Talk:Spam blacklist

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The associated page is used by the MediaWiki Spam Blacklist 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 system administrators 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.

Proposed additions: Please provide evidence of spamming on several wikis. Spam that only affects single project should go to that project's local blacklist. Exceptions include malicious domains and URL redirector/shortener services. Please follow this format.; Also, please check back after submitting your report, there could be questions regarding your request.
Proposed removals: Please check our list of requests which repeatedly get declined. 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 value in support of our projects. Please consider whether requesting whitelisting on a specific wiki for a specific use is more appropriate.

Please sign your posts with ~~~~ after your comment. This leaves a signature and timestamp so conversations are easier to follow.

Completed requests are marked as {{added}}/{{removed}} or {{declined}}, and are generally archived (search) quickly. Additions and removals are logged.

Other discussion: Troubleshooting and problems - If there is an error in the blacklist (i.e. a regex error) which is causing problems, please raise the issue here.; Discussion - Meta-discussion concerning the operation of the blacklist and related pages, and communication among the spam blacklist team.

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snippet for logging: {{sbl-log|1358031#{{subst:anchorencode:SectionNameHere}}}}

Proposed additions

Latest comment: 15 years ago63 comments11 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 on multiple wikis. Completed requests will be marked as {{added}} or {{declined}} and archived.

lenr-canr.org

The following discussion is closed.

lenr-canr.org

(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 ←)

This site is managed by one Jed Rothwell, an "infinite energy" advocate and promoter of several fringe POVs on Wikipedia. Accounts include:

User:JedRothwell

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← JedRothwell ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← JedRothwell ← logs || search)

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

You can also see some of his input and discussions of his behaviour on enWP.

There are a number of issues with the site:

It has been spammed and promoted extensively by Jed Rothwell
It hosts a good deal of material which is copyright of various journals; in some cases this is asserted to be by permission of the authors, but they do not have the right to give that permission in the case of the mainstream journals I have dealt with in the past (e.g. from Reed-Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer etc.) - copyright is to the journal and its publishers, not the author, that is a normal part of the submission and peer-review process.
In at least one case it was used as a link to a report; it turned out that the copy it hosted had significant editorialisation around it, which changed the whole tone of the document.

Following the conclusion of en:Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion I checked on other language projects to see if the fringe POV problems identified in the article en:Cold fusion were repeated elsewhere. At least one project, itWP, has this problem, and has a similar problem with abuse of this site.

I blacklisted the site on enWP as it is well within scope for the local blacklist (per the reasons above), and I am now being asked by my contact on itWP to bring it here. The issue of abuse is minor at present as Rothwell's IP is blocked on enWP and that is the major locus of the problem, though he is a serial IP-hopper and block evader. I would like to see this added to the meta blacklist, though, as there is some evidence of offsite collusion and the parties involved are still actively trying to change sites to reflect their view of how the world should be, rather than how it is (see this Knol for example). The site is inappropriate on any Wikipedia due to the issues of copyright violation and falsification of sources, and is a candidate for blacklisting due to promotion by the site owner, but whether that is a big enough problem to invoke the meta blacklist I don't really know. Certainly my friend on itWP would be grateful to be able to kick it into touch. JzG 09:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Seeing that it's a single-purpose site with the purpose of promoting what's widely considered to be fringe science, I don't see how it could be useful for any of the projects; I second the recommendation. Ohnoitsjamie 23:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's actually more insidious than that; it presents itself as a resource guide or library on the whole area, but then it uses subtle and not so subtle editorialisation around it. It's a bit like 911readingroom.org in what it does; it pretends to be a "neutral" resource and makes a big show of presenting both sides, but all the original content is heavily biased, the non-original content has no evident copyright permission, and the metadata is untrustworthy due again to bias. We can't even trust it as a bibliography because we don't know if the summaries are accurate, fair or neutral. So yes, I think any link to that site is a problem. JzG 20:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Added. There are still some projects that link to this site. JzG, could you either inform them or remove the links? --Erwin(85) 11:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, will do. JzG 20:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

JzG did not inform readers of this page that his unilateral blacklisting of lenr-canr.org on en.wikipedia ran into objections and controversy. The highly biased arguments re copyright and falsification of sources that he presented in discussion on en.wikipedia were questioned, without satisfactory answers by JzG; he was specifically requested to provide evidence, but, in response, he merely repeated his claims, as he did here. I asked en wiki administrator DGG to review the situation and provide an opinion, and he recommended that lenr-canr should not be blacklisted.[1]. The issue has been misrepresented. As a library of sources, lenr-canr.org is not a reliable source, in itself, generally. Original sources should be cited; however, many of these original sources cannot easily be found on-line. The sole question is whether or not, for the convenience of readers, a copy hosted by lenr-canr.org may be referenced with "Copy at...," or the like, in addition to the citation of the original source. This would be to a copy at a specific page, it doesn't lead a reader to general pages of lenr-canr.org, where issues of site bias, and so forth, would be a problem. The decision of whether or not a particular paper may be used as a source, either as RS, purely, or for certain possible kinds of verification for attributed statements, is a decision which is properly made by the editors of articles, and which should not be made generically for the whole project or collection of projects without discussion. JzG knew that the listing was being challenged, by me and by others, but he did not inform you of the controversy. I respectfully request that the blacklisting be removed, in the absence of adequate discussion. No evidence of copyright violation has been presented, only a claim that such violation is "obvious" however, lenr-canr.org claims to have permission from editors and original publishers for every page on the site.

The name of "cold fusion" was an error in the first place, the field now being termed LENR, for low energy nuclear reactions, and the field isn't fringe science, as we normally use the term, it is "minority science," and the latest U.S. Department of Energy recommendations (2004) were that research in the field continue. We don't see that with true fringe science. I have no conflict of interest here, and only made several edits to a relevant article [2]] in response to noticing the blacklisting problem. As far as I've been able to determine, links to lenr-canr.org were not spammed, i.e., added to articles by someone with a COI, but were suggested on a Talk page, in an apparently civil and proper manner; certainly the evidence JzG presented with his "proposal" to list lenr-canr.org on the en wiki blacklist -- he immediately blacklisted it -- showed nothing other than that. The user may be a banned one, I have not investigated that, but that's irrelevant to content; the links in question were not added by a banned user. The blacklist should not be used to control content, and it is clear that, here, it was. JzG removed references to lenr-canr.org,[3][4] without discussion, then blacklisted it, making it impossible to revert his edits. --Abd 18:55, 11 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

The "objections" and "controversy" as you stated them were that it was me who blacklisted it, and I have a history of attempting to control abuse on the cold fusion articles - and while we're on the subject, you did not mention that the "objections and controversy" were started, fuelled, and sustained by you :-) Rothwell's later edits were to talk pages, but he also linked the site himself in the past and has consistently promoted the site. Regardless, DOI is the way to go, not linking material on a POV-pusher's website however big his collection of material. That's what DOI is for. Of course Rothwell assures us that we can link to his site within policy, he's hardly likely to say otherwise. Among the links I cleaned up from various projects after this blacklisting were full text contents of articles from a couple of journals and a Government body - these should never have been linked from a site promoting a fringe view. JzG 19:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

"History of attempting to control abuse," when it involves content edits, is "involvement with the article," making JzG's use of admin tools improper. He has clearly concluded that the field of LENR is "fringe science," which is very debatable. The issue here is whether or not a single administrator, acting alone and without discussion, may control content. JzG's biased presentation of the immediate history is yet another example of how his involvement is causing him to have a skewed POV. I did not start the issue, I found it at Talk for en user/admin Jehochman. There is certainly no consensus for blacklisting. --Abd 20:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

JzG used his admin tools to blacklist a site based on his personal judgment of it as a source or as a possible reference for copies of usable sources, the blacklisting was done immediately after he made some edits to articles, making the undoing of those edits impossible. Whether his action was ultimately "correct" or not, his action was in conflict of interest, he shouldn't have used his tools. He did not discuss the removal of the sources, or the blacklisting of this site, in Talk for the articles where lenr-canr.org was used in a reference for a copy of a paper. He has made numerous claims about the site that don't seem to hold up when examined. The blacklist tools are not to be used in the service of a content position or dispute. There is no copyright hazard involved (if there is, evidence for it hasn't been supplied, and it was requested). Contrary to what might be thought from what he wrote above, lenr-canr.org claims permission not only from authors, but from publishers as well, and in discussion, a mail from Rothwell was provided confirming this. So the claim that lenr-canr.org hosts copyright violations is an assumption, no evidence has been provided for it. He made his blacklisting on en.wikipedia moot by bringing it here. He didn't invite anyone knowledgeable about the site and the issues to participate here, even though the request here was after controversy arose over his unilateral blacklisting. He's ignored or has simply denied independent opinion about this. He seems to focus on punishing the "POV pusher," i.e., Jed Rothwell, and IPs allegedly his (JR has sometimes signed IP edits; note, however, that JR is not a blocked user on en.wikipedia; but he has not contributed under that username since 2006), but there was no documented onslaught of linkspamming, and Rothwell has explicitly -- and properly -- refrained from recently linking to his site. It gets more and more complicated. JzG initiated this action against lenr-canr.org on his own. It was not related to any finding in the recently concluded Cold fusion arbitration]. Cold fusion is definitely a controversial topic, but it is not "fringe science," there are far too many reputable scientists involved, far too many publications in reliable sources. ArbComm made no finding that the topic was fringe. lenr-can-o-worms, I'm sorry I ever noticed the discussion at Talk for en wiki admin Jehochman.

Above, JzG lists three Wikipedia accounts (see above for links):

JedRothwell, who has not edited since 10 May, 2006, not blocked.
64.247.224.24, mostly used in 2007, a single edit in April 2008, not blocked.
208.65.88.243, used for a series of edits, entirely to w:en:Talk:Cold fusion, only from 27 November to 1 December, 2008, so this was the only recent activity. I haven't read the edits, but they seem quite proper. This user was not blocked.

(It's possible that the current IP for Rothwell is blocked, but there is no block evasion if there is no blocked user! I've not been able to confirm that there is a ban.)

However, there is more at Jed's travelling IP roadshow:

Rothwell, for a period in December, 2008, made many IP edits to Talk:Cold fusion. He wasn't linkspamming. He was discussing issues around the article, mostly, plus engaging in some snarky banter.
Discussion of Rothwell on the en wiki administrator's noticeboard -- no discussion of linkspam.

I see no sign of the kind of abuse that would justify using the blacklist. The claims about copyright violation and fringe advocacy are content arguments to be resolved through normal editorial process, not through administrative fiat. --Abd 23:42, 11 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Nor do I. Cold fusion is not far out fringe. it's not, for example, UFOs. It may be unlikely, it is certainly not mainstream, but it is not utterly impossible. Its advocates should not be treated as likely to be totally incompetent copyright thieves. At least some of the material on that site is suitable US-Gov PD and other acceptable material. I have not examined it in detail, item by item, but at least for the material advocating the reality of CF, it would seem to me highly likely they did get the permission they claim. That alone is enough reason not to blacklist it--it is not predominantly devoted to copyvio. I am inclined to wonder if the attempt to do so is an attempt to keep pro-CF material out of WP, in direct violation of NPOV. DGG 01:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

That's pretty clear, I'd say; some editors are quite explicit that they consider anything "pro-CF" as "fringe," to be excluded. I just had an edit reverted on the Cold fusion article that inserted an exact quote from the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy report, balancing negatives from that report (most of the report was arguably negative), which was removed, apparently because it was considered to introduce a pro-CF spin. But that's not relevant here. Is the site a target of linkspam, such that a blacklist is needed? I didn't see any evidence for that. The reference JzG removed from the Martin Fleischmann article was inserted at [5]; this wasn't linkspam. --Abd 17:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

It might seem clear to you, and it might apply to some editors, but it does not apply to me. The problem with Jed Rothwell is the same as the problem with Pcarbonn, only worse. After a lengthy period of problematic editing, Pcarbonn was topic banned. When Rothwell, who co-authored a Knol with Pcarbonn and who apparently published Pcarbonn's self-congratulatory article on "winning the battle", steps up to the plate to carry on where the now-banned Pcarbonn left off, and in the process promote his website, the correct response is pretty obvious. JzG 21:31, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

You say my use of admin tools is "improper". I used no admin tools here. You say that linkspamming is "not mentioned", but ignore the fact that other long-term abuse is mentioned, and incidentally the promotion fo the site is implicit. You seem, in short, to be wikilawyering. The site is not a reliable source, has been extensively promoted by its promoter, has been used to falsify a source, has hosted material for which no provable copyright release exists, and is used mainly for advocacy of a fringe field with which we have a long-term problem. This really is a large number of reasons not to link the site, offset against reasons which amount to "it's not fair!" or words to that effect. Why are you so keen that we should link to this particular site? JzG 20:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

JzG is correct, he used no admin tools here. He used them improperly on en wikipedia, to blacklist the site and prevent reversion of his edits, and he only came here to extend the blacklisting after he'd encountered objections on en. As to wikilawyering, I must be a poor wikilawyer, because against the practically countless reasons JzG has for blacklisting this site and others, I have only one central point: there wasn't any linkspamming and so, regardless of alleged promotion, regardless of alleged falsification, regardless of no proof (what's required?) of copyright release, regardless of alleged advocacy of a fringe field, -- and all of these can and have been answered by myself and others in the discussions here and on the local blacklist -- blacklist usage isn't appropriate, there was nothing that couldn't be handled by ordinary editorial process, a process which JzG short-circuited with his use of the local blacklist. Jed Rothwell and Pcarbonn are irrelevant. They didn't add the link that started this discussion, the history of it is below. There was no copyright risk to Wikipedia; I asked wikipedia admin DGG (a librarian, professionally) to review this, and he's given that opinion several times now. --Abd 03:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Ahem, you assert that I used them incorrectly, but that seems ot eb based on an inexplicable philosophical objection to blacklisting a site which has been promoted by its owner, used to falsify sources, hosting copyrighted material without evidence of rleease and so on. Actually I would say that blacklisting that site was absolutely not incorrect - in fact it was exactly the kind of thing the blakclist was designed to control: use of Wikipedia's external link feature to promote an external site and to bias content. I don't think there's any dispute that Jed Rothwell and Pcarbonn are as one in wanting to rewrite Wikipedia to reflect their desired state of the world rather than the world as it is reported by indpeendent reliable sources. JzG 09:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Mike's questions

I have a few questions. I would appreciate concise answers.

Is there any particular reason you [User:Abd] cannot link to the actual source for these journal articles?
- My personal abilities aren't the cause of my intervention. Maybe with one citation, maybe not with another. I'll try and come back. I'm pretty sure, though, that some of the articles are only freely available on the site. They can still be cited, perhaps with links to abstracts, but the issue is whether or not we can inform readers about the location of a free copy.--Abd 16:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
- This is the edit that started this, JzG's removal of a URL from the article on Martin Fleischmann.[6][] It's possible there is another site hosting the article, but I couldn't find it. (There are other edits involving other articles, or other similarly blacklisted sites, but one problem at a time!)--Abd 17:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Is there any particular reason the copies of these papers on this domain should be considered unreliable?

— Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Not that I have seen. Charges have been made that one article was "framed," i.e., included allegedly biased commentary not a part of the original article; but that would have been reason to exclude that particular page, at most. --Abd 16:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Mike, to answer your questions: (1) no, there is no reason at all that the journal articles can't be linked at their proper home and every reaons that they should be cited direct using DOI identifiers - we don't link to books on Amazon, we use ISBN magic links for the obvious reason that we do not want to be seen to endorse one particular site or source; whitelisting for genuinely significant material available only from lenr-canr is also an option, but as a biased website dedicated to promoting a fringe view it's not immediately obvious what content might merit inclusion. (2) The reason the copies should not be considered reliable is that in at least one case a link was included in the cold fusion article purportedly to the 2004 DoE review but actually to an editorialised version with added fringe commentary; I believe this is documented in the arbitration case and certainly also in the archives. Jed Rothwell's bias is known and self-admitted, see his knol for example, which was written in collaboration with the now topic-banned Pcarbonn. Falsification of any material fatally undermines the credibility of a site promoted as a source - it is clearly not possible, given his bias and his disruption of the article, to trust Jed Rothwell as an honest broker, which is what a "library site" has to be in order to be useful. It would be like sourcing all the content on our articles on crop circles to cropcircleresearch.com. Rothwell's site is reliable only in respect of the fringe POV it promotes, and here its use is undermined by the promotion and spamming of the site by its owner and is associates and by the availability of all the best material from other, much better places - i.e. the source journals. As an editor I would resist inclusion of any material from lenr-canr, since anything which meets the "undue weight" provisions of core policy will be available in a reliable peer-reviewed journal, and anything which is not available in such a journal is fringe and would be undue weight. But the reasons for blacklisting are spamming, promotion by the webmaster, documented use in falsification of sources, bias (self-admitted), questionable (to put it charitably) copyright history, and the fact that we should not be linking to content on a fringe site when the same content - or at least the abstract - is available from the original publisher. I've yet to see an example of content that is available uniquely from this site and which merits inclusion, but that's not the reason for wanting it blacklisted, that is due to abuse and POV-pushing. I'm afraid what I'm seeing here is "I reallyreallyreally want to link to this site, and will use whatever argument might be necessary to get that". How can one argue that Rothwell did not promote the site on Wikipedia? Virtually every comment he posted names the site! JzG 20:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
JzG - please show me the links and/or analysis for your assertions on pt #2. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 20:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm looking for it now. It is fact. It is also fact that it hosts a "student's guide to cold fusion" written by a CF advocate; it is a site which no encyclopaedia with any pretence to neutrality should be using as a source! JzG 20:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Incidentally, "I am the Librarian, not the editor. The papers are all published elsewhere and edited by other people. (Except as noted some Proceedings are edited by me.) LENR-CANR is a library, not a journal, so we do not filter, censor, edit or reject papers, or endorse them by uploading them. We have many papers by skeptics that I feel have no merit (my emphasis), but we are neutral. - Jed Rothwell, LIBRARIAN not editor, LENR-CANR.org. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.158.255.197 (talk) 19:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)" (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=263629704) - I don't think it is at all unfair to describe that as promotion of the site by Rothwell. JzG 20:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

This is proving an interesting search: "I agree that there is a reasonable doubt of copy violations by lenr-canr.org" - Pcarbonn [7].

Here's the diff where I removed it: [8]. See also [9], [10]. Take the latter: j. Electroanal. Chem. doi:10.1016/0022-0728(93)85006-3 would be an accurate citation to the source journal, meta does not have the magic but http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-0728(93)85006-3 works just fine. It's an Elsevier journal, and Elsevier make their living selling journals. The full text is available for purchase online for $31.50, and the description page says Copyright © 1993 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. I think we are all familiar with "contributory infringement", and what that means, but if not see en:Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry. I'm going to want documentary proof via OTRS that the content is released to that site before I will believe that Elsevier have released full text, because WP:AGF is not a suicide pact and I have seen one too many site owners blithely protesting that they have a release, then fall back to "fair use" when challenged, and of course that was the defence Free Republic unsuccessfully tried in en:L.A. Times v. Free Republic; note that the primary test which appears to be used in fair use cases is whether the use interferes with the rights owner's ability to profit from their intellectual property - it's pretty obvious that giving away somethign which is on sale for over thirty dollars is interfering with that ability. Many of the journals will give free access to full text to students, but they are very careful to qualify exactly who gets the free access and to emphasise the copyright conditions. I guess we could argue the toss on a link by link basis, but then we could use the DOI system to link to the rights owner and thus be squeaky-clean.

To complete the thought, though: the reference was <ref>[http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ERABreportofth.pdf Report of the US Department of Energy Energy Research Advisory Board panel]</ref> - so the 1989 not the 2004 review, my faulty memory. Opening the PDF (and I am sure it will not be changed to try to bamboozle this discussion), the PDF presented as Report of the US Department of Energy Energy Research Advisory Board panel begins:

ERAB, Report of the Cold Fusion Panel to the Energy Research Advisory Board. 1989:
Washington, DC.
A copy of the ERAB report has been prepared by the National Capital Area Skeptics (NCAS) organization (www.ncas.org). It is available here in HTML format: http://www.ncas.org/erab/. It is converted to Acrobat format in this document, below. This organization has not posted any other papers about cold fusion. Cold fusion researchers consider the ERAB report highly prejudiced for many reasons. It was concluded in a rush long before there was time to perform and publish serious replications. The authors dismissed experimental evidence by pointing to theory, which is a violation of the scientific method. And they selectively ignored positive data. For example, ERAB report authors visited Dr. Melvin Miles at the China Lake Naval Weapons Laboratory when he had just begun experiments in cold fusion. He told them he had not observed excess heat or other evidence of fusion. Months later, he did observe significant heat. He contacted the authors. He informed them of his results and invited them to return. They ignored him and reported only his initial, negative results. [1] [2]
The ERAB report begins:
“The recent interest in cold fusion was stimulated by reports from Utah scientists in March 1989 that fusion had occurred in experiments on the electrolysis of heavy water (D2O). Dr. Stanley Pons and Dr. Martin Fleischmann at the University of Utah claimed to measure a production of heat that could only be explained by a nuclear process. Dr. Steven Jones at Brigham Young University did not observe heat but claimed to observe neutron emission that would also indicate a nuclear process. The claims were particularly astounding given the simplicity of the equipment, just a pair of electrodes connected to a battery and immersed in a jar of D2O--equipment easily available in many laboratories.”
. . . and goes downhill from there. This is a mischaracterization of the findings and the nature of the experiment. There is nothing “simple” about a cold fusion experiment. Most experiments take weeks or months to prepare. Cathodes must be carefully selected and prepared. Many things can go wrong. For example, heavy water found is sometimes so contaminated it will prevent a reaction from occurring. Common contaminants include light water, surfactants, [3] heavy metals and a species of bacteria that has been discovered living in most heavy water supplies in Europe and NorthAmerica. [4] No published paper describes the use of a “jar.” Laboratory grade Teflon glassware or steel cells must be used, after careful preparation.
- Jed Rothwell
1. Miles, M. and K.B. Johnson, Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Systems, Final Report. 1996. www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesManomalousea.pdf
2. Storms, E., A critical evaluation of the Pons-Fleischmann effect: Part 1. Infinite Energy, 2000. 6(31): p. 10. www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEacriticale.pdf
3. Fleischmann, M. and S. Pons, Reply to the critique by Morrison entitled 'Comments on claims of excess enthalpy by Fleischmann and Pons using simple cells made to boil. Phys. Letters A, 1994. 187: p. 276.
4. Celani, F., et al. High Hydrogen Loading into Thin Palladium Wires through Precipitate of Alkaline-Earth Carbonate on the Surface of Cathode: Evidence of New Phases in the Pd-H System and Unexpected Problems Due to Bacteria Contamination in the Heavy- Water. in ICCF8, Eighth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2000. Lerici (La Spezia), Italy: Italian Physical Society, Bologna, Italy

In the recent talk page comment I cited above, Rothwell says I am the Librarian, not the editor. The papers are all published elsewhere and edited by other people. (Except as noted some Proceedings are edited by me.) LENR-CANR is a library, not a journal, so we do not filter, censor, edit or reject papers. This is not a Proceedings. The question is, do we now believe Rotwell's protestations that all the material is clean, unedited, unfiltered, and presented only with valid copyright release? Or does this brief examination of two sources from that site lead one to question the impartiality of its presentation, the reliability of this "library" as a source, and the copyright status of the content? I am not saying that Rothwell is setting out to deceive; he very evidently sincerely believes in the merit of what he is doing, but cognitive dissonance theory gives a very plausible explanation as to ow he might not be a reliable source for such assertions, even while being entirely true to his mission. We tend, being human, to quietly forget those things of which we are not proud; we might easily consider that the path of righteousness is served by rebutting the work of the group that hosted the copy of the original report, and that by doing so we are merely restoring the balance. And in the context of Jed Rothwell's website and his mission to change the world's view of cold fusion, there is nothing evil about that, but it is fundamentally incompatible with the mission and core policies of Wikipedia.

See also en:Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 8: The DoE was soon back to its old tricks: www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf - this is not a paper, not a Proceedings, not a library document, it is naked polemic. No author listed. The dispute between Lewis and Miles & Noninsky was about basic calorimetry. A layman's summary of it, by me, is here: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJintroducti.pdf; not as librarian but as author. en:Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 19#Weighing validity of opposition : suggesting a review of a commentary by Storms. Who is the co-author, with Rothwell and Pcarbonn, of the Google Knol mentioned above. A great deal of commentary on lenr-canr is written by Storms and/or Rothwell. Again, this is perfectly consistent with their mission of converting the scientific establishment to a less sceptical view of cold fusion, but that is not our goal. Mr Rothwell presents the site as a "library" but it is not a pure repository; it is a resource for CF advocates which includes some material not by advocates. I consider it very plausible that Jed Rothwell sincerely believes that this makes his site a balanced and impartial overview of the sources. I also believe that the comments he has made and the content noted above prove that, by our criteria, it is not.

And even that is tap-dancing round the eight hundred pound gorilla: Rothwell's consistent promotion of his website. See en:Talk:Cold fusion/Archive_7 where he says: LENR-CANR is a repository, not a source. All of the papers in it are reprinted from reputable mainstream sources. To say we should not cite the papers there is like saying we should not cite any paper in the Georgia Tech Library, or any book or conference proceedings at Amazon.com. But we don't. We don't cite books at Amazon.com, we cite them by ISBN. We don't cite books at the Georgia Tech library, we cite them from the source or maybe from the Library of Congress catalog.

Promotion of websites by the site owner is grounds for blacklisting. Where the site is also being abused across multiple projects, that is grounds for meta blacklisting. This is a heavily polarised subject, neutrality is served by deference to the sources, not by preferring repositories of those sources run in furtherance of an agenda, I think. My repeated preference for the use of DOI identifiers addresses both that and the concerns of copyright. JzG 22:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

As a side note, students are generally not given free access. University students pay their university, and the university buys bulk subscriptions to journals (along with books, computers, etc). So, they are paying indirectly. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:31, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Ah, as ever the devil is in the detail :-) The places I have seen the "free to students" offer (e.g. Blackwell, Springer, Reed-Elsevier, Taylor & Francis), they do, I seem to recall, mention that it must be a qualifying institution; maybe the qualifying process is the crossing of palms with silver. In .ac.uk one does not, as a rule, directly pay tuition fees, so I did not really think of it in those terms. JzG 21:34, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

(unindent)And I thought I had a problem with being wordy! I've been outdone. "Promotion of websites by the site owner is grounds for blacklisting." Sure. But what kind of promotion? It would be linkspamming, so extensive that ordinary editing to fix it becomes tedious, and lesser measures like warning and blocking linkspamming editors haven't worked. The link to lenr-canr.org that was removed by JzG, cited above by me, wasn't added by Rothwell, nor by Pcarbonn. It was added by an independent editor. However, the material was taken from the Cold fusion article, and the paper cited was referenced by Pcarbonn, 8 October, 2008 there. The link to lenr-canr.org for a copy was added by LeadSongDog, 31 October. There it stood until it was removed by JzG, without discussion, on 18 December, 2008. LeadSongDog I've noticed as a critic of Rothwell, certainly not his puppet. There is no sign of the kind of extensive inappropriate addition of links that could justify blacklisting. Nobody's been warned or blocked that I could find. (Pcarbonn was later topic banned, but that's not relevant to this, in spite of JzG waving his name about.) JzG made a unilateral decision that a series of links to articles and papers were inappropriate, removed them without discussion, and then made it impossible to revert his edits by adding the sites lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com to the en wiki spam blacklist, on his own, using his admin tools. Most of the arguments above are content and Reliable Source arguments, and some of them have been contradicted by other knowledgeable editors, but we shouldn't be examining this here. The spam blacklist is not to be used to control content, it is to be used to simplify maintaining the project against extensive linkspamming. Please remove the listing. --Abd 03:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Support removal. For somebody who claims to be "uninvolved", JzG is acting like a pit bull on this topic. Over on en.wp, he's claiming that it's resolved because other uninvolved parties here on Meta have acted with their own independent judgment, but clearly the person who added it to the spam list here did it on JzG's say-so, without other discussion beforehand; the en.wp and meta spam blacklists seem to be run more as a cross-wiki good-ol-boy network than one with discussion and consensus among varied parties. Nobody has yet provided any evidence of actual link-spamming, just a lot of handwaving about "fringe science" stuff. Dtobias 05:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Nothing wrong with good ol boys (and girls) in themselves. Usually it works, the community runs on trust; and when it doesn't, we can point out the problem. Yes, what Dtobias has said about how JzG has treated this on en.wp is correct. He's claiming the listing as proof that he was right. Now, we haven't actually requested unlisting, and what I see is some serious questioning here. Looks to me, so far, like the process is working. --Abd 05:34, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

For convenience, the document JzG references above as including editorializing is http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ERABreportofth.pdf. I'd agree, there is a problem with referencing that document, and not just that it's blacklisted!; on the other hand, if that were the only available copy of the 1989 report, we'd have to balance that. But it's not. So? Somebody inappropriately cited that page? Why is the site blocked because someone used a page on it inappropriately? So far, the links that JzG removed were not to material originating with lenr-canr.org, but to other sources, at least some of them reliable, and lenr-canr.org is simply a library that has a copy with permission (they claim, and they'd be extraordinarily stupid to be lying about this, they'd be caught in a flash: they come up on top with google searches for these documents). No evidence of any alteration of these documents, the *relevant* ones, has been even alleged. The "alteration" here, with the 1989 DOE report, wasn't dishonest or concealed, it was plain what was prefatory comment and what was original, no reader would have been deceived. --Abd 05:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I think we can safely ignore Dan's "every link is sacred" view here (Dan is a gadfly with an inexplicable attitude to linking questionable content) and simply concentrate on what Abd says. Abd is trying to assert that I am evil, therefore blacklisting the site is evil. That is, as he says of the conduct of Pcarbonn and Jed Rothwell, irrelevant. What is relevant here is: has the site been used abusively on Wikimedia projects? We have:

Hosting of copyright material with no provable release (e.g. the Elsevier publication listed above).
Assiduous promotion by the site owner; virtually every comment he makes references or proposes a link to the site.
Claims by the site owner that it is a "library" with no editorialising, which are provably false.
Falsification of at least one source (and therefore who knows how many others).
Naked polemic, again incompatible with the idea of it as a source or "honest broker".
Long-term POV-pushing as evidence the en:Wikipedia/Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion case, which is absolutely unambiguous in establishing the bias of the pro-CF editing of en:Cold fusion.
Documented close association with a topic-banned editor, to the point that Rothwell and the topic-banned editor have worked together to publish a Knol in a direct attempt to repeat the agenda-driven rewriting of history that was sanctioned in Pcarbonn's topic ban.
And the final nail in the coffin: we can cite all academic material direct from the relevant source using the en:Digital object identifier which, unlike lenr-canr, is a neutral provider - it links direct to the source, whoever the source is, and has no agenda.

I have not yet seen any argument for why we should link any of these journal articles from lenr-canr rather than from the publishers via DOI links, especially given that we have questions over copyright and potential editorialising; I have also not seen any argument that counters the facts I set out above re falsification, hosting material without evidence of copyright release, and promotion of the site by its owner (and others, with promotional link summaries such as "the over 450 papers" type discussed ont he Cold Fusion talk page). Abd seems to want to have this removed form the blacklists using whatever reason he can find, and is using poisoning the well as a technique to try to obscure the documented abuse of the site. I will put my hands up to being a tenacious argufier, but I will not accept the assertion that listing this site is abusive, still less that the fact of my having done so on en is in some way a reason for removing it here, which seems to be what Abd is claiming above. The documented abuse is there, and is a problem. For whatever reason, Abd seems to have lost site of the fundamentals: nobody has a right to link their site on Wikipedia, if a site is abused, especially if it is used to drive content in a direction which is expressly forbidden by our core policies, then we have every right to use the technical methods at our disposal to control that abuse. It's right that we should think long and hard about abuse like this, and I have no problem going through it in detail as I have above, but the longer and harder one looks at it, the less appropriate it seems to be as a source. Once again, we do not link journal articles from fringe advocacy sites instead of from their publishers. That is a gross failure of policy. JzG 10:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I have not said and do not think that JzG is evil. I think he made a mistake, and editors shouldn't have to stand on their heads to place a link they think appropriate in an article, and it is up to editorial consensus to decide if it belongs or not; even the Arbitration Committee will generally not intervene in this. It isn't just lenr-canr.org, on en wiki, and JzG's abuse of admin tools is only relevant to en wp. My point in mentioning this here is only that there was no consensus on en wp that there was a problem with these sites justifying blacklisting, and there are now a number of administrators who have expressed concern. JzG brought the proposed blacklisting here only after his blacklisting on en wp was challenged; yet he presented it here with no mention that there was controversy. So, again, I'd say that the blacklisting here was a very understandable error, one made in good faith, trusting that what JzG was presenting was accurate. But it wasn't. There was no linkspamming that I've been able to find, certainly nothing on the scale that would require blacklisting.

Comment: links to references are for convenience, but the main aim of references is to make material 'verifyable', it does NOT make them 'verified'! Hence, the reference for a respected journal can look like: (a) "Someone, journal, year, issue, pagenumber"; (b) "Someone, journal, year, issue, pagenumber, doi number"; (c) "Someone, journal, year, issue, pagenumber, original publisher"; (d) "Someone, journal, year, issue, pagenumber, link to a copy of the original document"; IMHO, a and b are the ones to go, certainly not d or combinations of (b or c) with d. Often the material on the official site is copyrighted, and with any copy there is a chance there has been tampered with the copy. It is simply not necessery, and actually even the doi is not necessery. JzG has shown that there are cases where there are documents on the page that have been tampered with, and I can show that there are people who strongly focus to this site (e.g. Pcarbonn has added 59 and 55 links to lenr-carn.org and newenergytimes.com, and less than 7 links to doi (for as far as my database sees, the db contains approx 1.5 years of link additions).

I am sorry, it is simply better to link to the doi, or to similar 'linkfarms' (special:isbn). I know that a lot of these documents are not freely accessible, but that is not the point of verifyability.

To me on a first glance there are quite some editors that are persistent in adding these links, and who do not want to be satisfied with a proper and suitable alternative (doi, linkfarms), and I think that blacklisting such links can be a suitable alternative (using whitelisting of specific links which are deemed unreplaceable as the solution to referencing those). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 11:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC) (adapted 'legit' ways of referencing --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 10:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC))Reply

Handling whitelist requests when no other alternatives are available sounds like a pretty good solution to me. Ohnoitsjamie 23:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Well, that requires the editors understand how to do this. Many editors will find these sources -- lenr-canr.org is very, very prominent in searches for documents on its topic -- and try to put them in articles. They will be prevented, and they will have little clue as to how to proceed. It makes a simple process into a complicated one. Sure, when there is a good reason for blacklisting a site, that's a solution for exceptions. Except that no good reason for blacklisting has been advanced, only a barrage of easily refutable arguments about fringe science, copyright, promotion, etc., and then claims that I'm calling JzG "evil," irrelevant mentions of a topic-banned editor, etc. The suggestions at Spam_blacklist/About haven't even been approached. Nobody has been blocked over this. The alleged "promoter" wasn't making edits in article space and the allegedly offensive links, removed by JzG and then enforced by his unilateral and undiscussed addition to the local blacklist, were added by other, legitimate users. This isn't even close to a legitimate use of the blacklist. In any case, right here is the simplest resolution for the matter of the blacklisting, otherwise, as a content dispute, it gets more complicated. I'd rather see a link removed from the blacklist, such having been requested by a neutral editor (I wasn't at all involved, had never seen lenr-canr before I noticed a complaint from an editor I'd also never heard of before, and investigated), than have to address the question of how a meta blacklisting affects the rights of en wp editors, without consensus for it, and apparently with a growing consensus against it. This is not going down well on en wp. (It's only been discussed on a small scale, with a few admins; that's how I work. At first. Usually, that's all it takes.) --Abd 00:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Abd, if the copies on lenr-canr.org are properly sourced to the original documents then authors should not have a problem there to actually find (and link to) the original copy, linking to which is in all cases a better solution. About the whitelist, the spam filter notice clearly says which link triggers, and states (on en.wikipedia) "Blacklists are maintained both locally and globally. Before proceeding, please review both lists to determine which one (or both) are affecting you. You can request help removing the link, request that the link be removed from the blacklist, or report a possible error on the local or global spam blacklist talk page. If you'd like to request that a specific link be allowed without removing similar links from the blacklist, you can request whitelisting on the local spam whitelist talk page.". We might get some extra de-blacklisting requests here on the blacklist pages, but we will cope with that, and that is certainly not a reason to de-blacklist. The site has problems, the site was pushed, linking to it is not necessery (as I explained above; there are way better alternatives), and all that is good reason to blacklist. Blocking accounts is not a necessery thing, we blacklist here on a regular basis when one IP is adding links to multiple wikis, just because blocking that IP does not have any effect, same goes for multiple users/IPs pushing a link. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 10:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the reply, Dirk. It seems you are making some understandable but incorrrect assumptions, let me correct them:

(1) Searching for these documents, sometimes the only on-line copy that doesn't require payment is hosted, by claimed permission of the author and publisher, on lenr-canr.org. Contrary to statements by JzG throughout this, the large majority of the documents hosted on lenr-canr.org are simply copies of originals from other publishers. Obviously, when an original document is available from the original publisher, that's preferable! But some of these papers aren't available that way, or, if they are, they are difficult to find, I've failed.

(2) There is no consensus that the site has problems sufficient to not allow it's usage as a place where readers can find a copy of a paper not available elsewhere. A number of irrelevant issues have been raised on this; there are now three admins on en.wikipedia agreeing that there is a problem with this blacklisting, so if it can't be resolved here, we will see even more fuss. I haven't submitted a proposed delisting because this listing was fresh. There was controversy about the en.wp blacklistings, and JzG was aware of it, before he proposed listing here, but he didn't mention that there was any controversy, he presented this as an open and shut case.

(3) There was no linkspamming. JzG, in the only evidence he presented, simply showed a talk page post where an IP editor *legitimately* gave his identity and URL. There was no high-volume insertion. In fact, for one of the citations that JzG removed before using the blacklist to cement his edit in stone, the reference to lenr-canr.org was added by LinkSongDog, a critic of the alleged linkspammer Jed Rothwell. Jed Rothwell hasn't been sanctioned or even warned for linkspamming.

(4) The links removed by JzG weren't added by IP editors, but by legitimate, registered editors. If the references were improper, they could be removed, there weren't many. JzG did remove them from en.wikipedia, and I think that attempts were made to revert him which immediately ran into his unilateral blacklisting.

Look, this is the simplest place to resolve this. I haven't solicited others to comment here, though one admin who knew I was asking about this did come and post on the copyright issue. Should I ask others to chime in? What I'm seeing is disturbing: the use of the spamlist to enforce content rules that have not been approved by consensus on the wikis affected by this list. Decisions like that may require a wider discussion. Is that necessary? I will, if you like, propose removal below.... Or do you have any other suggestions? If I can't get some kind of satisfactory resolution or better idea here, then I'd probably go to the en.wikipedia administrator's noticeboard to get broader input. --Abd 19:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, Dirk, for a much more patient reply than I gave. I am sorry, this issue is one that I find distinctly frustrating; Abd's assertion that I am wrong in wanting this blacklisted is contradicted by the uninvolved meta admins who have chimed in here and clearly consider the site to be problematic at some level on the basis presented - that is, promotion by the site owner, careless copyright and cross-wiki problems. Those are what one might term "layer 1" issues that would result in any site potentially being blacklisted. The "layer 2" issues of reliability, false portrayal of sources, false portrayal of the site by its owner and use to promote a fringe POV against en:WP:NPOV - a non-negotiable policy - would be, and have been many times in the past, grounds for local blacklisting. Local blacklisting might in some cases be denied despite abuse and other problems iff the site is the legitimate source of significant amounts of content. In this case it is not. The content discussed thus far has either been material taken form journals whoich should be cited using DOI, or self-published material which fails the enWP sourcing guidelines. Individual exceptions might be made where a document fulfils all of the following conditions: (a) it is unambiguously significant in context (e.g. autobiographical self-published material necessary for sourcing of significant life events that need to be sourced per BLP policy); (b) there is no publication closer to the original source (a common case for blog links on enWP), and (c) we can authenticate the source. Whether the links Abd is arguing about fit that test I can't say. It looks to me as if a synthesis is being drawn from the source, but looking at the exact links discussed one is a copy of a University of Utah press release, so probably not significant and probably available elsewhere, and the other is a reference which is not actually referenced in the article - more like "further reading" but in the references section. It looks crufty, since we've seen a lot of efforts by the CF POV-pushers to get references to their ntth International Conference on Cold Fusion III The Revenge This Time It's Real Honest in various places. There is no content which is being referenced to that "reference", which is (as usual with papers presented at conference) not formally peer-reviewed. I'd dispute its inclusion at all. But that is an aside - a "level 3" problem if you like, whether undue weight is being given to events of marginal significance by gratuitously linking them in articles. The enWP whitelist is a good place for debates like that. But none of those higher level debates alter the fundamental fact that we have a site which has apparent copyright issues and has been relentlessly promoted across multiple projects by its owner and associates, exactly the kind of thing that results in blacklisting here all the time. JzG 16:20, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

JzG is making content arguments about possible issues that should be resolved by editorial consensus on en.wikipedia. The copyright issues are phony, that's been the judgment of those I've consulted about it, who actually investigated. There wasn't "relentless promoting." There has been discussion of the topics of articles, and lenr-canr.org hosts convenient copies of every relevant document where the site owner could get permission, and has a complete bibliography, beyond that. So on a Talk page, making a point about the research, an editor may point to a page on lenr-canr.org. That's not "promoting" the site, that's simply normal conversation.... Sure, we can whitelist and we will, but it's a *lot* more work than simple editorial consensus, and it excludes, effectively, the vast majority of our editors, who won't have a clue. --Abd 19:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'll reply to the above 4 points:

(1) It is NO argument that the site hosts the only copy for which you don't have to pay. That is even a bad argument, that the other sites do require payment means that they probably have the copyright. This site may as such be very well in violation of that copyright. And even then, see my remark about verifyability. Even behind a paysite a statement is verifyable .. maybe YOU can not verify it, but (many) others can. And that is the point. Again, the link is just a convenience link, even without the external link the data is verifyable.

(2) My reply to (1) ánd the point that there are problems with the reliability of the site are perfect reasons to blacklist

(3) Well, there does not need to be linkspamming. Misuse (for example pushing) is also a good and proper reason.

(4) The site is unreliable, it should be linked to the original source, or the sources are not properly peer reviewed and hence do not give a proper neutral POV, hence, yes, all should then be removed (if it is blacklisted, then it will disrupt if the links would stay).

Yes, the issues should be resolved by editorial consensus. Whitelisting is the proper way now, as there was 'relentless promoting' (there are accounts that have a huge preference of this site over the proper way (doi, direct linking to the original documents). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 20:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

P.S. My statistics are based on mainspace edits, the editors who used this links have, to say the least, a strong preference for this site over other sites. I do believe that that data gives a proper reflection of the bias and POV. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 20:13, 14 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, Dirk, for being clear. I'm getting that nobody who watches these pages is willing to remove the site, so I'll be moving to the next steps to find broader consensus, because it appears to me that the core arguments are being ignored. I'll answer on each point, for the record, and just in case that you or someone else will check a little deeper.

(1) It is NO argument that the site hosts the only copy for which you don't have to pay. I disagree that it is no argument that this is the only free site. Common example: a paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal; it's only available for payment. However, lenr-canr.org has obtained permission from the author and the publisher to host a copy. *No* evidence of copyvio has been shown; where is the burden of proof? JzG cites a case where someone was prosecuted or sued for linking to copyvio, but it's clear that this is only for knowingly (and probably maliciously) doing so. In this case, lenr-canr.org, which has known and identifiable management, would be wide open for prosecution, if the claims of JzG and others on this were true, as they would be involved with massive copyvio. There isn't any sign, in fact, that they are, and en-wp admin DGG, who is a librarian professionally, opined above that the site doesn't appear to be engaged in copyright violation.

Yes, we can cite a paper without providing a link to the actual text, it's considered "verifiable." But it's become obscure to many readers. In the followup to en-wp Requests_for_arbitration/Franco-Mongol_alliance editor PHG was required to only use sources in English, because of difficulty verifying his French or Japanese sources. That's an extreme, but my point is that it is better for verification to be easy than for it to be difficult. In some cases, I've seen a sourced statement stand for a long time, until, when I suspected something was off and went to the trouble of going to a medical library to read the paper, it had been totally distorted. That can't happen as easily when a source is easy to access.

Disputed claim: there is allegedly no value in pointing to free access copies of reliable sources.

(2) My reply to (1) ánd the point that there are problems with the reliability of the site are perfect reasons to blacklist There are no significant claims as to the reliability of the site; it is primarily a library of documents on the topic of low energy nuclear reactions. It doesn't host all such documents, but apparently the only reason for that is difficulty in obtaining permission. The "librarian" claims that he only puts up what he has permission for, from the author and the publisher. An isolated imperfection isn't sufficient grounds to exclude a site, but only a problem page. Reliability of a website, though, shouldn't be relevant to the use of the blacklist, or else the blacklist is being used to make editorial decisions. Site reliability shouldn't be relevant here.

Disputed claim: It is allegedly legitimate to blacklist a site because several editors here claim the site is unreliable.

(3)there does not need to be linkspamming. Misuse (for example pushing) is also a good and proper reason. The spam list here is introduced with:

Guidelines:
- Only blacklist for widespread, unmanageable spam.

The en.wikipedia page WikiProject_Spam#How_to_identify_spam_and_spammers gives a list of characteristics of spam, which lenr-canr.org doesn't match. (only a few of the characteristics are even arguable.) There were no standing "misuses" of the site on en.wikipedia when JzG removed links and blacklisted there, AFAIK. There was no avalanche of links as "pushing" or as anything, and, in fact, the link to lenr-canr.org in the article on Martin Fleischmann, removed by JzG, was added by a critic of the site operator, and JzG's removal of the link resulted in the citation resuming the form it had when it was inserted by one of the alleged "promoters," Pcarbonn. The site operator wasn't adding links to articles at all, and the only evidence for "spamming" that I've seen is that he signed his IP edits with his (real) name and site URL. He is not a blocked editor, and, I'd guess, he IP edits because he's lost his password: his account isn't blocked. A comment was made somewhere that there would be no use blocking him, but he hasn't been banned, his edits, as far as he would know, were legitimate on their face. (This might be disputed, I suspect, but my point is that there is certainly no ban consensus, far short of it, he hasn't even been blocked in recent history.)

Disputed claim: Alleged misuse of a site by a Wikipedia editor or editors, even though not widespread and uncontrollable through normal editing or blocking, is claimed to be a good and proper reason for using the blacklist.

The site is unreliable The site is a library. What's an "unreliable library"? If it hosted fraudulent documents is all I can think of. That hasn't been alleged. There is one example where a U.S. government document from 1989 was presented with a recent preface by the librarian. It was clearly not a part of the document; and it isn't uncommon for modern editions of old books to include some recent introduction. Unless that introduction is a total distortion, nobody thinks it improper. In this case, though, the copy on lenr-canr.org linked, at the beginning, to another free copy, so if someone was concerned about the introduction (I recognize and appreciate that concern), it was easy to link to a different copy on another site, no more "reliable," however, than lenr-canr.org and possibly less reliable. DGG opined that document forgery was quite unusual and there is no reason to suspect that here. If the original document is available from the U.S. government, that would be even better, but my guess is that it isn't. If it is available, then the editor removing the link to lenr-canr really should find and add the correct link.

Disputed claim: Claims of site unreliability are allegedly relevant to spam blacklisting. Lenr-canr.org is allegedly unreliable. (No claim is made that lenr-canr.org is a reliable site, in terms of original content there, only that it is reliable for copies of papers and for its bibliography, which apparently isn't biased, and a critic of the site owner has suggested that the bibliography be whitelisted, which would indeed then give all editors immediate access to copies of the documents on lenr-canr.org, since they are linked from the bibliography.)

One more point in response to Dirk, who wrote, "My statistics are based on mainspace edits, the editors who used this links have, to say the least, a strong preference for this site over other sites. I do believe that that data gives a proper reflection of the bias and POV." Editors have used lenr-canr.org who are on "both sides" of the cold fusion and content disputes. An editor who was not sanctioned or found to have engaged in linkspamming, Pcarbonn, was an SPA on the cold fusion topic, but anyone writing on that topic who tries to find a paper and searches for it is quite likely to find it, at the top of the search, on lenr-canr.org. So a profusion of links to lenr-canr.org shows only an interest in cold fusion, not "bias and POV."

In short, there appears to be a dispute over the proper use of the blacklist and, I'd suggest, this should be addressed. If there is consensus on the blacklist usage positions I've disputed above, please show me where it was found, and I'd suggest the introduction to the blacklist page should be revised, as well as Spam blacklist/About. Given that I know there is substantial opposition, among Wikipedia editors and administrators, to this use of the blacklist, any advice on the least disruptive way for me to proceed will be appreciated.

By the way, reading Spam blacklist/About, I see that any Wikipedia administrator can effectively bypass the global blacklist for lenr-canr.org by adding it to the local whitelist. If it's added there, though, and sticks, I'd guess that it would be removed here. Approaching this that way, though, would keep what is an en.wp content dispute, primarily, on en.wp. If I can't get it whitelisted there, well, that would be my answer, wouldn't it? -- at least as far as lenr-canr.org is concerned. But the general issues would remain as to proper use of the blacklist. So I think I'm done here on this page, unless someone has some questions, which would be best addressed to me on my en-wiki user talk page. --Abd 03:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Arguing with JzG is rather futile, just like arguing with a brick wall... he's convinced he's right and is pissed off that he even has to waste any of his precious time arguing in favor of his position, which he has no need to do as long as he's got a tight clique of friends on both en and meta to back him up. His postings seem to call for a liberal application of [citation needed] templates. Dtobias 03:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Conclusions

After investigating this in some depth independently, including a thorough review of the English Wikipedia's policies on these matters, an arbitration decision, and a significant portion of the dispute this request arose from, I must agree with Beetstra here.

A reference does not have to include a link at all. For online sources, links should be provided where possible, to better allow the reader to verify the source. For peer-reviewed academic journals, no link is required at all, though acceptable use of links in references include a direct link where possible, or a link via DOI. Given the controversy surrounding this topic, rigorous sourcing is desired. As such, references should be provided as required by policy - that may or may not include links at all. Where links can be provided, they should point directly to the original source where possible; via DOI otherwise. Links to biased, inaccurate or unreliable sites should certainly be avoided.

Contrary to the claims, I do see evidence here of the domain being pushed inappropriately by the domain owner. Given the above issues (bias, reliability) and the persistence of those pushing the domains, careful monitoring of link additions and critical analysis of their inclusion is required. This applies beyond merely the English Wikipedia. For me, this inappropriate promotion of the domain is the central concern for a few reasons:

It's extremely difficult (and therefore inadvisable) to enforce editorial standards across multiple projects. If English Wikipedia or Italian Wikibooks wants to use their spam blacklist for that purpose, they're certainly welcome to. Only in cases which are abundantly clear should the global blacklist be used.
I am not a Wikipedian, so I am not really "qualified" to make editorial decisions for Wikipedia. The same is true of are most of the people this blacklist affects - there is only one English Wikipedia, but this blacklist affects 700+ Wikimedia Foundation wikis, 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.
Editorial standards differ - other wikis might be OK with linking to this domain in citations. I happen to disagree, as outlined above, but that is not the core issue for me.

To the extent that citations meeting the various requirements (no undue weight, reliable source etc etc) are needed but can be linked to only on this domain, whitelisting specific URLs for specific uses (and evaluating them in advance of inclusion) is the preferred way forward in this case.

If there is legitimate need to link to the domain (for example, if a particular paper which is being properly used as a source cannot be found elsewhere online, but can be found on this domain, and the copy is accurate, and there is no concern regarding copyright infringement), then that URL could be whitelisted for inclusion on the local wiki.

In some cases, a good link gets pushed - this puts us in a difficult position of either continuing spamming or disallowing the legitimate use of the link. Luckily, that isn't the case here. It is not necessary to use this link, which makes blacklisting a more attractive option - by doing so, users are forced to

Not use this domain, which means no more pushing of the link
But they can still link to the doi and/or the actual journal - this is ideal anyways, as outlined above
Whitelisting is always available for circumstances I've outlined above

So, this is the best outcome I can see currently.

Based on the original recommendation by JzG (and yes I am aware he is not neutral in this matter - he has said as much himself), Ohnoitsjamie's concurrence, Nixeagle's addition, Beetstra's analysis, the evidence before me and my own analysis presented above, I am not inclined to remove the domain at this time.

The reasoning of Dtobias reduces to an argumentum ad hominem - I have no knowledge of the history there but I am sure from the tone there is one. Given no real argument, I have nothing to give any weight. I hope it is clear from the above that this decision weighed all the viewpoints and evidence presented here (and much which wasn't presented). I've already disagreed with JzG's relative weighting of the factors here - this is not a case of simply adding the domain on his say-so. Abd's arguments attack only the secondary editorial issues, with only the assertion that there has been no pushing of the link. I think a review of the evidence on that point will reveal the precise opposite. DGG's reasoning may or may not be accurate, however I'm not inclined to give it much weight because it has bearing only on the secondary issues - regardless of any copyright concerns the link is being pushed & that is why I am leaving it blacklisted. Whether or not there is controversy about the secondary editorial reason on English Wikipedia is not really my concern - if there is consensus to whitelist the domain on English Wikipedia then any administrator there is free to do so. However, English Wikipedia's decisions do not impinge upon the administration of Meta's spam blacklist insofar as Meta is a project representing all others - that is, if there is a cross-wiki consensus to remove the domain from Meta's blacklist then it would be done in accordance with the general rules of it's operation.

To sum up: The reason for my decision is primarily that the link is being pushed inappropriately on multiple wikis. Editorial reasons are secondary, and arguments concerning them are immaterial to the primary reason. That said, I think the spamming and editorial reasons dovetail nicely here, making blacklisting an attractive outcome for all. Those who rail against this decision simply fail to realize this.

Whitelisting specific URLs for specific uses as required and permitted by local wikis' policies should be sought. The domain will remain blacklisted on Meta until such time as the issues identified here have been resolved and the use of links to the domain are required by an established editor for the betterment of our projects.

— Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 04:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Userpage drug spam

yandex.ru

(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 ←)

~~{{linksummary|newbluepill.com}}~~

User:Buy Fioricet Online

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Buy Fioricet Online ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Buy Fioricet Online ← logs || search)

User:Buy Tramadol Online

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Buy Tramadol Online ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Buy Tramadol Online ← logs || search)

Probably relates back to the Canadian Pharmacy spammer from 1 or 2 months ago. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

More: ~~{{linksummary|professionalmedicines.com}}~~ ~~{{linksummary|phentrimine-shop.com}}~~ ~~{{linksummary|us-ds.com}}~~

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

User:Rocksblame

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Rocksblame ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Rocksblame ← logs || search)

User:Salomale

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Salomale ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Salomale ← logs || search)

User:Adiluly

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Adiluly ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Adiluly ← logs || search)

User:Cheapoffer

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Cheapoffer ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Cheapoffer ← logs || search)

User:SabinaKabina

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← SabinaKabina ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← SabinaKabina ← logs || search)

User:Cheapoffer55

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Cheapoffer55 ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Cheapoffer55 ← logs || search)

~~{{linksummary|canadian-meds-shop.com}}~~ ~~{{linksummary|relaxinspain.ru}}~~ ~~{{linksummary|traveltoprague.ru}}~~ ~~{{linksummary|traveltofrance.ru}}~~ ~~{{linksummary|ruicona.ru}}~~ ~~{{linksummary|relaxinitaly.ru}}~~ — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

This traces back to Pharmacy terrorists - removing the domains already blacklisted. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Added \byandex\.ru\b (the only remaining domain) — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

This site was added by User:Mike.lifeguard in the global spam-list without any comment. Yandex is a search engine with 44% of requests in runet, and has many aditional features like dictionaries, blogs etc. I does not understand why this site is blacklisted. Now there are many references to slovary.yandex.ru (dictionary), to search results, etc in ruwiki, and editing the many pages may be difficult. For more information about this site see en:Yandex. Administrator of ruwiki, Track13 14:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hmm... I does not see any "bad" edits with this url. May be all of these changes have been removed? or I do not understand something?

In any case, blocking one of the biggest portals of runet totally is not a good idea.I apologize for my English. I can invite anyone from our admins with more advanced English, if you want. =) Track13 18:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Merged these sections. Upon closer inspection it seems the spammers were using yandex.com/redir (which is a 404 but should perhaps be blacklisted anyways). So, the whole domain shouldn't be blacklisted, it should be that specific section. I'll take a closer look shortly. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

COIBot reports only two link placings in non-ru-wiki: http://company.yandex.com/general_info/yandex_today.xml and http://company.yandex.com/press_center/press_releases/2008/2008-09-09.xml. Where did you get the information about yandex.com/redir? -- seth 20:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Deleted edits on enwikibooks COIBot didn't catch. I'm not sure COIBot parses & saves diffs of link additions as fast as Beetstra thinks... — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Replaced by \byandex\.ru/redir\b — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Track13 11:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

muselius.com

muselius.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 ←)

See e.g. http://www.muselius.com/api/. To be sure I asked at irc-channel #wikipedia-es whether they consider the link to be spam. They do. So do we at de-wiki. At pt-wiki the domain is blocked already. For that I blocked that domain now globally. -- seth 01:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

ymap.ru

Added

ymap.ru

(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 ←)

which was spammed by

User:Pinyaev

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Pinyaev ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Pinyaev ← logs || search)

User:Kirill.Khokhlov

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Kirill.Khokhlov ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Kirill.Khokhlov ← logs || search)

--Erwin(85) 15:37, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

viagra-billig.com

viagra-billig.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 ←)

User:Graulys

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Graulys ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Graulys ← logs || search)

Already Added — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 15:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Also involved:

User:Poneys

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Poneys ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← Poneys ← logs || search)

gesundheits-tipps.net

(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 ←)

lustspiel.org

(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 ←)

(commons: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)

(enwiki: talk (←links) || Edits: +/- || search)(Tools: GUC | gblock | log | → links ←) | (Reports: COIBot)

bgay.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 ←)

— Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 15:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I suggest to group some of the viagra spam by the following to entries

(?:buy|cheap)-?viagra

viagra-?(?:drugs|online|billig)

But this would block more sites than the present entries. -- seth 18:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Redirects for clickbank.net

home-energy.tk

(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 ←)

earth-energy4home.tk

(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 ←)

earth4energy.tk

(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 ←)

earth4energy.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 ←)

earth4energy-solarhome.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 ←)

earth4energyz.tk

(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 ←)

Originally submitted to en:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#earth-energy4home.tk

On the first three, if you view the source at these domains, they contain a script to redirect users to megaman27.earth4.hop.clickbank.net

The fourth entry is a redirect to www.file-factory.co.uk/energy.html, which itself redirects to landers85.earth4.hop.clickbank.net/

The fifth entry is a "blog", which is merely an advertisement whose only link is to taraff1.earth4.hop.clickbank.net

Note that "clickbank.net" is already on the meta blacklist, so the above URLs are simply redirects to attempt to bypass blacklisting of the referal tracking link. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

OK,

adding the following:

\bearth4energy(z|-solarhome.blogspot)?\.(tk|com|net)\b
\bhome-energy\.tk\b
\bearth-energy4home\.tk\b
\bfile-factory\.co\.uk/energy\.html\b

— Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Additional clickbank.net redirects

cyborg-on-smallville.tk

(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 ←)

Above entry redirects to megaman27.wwwtv.hop.clickbank.net?id=unlimitedtvonline

home-made-energy.tk

(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 ←)

Above entry redirects to megaman27.homemadeen.hop.clickbank.net

weight-loss-pros.tk

(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 ←)

Above entry redirects to megaman27.efitness.hop.clickbank.net?id=smartfatburning_com

The above links were added by en:User:86.163.142.60, all are being used as redirects to bypass the existing blacklisting of "clickbank.net". --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 05:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Proposed additions (Bot reported)

This section is for domains which have been added to multiple wikis as observed by a bot.

These are automated reports, please check the records and the link thoroughly, it may report good links! For some more info, see Spam blacklist/Help#COIBot_reports. Reports will automatically be archived by the bot when they get stale (less than 5 links reported, which have not been edited in the last 7 days, and where the last editor is COIBot).

Sysops

If the report contains links to less than 5 wikis, then only add it when it is really spam
Otherwise just revert the link-additions, and close the report; closed reports will be reopened when spamming continues
To close a report, change the LinkStatus template to closed ({{LinkStatus|closed}})
Please place any notes in the discussion section below the HTML comment

COIBot

The LinkWatchers report domains meeting the following criteria:

When a user mainly adds this link, and the link has not been used too much, and this user adds the link to more than 2 wikis
When a user mainly adds links on one server, and links on the server have not been used too much, and this user adds the links to more than 2 wikis
If ALL links are added by IPs, and the link is added to more than 1 wiki
If a small range of IPs have a preference for this link (but it may also have been added by other users), and the link is added to more than 1 wiki.

List	Last update	By	Site IP	R	Last user	Last link addition	User	Link	User - Link	User - Link - Wikis	Link - Wikis
vrsystems.ru	2023-06-27 15:51:16	COIBot	195.24.68.17		192.36.57.94 193.46.56.178 194.71.126.227 93.99.104.93	2070-01-01 05:00:00		4			4

Proposed removals

Latest comment: 15 years ago12 comments8 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 domain blacklisted, links to the articles they are used in or useful to, and arguments in favour of unlisting. Completed requests will be marked as {{removed}} or {{declined}} and archived.

See also /recurring requests for repeatedly proposed (and refused) removals.

The addition or removal of a domain from the blacklist is not a vote; please do not bold the first words in statements.

newenergytimes.com

newenergytimes.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 ←)

More an explanation request than a removal request (although the owner would probably be delighted if it were removed). The owner has contacted me with a query why his domain was blacklisted. Not really my area, so if there's a readily accessible archive please provide a link to it. Otherwise, would much appreciate an explanation of the decision for the domain owner's peace of mind. Thanks much, Durova 04:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's blacklisted on enwiki, though I couldn't immediately find the log entry there. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 04:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Heh, shows how seldom I deal with blacklist issues. Thanks very much, Mike. :) Durova 05:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Additional, it was cross-wiki spammed, it might even have a place here. I can provide full data if needed. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 11:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I have not investigated newenergytimes.com, but I suspect that this is related to the en wikipedia blacklisting of lenr-canr.org by admin JzG, which he then brought here for blacklisting, which was done. There is discussion of this here under the proposed listing for lenr-canr.org. I do know that newenergytimes.com is a notable publication in the field of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, popularly known as cold fusion, and that an editor who believes that this is fringe science would have a motive to get it blacklisted. However, from what I've seen so far with lenr-canr.org, there wasn't linkspamming, there was use of sources by an editor or editors, not banned, possibly controversial, and which would normally be resolved by editorial consensus in the article in question, rather than by administrative fiat.--Abd 18:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Here is the insertion. As I suspected, it was JzG. He didn't make this easy to find.... He didn't log this entry nor the previous. He "proposed" lenr-canr.org, but only with his addition, not to discuss it. Here is the proposal. There is other discussion below at here.--Abd 18:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

And do I need to point out that this was on enWP? Or that independent admins have concurred with my diagnosis of abuse in respect of lenr-canr? We are dealing here with a long-term campaign of POV-pushing which has elements of the free energy suppression conspiracy theory. Of course those involved in running these sites perceive themselves as fearless bearers of Truth^TM, and of course they will argue tenaciously for links to their site from Wikipedia, as such links are their lifeblood, but that doies not make their goals any less incompatible with ours. JzG 21:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

This certain has a lot of ferment on en.wikipedia. It appears that there have been at least some COI problems:

--A. B. ^(talk) 23:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

asphost4free.com

asphost4free.com

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Free webhosting service, may contain material of many kinds. I see no reason for a general block. Presumably the web hotel removes sites which violate normal terms of service. Jacob Lundberg 23:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Was added by M7: asphost4free\.com M7 spambot adding nonsense pages. May I ask what utility the domain has for our projects? — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

At that time, some bot created nonsense pages (those ending with "/" or "index.php"), full with "free" spam links. An now I dot see any reason to de-list a free-hosting container, sources required for articles should come from established and well known sites. --M/ 12:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Due to past problems with excessive linking to this domain, I do not believe this request should be fulfilled. We de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their value in support of our projects. If such a situation arises, I'm sure the request will be carefully considered and this domain may well be removed.

Until such time, this request is

Declined. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 15:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

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).

User: namespace abuse

This section is for reporting abuse of userpages for promotional purposes; 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). Abuse across several wikis should be reported here; please provide links to example behaviour. Completed requests will be marked as {{added}} or {{declined}} and archived.

Discussion

Latest comment: 15 years ago17 comments3 people in discussion

Open reports

You can check the development of the number of open reports at tools:~erwin85/stats/. It's been gathering data for just over a week, so I hope the trend we see now won't last. --Erwin(85) 19:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Erwin, others. This is strongly dependent on how strong I put my detection, etc. Some of them are still quite weak. E.g. it detects when links are only added by IPs, which misses the ones which get put on the more visible pages where one of the antivandalism bots reverts an edit to re-include the link the bots don't report it here (and that are probably the more visible ones). I am thinking to make it something like >90% by IPs (or >90% by not-whitelisted users?), but that will probably give even more ..

One of the problems is that for the moment I don't know yet what to do with links which get spammed to 2 projects, technically they would be better to be evaluated by the two projects locally. We really, really need more manpower here.

Are there many that are detected falsely?

Erwin, coul you count also the ones that COIBot marks as stale, and the ones that get ignored/closed (and possibly even those who get actually added) .. May give me a bit more a feeling of where I should look at the thresholds??

I think we should perhaps raise the bar on reporting. For example, we want to know about link additions which occur several times (say, 3) on one page (ie it keeps getting removed, and it keeps getting re-added). And we want to know about patterns affecting several wikis (say, 4 or 5). Less than that is too much to handle, it seems. Of course, the best solution is to add manpower. I'm not sure how best to go about doing that. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Problem with increasing thresholds could make us miss some awful stuff. I am adapting the autostale function of COIBot:

...
if ((($timedifference > $settings{'closingtime'}) && ($lasteditor eq "COIBot")) && ((($fulllinkcount < 5) && ($fulllinkcount > 0) && ($fulllinklangcount > 2)) || ((($fulllinkcount < 10) && ($fulllinkcount > 0)) && ($fulllinklangcount < 3)))) {
     &closeoldone($pages);
} else {
...

$timedifference the difference between now and the last edit to the report
$settings{'closingtime'} at this moment 1 week.
$lasteditor the last editor of the report
$fulllinkcount the number of additions of the link
$fulllinklangcount the number of wikis the domain was added to
$pages the XWiki report pagename

That should keep it smaller, while we should not miss anything. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 11:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'll add Category:Closed XWiki reports, Category:Ignore XWiki reports and Category:Stale XWiki reports in the near future. It's more difficult to count the number of added links. The best way I can think of is counting the number of page titles starting with User:COIBot/XWiki/ which use {{Added}}. Any suggestions? I'll probably end up using a SQL query for it, so it'll be affected by the replag. In any case, it would be nice to see what effect the settings have on the number of reports and what we do with the reports. --Erwin(85) 20:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

The best count would be to see which reportnames are 'caught' by the meta blacklist. Thanks for making these statistics, Erwin. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 10:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

That would indeed be better, but I decided to use a category instead. The stats are updated every 5 minutes and I don't want to check > 1.000 closed reports each time. I want to keep it as simple as possible, so I guess we'll just have to use {{Added}}. The graphs now use a logarithmic scale because the range is quite big and I can't add another Y axis with different scale. I'd like to have a linear scale, but that would be dominated by the number of closed reports. Having a separate graph for each count is even less informative and more work, so I don't think that's an option. Does any know of a better way to present the data dynamically using RRDtool? --Erwin(85) 21:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Do we really care about the number of closed reports? If not, would removing that make a linear scale possible? — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Beetstra, do you care? A linear scale is indeed possible without the closed reports. I'll add a fraction of the closed reports, e.g. closed/10, first though. That should work as well even though I can't add a second Y axis for it. --Erwin(85) 08:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Nah, I don't care about that graph of closed, just include the number somewhere for reference? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 11:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

OK, maybe I'll remove it in the future, but for now it includes closed/10 as a graph. It fits nicely in the middle of the range that way. --Erwin(85) 10:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Can we add a graph for:

average and max age in days (since last link addition)
average and max for Link-Wikis
average and max for Link

I think those would be useful for tracking the backlog & how serious it is. We already know how many reports of various types we want, but we also want to know how old they are, and how serious they are (the last 2 being a measure of how serious). As well, the page seems to waste a lot of space -- perhaps modelling it after tools:~bryan/stats/replag would be useful? — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:26, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Any chance we can track users by the number of edits they make to the User:COIBot/XWiki "namespace"? As reports that get closed are archived, it's tough to know who's helping otherwise. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:20, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

I missed your previous message before. What graphs do you want to add? Age is a time difference between what? --Erwin(85) 10:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Age is the time from the last link addition to now, in days. So, track the average and max age of currently-open reports. Also, the average and max for Link-Wikis and Link (ie the columns listed on User:COIBot/XWiki)... if that makes sense :) — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 04:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Screencasts

I was thinking of ways to get new contributors to the SBL & decided that simply not knowing what to do and how to do it is probably a big barrier for people. So, I'm going to make a series of screencasts to cover some of the tasks we do here, which should hopefully be helpful for recruiting new people.

Your comments about the one I've already done are welcome. Mardetanha has said this is helpful, so I think this will be a worthwhile project to continue. I've already learned a few things that should make the end result higher quality for the next ones. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Toolserver replication halted

FYI: cluster s3 won't be replicated to the toolserver for the time being, see mailarchive:toolserver-l/2009-January/001766.html. This affects the results of the toolserver's tools for most wiki's, e.g. tools:~erwin85/xwiki.php won't be up-to-date. The English Wikipedia is on cluster 1 and the German Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia and a handful of other projects are on cluster 2. --Erwin(85) 21:07, 6 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

New hardware has been ordered & should arrive in about 2 weeks. s1 will be moved to the new server at that point, and s3 will be re-imported on it's own server. — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)Reply