Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2024 Archive Mar

bourbonblog.com


IPs, usually from the same general area as the blogger, have been adding this blog as a source for years. The example that prompted this was this edit which was used to add undisguised PR from the company itself. Other examples include churnlism like this and inane PR like this. Often the blog is used for info which should have obviously better sources available, such as this edit to Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve.

Grayfell (talk) 06:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Huh. Apparently, I had previously brought this up back in 2016: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2016 Archive Apr 1. That prompted Sockpuppet investigations/Walteredwardsenglish. I forgot just how aggressive this was. Grayfell (talk) 21:01, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

96.242.78.76
Adding dating site url shortened links. 🇺🇲JayCubby✡ plz edit my user pg! Talk 02:18, 4 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Oh look, a VPN. Blocked. HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts? 21:15, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @HJ Mitchell Thanks! 🇺🇲JayCubby✡ plz edit my user pg! Talk 21:24, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

DanielaNES has been adding random pages to "see also" on a dozen articles
This person has been adding oddly specific wikipedia articles to the "See also" section of several pages.

for example, 2008 season of the High Road Women cycling team was added to cycling and in this page UCI_Road_World_Championships_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_road_race

and "the weather in france" was added to france (reverted) Adenosine Triphosphate (talk) 20:23, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

oldtimemusic.com
AI-generated website with fake author profiles, including photos taken from other websites, on its "Who We Are" page. —  Newslinger  talk   02:35, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

From reliable sources noticeboard discussion


See and. —  Newslinger  talk   03:51, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

caraccidentlawyeru.com
Blocked actor who did this (with master account) and this (with sock account) is now IP spamming the domains. . Maybe blacklisting the site would be helpful. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * They are both already globally blacklisted. The last diff only got through because it is not a valid link. Count Count (talk) 15:36, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Bri this is Sockpuppet investigations/Technur2.0. Please report it there if you see anything else like this (and feel free to ping me). HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts? 13:28, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

ANN Spamcheck
Spamcheck is a new tool to find additions of external links by domain or user for fighting crosswiki spam. Link additions have been recorded since November 2023. It is currently labeled alpha and in heavy development but it should already be useful for fighting spam.

If you have any suggestions don't hesitate to contact me. Feedback is always welcome. Count Count (talk) 08:33, 9 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi, Spamcheck is brilliant. The domain search is efficient and performs very well. I look forward to the release of the user search and multi-user/multi-domain search features. —  Newslinger  talk   08:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback! User/IP/IP-Range search is already possible, there is just no entry form for it yet, see e.g. https://spamcheck.toolforge.org/by-user?q=Count+Count.
 * Multi-xxx search is still a bit off though, but the idea is that it should allow one to iterate: from a bunch of domains -> find users adding those domains -> find all domains added by those users -> ..., to more easily find a whole cluster of spammed domains. Count Count (talk) 09:12, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you, that is very helpful! I've added a note about Spamcheck to in Special:Diff/1212734492. —  Newslinger   talk   09:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

it would make things slightly less cluttered if links to Wikimedia projects weren't returned (and, if applicable, stored) at all. MER-C 19:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @MER-C: There is an automatic whitelisting process which stops recording of links to domains that are very often added and rarely removed to keep the DB size manageable. In the next version already recorded additions of those domains will not be shown. I can of course also manually blacklist all Wikimedia wikis.
 * I wonder though, where those links made things cluttered for you? Did you explicitly search for them? Or did you encounter them in a user query? Count Count (talk) 20:19, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * User query. MER-C 11:07, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * OK, I will manually blacklist all of them. Count Count (talk) 11:09, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Clutter is generally a problem. There are some spammers that add both article spam and link spam thrown in with hundreds of innocent edits. See if you can find the spam links in Sockpuppet investigations/Bodiadub and Sockpuppet investigations/Expertwikiguy. The volume is already unmanageable for my own attempt to do something similar. Count(links for this domain) < 50 helps but it's still too much. You can also stress test with m:Talk:Wikiproject:Antispam. MER-C 13:35, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I have a similar prototype running locally which lists all link additions crosswiki, that have 10 or less existing links for that domain crosswiki + some other filters and I think it would be feasible for a couple of people to go over the questionable additions every day. I am planning to rewrite it to use spamcheck's db which has more information, e.g. how often a link has been removed, if an individual addition has been reverted or deleted, etc. and create a web interface for crowdsourcing the effort of reviewing the additions.
 * I have already removed lots of embedded spam refs with its help, e.g. 1, 2, ... Count Count (talk) 14:00, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

nostra.gg
—  Newslinger  talk   11:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. —  Newslinger  talk   11:51, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Newslinger I've been running lots of checks on spam accounts, including these ones, and I've blocked some more I've found with checkuser and some underlying IP ranges (lots of proxies and VPNs!). It's always worth consulting a CU for any throwaway spam account (there's never just one!) but especially if you get multiple accounts spamming similar domains. HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts? 14:15, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

pwa-media.org SEO




I've been tracking some links that, due to overlaps, seemed to be obviously spammed by a SEO company. The breakingbattlegrounds.vote link has been the most widespread and longest spammed (since at least January 2023) link that I have found. The bottom right corner of the site states "Created by PWA Media". Links to pwa-media.org had overlap with breakingbattlegrounds.vote (although they've been revdel'd, so I'm relying on my tracking links). At the bottom of pwa-media.org/utah-seo-company/, it lists some testimonials. One of which is from the CEO of Breaking Battlegrounds and another is from the managing director of Dot Vote. I'm sure that I haven't found all of the links they have been spamming and I don't know if this agency was previously known (a search didn't come up with anything), but I wanted to bring up up to get some more eyes on it. Thanks! Apparition11 Complaints/ Mistakes 13:23, 9 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Apparition11 sorry for the delay. Were these links being spammed by IPs or accounts, and do you remember any of them? Especially if it's accounts, I'd be interested to see what checkuser turns up. HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts? 14:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * No worries, appreciate you looking in on it. It's almost exclusively IPs. The only account that I've seen connected is User:Lovekumar1 (they spammed vacurect-india.com, which was also spammed by 103.183.31.6 who spammed breakingbattlegrounds.vote and 103.183.31.198 edited their talk page and also spammed breakingbattlegrounds.vote). There are a lot of IPs, but the most inclusive list can be found at Special:LinkSearch/*.breakingbattlegrounds.vote. Generally, with that extent of spamming, I would have requested blacklisting (and I won't complain if somebody does), but I've kind of been using it to keep an eye out for other links. I don't know how helpful this will be, particularly due to my ignorance of IP ranges, but some of the most common ranges seem to be 103.183.31.*, 114.134.25.*, 114.134.26.*, 117.214.*.*, 117.215.*.*, 117.243.*.*, 180.188.*.*, 61.0.66.*, and 61.3.*.*. Apparition11 Complaints/ Mistakes 14:49, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Took me an hour but I've investigated all those ranges and made checks and blocks where appropriate. It won't surprise you to learn that I flushed out quite a few other accounts. Related accounts and IPs have been spamming other domains, including some Australian ones. HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts? 16:09, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Your efforts are very much appreciated! I'll continue to keep an eye out for them. Cheers! Apparition11 Complaints/ Mistakes 16:22, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Let me know if you spot any more. I left some of the ranges alone because they don't have recent edits but I can easily block them if they become active again. HJ Mitchell</b> &#124; <span style="color: navy; font-family: Times New Roman" title="(Talk page)">Penny for your thoughts? 16:38, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * (might be a separate spam farm)
 * (might be a separate spam farm)
 * (might be a separate spam farm)
 * (might be a separate spam farm)

Cannaspam #457
I've lost count, 457 is just a random number of course. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:13, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Bri I ran a check but couldn't connect them to any other accounts. I've blocked and watchlisted the taget articles. <b style="color: teal; font-family: Tahoma">HJ Mitchell</b> &#124; <span style="color: navy; font-family: Times New Roman" title="(Talk page)">Penny for your thoughts? 17:39, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I opened a SPI case, too, after noticing the linksearch results. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

UPE from experienced editors
Recently, I stumbled upon this user (through an AfD and subsequently by a ping from another user) who has indeed disclosed his paid editing only for Scott Woodward (marketer) but his other creations like Paul Hernandez (musician) or Luca Schnetzler and his company, Pudgy Penguins does looks like paid editing and without any disclosures.

There are some socking involved as well, see Sockpuppet investigations/DIVINE specially with another confirmed UPE editor Editingforgk.

The user was already suggested to go through the AfC process for new articles In addition, I strongly suggest you to use WP:AFC to create any new article. but they are adamant with statements like, I have been creating article directly to namespace since 10 years and i will continue doing that.

Given all these, I genuinely think there may be more undisclosed paid editing from socks. Bhivuti45 (talk) 10:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)


 * WP:SPI is pending here, and they used the template to move mainspace page to draft which was reviewed and edited by multiple editors which can be seen here . The Bhivuti45 came to editing after two months and claims that one SPI blocked user requested them to start CU. Additionally, i tried to solve the dispute with them on their talk page which you can see in their talk paged. So while we are here, i am denying again and i have done it multiple times everywhere before and still they are doing personal attacks again and again. And i request to reviewing administrator that Bhivuti45 were asked to disclose their UPE before by two adminstrators User:L235 and User:GeneralNotability which can be seen here and another one users and i believe the account is spam only account which is really not here to contribute on wikipedia. <b style="color:#29F">DI</b><b style="color:red">V</b><b style="color:#080">I</b><b style="color:#808">N</b><b style="color:#FA0">E</b> 10:16, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Solve which dispute? There has been no dispute. Your articles doesn't seem notable and this is why they are at AfD. Why you are so obsessed with "personal attacks" just because an editor thinks your page doesn't qualify??
 * Even the Scott Woodward (marketer) article for which you disclosed paid-editing, didn't go through the AfC process as required by WP:COI.
 * What is your link with Editingforgk who has same interest on Scott Woodward (marketer)? Bhivuti45 (talk) 10:30, 30 March 2024 (UTC)