Talk:Spam blacklist: Difference between revisions

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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|913450#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

Latest comment: 16 years ago13 comments6 people in discussion

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 (example.com, not http://www.example.com). Provide links demonstrating widespread spamming by multiple users. Completed requests will be marked as done or denied and archived.

smileurl (an other url shortener)

Apparently there is an other URL shortener that can be used to bypass the blacklist: http://www.smileurl.com/

I crossed it on EN.WP [1] [2] [3] but I guess it would make more sense to blacklist it here directly. -- lucasbfr ^talk 12:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

tagate.com, factasy.com

Spams factasy.com links to history articles and tagate.com links to asbestos and other articles

Accounts

Domains

tagate.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 ←)

factasy.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 ←)

Google Adsense ID: 9444630089870529

There are still about 40 of these links to be cleaned up before blacklisting.--A. B. ^(talk) 04:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Also, I think there are some related domains, but I did not have time to investigate further. --A. B. ^(talk) 04:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I keep thinking you will come back to this but given that you haven't & it is cross wiki Done --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

president-star.blogspot.com

Cross wiki spamming

president-star.blogspot.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 ←)

IP inserting the link:

91.144.145.146

User inserting the link:

ru.wikipedia:Presidentbaks

--Jorunn 08:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Done thanks Jorunn, regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

metallica.su + playmates.su

Cross wiki spamming

metallica.su

(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 ←)

Google AdSense id: 9383434246633213

playmates.su

(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 ←)

IP inserting the links:

85.21.115.2

--Jorunn 09:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Done thanks Jorunn --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Cross wiki Spamming of Adsense related

videophone.nu
live-station.org
drukwerken.nl
drukkerij-drukwerk.nl
trouwkaartjes.com

User page spammer

Proposed removals

Latest comment: 16 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

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.

www.babyhold.com

I would like to propose the removal of www.babyhold.com from the blacklist. Multiple links from the site were placed in various Wikipedia articles. I would like to apologize on behalf of babyhold.com for this abusive practice. Our staff and management have gone through great changes since, including a change in policy. We are currently one of the fastest growing communities on the internet. The purpose of babyhiold.com is to provide entertaining and helpful information for parents and parents to be on pregnancy and given name issues. I would like to ask you to remove us from the blacklist for the sole purpose of clearing our reputation. We have no interest in going back to placing links on Wiki sites. Please take this statement as a guarantee that no further link will be placed by us on a Wiki site. I would be glad to provide you with a written and signed statement by the site owner in confirmation of this statement. Our policy has changed and we would like our record cleared. I appreciate the great effort Wiki team members put into preserving the legitimacy of every page on Wikimedia and the time and attention that is given to every removal request. Thank you in advance for considering this matter. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.108.119.24 (talk • contribs) 06:59, 24 Feb 2008 (UTC)

References:

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 encyclopaedic value in support of our encyclopaedia 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/.

Declined --A. B. ^(talk) 21:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for reviewing our case. As stated above, I would like to make it clear that our interest is not in placing further links but rather in clearing our reputation and being removed from the list. We are one of the fastest growing communities on the internet and we would like our record cleared. Links were placed on Wiki sites with valid information. There were various other given name sites whose links were placed in Wiki articles at the time. This policy however has been changed and we will not be placing further links on any Wiki site. The purpose of this request is not so that we can sneak in further links once removed, but rather to be taken off a list that classifies our site with the derogatory term of "spammer." As a site editor myself, I understand the time-consuming and irritating task of removing unwanted spam - please take this as a guarantee that no further links will be placed on wiki sites. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.108.119.24 (talk) 22:41, 25 February 2008

www.teneriferesorts.com

With reference to your last reply written by --A. B.

We are a holiday company and therefore yes, have several websites registered under the same IP address. I have added no links to Resort Properties World, Tenerife Dreams or The Timeshare Forum. I did add 2 or 3 links to Loving Dubai after writing around 3,000 words of content for Wikipedia about Dubai, but this is classed as Spam by you and has also been blocked! I Turned 3 of your studs about the emirate into full articles. Perhaps i should now go back and remove all of my own work seeing as you removed the only bit of information that links it to me! I frequently add information to wikipedia so i myself should be classed as an editor of this site. How much information do i need to add before i am classed as a "high-volume" editor? I have in no way abused wikipedia and what you try to do. I think the whole concept is a great idea, however, i am concerned that you don't really look at individual cases for what they are. As a large company it is impossible to monitor what each member of IT are doing, and although it was unfortunate that the last administrator abused his power over the wiki editing after such a great deal of time i think you should give someone new the benefit of the doubt until they too give you reason to doubt their intentions. It would be reasonable, in my opinion, to allow a probation period where you monitor the additions anyone recently removed from the blacklist makes until such a time has passed that you can trust them not to make the same mistake again. --Talatie

As you state you are a holiday company, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and, as such, is really not at all likely to require links to any of your websites. You really would be better concentrating on other ways to promote your company. Contributions that are of an encyclopaedic nature are always welcome however those made with the intention of adding a link to a website that you have an interest in will be considered as a conflict of interest at best --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

In addition - you state that that the last administrator abused his power over the wiki editing however the IP you are editing from (apparently) placed external links on en wp as recently as early February this year suggesting that someone still needs to understand that Wikipedia is not a vehicle for external links connected to your company --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

asociacionjacob52.com

Hello, this link is in the black list because of my fault, when i was a newbie i started including it everywhere. It's been a year and a half, and i'm now quite a best contributor in es:, and the link is now only where it belongs. So i request the removal from the list. Thanks, Gons (¿Digame?) 16:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC).

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).

Rule in error

Latest comment: 16 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

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)Reply

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

Syntax Error: This is a RegEx Error and produces a error in some regex routines (? Better correct it to (\?

in \zoofi the \ is needless

No, these are perl regex's. "(?" means that the term enclosed in the parentheses is to be matched case insensitively, whereas "(\?" would imply "preceded by a literal '?'". Similarly, "\zoofi" matches "oofi" at the end of a substring being checked, and "zoofi" instead matches the literal "zoofi". AmiDaniel 23:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

OK:

i used the list in a program with "Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions" in VBScript.dll, and this caused a error by "(?". So i thought this is a general RegEx Error. And i thought that the spamwortcheck is principally case insensitive, and you wand finde the literal "?".

And i thought that you want finde "zoofil..", (it was in once the past like this in the list, without "\", if i remember correctly. "zoofil.." is a word for "se-x with a-nimals" and a typical spamword.)

thanks for responding —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.191.29.92 (talk • contribs) 10:08, 1 Dec 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, check the arguments and entries, some are baby correct. In "/zoofi..." is "/" definitely wrong.

Discussion

Latest comment: 16 years ago41 comments18 people in 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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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 [4], 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)Reply

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:

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)Reply

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

Aware of it
Understanding regex adequately
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)Reply

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)Reply

Local blacklisting is good for preventing abuse, and it's not a bad idea to reserve this list for those sites which are unambiguous and likely to be widely appreciated as a blacklist service by most or all local admins, such as the porn and meds spam domains and URL redirectors. JzG 19:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

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)Reply

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

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)Reply

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)Reply

In general, I think the Mediawiki:Spamprotectiontext(s) should be more explanatory. Most wikis only provide a rough translation of the default message. Often users dont know what to do when they are prevented from saving a page - after all, they didn't add the link. And so, if they are only doing a minor edit they will probably just leave it and go on with something else. /NH 01:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

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 [5] -> but [6]). 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)Reply

Is it necessary? A url appears on an edit summary plainly, not as a link. It is less bothersome than spamming on the actual text. It may even be a convenient spam detector. Hillgentleman 06:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

The bothersome thing about this is not the link itself, which is in fact not clickable, but the fact that spambots are messing up dozens of wikis, thanks, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 08:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Maybe hard to believe but I am not really interested in the tools, only what I can do with them. One I would love is the ability to block open proxy spambots across all wikis! --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:35, 29 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

True. It may stop them for a while until they become more sophisticated. Hillgentleman 08:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

External link exclusion list

What would people think of renaming the spam blacklist to something a bit less inflammatory for people? This came up on a discussion from otrs from handling people that are upset that their links get put here etc. I'm not saying any of them shouldn't be here, but if it was called something else it may make people less upset. External link exclusion has the benefit of moving the emphasis towards our own editorial decisions, rather than labeling their site also. The message being that we don't think these links are right for an article/project page, not they are *spam*. Anyway, I'm not married to that name or anything. - cohesion 01:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

External link blacklist is clear. Hillgentleman 02:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Unless a proper redirect is set up (not just an article redirect), such a move is going to break thousands of third party mediawiki installations. Most people using the spam blacklist extension will have this in SpamBlacklist_body.php:

$this->files = array( "http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spam_blacklist&action=raw&sb_ver=1" );

Angela 02:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I think a name change is a good idea, provided it can be done properly as Angela has pointed out.

Hillgentleman's "External link blacklist" sounds good and "External link block list" sounds still less perjorative.

--A. B. ^(talk) 03:09, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I like block list better. People think everyone (google etc) use this list, and maybe they do, but the more we can make it seem like we're not publishing a spam blacklist for the whole internet the better, I think. (while still providing the service to external sites as Angela notes, which I think is good of course.) :) - cohesion 13:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I would certainly like to see this change, it would save quite a lot of confusion (& some offence I guess). "External link block list" would be my choice too --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

What should we do to move this forward? People (spammers) constantly email otrs complaining about libel, slander etc wrt this being called a spam blacklist. I'm not saying it should work any differently, but not having that terminology would be very helpful. And apparently google and others do use this a lot, according to them anyway. - cohesion 20:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

People can complain as much as they want :). You may want to change error message, but it's not enough reasonable to rename — VasilievVV 20:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Linksearch tool

In the event that others aren't familiar with it, there is a linksearch tool available on toolserver. I've added it to the text for special:linksearch on Meta, for convenience. ~Kylu (u|t) 22:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

spamlink template

Latest comment: 16 years ago8 comments3 people in discussion

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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 ←)

In order:

First what is in the template,
Linksearch for meta and the 5 big wikis (en, de, fr, en.wiktionary, fr.wiktionary, see Table of Wikimedia Projects by Size),
'LinkReport' is a report generated by an IRC bot by Betacommand, it is a save of a current linksearch on en.wikipedia.
'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).
Eagle's spam report search searches for reports on en.wikipedia spam archives, and here as well I think.
interwiki link search: 20 and 57 search in resp. the 20 and 57 biggest wikis.
LinkWatcher search searches in en:User:Shadow1's database (only en at the moment, probably at some time also for more/all wikipedia).
Wikipedia search searches for the existence of the page with the url name on en, de and fr.
google search searches for info on the site on google.
Veinors pages contain also link-addition information
domaintools gives info on the domain
AboutUs.org gives info on the domain
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)Reply

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)Reply

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

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)Reply

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)Reply

Enwiki's blacklist ?

Latest comment: 16 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

I just remind our sysops, that urls shouldn't be added here to stop "enwiki's spam". They have their own local blacklist, and listing urls here because they got spammed there is causing problems at other wikis. Please leave this ONLY for crosswiki spam, and direct enwiki petitions to en:MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (this because [7] ) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drini (talk • contribs) 20:41, 16 Feb 2008 (UTC)

For reference: Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/04#Intellectual_property_dispute_.2F_deathcamps.org. --Jorunn 22:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

In fairness if you look at this page any time you will see that the regulars here always point to local black & white lists unless there is cross wiki evidence, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Doesn't hurt to remind, herby. I see a lot of sites still blacklisted globally due to enwiki incidents (specially older ones). drini ^[es:]_[commons:] 23:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Sure Drini - some of them could do with removing (if we knew which ones!) but those around at present won't list anything that is solely en wp as far as I know, --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

For those with OTRS access: We have another complaint about death-camps.org, related to the reason it was blacklisted initially. --Versageek 23:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

I was just coming to ask the same question. I thought we blacklisted both to prevent the war? I just blacklisted on enwiki anyway, but this was widespread cross-wiki. JzG 18:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC) 18:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 |text=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 (example.com, not http://www.example.com). '''Provide links demonstrating widespread spamming by multiple users.''' Completed requests will be marked as done or denied and [[/Archives|archived]].
 }}
+=== smileurl (an other url shortener) ===
+Apparently there is an other URL shortener that can be used to bypass the blacklist: http://www.smileurl.com/
+I crossed it on EN.WP [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stepper_motor&diff=192300432&oldid=192032378] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stepper_motor&diff=prev&oldid=188710271] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stepper_motor&diff=prev&oldid=188915550] but I guess it would make more sense to blacklist it here directly. -- [[User:Lucasbfr|lucasbfr]] <sup>[[User talk:Lucasbfr|<font color="darkblue">talk</font>]]</sup> 12:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 === tagate.com, factasy.com===