Talk:Spam blacklist

←Requests and proposals

Spam blacklist

Archives (current)→

The associated page is used by the Mediawiki SpamBlacklist extension, and lists strings of text that may not be used in URLs in any page in Wikimedia Foundation projects (as well as many external wikis). Any meta administrator can edit the spam blacklist. There is also a more aggressive way to block spamming through direct use of $wgSpamRegex. Only developers can make changes to $wgSpamRegex, and its use is to be avoided whenever possible.

For more information on what the spam blacklist is for, and the processes used here, please see Spam blacklist/About.

Please post comments to the appropriate section below: Proposed additions, Proposed removals, or Troubleshooting and problems, read the messageboxes at the top of each section for an explanation. Also, please check back some time after submitting, there could be questions regarding your request. Per-project whitelists are discussed at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. In addition to that, please sign your posts with ~~~~ after your comment. Other discussions related to this last, but that are not a problem with a particular link please see, Spam blacklist policy discussion.

Completed requests are archived, additions and removal are logged.

Projects

Information

List of all projects

Overviews

Reports

Wikimedia Embassy

Project portals

Country portals

Tools

Spam blacklist

Title blacklist

Email blacklist

Rename blacklist

Closure of wikis

Interwiki map

Requests

Permissions

Bot flags

New languages

New projects

Username changes

Translations

Speedy deletions

[edit]

snippet for logging: {{/request|767844#section_name}}

If you cannot find your remark below, please do a search for the url (link) in question with this Archive Search tool.

Spam that is only affecting a single project should go to that project's local blacklist, if available: ENWP

Proposed additions

This section is for proposing that a website be blacklisted; add new entries at the bottom of the section, using the basic URL so that there is no link (google.ca, not http://www.google.ca). Provide links demonstrating widespread spamming by multiple users. Completed requests will be marked as done or denied and archived.

augeweb.com

The following discussion is closed.

this site is always reposted at http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecanograf%C3%ADa One of his spammed article is (as an example)... http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mecanograf%C3%ADa&oldid=12878095

• • SPAMMER comes back almost every day from a different IP to spam his link

Hello, I can't see a widespread spamming problem here, it is only happening in es.wikipedia and even only on one single site. You could therefore either semiprotect that site or add the url to the local spam blacklist es:MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:10, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Not done, other solutions offered, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Carmen Starzonek

I don't know if this is technically possible, but if possible, please blacklist the string 'Carmen Starzonek'. Someone is adding an english text to articles about Spanish villages all over Wikidia from a variable IP. Example at NL.wiki. A list of IP's involved at NL.wiki can be found here.

• Examples at EN.wiki: en:Special:Contributions/78.145.172.107 - en:Special:Contributions/78.145.168.51
• Examples at ES.wiki: es:Especial:Contributions/78.150.40.144 - es:Especial:Contributions/78.145.145.198
• Examples at IT.wiki: it:Speciale:Contributi/78.150.40.144 - it:Speciale:Contributi/78.145.145.198

All the added text contains accusations to 'Carmen Starzonek'. GijsvdL 16:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

the blacklist can only be used to prevent the placement of active links - mere text is not affected by inclusion - sorry --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Spam without links

Crosswiki spam through proxies: [1] [2] [3] (probably more projects are affected, tends to create new pages so its edits are deleted and dont show up in crosswiki search). Typical edit looks like this (<a href=" http: "> bunch of porn keywords </a> (repeat several times)).

Technically these edits don't contain any links, just "http:"; can anything be done against them? (IIRC there is also a fulltext regexp filter in MediaWiki.) --213.222.154.42 22:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi - I am not aware of anyway that this is controllable by the blacklist (though there may be other methods?), sorry --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I was just asking in #wikimedia-tech about that and was told by Tim Starling, that we should make IP-lists as User:Drini/botnet, seems like this is the only thing. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 12:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

bilgipara.com, pataraexcavations.com, rhodiapolis.com

Adsense pub-7847991231427742

• wiki project spam case

194.27.186.39 Accounts

en.wikipedia.org
de.wikipedia.org
ca.wikipedia.org
el.wikipedia.org
fr.wikipedia.org
gl.wikipedia.org
ru.wikipedia.org
tr.wikiquote.org
tr.wikipedia.org
tr.wiktionary.org

81.213.240.169 Accounts

en.wikipedia.org
tr.wikipedia.org only

Asilonline Accounts

en.wikipedia.org
tr.wikipedia.org

88.254.175.65 Accounts

en.wikipedia.org
de.wikipedia.org
tr.wikipedia.org

Thanks,--Hu12 11:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, Done, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

free-lock-picking-guide.com

Adsense pub-7721119588234903

• wiki project spam case

219.75.16.216 Accounts

en.wikipedia.org
de.wikipedia.org
pl.wikipedia.org
nl.wikipedia.org
fi.wikipedia.org

220.255.59.172 Accounts

en.wikipedia.org

121.7.218.94 Accounts

en.wikipedia.org
Thanks, --Hu12 13:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks & Done, regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposed removals

This section is for proposing that a website be unlisted; please add new entries at the bottom of the section. Remember to provide the specific URL blacklisted, links to the articles they are used in or useful to, and arguments in favour of unlisting. Completed requests will be marked as done or denied and archived. See also /recurring requests for repeatedly proposed (and refused) removals. The addition or removal of a link is not a vote, please do not bold the first words in statements.

Encyclopedia Dramatica

The following discussion is closed.

This blacklist is for systematic spam attacks, not for unpleasant & undesirable sites. Have there been any systematic spam attacks from the ED crowd recently? If not, I'm going to remove the entry.--Eloquence 13:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

In practice I think you may be wrong. This list serves to block any "undesirable" site from placing links to Foundation projects. While the site is listed here there cannot be any spam attacks can there. I would certainly suggest you would be well advised to seek consensus and not merely remove the entry. Checking the original request (here) there certainly was substantial evidence of spamming. A rushed removal would be unwise IMO, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it was added to the blacklist after the enwiki ArbCom ruled that links to Encyclopedia Dramatica were outlawed. I think it is better to move this entry to the enwiki spamlist, as the enwiki ArbCom does not decide what links are banned on other wikis. Melsaran 16:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Does ED pass the EL policy on any project? They are certainly not a reliable source and ED is certainly not a notable website. I can only see this resulting in more hassle. J.smith 17:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia has, compared to other Wikipedias, very high standards for inclusion. There are several reliable sources that have reported on ED, but since it fails the guidelines of the English Wikipedia they deleted the article there. That does not mean that smaller Wikipedias with lower standards for inclusion couldn't have an article on them (I could name dozens of less notable websites that have an article on the Dutch Wikipedia). Anyway, that's not really relevant here, since the spam blacklist should only be used against persistent spammers, and (as far as I know) there haven't been any problems with ED on projects other than en.wikipedia. Melsaran

There was also some harassment/libel issues involved as well. I really think it would be more appropriate to whitelist the main page on the various wikis that deem the site is notable instead of opening the can of worms that is the ED issue. The ED page strives on drama... and that makes the site a source of trolling. If a "crack in the armor" is opened up, I can see it being exploited and I see very little gain for us in opening up said crack. J.smith 18:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• As I recall, not only were there serious and persistent harassment issues (en:Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO), there was also a persistent and unmanageable problem of links being added to mainspace by ED fans. If it is decided that ED is notable enough for an article about it on some other language Wikipedia, then a local whitelist of the home page will be sufficient to allow a link fomr that article, but ED itself was being linked widely and indiscriminately, and that, added to its problematic content, was enough to be a serious problem. Let us not forget that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Where, apart from an article on ED itself, could ED be used as a source or reference? I would say nowhere. As a site it is completely without any redeeming merit whatsoever, having gone with the complete opposite of Uncyclopedia's "how to be funny and not just stupid" - ED, then, is stupid and just not funny. Stupid, and obscene, and occasionally outright vicious. Its usefulness in building an encyclopaedia is precisely zero. [former User JzG] 12:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It's called vandalism, revert it like always, unless they were using bots it's not a problem. The English Wikipedia is not the only project, and it can maintain its own blacklists, instead of forcing other sites to create whitelists to deal with an English Wikipedia issue. And who cares about any relation to the less popular Uncyclopedia, it has no relevance to a discussion of a link ban. Clothblues 02:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

French, Spanish and Portugalese Wikipedia have articles about Encyclopedia Dramatica. If some from en.wiki hate it, it is better to put it to local blacklist, but not to block it for all Wikipedias. --Dezidor 16:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Other attack sites have been blacklisted here; this does not appear to be an en.wikipedia-only issue. Here are several examples:

• traditio.ru
  • Spam blacklist/Log#May 2007
  • ru.wikipedia
• becemaml.com:
  • Spam blacklist/Log#June 2007
  • ca and es.wikipedia
• geocities.com\censura_no
  • http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spam_blacklist&diff=657009&oldid=656794
  • es.wikipedia

Wasn't there also an it.wikipedia attacksite blacklisted here?

--A. B. ^(talk) 19:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Erik, I'm concerned that you've argued to remove Wikipedia Review, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and Daniel Brandt's sites, which have attacked, stalked, and libelled numerous Wikipedians, but you added, and have never argued to remove, Sollog's site, which attacks Jimbo and his family. Can you explain what you see as the difference? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Dramatica is only a humor site. MONGO as far as I have seen in that case was not stalked. Ze has provided no evidence of stalking. Stalking is following one around from place to place, usually with an obsession. Cyberstalking is the same only one is followed from site to site. The only "harassment" I see is the Wikipedia article on MONGO. The whole Request for Arbitration/MONGO is MONGO harassing some people who run a site. The information there is only supposed to be funny. MONGO's personal information was not in the article, and ze was only being parodied. Apparently, from what I have read on this "case", it was only MONGO who0 couldn't take a joke rather than stalking. If MONGO really got stalked, then ce3nsoring the stalkers won't help. Dramatica have the right to free speech. Many productive contributors on Wikipedia are/were also on Dramatica, for example, the former users Badlydrawnjeff and Blu Aardvark, and Schmuckythecat(spell?). This is no excuse to violate someone's freedom because "you don't like that site". Yea, there are some things that are not exactly boo-baa-baa-black-sheep friendly, but that just means it is "not for everybody". That is not for us to judge. See w:WP:NOT#CENSORED.

Brandt should have respect here, since ze is banned and has no chance to defend himself, it is quite rude to dismiss his sites as "spam". Brandt does not attack anyone. Yes, I believe it is unethical of zir to reveal the personal information of admins, but he didn't do anything that wrong. You know, ze has rights too. Actually, what has Brandt really done wrong? He is only a critic of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is only censoring criticism of itself. So, Wikipedia is therefore infallible because no one is critical of them because the criticism can't be linked to, therefore if it says something bad about Wikipedia, it is lies. Is that really what you want? Anonymous1 21:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think MONGO made the whole thing up to smear against people on Dramatica. He then used WP:RFAR/MONGO as a battleground to attack people on both wikis (Dramatica and 'Pedia). It could have been an attention stunt to generate drama (no pun intended). I don't want to be too controversial, but I think if he was stalked and harassed, he deserved it and he hasn't got justice yet. Anonymous TALK 17:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Eloquence on this one. By the way, Melsaran was the one using sockpuppets to vote in AFD's. Anonymous TALK 17:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• The site was blacklisted because it was being spammed, not just because it contained attacks. The views of self-evident trolling sockpuppets on how MONGO "made the whole thing up" are not a particularly productive or welcome form of input. 193.113.235.168 18:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I know of no history of spamming from Encylcopeda Dramatica. It is obvious that the English Wikipedia has concerns about allowing the site to be linked--for reasons other than spam, but I don't see such concerns from any other wiki. My suggestion would be to remove it from the meta blacklist, as it doesn't meet the criteria for blacklisting (in particular, it's not been used in spam on any Wikimedia wiki). The English Wikipedia can then blacklist it locally if they want. AmiDaniel 20:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• You know of none, but spammed it was. Many links were removed from many projects. For what content are we intended to use ED as a source? JzG 11:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

What about the sites blacklisted due to attacks on editors working on other Wikipedias (ru, it, es, ca, etc. -- see list above)? Should they also be removed? If so, should there be a discussion here first? I think it's important that if we change the way we've treated such sites in the past, then we should probably be consistent about it across projects. --A. B. ^(talk) 20:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I would think that the right way forward is to rename this to link blacklist and leave them on. Spamming is one of the way harassment can be perpetuated. It would also fix the problem of sites feeling that their reputation is sullied by being on a spam blacklist. JzG 18:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

If the problem has only been on .en I don't see what fundamentally is gained by insisting that the site be universally blacklisted. I do agree that in any event we may wish to change the name of this list to make it clear that presence here isn't necessarily for spamming by itself. JoshuaZ 23:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it was also spammed on other projects. What use are links to this particular site anyway? For which encyclopaedia articles would it provide a reference? Also, Erik asks if there have been any recent spam attacks; how could there be? It's on the blacklist. By that argument all sites should be removed because they haven't been spammed since they were blacklisted :o) JzG 15:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, it would be used as reference at the ED articles on projects other than .en. That doesn't seem to be so complicated. In any event, the vast majority of the problem occurred in the English Wikipedia while other projects would clearly benefit from being able to link to the site since they have articles about ED. So why not locally blacklist? JoshuaZ 16:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It isn't a good idea nither, as it does attack wikipedia, and many editors, the website is borderline libel. Jaranda | wat's sup 19:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I wonder why Erik isn't responding to this thread. I also don't see how there can have been recent spam attacks if the sites are blocked.

Jimbo has elsewhere agreed with the idea of simply renaming the list, which seems the most sensible way forward. How do we go about doing that, if there are no objections? 70.64.0.67 06:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the "rename" comment though that should be discussed elsewhere. Re-reading this discussion I can see plenty of views. However I cannot see any consensus at all to remove ED from the list so I am closing this as Not done thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

gportal.hu

Popular Hungarian webhost/sitebuilder with hideously ugly URLs. It was erroneously blocked when a few sites it hosted were spammed. Widely used on huwiki, please remove, and block specific URLs only. --Tgr 20:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Given the fact that there have been so many requests for blacklisting pages from this site I'm inclined to think that blacklisting the whole domain for the Project may be correct. However there should be no problem in whitelisting it for hu wiki then? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

But if you take a look at this site You will see, that there are a lot of links also in other Wikipedias where it is also not spam, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 09:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough - happy to see other input here - do we have to keep blacklisting page by page? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Every time a specific URL has been blacklisted another gportal.hu link has been spammed a few days later, if not sooner. This has been going on for more than two months, in many Wikipedias and a variety of articles (Wikipedia, Encyclopedia, Wiki, Jimmy Wales, Nox are some of the favorites, but yesteday for instance Homosexuality laws of the world, Turkmen language and Afrikaans articles got a generous helping of links to a gportal.hu site).

But like Spacebirdy says, there are still other gportal.hu links around that needs to be taken care of, so that they don't stop new edits from beeing saved:

en

de

pl

ja

sv

es

ru

zh

fi

eo

sk

cs

hu

id

hr

th

simple

+ maybe some in the ca 190 smaller Wikipedias or in the 500+ other Wikimedia wikis.

--Jorunn 09:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Herby, I would prefer not to whitelist it on huwiki, because then we would have no way to filter out the real gportal spamlinks. (The local whitelist overrides the local blacklist, I suppose.) --Tgr 15:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd appreciate other views here please - I see two sides both of which have reasonable arguments? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding this link again, it seems like many wikipedias have already thinned out those links. Imho now, hu.wikipedia should put it on the local whitelist and due to the widespread spamming in the past it should stay on the global blacklist, thanks, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 13:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

bestvi (phrase)

The following discussion is closed.

When linking to the Viral Video Website, bestviral.com, it is blaclisted because of a forbidden phrase "bestvi". I assume this is related to bestviagra or something to that like, but can an adjust be made to not blacklist bestviral.com? Mattsilv ^(talk)

I have to say I agree that it does not appear this site should be affected but cannot find the log for the listing. This means I do not know what should have been listed! Anyone with thoughts? bestviagra seems like a good option? If I hear nothing else I'll change it to that in a couple of days, cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:38, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I've "tightened" the listing a little. Hopefully bestviral would work now. Done Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Elliottgann.com

The following discussion is closed.

Please can you reconsider this entry ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.167.252.201 (talk • contribs) 09:28, 13 Nov 2007 (UTC)

Link to request is here --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Typically, we do not remove domains from the spam blacklist in response to site-owners' requests. Instead, we de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their encyclopedic value in support of our encyclopedia pages. If such an editor asks to use your links, I'm sure the request will be carefully considered and your links may well be removed.

This blacklist is used by more than just our 700+ Wikimedia Foundation wikis (Wikipedias, Wiktionaries, etc.). All 3000+ Wikia wikis plus a substantial percentage of the 25,000+ unrelated wikis that run on our MediaWiki software have chosen to incorporate this blacklist in their own spam filtering. Each wiki has a local "whitelist" which overrides the global blacklist for that project only. Some of these non-Wikimedia sites may be interested in your links; by all means feel free to request local whitelisting on those.

Unlike Wikipedia, DMOZ is a web directory specifically designed to categorize and list all Internet sites; if you've not already gotten your sites listed there, I encourage you to do so -- it's a more appropriate venue for your links than our wikis. Their web address: http://www.dmoz.org/.

--A. B. ^(talk) 16:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Elliottgann.com is already referenced in dmoz.org. In fact I think that Google.com could use wikipedia blacklist for pagerank system. Of course I wil not put any link of Elliottgann.com website in wikipedia anymore. Since I was the only "spammer" I think there's no more reason to let Elliottgann.com in black list. Can you please reconsider this entry ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.167.252.222 (talk • contribs) 14:04, 22 Nov 2007 (UTC)

caiuszip.com

The following discussion is closed.

Please can you reconsider this web. This site is available to teachers, educational group leaders and students who want to use the resource on this website to learn about history of the world and bioghaphy of great men. Provides classroom teachers with innovative teaching showing how applications of mathematics were decisive in the great battles and events of humanity more luminous.This web is a contribution to knowledge, and for this reason a model and a stimulus. Caius Zip is to amuse, educate and incite the curiosity of the student. The quality of the ideas presented is appreciated by all who visit it. Creativity and originality are keywords and the professionalism gives a definitive form to this primordial work. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.37.251.119 (talk • contribs) 20:12, 14 Nov 2007 (UTC)

Blacklisting request is here and seems valid - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

 Declined, valid request, thanks --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 13:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

EcoMarcheNews

The following discussion is closed.

This site is in blacklist but I cannot understand why since it is simply a local portal about italian region called Marche, I was tring to add their gallery and it says it is in blacklist. Can it be removed? site is www.ecomarchenews.com. Thanks for checking. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.19.66.101 (talk • contribs) 13:22, 15 Nov 2007 (UTC)

The basis for the listing is here. It would seem that there was quite a lot of link placement across wikis, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:46, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I have seen, someone posted some link, but can't you ban the ip instead of the site, since we did not make the spam, we not een know ecomarchenews.com was banned since last day I tried to put a link to our gallery since we have some pics from here. The question is, is it possible? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.19.66.101 (talk) diff (UTC)

hi anybody could meet my request of removal? thanks — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.19.66.101 (talk) diff (UTC)

In practice when the link placement is across so many wikis blocking the IP would not be a possibility, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:37, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

 Declined, reason please read above, thanks, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 13:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

fremderfreiheitsschacht\.de

Please remove fremderfreiheitsschacht\.de, we may have found an solution with the owner of this site, otherwise we will take the page in our local blacklist. --Harald Krichel 14:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you have in mind here. It is globally blacklisted so what is the reason for removal. You can always add it to your local whitelist if you require the link? Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

faeroerne.dk

The following discussion is closed.

This is a useful faroese tourist portal that is free to use. All faroese tourist related companies register free. Please remove from list...

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.57.188.190 (talk) [4] --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:22, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Please see [5] for this issue. It seems Your linking is not welcomed [6]. Regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:22, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I would merely endorse Spacebirdy's comments. Placing links in the way that it was done was quite wrong and it is not surprising that the site is listed here, closing as Not done --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

mundoceleste.ch

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Spam_blacklist&oldid=675576#mundoceleste.ch it was blocked mundoceleste.ch. I had added the URL at some Celta Vigo sites. Does one can again unlock mundoceleste.ch? I now read the guidelines... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 77.56.90.143 (talk • contribs) 09:11, 26 Nov 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the request it seems to be valid. See also the request on en.wiki [7]. Maybe You can convince en.wiki for local whitelisting. Regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 13:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

pwinsider.com

I'm an administrator on en. I would like to suggest that pwinsider.com (listed as pwinsider\.com) be removed from the blacklist. Of all the pro-wrestling news websites ("dirtsheets"), in my educated opinion, I believe this is the most reliable (despite the free version of the website's ugly layout and heaps of ads), and there is no content on there that can be used abusively. I am unaware of any spamming attacks, and am familiar enough with the folks that run the site to know that that is not something they do (if this was the case, consider that there may have been a w:Joe Job which has been a problem with some high profile wrestling websites). In terms of its use as a source, that would need to be handled on a case by case basis and, like most dirtsheets, would need to be limited. I can think of more unreliable and potentially abusive websites than this. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson 23:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't immediately find the request but I will check up and get back to this one as soon as I can --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This request seems to be valid, I can't see a widespread spamming problem, thanks, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 13:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

\bindependencia\.net

This is a newspaper of a political movement (for Puerto Rican independence). Yes, it has an atrociously slow welcome-page video, but links to interior pages with news stories are blocked. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Rafael_S%C3%A1nchez where it is sourced for two quotations about his signing PR independence petition. Added by anonymous user IP=65.23.212.101 on Feb 2007 to this and 14 other pages of Latin American figures who signed petition for PR independence. Seems to be sourcing info on their political activities, not spamming for other website. 129.93.17.223 19:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC) (My username is Proyster; I guess I'm not logged in on this tab)

Troubleshooting and problems

This section is for comments related to problems with the blacklist (such as incorrect syntax or entries not being blocked), or problems saving a page because of a blacklisted link. This is not the section to request that an entry be unlisted (see Proposed removals above).

Hello Wikimedia

The following discussion is closed: not on meta-spamblacklist, local blacklisting removed [8]

that step, single I am patrolling usuary not wished, and surprise, gave warning thus me:

Filter of protection against Spam Of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The page that you try to keep has been blocked by the Spam filter. This probably must to some of external liaisons including in her. Sight in black list antiSpam of Goal the complete relation of blocked sites. If you think that the filter is blocking the edition erroneously, it requests please that it is fixed in the page of discussion of the black list. The following text is the one that activated our filter of Spam (publicity nonasked for): http://www1.fotolog.com

Please, to unblock to me, was mistaken with me of person.

a hug

--Csuarezllosa 05:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Eso me parece que viene de la wikipedia en español. La wikipedia en Español usa su lista "local", la cual no permite inclusiones a páginas personales en fotolog. Plantéalo en es:WP:CAFE drini ^[es:] _[commons:] 07:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Quitado de la lista en es.wiki, saludos, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a question

why are some donors to wikipedia having their pages blocked? they may have relevant pages. Another phenomenon is wiki editors requesting permissions of copyrighted materials to be published in Wikipedia when the website owner of the copyright is in the black list of Wiki. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.144.211.10 (talk) 08:44, 17 November 2007

Are you suggesting that website owners should be able to pay a fee to get their link removed from the spam blacklist?

Material from a website can be properly attributed without a working link (if the copyrighted material is from a book og a magazine or newspaper that isn't available online it can still be attributed, and so can a website that has its link on the blacklist).

--Jorunn 10:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is http://www.mapsofworld.com blocked?

The following discussion is closed.

I'm curious about the blocking of this website. Is this intentional? Lupin 19:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Erm, I was expecting this edit to fail :-) On en, I did get this message trying to save en:User:Lupin/alltalk:

 The following text is what triggered our spam filter: http://www.mapsofworld.com

Lupin 19:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The reason the edits with the link didn't fail is that the link isn't listed on this blacklist. It is on the local blacklist on en.wikipedia. The best place to get answers about that blacklisting is at en:MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. --Jorunn 22:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Rule in error

As COIBot repeatedly crashed upon loading the regexes from the meta blacklist, I found that there was a rule with an error. The regex '\bweb\.archive\.org[^ ]{0,50}obsessedwithwrestling\.com' is incorrect, the first [ should be preceded by a \ (so '\bweb\.archive\.org\[^ ]{0,50}obsessedwithwrestling\.com'. Can someone have a look and (if necessary) repair? Thanks. --Beetstra 17:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Think I've fixed it - if not, let me know - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Local blacklisting vs. global blacklisting?

Now that there is a local blacklisting capability, the question arises as to when to blacklist locally and when to blacklist here.

My personal opinion is that Meta should remain the primary venue for blacklisting. It's hard to predict who's going to spam more than one Wikipedia. While we now have a tool to find a given spam domain on the 57 largest Wikipedias, it remains problematic to find it on the 200 smaller Wikipedias or the other 450 to 500 Wikimedia projects (Wikiquote, Wikisource, etc.) There's value to all these other projects in listing stuff here.

I think the local blacklist option is good when one project wants a domain blacklisted and another project wants to use it. This happens occasionally when a given spammer makes himself intolerable on one project while the link is being used appropriately on other projects.

What do others think about this? --A. B. ^(talk) 03:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I agree with you. I don't have a big problem with local blacklisting on a particular project as a way to immediately interrupt a spammer in progress, but standard procedure should probably be to follow that action up with a request for meta blacklisting.--Isotope23 20:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

As a crosswiki admin if I see spam pages created or bunches of links placed I immediately add them to local blacklists that I can access. It's quicker and easier than coming here (where I have not always been helpfully received) and there is at least one or two sites that I've blacklisted that have apparently valid links on en wp for example - just my 0.02 --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

See Spam blacklist/About and use the block with the smallest possible range. Now local blacklists are available it's not worth the work of blocking here and potentially causing side-effects in hundreds of wikis until there is an established pattern of cross-wiki spamming. Perhaps automatic rejection until at least five wikis have been spammed. And not automatic acceptance after five, just eligibility. Jamesday 20:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting idea - how would you know a site was blocked by five wikis say? They do not tend to be well used (local blacklists) - I'm about the only one who adds to the 4 I have access to. The principle is fine - the practice? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Metric criteria are nice I think. I don't think however we need to say "blocked from five or more wikis". I think that it is just okay "five or more wikis were spammed". Currently, my personal criteria is very low though - spamming to two or more wikis regardless languages (both sets of i. enwiki and enwiktionary and ii. enwiki and dewiki are enough for me, I mean). --Aphaia 10:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I am with AB on this: we should use meta as both the main blocking list and also a forum where people go to see if someone has been causing a wider problem. Otherwise it becomes impossibly complicated to block from here and the argument "it this a nasty spammer who xyz" becomes "who abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz". --AndrewCates 12:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• reset

In the past I've not been well received on this page so have tended to avoid it and operate local blacklists where I have the rights. However I am increasingly interested in this as at least a clearing house for queries influenced in part by A.B. I have posted to a couple of Foundation mailing lists & I'm hoping to hear other views. I'm happy to review/discuss possible spam issues here whenever I'm around - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If we don't blacklist by default here, then there should be a list or some mechanism (perhaps a bot) that tracks all the entries on the local lists so that other projects can check their links against what's been spammed elsewhere.

Ideally, the bot (or human volunteers) would also run periodic checks using a faster, expanded version of http://tools.wikimedia.de/~eagle/linksearch to see if locally blacklisted links are showing up on any of the 700+ Wikimedia projects. (I say "faster, expanded" since that tool checks up to the 57 largest Wikipedias and may take several minutes when checking 57).

Also, it's hard to rule out cross-wiki spam when our best tool just checks 57 of our 700 projects.

--A. B. ^(talk) 14:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

PS, Call me lazy, but maybe it's just easier to just blacklist by default here as opposed to setting up a new coordination system.--A. B. ^(talk) 14:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

When I was involved into the maintenance of this list, some years ago, I got such complaints by email periodically. It takes a time to reply them courtly but firmly. I think this kind of complaints are better to deal by the local people at first. Also I'm afraid this list affects too much websites. So I don't support "anything on meta and at first" tactics. And as for maintenance, this page is huge and editing is a pain. Single-website affecting spams are better to go to their local list, I think. --Aphaia 07:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Aphaia, right now, it seems like this list is running pretty smoothly without much admin effort. As for its maintenance, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem now. As for e-mails, I'm not an admin, but because I make so many requests here, I get them too. I just refer them back to this talk page, suggesting that they make their case here before a wider audience; I also make sure at least they get answer from me here if not from others. The admins that work on this list seem to have thick skins, are undeterred by complaints and are always willing to do the work. As for this list affecting many websites, you're right and that argument cuts both ways. This list also protects many web sites from known spammers.

In any event, what's the mechanism we're using for coordinating to ensure that spammers locally blacklisted in one place aren't spamming in another? Who's doing this work now? We must have a system in place to track this before we deprecate this list to use for proven cross-wiki spam only.

A useful parallel is the whole open proxy issue. For several years, different projects have battled open proxies separately resulting in a large duplication of effort. An open proxy blocked on fr.wikipedia (perhaps our best OP-fighters) would then be used by other spammers, vandals or POV-pushers to cause problems on nl.wikipedia or ja.wikibooks. Only now is there some convergence on a meta-level solution. Meanwhile, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction with spam. Meta has a critical role to play here, whether it's blacklisting globally or just tracking globally to catch cross-wiki spam. Either way, we must not abdicate our role and our responsibility (especially to the smaller wikis which have proven so vulnerable to spam). --A. B. ^(talk) 17:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's another time to blacklist at meta: links to blatant copyright violations. For example, when the domains associated with this discussion all finally get identified, they should probably be blacklisted here even if we only find it on one project. That's because these sites are all blatant violations of different magazines' copyrights; we can't afford to have links to these sites if we can help it. (See the discussion of "contributory infringement" at en:Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works and en:Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry). --A. B. ^(talk) 23:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree completely - I do think we need to hammer out some approach to Meta blacklisting policy probably by extended/clarifying this. For anyone new arriving here (Meta sysop or another project user) this page is frankly unhelpful. My time is under considerable pressure at present but I do see this as a high priority and any help will be appreciated.

We would be able to clarify cross wiki spamming as a concept, the fact that some site should probably be blocked at a Meta level anyway such as above or sites that may compromise machines etc. We can also make blocking url shorteners a policy for example --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Besides of all ... I eventually found this page: Spam blacklist policy discussion. Since this discussion is lengthy and it becomes clearer we need to have a global policy of inclusion for maintaining this page, are we better to move the discussion place? Or better to stay here? --Aphaia 22:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm for here, because if it's spam to one wiki odds are it's spam to most of them. Say, you have a marketing company that uses aggressive JavaScript, if each user on en.wiki who has been there complains, odds are it'll still be aggressive to fr.wiki. Yamakiri 23:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok - I agree with Yamakiri's point generally. If they spam one wiki they probably aren't useful to another one (& if they are whitelisting is an option).

However (& thanks Aphaia - I must have found that page in the past because I'd got it on my watchlist) we have Spam blacklist policy discussion & Spam blacklist/About and yet still no real clarity about policy or help for those who are not used to these pages be they admins or other users. My postings to both Foundation-l and the list for Meta met with nothing much so I guess it is up to us to hammer out guidelines policy etc. Until early October my time will be limited but I'll do what I can. I think it may well be worth a fresh start rather than trying to make changes to what we already have? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents. I'm sysop at 7 wikis. I would always use local blacklist (for instance, a spanish page isn't likely to be spammed on russian wiki), but if I see crosswiki spam as I JUST spot for [9], I'd come and global block. Local lists exist for a reason, and it's easier to keep track of. Global list should be used only when global blocking is needed. drini ^[es:] _[commons:] 14:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Beyond the 57 Wikipedias searched by Eagle 101's cross-wiki search tool, this blacklist is also relied on by 650+ other Wikimedia Foundation wikis (Wiktionaries, other Wikipedias, etc.). So for Spanish projects, there are these additional targets for Spanish-only spammers for which we don't have much visibility unless someone manually runs a linksearch domain-by-domain, project-by-project:

• Wikcionario
• Wikilibros
• Wikiquote
• Wikisource
• Wikiversidad
• Wikinoticias

That or if we're lucky and Luxo's x-wiki user search tool finds the spammer using the same IP or user name on other projects. (That tool is sometimes off-line; at other times it misses contributions on some wikis).

I think another, less important factor to consider is how non-Wikimedia sites might use a domain. All 3000+ Wikia wikis plus a substantial percentage of the 25,000+ unrelated wikis that run on MediaWiki software have chosen to incorporate this blacklist in their own spam filtering. A site selling an obviously bogus get-rich-quick scheme or magnetic underpants as a cancer cure has no value to any of our projects nor to any of the 1000s of other wikis our blacklist affects. You might as well do everyone a favor and globally blacklist such a site even if it appears on just one Wikimedia project. --A. B. ^(talk) 15:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Picking up Drini's point, local blacklisting is great. However it is dependent on admins locally being

1. Aware of it
2. Understanding regex adequately
3. Being interested in the prevention of (inappropriate) external links

If any of those criteria are absent then so is local blacklisting effectively.

Equally on A. B.'s point, there are some sites that just aren't needed by the Foundation (or most other folk) such as the batch of adult sites I just added. In such a case it matters not whether they spammed one or many wikis they should be listed here not locally I think.

We do need a sharpening of policy (referred to above) which - when excess time is available! - I certainly aim to take a look at. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Coibot's monitor list is quite efficient at spotting crosswiki spam, however it requires that someone actually look at the reports and notice it (as I did with uarticles.blogspot.com, which was recently meta-blacklisted). It has a 'stalk page' feature which picks up domains added to watched pages using the spamlink template.. I imagine it could stalk the local mediawiki blacklist pages as well. I'm a bit reluctant to give it more tasks at this point as it and it's related linkwatchers are resource intensive, consuming about 2/3rds of the resources on a 4proc/4gig Sun Ultra80. --Versageek 16:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Spamprotectiontext

Hello all, I don't know if it is possible but it would be a nice feature to have 2 'MediaWiki:Spamprotectiontext', one that shows up if the url is on the local MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist on a given wiki and one that is shown if the url is on the global one here at meta. Because as far as I saw many wikis gave a link to meta in the local MediaWiki:Spamprotectiontext and now people are redirected here even even if the link is not blacklisted here but locally. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

bugzilla:12034 opened, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 11:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

We've been getting increased en: wiki reports here that are on their local blacklist. I've updated en:'s text to give more information on checking locally for now, though this would be a much better solution. xaosflux ^Talk 01:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank You for Your efforts. Though I saw that also other wikis are directing people here, so that it would still be usefull. I would love to see some activity at that bug, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:02, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit-summaries

Hello all, I am curiousif it is possible to have the spamblacklist block also edit summaries. Currently it does not block edit summaries (see [10] -> but [11]). This would be really a great feature since the spambots are concentrating on the summaries. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 16:34, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

spamlink template

en:User:Shadow1 and I are working on the linkwatchers. At the moment we are running them on 722 wikis (which is 'all' by the count of about one and a half week ago). User:COIBot is watching these 722 wikis, and reports when a link is on its monitorlist (and those links are generally there when it is spammed, see the explanation on en:User:COIBot). On the english wikipedia we use a spamlink template for reporting external links, which directly links to a number of search engines, and to a number of reporting systems, including COIBot. Would the template be of interest here? --Beetstra 09:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

A link to the template would be useful? Getting reporting a little more consistent on here would make our lives a little easier too - it is not always clear what the extent of the problem is (nor sometimes the exact site name). Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I created a version of that template here a few months ago: Template:Spamlink. It may need to be updated with the latest, greatest features - but it is here. --Versageek 11:41, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I have updated the template to a more meta-like form. When you use '* {{spamlink|example.com}}' it displays the next line:

---

example.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)example.com

(Reports: Report ← track | XWiki | Local | en | find entry)(DomainTools: whois | AboutUs | Malware?)

---

In order:

1. First what is in the template,
2. Linksearch for meta and the 5 big wikis (en, de, fr, en.wiktionary, fr.wiktionary, see Table of Wikimedia Projects by Size),
3. 'LinkReport' is a report generated by an IRC bot by Betacommand, it is a save of a current linksearch on en.wikipedia.
4. 'COIBot Linkreport' contains a summary of all use (by not-whitelisted users) on all 722 wikiprojects on Table of Wikimedia Projects by Size, since the moment of blacklisting/monitoring (see en:User:COIBot for more info).
5. Eagle's spam report search searches for reports on en.wikipedia spam archives, and here as well I think.
6. interwiki link search: 20 and 57 search in resp. the 20 and 57 biggest wikis.
7. LinkWatcher search searches in en:User:Shadow1's database (only en at the moment, probably at some time also for more/all wikipedia).
8. Wikipedia search searches for the existence of the page with the url name on en, de and fr.
9. google search searches for info on the site on google.
10. Veinors pages contain also link-addition information
11. domaintools gives info on the domain
12. AboutUs.org gives info on the domain
13. Yahoo backlinks, search engine results.

I guess it contains pretty much all the tools needed to investigate the link, latest additions and current use. Hope this helps. --Beetstra 12:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks good - we'll see how it goes as it gets used. Given the nature of it I'll probably semi protect it I think - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is protected (or did you just do that?). --Beetstra 12:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, to keep yourself more or less up to date, you can watchlist User:COIBot/LinkReports, that gets updated when COIBot saves a report (about every 5 minutes). It may get you one step ahead of a spammer (though take care interpreting the report, COIBot sometimes picks up links by mistake). --Beetstra 13:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Protection - yes (when I am around I am not generally slow!). As to watching (& for me) the honest answer at present is "no time" - I would consider myself pretty active on three wikis at least so I tend not be short of work. When I get time I will check it out and see what I can do - thanks for your work & regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:20, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I would ask the approval for making some changes in style,orthograph and not very significant changes in the content , in the article Tel Aviv in the Romanian Wikipedia .Sincerily , 217.132.66.104 02:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Problem adding internal links

The following discussion is closed: solved by Jorunn

On request of another user, who had failed, I tried to add internal link en:Abdul Quddoos Khan. It keeps coming up as blacklisted hyperlink. Can someone tell me why and what to do? I checked the link used within this page, but it leads to an article of the Washington Post, which should not be on the blacklist too.--Thw1309 20:21, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems the problem was in the article en:Abdul Qadeer Khan. There was a link to cceia.org and that URL is listed on the local blacklist for en.wikipedia.

I removed the link from the article. --Jorunn 23:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)