Talk:Spam blacklist

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Spam blacklist

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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. Please post comments to the appropriate section below: Proposed additions, Proposed removals, Troubleshooting and problems, or Other discussions; 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.

Completed requests are archived.

snippet for logging: {{/request|449414#section_name}}

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.

scheerer-software.de

The following discussion is closed: done

A permanently blocked user has been trying to place his original research on dewiki for months, latest here and here.--80.136.160.205 12:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, but what is the page about? (I assume it's the homepage of the company, but just wanted to make sure.) Is it a widespread problem? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

No, it's unrelated to the commercial pages. This guy just uses his company's hp as webspace for his OR. It's about all cosmic rays originating from the sun and some analogy to thunderstorms. He's kind of wandering about, starting with number theory, then silly counterexamples to the four-color theorem, then moons, now cosmic radiation. Mostly, he's using dynamic IPs so he can't be blocked effectively. He's very interested in placing links to his site on his countless user pages, so it's kind of spam, but I myself are not 100% convinced this is the right place.--80.136.186.57 19:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I've added scheerer-software\.de to the blacklist. —[admin] Pathoschild 21:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

encyclopediadramatica.com

It is already on the spam blacklist at Wikia. This site has been spammed all around Wikipedia both in articles and in emails. It has attack articles on many Wikipedia administrators. Ask in the en.wikipedia.com "administrators noticeboard" if you need more convincing. Tawl 05:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Could you provide some links / diffs please? guillom 07:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

linksearch currently shows 336 links. Might reduce in the next hour or so... Also on ca:, nl:, es:, dv:, but only in a small way. It looks very much as if ArbCom on en: are going to blanket ban the site with enforcement against anyone who links it. Just zis Guy, you know? 15:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia-watch.org

The following discussion is closed: done

They've gone a little bit too far: they publish logs from IRC channels whic if unambiguously prohibited. See discussion here. Since they're causing a lot of trouble (remember Everyking's desysopping?), I s'ppose we should blacklist this site mercilessly. Any thoughts? MaxSem 14:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

When I saw this comment, I was like "huh? Aren't they already blacklisted?" And yes, they were - until Pathoschild removed them in this ill-advised edit a few days ago. I have restored them now. Raul654 14:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Pathoschild removed them because Brandt's sites stopped redirecting months ago. Raul654 restored them, calling Pathoschild's edit "ill-advised," and also restored the inaccurate comment that Brandt's sites are redirecting. Therefore, Raul654's edit is based on a lie, whereas Pathoschild's edit is based on the truth. Pathoschild also queried a couple of IRC channels before taking action, and heard no objections. Raul654 acted on impulse, and didn't consult anyone. Now I ask you, who is "ill-advised" -- Pathoschild or Raul654? 68.89.130.94 20:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Per guidance from Foundation, we should not link to sites which directly attack or violate the privacy of Wikipedia editors. This seems like a reasonable rule to me; I guess the reason could be changed for clarity but the fact of it being blacklisted is I hope generally accepted as prudent. Just zis Guy, you know? 11:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

free-game-downloads.mosw.com

The following discussion is closed: done

Please see [1] Notinasnaid 18:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I've blacklisted free-game-downloads.mosw\.com. For the record, see the current discussion's permanent link. —[admin] Pathoschild 21:48, 11 October 2006 (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.

amelatine.com

Madam, Sir, It is with consternation that we noticed that our website www.amelatine.com is in your blacklist, further to too many references on our behalf to Wikipedia. But it was all done in good faith. We offer information on Latin American countries and the cultural events they hold in France. Therefore, I thought, wrongly apparently, that it would be interesting for people consulting Wikipedia, especially the pages concerning Latin America, to have a link towards our site which handles cultural Latin news in France.

We are not a commercial site, we have no interest in using excessive techniques of mailing and over-referencing, as we also disapprove of them. We only send a newsletter once a month to our subscribers, so this is our sole visibility. We keep our subscribers' list up to date and systematically remove anyone who does not wish to receive our newsletter anymore from our mailing list.

We hope you will understand and we would really appreciate it if you could take our website off your blacklist.

Best regards

Carlos Obregón kabawil@wanadoo.fr

Madame, Monsieur,

C'est avec consternation que nous constatons dans votre liste noire, "blacklist", la présence de l'adresse de notre site : www.amelatine.com Suite à un referencement exagéré de ma part sur Wikipédia. Mais cela était en toute bonne foi. Nous faisons un travail d'information relatif aux pays d'Amérique latine et ses manifestations culturelles en France. De ce fait j'ai estimé, à tort, qu'il serait intéressant pour les personnes consultant Wikipédia et ce dans toutes les pages concernant l'Amérique latine, d'avoir un lien vers notre site qui traite des actualités culturelles en France.

Nous ne sommes pas un site commercial, nous n'avons aucun intérêt à utiliser des techniques abusives de courrier et de referencement que bien évidemment nous reprouvons. Nous envoyons un unique message mensuel correspondant à notre parution. Nous tenons à jour une liste d'abonnés et nous retirons systématiquement de celle-ci toute personne ne désirant plus recevoir notre lettre mensuelle d'information.

Nous espérons compter avec votre compréhension et nous vous prions de supprimer de votre liste noire, "blacklist", l'adresse de notre site.

Bien cordialement. Carlos Obregón kabawil@wanadoo.fr

=

Looking for an explanation as to why some kind here keeps removing a very valuable resource in the nascar section he has now blackliusted or requested a blacklist based on his own personal vendetta due to the fact that he owns a nascar blog. The site in question is nascarspace.com and it is a very valuable nascar resource that should not be blacklisted and seriously considered for inclusion in the nascar section for any nascar fan or person interested in learning about NASCAR. They can find information on tracksm race outcomes, ask questions to seasoned members of the community. I feel anyone searching wikipedia for nascar infomation would find it truly a valuable asset and be happy it was linked to. I am not affiliated with this site in any way. --76.182.42.121 19:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Netfirms.com

The following discussion is closed: not done

Hello I wanted to add a link to a page I made a couple of years back which contains interesting information on the village of Ashton in Northamptonshire, UK (relevant Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton,_East_Northamptonshire).

The page I want to add a link to, and which is blacklisted, is: http://www.phillips64.netf i r m s.com/ashton.htm (I've had to add the spaces else your spam filter won't even let me post this request!

I hope you can help with this.

Many thanks

Mick Phillips Rome, Italy

Not done, added to local whitelist. Naconkantari 19:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Similar issue so thought I'd post it under this heading and use the same format... I hadn't even heard of the blacklist until now! I want to add links to photogalleries of three Miss Teen USA 2002 delegates who have articles on Wikipedia (Lauren Barnette, Rachel Smith and Kari Ann Peniche). The URL of the pages is http://www.americanpageant.netf i r m s.com/teen2002/virginia.html (replacing the name of the state in each case). What can be done? PageantUpdater 05:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Not done, please request local whitelisting. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 04:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Seemalaysia.org

Hello,

A couple of months ago, I added a link to the external link section of the French page on Malaysia. This morning I'm finding out it has disappeared. When I attempted to restore it, I was shocked: it's blacklisted! Seemalaysia.org is just a personal website presenting pictures of Malaysia. The only text content comes from... Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Universalis - both sources being duly quoted as such -. I very much doubt Wikipedia and EU content can be considered as controversial or politically uncorrect, can it? So why on Earth was it blacklisted and how can it be removed from the blacklist? This looks very much like censorship (on which grounds by the way?).

Gilles Chertier, France

xoomer.alice.it

Please consider to remove this address, it's to host users home page of an Italian Internet Provider, home page contents quality is surely variable. In 20 sectember I used as external link in it:Romano Prodi to refer at documentary images by professional photografer (/mario.rebeschini/pagina_prodi_menu.html). --Francesco Cosoleto 01:46, 10 October 2006 (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).

no discussions.

Other discussions

• Spam blacklist policy discussion

http://americandad2. am. funpic. de

The German American Dad Page "American Dad World" is on the spam list. The URL is "http : / / americandad2 . am . funpic . de" (without blanks). I wanted to edit the American Dad Section on the German Wikipedia and change www.americandad-world.de with the other URL because the redirection doesn't work at the moment. I have no idea why the page is on the spam list because it's one of the largest German American Dad Sites and I think it would be ok to mention it at the external link list.

Not done, please request whitelisting on your local wiki. Naconkantari 19:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

But the page is also on the spamlist at en.wikipedia.org.--86.56.131.82 18:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Installation on third party sites

I realize nobody here is responsible for troubleshooting Spam blacklist installation on other sites. But can someone point me in the right direction? I can't seem to figure out what's going wrong and the documentation page isn't any help. I've described my problem on its talk page. Thanks for any help. --Sam Odio 00:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Please make sure you have the most recent version, as the old version didn't like long lists. Naconkantari 00:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be the most recent version, I downloaded last week from the sourceforge cvs. Does anyone know of an appropriate mailing list / IRC channel where I can ask for spamlist troubleshooting advice? Thanks, --Sam Odio 22:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Try mediawiki-l or #mediawiki on freenode. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 01:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Feedback wanted before I add a number of links to this list

I'm fairly new to the English-language Wikipedia. I found someone in a block of Canadian IP addresses adding seemingly benign links to Wikipedia, however, when I checked them out, they all had the same links to the same commercial sites at the bottom of the pages. It looks like spamdexing to me. I made a list of the offending IP addresses and affected sites, but did not bother recording the links themselves. Someone just made me aware of this site -- before I spend an hour or two adding these links, I'd like to know that I'm not doing something that will get reversed. For more background information, see:

• en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive117#Link-spamming from someone in the IP address block 64.228.225.xxx
• en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive118#Update -- now using Borgengruft?
• en:User:A. B./To do list#Abusers

Is this an appropriate use of this list? Thanks, --A. B. 14:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

No; the spam blacklist should only be used for widespread spam that is difficult to manage with conventional tools (ie, reversion, protection, and blocking). // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 01:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Polish Navy

For the Article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORP_Orze%C5%82, there is an external link to 'Association of the "ORZEŁ" submarine search group'[2]. The spam blocker likes it not, although the external site content appears to be appropriate. Also there is a misspelling of "teritory" in the article. --192.45.72.28 00:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 01:43, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

www.repubblica.it

Why is this on the blacklist? As far as I know (but that's not much), this is an ordinary Italian newspaper. Not prime quality, but not a likely spam host, I think. It interferes with editing International reactions to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. 85.178.122.223 23:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC) Looked into the why a bit, and this should be replaced with a filter for *.blog.espresso.repubblica.it. 85.178.122.223 23:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I had to remove a link to repubblica.it whilst reverting vandalism on Pope Benedict XVI's article. It's a very well known Italian newspaper. 67.68.1.150 00:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Changed to "espresso.repubblica.it". Naconkantari 00:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Espresso is one of the most important magazines in Italy. Please, remove from balcklist. I think this was some kind of joke or vandalism. --Jollyroger 14:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Understood part of the problem. Block [was requested] because an user found the site spammed on an article. The spam was from ***.blog.espresso.repubblica.it. Note, *BLOG*. The Espresso blog are of two kinds: one open to public, and one used by famous journalists of the magazine. So, you should block the domain blog.espresso.repubblica.it instead espresso.repubblica.it (the magazine website).

But, sometimes the journalists blogs are considered a good source (or these journalists have a article themselves). And the IP after that request gave others related to the same article, spammed with totally different links. So I think it is simply a vandalism made using a random link, not related to Repubblica or Espresso. Maybe, we could even completely lift the block on that domain. --Jollyroger 14:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Already fixed. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 01:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

# republika\.pl -- too broad, popular free host in Poland

This is currently blocking many non spam sites.... ...

I agree. It's blocking the non-spam, non-advertising, site of a programmer I referenced with no connection to spam at all. What exactly was the problem? 216.49.75.179 16:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC) PS: I did not write the text above "I agree," that looks like an unsigned comment. 216.49.75.179 16:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The Steampunk entry has some valid and useful links pointing to republika.pl/steampunk/ and sub-pages. Thus the spam filter is preventing lossless updates. 24.20.134.105 04:17, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 01:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Polish articles

Karol Świerczewski on wikiedpia << i cannot make minor wiki adjustments on this article. there are external links.. but mostly historical/governmental.. can't edit page please help!! --86.14.226.71 10:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC) (user max rspct)

I have no trouble saving that page. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 01:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

tgmedia.enacre.net

This page is maintained by Lorna Lynn. She has interviews and biogrpahies of prominent TS personalities. I have Kelly's profile page which also has one interview with her on her article on English wikipedia. But I cannot make further changes to the page because this link has been included in spam blacklist. Please ,. the admins her, take a look at the URL yourself, you will see it's no spam. Unitedroad 06:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Not done, please request local whitelisting. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 01:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Sacmun page is blocked

The URL http:/ /sacmun.awardspace.com is being blocked by the spam blacklist. This page is an exclusively informative one designed for a United Nations Model which will take place in Bogotá, Colombia, and which is organized by high school students from Colegio San Carlos. Your help would be appreciated.

Please request whitelisting here. Naconkantari 15:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

www.links-eintragen.de

www.links-eintragen.de Spamsite, Linkfarm e.g. misused in de:Taschentuchbaum --Seewolf 15:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

kapitalism.net

Why is this on the spam blacklist when in the archives it is only listed as uncertain results or not done. If it has something to do with the critical article on Wikipedia that is served from that domain, it certainly looks more like censorship than spam filtering. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 15:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add a link to this site from my meta page, as I have an account there. Anthony DiPierro 18:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I now request this domain to be removed from the list, because 1) it is not a source of spam as is suggested on the list and 2) it appears to have been added for reasons censorship --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Request denied. Raul654 01:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

publicacionescsc.awardspace.com

The URL http:/ /publicacionescsc.awardspace.com is being blocked by the spam blacklist. This page is an exclusively informative one designed to publish internal information from Colegio San Carlos, a high school located in Bogotá, Colombia. Your help would be appreciated.

Please request whitelisting here. Naconkantari 15:17, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Fremder Freiheitsschacht

why is

www.fremderfreiheitsschacht.de

on the list. the link is good for a lot of diffrend artikels, like:

tippelei, walz, schacht, gesellenbruderschaft, fremdgeschriebener, charlottenburger, cceg, herbergsmuseum, zimmerer, maurer, dachdecker, tischler, stenz, gesellen, zunft and allso for fremder freiheitsschacht. why not one linke to all this artikels? Fremder 07:47, 21. Sep. 2006 (CEST)

surfbirds.com

The article surfbirds.com/phorum/read.php?f=51&i=5332&t=5332 is vital to the explanation of new insight into the taxonomy of the Western Reef-Heron, and therefore, I request it to be unblocked. Thank you.

surgery-images.com

Hello , I am the owner of this site and I believe that my site was banned for no reason,or if there is a reason I would like to know it...The interesting thing is that although I was banned ,in all wikipedia articles (for example the one's about vaginectomy and ACL reconstruction) my external links remain,so I guess I was banned by accident or something... Thanks in advance

edit after a few days:an answer is always welcome even if it is negative

I originally requested the block due to violations of WP:EL, mainly linkspamming and self-linking. The site owner has since cleaned up the site significantly and provides images that are hard to locate from other sources. The user in question has been familiarized with WP:EL, has added a username (Nfostiras) and I think it is probably safe to remove this site from the blocklist. --Mdwyer 00:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

muslima.mu.funpic.de

htt*://muslima.mu.funpic.de remove that from blacklist, that not a site to spam that a site with islamic fatwas, that was uses as Source!84.155.127.117 09:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Not done, please request whitelisting on your local wiki. Naconkantari 19:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

www.wasaib.com

http:/*www.wasaib.com - Hi, Can I know why this site has been blocked. This is the most extenstive resource on Seraiki language available on internet and I would really like to know the reason for blocking an academic site.

Hi again - Waiting for reasonable answer from any editors around.

Another gentle reminder to the editors (if there are any human editors around)

It was blacklisted because it was spammed by mutiple accounts: en:Special:Contributions/Ffarhann, en:Special:Contributions/202.125.143.67 and en:Special:Contributions/202.125.143.68 on August 27 on multiple Pakistani related articles. A 147 member forum is not an article reference according to the en:Wikipedia:External links policy. --  Netsnipe  ^(Talk)  15:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

RiverStone Books

www.riverstonebooks.netfirms.com/ Not sure why this publishers website is blocked - can you explain please and unblock if this has been done in error.

Please request whitelisting here. Naconkantari 15:17, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Spam

Sorry, i'm "En-0" ... but if you could see that [[3]] ...

I do not have time to destroy that 10 times per day :

• Mouche-Fr, pêche à la mouche
• Pêche de la truite
• WikiMouche, encyclopédie collaborative sur la pêche à la mouche
• Gobages, pêche à la mouche
• Carnavenir, pêche du carnassier
• [http://www.http://www.pecheaubar.com Pêche au bar, pêche de loisir en mer

Can you do something for me and "fr.wikipedia" ? --84.101.128.209 07:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Any other articles affected? Probably, semiprotection could help? MaxSem 07:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

In particular fr:Pêche à la mouche (flyfishing) ... but what is "semiprotection" ? --84.101.128.209 07:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The answer is yes, that could help. --84.101.128.209 01:17, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

pl.wikipedia.org 2 & 3

Hi. I was blocked in pages Coat of arms of Korwin and List of Polish coat of arms images when I was doing an edition. Thank you to fix them both and also to fix pl.wikipedia.org. User:Gustavo Szwedowski de Korwin.

Be more careful

I would like to request more carefulness when adding patterns to the black list. As we merge those blacklists between multiple wikis, it does not only harm wikimedia based stuff if you put wrong stuff here, but also moin and twiki based wikis all over the world (that use the merged lists).

For example, a recent addition was "cs\.com". Well, that matches comics.com, lyrics.com, physics.com, and maybe some thousands other non-spam domains.

The spam merging process is automatic btw, but removal of wrong patterns there currently is manually done by me (even if you remove them again from your list), so please: first think, then add!

-- ThomasWaldmann, you can reach me on IRC freenode #moin or #wiki

Blocked

Hi, I try to place this link alice.it/francescoraf/hesyra/Sneferka.htm (URL now broken) in an German article, but was blocked. The website is highly academic, so I assume there is no spam problem from them. Udimu

It's been fixed. Naconkantari 19:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

many thanx!! Udimu

I am still blocked:-( Udimu

Blocked from posting on talk pages

Why am I blocked by the Spamfilter from posting on the talk pages?

You're going to have to provide at least the page name you're trying to edit and the project you're trying to edit on. Naconkantari 03:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

--68.45.161.241 03:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to post on the Consensus WP:CON talk page.--Pravknight 04:16, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It's been fixed. Naconkantari 04:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

h t t p : / / r o b e r t i c o . r o . f u n p i c . d e

That's no spam. The site is an excellent brief tutorial on the Lua programming language.

Please request whitelisting on your local project. Naconkantari 03:16, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

bloopdiary.com

Please remove www.bloopdiary.com from the banned list. The site does not spam, and has never spammed.

Not done per [4] Naconkantari 15:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Those pages do not exist, and the site has taken precautions to prevent the people responsible from using the service.

Still blocked

The page Polish coat of arms images is still blocked. Please help me. Gustavo Szwedowski de Korwin 04:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It is OK right now. Thak you Gustavo Szwedowski de Korwin 01:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Still blocked 2

This page is still blocked: Coat of arms of Korwin. Can you help me please? Thank you. Gustavo Szwedowski de Korwin 06:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It is OK right now. Thak you Gustavo Szwedowski de Korwin 01:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Trying to discuss on [[5]]

I'm trying to discuss a link on [[6]] but can't post because the link has been unjustly placed in the spam list. The article is locked- please let us finish the discussion by removing the link from the spam list. Cochese8 17:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

You can simply add the link without the "http://" prefix (e.g. "www.google.com"). Korg + ⁺ 17:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Which link did you want to add? Korg + ⁺ 17:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't even mention the link, but since the link was on the page before, it appears that I can't modify the talk page at all. By the way, it was the code-interactive link that was preventing discussion. Thanks for your help- I'll try to remove the http Cochese8 17:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, fine. Korg + ⁺ 18:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Still not allowing any post. Status? Cochese8 18:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It has been fixed, so you should be able to post a new message there. Korg + ⁺ 21:05, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

A way to fight off some spambots

A lot of spammers use generic bots that crawl pages seeking for <textarea> tag, then fill it with spam and submit. On MediaWiki sites this results in vandalous edits like this[7]. My idea is to block all external links that don't follow wiki syntax, that is <a href="blahblahbla">, [url] and so on. I've filed a feature request on this. Comments and suggestions are welcome. MaxSem 17:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

How would someone find and replace links in pages that have the "old-style" links in them? Naconkantari 19:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick search in the English Wikipedia shows that almost no page use it (most results are either irrelevant or have <a href= inside of <nowiki> tag e.g. Framekiller). In case there's still some such links left they'll trigger protection next time they're edited with message what to do, much like Spam blacklist works. I don't think there will be any significant collateral damage, and benefit from such measure could be nice. MaxSem 20:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

http:// lorana.lo.funpic.de

This site was blocked by the spam filter, I suppose, because it is a funpic-site. I would be glad, if it could be removed from the blacklist, because it is a fansite to the German Browsergame Freewar and helps other people without specific CSS-knowlegde to redesign the games layout as they would like it. (Yeah, I know, my English isn't the best at the moment ...) 82.218.61.23 18:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Not done, please request whitelisting on your local wiki. Naconkantari 19:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, there's only one problem with this descision - the Browsergame Freewar will soon open it's first English server and lorana.lo will also be translated - shall we ask again, when different languages are avalaible or on the english wikipedia? I would be happy to get an answer :) 82.218.61.23 19:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

You will need to request whitelisting on any wiki you wish to include the link. Naconkantari 19:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much, I only followed the suggested link from the spam-warning ... I was a little bit confused, but couldn't find a black/white listing on the German WP at the first attempt (I found it already), so I asked here (already hopeful, I wouldn't have to ask in every WP). Excuse the trouble I caused :) 82.218.61.23 19:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Russian ruble

Can anyone check this article in the English wiki? I'm trying to revert domr vsndalism but it's bringing up a spam blacklist warning and won't let me do it. Regards, 86.30.22.122 00:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The spam blacklist is being triggered by the second to last external link ("Coins of the Russian Federation"); I'll place that specific domain on the spam whitelist in the English Wikipedia, and that should fix the problem. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Questions about links to my site being blocked

Dear Wikimedia,

Hello, my name is Jamie Nast. I am the author of a book titled Idea Mapping (John Wiley & Sons, September 2006). If you need more info on my background see http://www.ideamappingsuccess.com/aboutus.cfm.

I understand from the person who posted the Idea Mapping Wikipedia entry that my web address is considered spam. He is a great fan and user of idea maps and I was touched by his thoughtfulness in doing this. Now I see huge value in this as previously I was not familiar with much about Wikipedia entries, but let me share a few thoughts on why this external link to www.ideamappingsuccess.com is so critical.

One of the major reasons this book was written was to meet a huge need for people who wanted to learn to create idea maps, but couldn't afford to come to a workshop. So the purpose for linking to these maps is not to try to sell a course. One of the most powerful ways my students have learned over the last 15 years is by seeing the examples of others who have created maps. The maps in the book were not done in color (publisher said i t would be too expensive) and in some cases were too large to see in their entirity. At the core of this website is the ability for others to view the original maps and learn from these examples as well as add their own for others to see. You can view these at http://www.ideamappingsuccess.com/maps.cfm?show_all_nav_listmaps1=1.

Not only does this site contain maps from the book, but there are also some from other business professionals, children, and college students for educational purposes. These additional maps will continue to grow in numbers and applications. There are also many idea maps that were created using MindManager software. The applications for idea mapping include brainstorming, creativity, creating a book of knowledge, studying, note-taking, learning, improving memory, organizing your thinking, clarity, and more.

Therefore it would be extremely helpful to learners if an external link to these maps was approved for other sites that relate to those things I've mentioned above including an external link to the maps on the MindManager wikipedia entry. Because idea maps have a heritage in mind mapping, this would also be another helpful site where an external link would be helpful for learners.

My main objective is to create a huge pool of idea maps where learners can come to see a wide diversity of both hand-drawn and electronic maps. All maps are for public viewing and can be shared with no need for approvals. We just ask that the author of the map is creditted. These maps are not available on any other sites.

I am the world's leading authority on idea mapping, and I would be so pleased if you could make these idea maps a reference and learning tool for more people by allowing these links.

Warm Regards,

Jamie Nast jamie@ideamappingsuccess.com 1-866-896-1024