 * Moving back to list articles, List of Disney theatrical animated features is not larded down with hundreds of links to Amazon.com, Walmart.com, or Target.com. List of Universal Pictures films cover 107 years of releases from a major movie studio with only 74 citations. It doesn't have thousand of links to Amazon.com, Walmart.com, or Target.com.


 * In regards to the Marvel Graphic Novel situation, you state " to bring it in line with the Lists of Marvel Comics publications". No, your new articles should be conforming to pre-existing articles, not the other way around.


 * "I was using the cite web template in the source editor. The automatic date entry button inserts the date in DD-MM-YY format." Read MOS:DATETIES and MOS:DATERET. It's on you to change the template post to conform to the existing structure.
 * The thousands and thousands of retailer citations are a violation of WP:NOTADVERTISING. This is giving thousands of dollars of free advertising to these two retailers to "proving/verifying that [comic books] do indeed exist."


 * As an aside, this article https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/07/05/online-advertising-costs explains the huge advertising revenue that is generated online. You personally may not be benefiting from any of this but these two online retailers are laughing all the way to the bank.


 * So, if Carl's Cabin of Comics & Cards in Carlsbad, California wants to drive traffic to his website in a cost-free manner, he just has to post a citation such as this ?
 * Among the concerns about WP:USERGENERATED sites are the lack of editorial oversight or scholarship. Retailers exist to sell things not to educate anyone about the product itself. Do the people running Amazon.com give two figs about List of shoe styles? No, they just want to sell you some damn shoes!
 * "If you can find me an independent, secondary, non-commercial source for all 4,000+ Marvel Comics titles, from 1961-present, that contains the comics' titles, dates of publication, and issue numbers, that is not user-generated or self-published, that is not out-of-date, that is constantly and consistently kept up to date with the most recently released titles, and that fully complies with all of Wikipedia's sourcing policies, I will happily concede the point and use that instead." Wow. Let's use retailer spam because we have to have a source [singular] for all 4,000 Marvel Comics titles. That's a lot to unpack.
 * There are comics-news websites such as Comic Book Resources online since 1995, Comics Bulletin online since 2000, Newsarama online since 2002, Bleeding Cool online since 2009, and several others.
 * In print, there are magazines such as Alter Ego (magazine) which has 154 issues, Back Issue! has 115 issues, The Comics Journal with 300 issues, and various other magazines which provide a huge amount of comics history.
 * There are books such as


 * The WikiProject Comics/References includes numerous other websites, magazines, and books. So when you say "I did my due diligence in looking for acceptable sources", that's rather silly.
 * At the start of this, you stated the original Marvel lists were "split into eight, because they were getting too long and unwieldy". Fair point. Per Splitting:
 * The WikiProject Comics/References includes numerous other websites, magazines, and books. So when you say "I did my due diligence in looking for acceptable sources", that's rather silly.
 * At the start of this, you stated the original Marvel lists were "split into eight, because they were getting too long and unwieldy". Fair point. Per Splitting:
 * The WikiProject Comics/References includes numerous other websites, magazines, and books. So when you say "I did my due diligence in looking for acceptable sources", that's rather silly.
 * At the start of this, you stated the original Marvel lists were "split into eight, because they were getting too long and unwieldy". Fair point. Per Splitting:
 * The WikiProject Comics/References includes numerous other websites, magazines, and books. So when you say "I did my due diligence in looking for acceptable sources", that's rather silly.
 * At the start of this, you stated the original Marvel lists were "split into eight, because they were getting too long and unwieldy". Fair point. Per Splitting:


 * "100kB / 100,000 chars Almost certainly should be divided
 * "60kB / 60,000 chars Probably should be divided"


 * As of July 15, 2019, the List of Marvel Comics publications (A–M) article was 145,478 bytes. As of September 25, 2019, the now re-titled List of Marvel Comics publications (A–C) is 186,310 bytes The List of Marvel Comics publications (N–Z) was 117,578 bytes as of July 15, 2019. The now re-titled List of Marvel Comics publications (W–Z) is 146,572 bytes as of September 25, 2019. The articles are now larger than they were before you split them. You've undercut your own rational for splitting the articles by adding all these retailer citations.
 * Here is a suggestion, that would address some of these problems. As noted at the beginning of this post, there are already stand-alone lists for many of Marvel's most notable titles. There is no need to list all of the Avengers titles in full on the List of Marvel Comics publications (A–C) article (a portly 186,310 bytes) since the List of Avengers titles article (a succinct 41,322 bytes) covers those comics in great detail. For example
 * {| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"

!width=22%| Title !width=8%| Series !width=15%| Issues !width=18%| Dates !width=37%| Notes !Reference
 * rowspan="2" |The Avengers and associated series
 * align="center" colspan="5" | See List of Avengers titles
 * }
 * }


 * This could be done for other titles with large numbers of series. The List of Marvel Comics publications (W–Z) which is clocking in at 146,572 bytes could be reduced with this one change. List of X-Men comics is a mere 12,318 bytes and List of X-Men limited series and one-shots (49,959 bytes)


 * {| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"

!width=22%| Title !width=8%| Series !width=15%| Issues !width=18%| Dates !width=37%| Notes !Reference
 * rowspan="2" |X-Men and associated series
 * align="center" colspan="5" | See List of X-Men comics and List of X-Men limited series and one-shots
 * }
 * }


 * The List of Marvel Comics publications (S) (164,718 bytes) and List of Spider-Man titles (78,776 bytes)
 * {| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"

!width=22%| Title !width=8%| Series !width=15%| Issues !width=18%| Dates !width=37%| Notes !Reference
 * rowspan="2" |Spider-Man and associated series
 * align="center" colspan="5" | See List of Spider-Man titles
 * }
 * Doing this with the 13 existing list articles listed at the start of my post accomplishes several things. It reduces the size of the eight List of Marvel Comics publications articles, it removes large numbers of retailer citations, and it drastically reduces the need for replacement citations.
 * Doing this with the 13 existing list articles listed at the start of my post accomplishes several things. It reduces the size of the eight List of Marvel Comics publications articles, it removes large numbers of retailer citations, and it drastically reduces the need for replacement citations.

Replacement citations for the other entries can be grabbed from the blue-linked articles. Mtminchi08 (talk) 22:33, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Squirrel Girl needs a citation that isn't from Mycomicshop.com, Atomicavenue.com, or Carl's Cabin of Comics and Cards?
 * The Cat is a very obscure Marvel series from 1972-1973. Full, loving care is provided to that in this citation.
 * What about anything so obscure that none of the comics news websites nor comics history magazines have coverage? Something like Street Poet Ray? Then there is the grand-daddy of them all. . This source was suggested to you on August 29, 2019 in this post.


 * So if someone is looking for "independent, secondary, non-commercial source for all 4,000+ Marvel Comics titles, from 1961-present, that contains the comics' titles, dates of publication, and issue numbers, that is not user-generated or self-published, that is not out-of-date, that is constantly and consistently kept up to date with the most recently released titles, and that fully complies with all of Wikipedia's sourcing policies" Is the Overstreet Guide...
 * * "Independent, secondary, non-commercial source"? It's not published by Marvel Comics.
 * * Does it list "all 4,000+ Marvel Comics titles, from 1961-present, that contains the comics' titles, dates of publication, and issue numbers"? Yes, and every title from other U.S.-based publishers such as DC, Image, and Dark Horse.
 * * Is it "not user-generated or self-published"? It is published by Gemstone Publishing of Timonium, Maryland. Robert Overstreet would certainly qualify as WP:BESTSOURCES.
 * * Is it "Not out-of-date, that is constantly and consistently kept up to date with the most recently released titles"? The Overstreet Guide is published annually. It has been "constantly and consistently kept up to date" since 1970. If you demand something that's updated daily or weekly, then news articles can be used to patch up the items published after the most-recent addition went to press.
 * * Does it "fully complies with all of Wikipedia's sourcing policies"? Read Reliable sources. The Overstreet Guide has editorial oversite, fact-checking, scholarship, and is published by an actual publisher. It has a nearly half-century track record of reliability. Plus if I need to verify that Street Poet Ray really existed, I don't have someone trying to sell a copy to me. No one is getting any "free clicks" to their website either.


 * Mtminchi08 (talk) 23:41, 28 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Please see User:Mtminchi08/sandbox for an example of the A-M list with the Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Deadpool, Hulk, and Iron Man titles replaced with links to the separate List articles for those titles. This would have used the pre-existing List of Marvel Comics publications (A-M) article, no need for anything to go into DRAFT space, which means no demands for citations to a new article, and instead of taking 2 1/2 weeks of someone's time, it required about 45 minutes.
 * If the reason for splitting the List of Marvel Comics publications article was to reduce size, keep in mind that we previously had two articles which were over 100 bytes. Now we have eight articles over 100 bytes. Repeating from above, as of July 15, 2019, the List of Marvel Comics publications (A–M) article was 145,478 bytes. As of September 25, 2019, the now re-titled List of Marvel Comics publications (A–C) is 186,310 bytes. The example I prepared is 121,411 bytes and reduces the redundancy created by the individual title lists. Think of all the time that could have saved... Mtminchi08 (talk) 05:19, 29 September 2019 (UTC)




 * - "Let's look at other Marvel comic book list articles, shall we?" Only the Venom list here has citations (and those to a user-generated database that should not have been used). I am still waiting for an explanation for why a list of titles would need no citations at all. I've already presented List of current UFC fighters as an example of a list with (almost) every entry cited. I would have been perfectly happy to split the lists with no citations as originally presented and be done with it, and in fact, that is exactly what I originally did, but and  did not seem to think that that was sufficient, so I deferred to them and added citations, again, following the UFC fighters list example of citing every entry.


 * - ""Commercial sources are perfectly reliable" Look at History of the hamburger in the United States. Are there hundreds of "citations" to McDonalds.com or BurgerKing.com? Does the Fried chicken article use KFC.com as a source?" This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Of course a text article should not use commercial sources for citations. A list of titles is a totally different animal.


 * - "Moving back to list articles, List of Disney theatrical animated features is not larded down with hundreds of links to Amazon.com, Walmart.com, or Target.com. List of Universal Pictures films cover 107 years of releases from a major movie studio with only 74 citations. It doesn't have thousand of links to Amazon.com, Walmart.com, or Target.com." Again: why doesn't it? Shouldn't it? Shouldn't every title in that list be cited to prove its existence? Otherwise, how do we know someone hasn't slipped a made-up movie into that list? I am still awaiting a reasonable explanation for why every item in a list shouldn't be cited.


 * - "In regards to the Marvel Graphic Novel situation, you state " to bring it in line with the Lists of Marvel Comics publications". No, your new articles should be conforming to pre-existing articles, not the other way around." Fair enough. I have no problem leaving citations off that article, though, as above, I would still like an explanation for why the items in that list should not be cited.


 * - ""I was using the cite web template in the source editor. The automatic date entry button inserts the date in DD-MM-YY format." Read MOS:DATETIES and MOS:DATERET. It's on you to change the template post to conform to the existing structure." As far as I can tell, MOS:DATETIES and MOS:DATERET apply to the body of an article, not the citations. There appears to be a separate standard for citation dates at WP:CITESTYLE. Additionally, it's a bit ridiculous to expect someone to manually change the standard of an automatic template (especially 4,000+ times).


 * - "The thousands and thousands of retailer citations are a violation of WP:NOTADVERTISING." Again, as far as I can tell, WP:NOTADVERTISING applies to the body of the article, not citations. Citations/references are mentioned nowhere in that policy. If they were, WP:AFFILIATE would be a direct contradiction of that policy, but WP:AFFILIATE clearly states that retailer citations are allowed for the exact purpose that I was using them for, with no mention of any limitations on them whatsoever.


 * - "As an aside...Carl's Cabin of Comics...etc." I totally understand the problem here, your concerns with it, and in fact I agree with you. The plain fact is, there is a major loophole in Wikipedia policy that currently allows a retailer to do this. Perhaps WP:AFFILIATE needs to be re-written and tightened up to prevent this from happening. But as it currently stands, and as I read it, this is a perfectly allowable (and unfortunate) situation.


 * - "Among the concerns about WP:USERGENERATED sites are the lack of editorial oversight or scholarship. Retailers exist to sell things not to educate anyone about the product itself." Again, we're not trying to educate anyone on the topic here (that's what all of the text articles are for); we are merely trying to prove that the items exist, which a retailer site is perfectly capable of doing.


 * - "The Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/References includes numerous other websites, magazines, and books. So when you say "I did my due diligence in looking for acceptable sources", that's rather silly." All of these are wonderful sources for all of the text articles on comics on Wikipedia. I don't believe that they are necessary or even sufficient for a list of titles. A detailed book on the history of the comics is overkill as a source for a simple list of titles, and likely would not contain all of the relevant information that needs to be cited anyway, in particular dates and issue numbers for the range of an entire series. Tracking down out-of-print back issues of a comics journal is an unreasonable expectation for the average layman editor. I simply don't have that much time to devote to this. Again, I would like to stress at this point, that I have zero problem whatsoever with the e-commerce citations that I chose being replaced with others that are deemed more suitable, as long as they contain all of the same information (titles, dates and issue numbers for the entire series) that the e-commerce sites do.


 * - "The articles are now larger than they were before you split them. You've undercut your own rational for splitting the articles by adding all these retailer citations." I have no problem with the lists being split further if necessary. I originally split them based on the number of items in the list/page length, not byte size. Frankly, I don't even know where you find the byte size of a Wikipedia article (if you could please let me know, I would appreciate it).


 * - "Here is a suggestion, that would address some of these problems. As noted at the beginning of this post, there are already stand-alone lists for many of Marvel's most notable titles. There is no need to list all of the Avengers titles in full, etc." This is more of a style difference than anything else. I personally prefer having all of the Marvel titles available in one convenient place, for ease of viewing, and as the lists are currently presented. There shouldn't be a need to send a reader off to multiple different articles to get all of the information unless absolutely necessary. Again, my personal preference. And, not to throw your own words back in your face, but "articles should... conform... to pre-existing articles, not the other way around". There would be no reason to so drastically change the format of a list that's existed as it has since 2006.


 * - "Squirrel Girl needs a citation that isn't from Mycomicshop.com, Atomicavenue.com, or Carl's Cabin of Comics and Cards? Richards, Dave (October 7, 2014). "Villains Tremble as North Kicks off 'The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl'". ComicBookResources.com. Retrieved October 14, 2016." Again, my problem with using news articles like this as citations for the list of titles is that, yes, it verifies the existence of the title, but it does not contain any information at all whatsoever to verify the issue numbers and publication dates for the entire series. This article would be a perfectly acceptable citation for the Squirrel Girl article itself, but not for its entry in the list of titles.


 * - "Overstreet Guide". I absolutely agree with you that the Overstreet guide would have been an acceptable alternate citation source for the majority of the list, save for the "updated daily or weekly" part, which you have addressed (and, in fact, I have been using previewsworld.com as a source for just such purposes). And, again, I have no problem whatsoever with my citations being replaced with ones from Oversteet, or a similar acceptable source. However, as previously stated, this was an extenuating circumstance, with long-standing mainspace articles being moved to draftspace, and my goal was to get them back to mainspace as quickly and efficiently as possible. I did not have time to track down a copy of Overstreet, and I frankly had no desire whatsoever to spend the time and effort manually entering 4,000+ citations from a book when the exact same information is contained on the comic shop websites that I used. I submit that I am lazy. I also submit that WP:AFFILIATE allows me to be lazy.


 * - "This would have used the pre-existing List of Marvel Comics publications (A-M) article, no need for anything to go into DRAFT space, which means no demands for citations to a new article" The articles were moved to draftspace essentially immediately after I split them; there would have been no time to pull off something like this (and I wouldn't have even thought of it, as, see above, my personal style preference and the existing status quo of those lists). And besides, as per WP:UGC, I am humbly requesting another explanation: that policy states that "a wikilink is not a reliable source". As I read it, the mere existence of a bluelinked article in another article is not a sufficient citation for the information presented in said article. Especially since, as pointed out above, most of those other bluelinked lists of Marvel titles do not contain any citations themselves.


 * - "If the reason for splitting the List of Marvel Comics publications article was to reduce size, keep in mind that we previously had two articles which were over 100 bytes. Now we have eight articles over 100 bytes." Again, my "size" concern was with page length, not byte size.


 * - "Think of all the time that could have saved..." It would have saved time, but it would not have presented the information in the best possible manner (in my opinion), and it would not have succeeded in verifying all of the information that needed to be verified. I believe that I accomplished that with the citations that I used.


 * - Once again: I have no problem at all with the citations that I used being replaced. However, I believe them to be perfectly acceptable under the WP:AFFILIATE policy, that they may stay until such time as they are replaced, and that there is no reason to remove them as spam (which, I hope, at this point, I have adequately demonstrated they are not). Their sheer number alone and the fact that they are e-commerce sources does not qualify them as spam under Wikipedia policy, as I read it. WP:AFFILIATE places no limits or qualifications whatsoever on the amount of e-commerce sources that may be used for citations nor the number of times they may be used, and the other advertising/spam policies that you have cited apply to the bodies of articles and/or external links, not inline citations. Wikipedia policy, as far as I can tell, and as currently written, gives much more leeway to the types of sites that may be used for inline citation purposes, and how they may be used.


 * - Finally, I have restored the titles that I added to Marvel Graphic Novel which you removed, since there was no reason to remove them. Those titles should be included on that list, and did not need to be removed, as they are not a part of this discussion.Wilkinswontkins (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * A possible resolution?
 * "Easy" items first:
 * * Point taken on Marvel Graphic Novel. I will add Overstreet citations fairly soon, once I purchase a 2019 edition.
 * * Date format is quick to fix. Adding |df= mdy-all to just one of the citations will change the formatting of all citations in the articles. That's eight edits (one per article) not 4,000+.
 * * The byte size of an article is found in the edit history. Thus looking at the edit history of this very Talk page that we are on right now, we can see that this page was 60,244 bytes as of September 29, 2019 when you made an edit to it.  10:44, September 29, 2019‎ Wilkinswontkins talk contribs‎ m  60,244 bytes +2‎
 * * As I pointed out in an earlier post, WP:TONE is difficult to convey in online communications and I am not as antagonistic about this situation as my writing has made it appear.


 * Moving on to slightly more difficult matters. The example/suggestion I posted was just that, a suggestion. Which is why I posted it on my own Sandbox rather than altering any of the eight articles in question.


 * You have built your entire argument on WP:AFFILIATE which clearly states "Journalistic and academic sources are preferable, however, and e-commerce links should be replaced with non-commercial reliable sources if available." When I suggested using print resources, you dismissed it as "Tracking down out-of-print back issues". I have print sources which can be used for this. I was hesitant to offer assistance because you seemed quite bound to using an online source. Your concern that citations  are simply not available for many, many comic book titles, in particular obscure one-shots and/or limited series from the 1970s or '80s. is one which I can address. I have ready access to articles in Back Issue! magazine and other TwoMorrows Publishing periodicals which qualify as "Journalistic and academic sources". TwoMorrows keeps most of their publications available in electronic format even when the print edition has sold out. These articles include number of issues and start/stop dates for publication and if you have no objection, I am willing to add them to your List articles. No Street Poet Ray as of yet. Sorry about that one.


 * Looking at an AtomicAvenue citation such as https://atomicavenue.com/atomic/TitleDetail.aspx?TitleID=6688 and then "drilling down" into the one of the sublinks https://atomicavenue.com/atomic/issue/110263/Ruins-1 it appears that AtomicAvenue is not a retailer per se but a consumer to consumer marketplace akin to Ebay or Etsy. Wouldn't that make Atomic Avenue WP:USERGENERATED?


 * I have my own "wheelhouse" of articles which I focus on and I jumped the gun on this situation which has taken up quite a bit of time for both of us. In closing, I would like to wrap up this matter and I would hope any future encounters are of a more positive nature. As stated in one of my earlier posts, I did not intend to offend you.


 * Mtminchi08 (talk) 00:51, 2 October 2019 (UTC)




 * Thank you for the info on byte size and fixing the citation dates. See, I didn't even know about those! I will keep those in mind for future reference.


 * "I have print sources which can be used for this. I was hesitant to offer assistance because you seemed quite bound to using an online source...These articles include number of issues and start/stop dates for publication and if you have no objection, I am willing to add them to your List articles." Absolutely, please do so as you have time. I don't remember if I said this, but using e-commerce sources was my absolute last choice. I felt boxed in to using them due to the time constraints imposed by the articles being moved to draftspace, because of Wikipedia's strict sourcing requirements, and because of my lack of access to adequate alternate sources such as those that you have available. And, while I am not at all bound to using the sources that I chose, I did feel the need to vigorously defend myself against the accusation of being a spammer, especially since I believe that I was acting according to Wikipedia policy. (And, well, since it would stink to see all my hard work go to waste. But, c'est la vie.)


 * "Wouldn't that make Atomic Avenue WP:USERGENERATED?" For me, this is a gray area. It's partially user-generated in terms of being consumer-to-consumer (as you point out), but the site itself, not the sellers, provides the info on the comics and the platform for the comics to be sold, thus making it an e-commerce site. It therefore has the added verifiability that a user-generated database does not, in that the items listed can be purchased through the site, thus verifying that they exist and were not just made up by someone using the site.


 * For my own personal edification, I would still like an explanation of why a list of titles would not require citations. As previously stated, I have no problem leaving citations off of a list of titles, and in fact, I would have preferred to have done so (it would have saved me all that work), but I would like to understand why that would be the case. and  both seemed to think that the list needed citations (again, this situation never would have happened if they hadn't moved the lists to draftspace). If the lists didn't need citations, perhaps they should be looped in on this discussion and some consensus should be reached so a similar situation does not occur again. Especially since I was considering similarly splitting List of DC Comics publications and I don't want this whole thing to start all over again.


 * "As I pointed out in an earlier post, WP:TONE is difficult to convey in online communications and I am not as antagonistic about this situation as my writing has made it appear...I have my own "wheelhouse" of articles which I focus on and I jumped the gun on this situation which has taken up quite a bit of time for both of us. In closing, I would like to wrap up this matter and I would hope any future encounters are of a more positive nature. As stated in one of my earlier posts, I did not intend to offend you." No offense or antagonistic intent on your part was taken by me. I checked your user page and saw that you are one of the top Wikipedians ever, so I know how passionate you are about this and I know that you were acting in good faith. You saw a worrisome-looking situation and acted accordingly, and I certainly can't fault you for that. I might have done the same. I will consider this matter closed if you do. Wilkinswontkins (talk) 12:08, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

beesleyfuels.co.uk

 * beesleyfuels link was spammed repeatedly by User:Edwin Fitz until they were blocked; user has been insistent on attempts to remove tracking header. Dug up some related domains and users; logging here for automated tracking. OhNo itsJamie Talk 15:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * beesleyfuels link was spammed repeatedly by User:Edwin Fitz until they were blocked; user has been insistent on attempts to remove tracking header. Dug up some related domains and users; logging here for automated tracking. OhNo itsJamie Talk 15:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * beesleyfuels link was spammed repeatedly by User:Edwin Fitz until they were blocked; user has been insistent on attempts to remove tracking header. Dug up some related domains and users; logging here for automated tracking. OhNo itsJamie Talk 15:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * beesleyfuels link was spammed repeatedly by User:Edwin Fitz until they were blocked; user has been insistent on attempts to remove tracking header. Dug up some related domains and users; logging here for automated tracking. OhNo itsJamie Talk 15:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * beesleyfuels link was spammed repeatedly by User:Edwin Fitz until they were blocked; user has been insistent on attempts to remove tracking header. Dug up some related domains and users; logging here for automated tracking. OhNo itsJamie Talk 15:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * beesleyfuels link was spammed repeatedly by User:Edwin Fitz until they were blocked; user has been insistent on attempts to remove tracking header. Dug up some related domains and users; logging here for automated tracking. OhNo itsJamie Talk 15:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion by Bri
Bri suggested that I used this button to report what's been repeatedly added without any reliable sourcing:


 * github.com/TechnitiumSoftware
 * github.com/TechnitiumSoftware
 * github.com/TechnitiumSoftware
 * github.com/TechnitiumSoftware



Is this what you had in mind? I'm new to this Project Spam thing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

185.213.154.168 (talk) 10:37, 3 October 2019 (UTC)


 * . --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:56, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

CharlesHolston's Response:
 * IP address 103.250.47.154 belongs to me which I used earlier and created an account to keep track.
 * The other mentioned IP addresses are from different providers altogether and not related to me. I do not have any ipv6 connectivity.
 * 185.213.154.168's COI allegations are without any basis as he has not provided any evidence other than circumstantial that all IP address belong to same city.
 * 185.213.154.168's contributions when inspected carefully revels that he/she has edited to remove content from multiple pages targeting any software linked to "Technitium" and only when pointed out on talk page, he/she then later removed other entries to show justification.
 * In case of page Comparison_of_LAN_messengers, the entry for "Bit Chat" was added by 72.128.114.238 which from IP lookup is in USA. And thus not in the same city as claimed earlier. To make removal of "Bit Chat" justified, the user removed several other entries with it.
 * 185.213.154.168's claim that "Technitium" is a commercial entity selling the software projects is also incorrect. I checked the links provided and its clear that all projects are open source and freely available.
 * 185.213.154.168 is using an anonymous proxy/VPN IP address which indicates he/she wants to hide identity. I suspect they have some motive against "Technitium" based on hiding their identity using VPN and the contributions they made to remove content from all pages no matter how relevant the content was to the page or who added it.
 * The talk page for Comparison_of_DNS_server_software already discussed to allow all DNS server software to be listed without notability criteria. 185.213.154.168 thus did not read the talk page and made removal of multiple entries from the page.
 * 185.213.154.168 didn't just stop at removal of entries, he/she made this COIN entry and subsequently also made an entry in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam to block all links. This adds to the suspicion that he/she has motive against "Technitium" and want to get it removed and blocked.
 * 185.213.154.168 contribution history shows that he/she has edited to remove content than to add something useful thus showing that their actions are overall destructive and targeted.

I request moderators to consider all the points and do their own checks before coming to any conclusion. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CharlesHolston (talk • contribs) 06:35, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Balajisubal
Blatant cannabis-related spam ☆ Bri (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2019 (UTC)