![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
More than two months ago I posted a Request Edit here regarding an edit here that added a citation to a website self-identified as someone's "personal portfolio". It looked like an obvious self-citation spam to me added by an IP address with no other edits. If anyone has a minute to take a look, it would be appreciated. I am not suppose to edit on account of a COI and nobody has responded to my request to remove the linkbait for months. David King, Ethical Wiki ( Talk) 20:29, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
I've just seen a "Cheap shared hosting [phone number redacted] phone number@ website hosting india phone number. cheap website hostingservices india phone number" article get speedy deleted, and it was around for five minutes (and appearing in Google results) with an article body containing whatever SEO keyword splurge the spammer wanted.
Would it be useful to have a variant of {{ courtesy blanked}} which explained that a page has been blanked for being unambiguous spam, and which added WP:NOINDEX, to reduce the incentive to spammers to create this kind of article? -- McGeddon ( talk) 11:25, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
hi wiki, we would like to edit the article and resubmit the Athletes authority article and discuss only the creation of the performance optimization model. is this ok ~~Nick Harris~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Athletes Authority ( talk • contribs) 02:17, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello Wiki,
Can you guide us why mapsofworld.com is blacklisted.
And, what steps need to be taken in order to remove it from blacklist. Nitsnitz ( talk) 09:30, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
this edit, adding to an external link is a new trick, to me at least.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits
16:53, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Not sure how that would be a trick. The company is just adding extra information for their site's Analytics package. William Spaetzel ( talk) 17:39, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Spam has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
I want creat a artical page i have created direct artical but it have deleted so i wnt creat artical here Rishi Kumar Kushwaha ( talk) 18:02, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Had a couple of IP's spam a link to articles on my watchlist from this domain. I was initially surprised as I thought blogspot was at least on the XlinkBot list, but I think that's the blogspot.com. Different TLD. Cross-Wiki search shows 200+ links on en Wikipedia, and others scattered. Worth adding to XLinkBot for now? Ravensfire ( talk) 01:35, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
I wanted to reindeer this page to the top of Category:Wikipedia spam, since this is the main project page. 108.210.219.55 ( talk) 19:44, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Just want a second opinion on the site enggcyclopedia.com. It looks pretty spammy to me and it is included in many WP articles' External Links. It appears that every page linked has this text: "Advertise directly with us. Get links to your website. Reach out to our reader base of engineering professionals. Email - admin@enggcyclopedia.com" ☆ Bri ( talk) 14:10, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
Another problem is that sources for its articles are unlcear. I removed whatever remained of it in wikipedia. Staszek Lem ( talk) 20:39, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Seeing this more an more such as:
Good ref does not support the content in question. Other is simple spam. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
In response to the recent discussion at ANI, I've started a discussion to change Help:Edit summary so it directs editors away from spammy external links in edit summaries: Help_talk:Edit_summary#External_links_in_edit_summaries -- Ronz ( talk) 19:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Seeing this more an more such as:
Good ref does not support the content in question. Other is simple spam. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Spam has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
2604:6000:1013:9AD:0:C033:948D:AEFB ( talk) 04:29, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
WP:Spam#Videos contains this text:
"It has links on the video page—the page that plays the video—that go to a commercial site or to another spamming video, even if it is only one link among many legitimate links."
Wouldn't that pretty much ban all links to YouTube? If you add a link to a Youtube video, on, say, how a particular kind of food is made, the odds are pretty high that there will be a link to a "commercial" site somewhere in there (e.g., a link to the television company that originally produced the video) or that the automatically suggested videos will contain a suggestion for a video that contains a link to a commercial site (e.g., a link to a review of that candy, from a candy seller).
Maybe the problem is with the concept of a "commercial" site. What is that supposed to mean? Is YouTube a commercial site? Is its corporate parent's website a commercial site? (Please ping me.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:39, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I've created {{ uw-refspam}} as I keep on encountering academic spam and thought we could do with a boilerplate message to explain why it is a problem and request that they stop. Does anyone have any comments? @ Jytdog and JzG: as I know you're also active in dealing with it (anyone else?). SmartSE ( talk) 13:04, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Your contributions to date seem to be all about adding references to papers by a small group of researchers.
While we love experts here (see WP:EXPERT) we do not love experts who use their editing privileges to promote their own work, which is a violation of the policy against abusing WP for promotion. This is also considered a form of spam -- see WP:REFSPAM. Please also see WP:SELFCITE and WP:MEDCOI.
We do love experts, and it would wonderful if you would consider contributing more broadly. But please, enough of the refspamming. Thanks.
It should be noted that making mention that certain terms also constitute a "trademark" under the Lanham Act does not constitute "spam". Such is actually a reasonably prudent step to avoid potential accusations of trademark infringement or contributory trademark infringement given the right set of particular circumstances, and thus it is actually good form of policy to make such mentions. I'm not going to make a proposal to officially modify the policy on this issue yet, However this is something that we all need to be cognizant of. 108.178.78.26 ( talk) 05:23, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
In response to the recent discussion at ANI, I've started a discussion to change Help:Edit summary so it directs editors away from spammy external links in edit summaries: Help_talk:Edit_summary#External_links_in_edit_summaries -- Ronz ( talk) 19:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
@ Qwirkle: has objected here to my calling edits such as this by @ RobDuch: to 27 articles "book spam". @ Drmies: also reverted some of those edits by RobDuch as "book spam". I am interested in how other users interpret "book spam". - Donald Albury 18:34, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
so, as you see itNo, that's not how I see it.
Adding them to multiple articles like that is spamming.That’s a blanket statement, based entirely on the number of articles the reference is added to.
These books add useful and relevant information.Howso? -- Ronz ( talk) 17:09, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I will note that "bookspam" is defined in a guideline, and Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines states, "Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." Based on the limited sample of users that have offered opinions here, I do not think that a consensus for a particular interpretation of "bookspam" has been demonstrated. I do not see either side convincing the other, at this point. An RfC might settle the question, but RfCs can be time sinks, so I won't start one. - Donald Albury 19:14, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
if the person who added them cant answer, it's spam)Adding snark in the edit summary doesn’t make your bad argument better. That’s been asked and answered already. Qwirkle ( talk) 19:40, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Why not read themThe persons adding them or arguing for their inclusion should have read them and should be able to answer the question. If someone added them without reading them, they would be spam indeed. -- Ronz ( talk) 19:22, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
And, once again, reverts are being used rather than discussion. If there's no further response here, the material should probably be removed once again. I think it would be very helpful for editors that feel different to summarize the case for inclusion. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:45, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Since you have already concededThis appears to be an outright misrepresentation. Please strike so we can move on. -- Ronz ( talk) 17:37, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Adding external links like that (and yes, 'further reading' reading sections are disguised external links sections - I understand the reasons for splitting certain works out of the external links section, but basically (even when not containing a true external link) they have the same function: point to non-wikipedia material in list format) is spamming. On a non-stub article (and even on a stub article) those additions are very unlikely to pass our inclusion standards (and if you answer the question 'does this work that you added contain something that is not in the article?' with 'no', then you don't understand our inclusion standards of external links, and if you answer the question with 'yes' you also do not understand our inclusion standards for external links), which makes this type of behaviour 'spamming' (and therefore: bookspam' in this case). Please use such material in a way that they deserve instead of bickering that about the definition of bookspam. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 21:06, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, Weaver is a placeholder.-- Ronz ( talk) 17:26, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
I have gone through the edits again, and on all the pages the added documents are about the wider topic, not directly about thesubject of the page. I have therefore reverted them again out. They wereboldly inserted, reverted out. Such challenged material needs to be discussed and a consensus reached before adding them again. I notice that an edit warring warning has been given, the discussion clearly has not come to consensus, so I suggest that come to consensus first before re-inserting the links. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 22:03, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
Sometimes Wikipedia sees bookspam, which is the insertion of text mentioning books to call attention to the books, rather than to contribute to the article.I don’t think anyone familiar with the sources or the subject can see this here. Qwirkle ( talk) 07:34, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying.... Are you saying that doesn’t strike you as a personal attack? Qwirkle ( talk) 20:12, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Still going on about calling this bookspam. Even if we agree on this not being bookspam the links are still inappropriate. Seeing this added to Alcatraz island shows that clearly. I will have a look whereelse this was added. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 08:27, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
I see we are making progress, thank you. Yes, I know the Weaver book has material on Alcatraz. I also know that Wikipedia has 8 pages on Alcatraz (10, if you print it). Now, the questions are several: is there info in the book that we do not have in Wikipedia? Is there info in the book that should be in Wikipedia? Is there info in he book that (significantly) expands on what Wikipediahas and that could not be incorporated? Of the info that Wikipedia has are there any statements (tagged or untagged) for which information from this book would serve as a good reference? Is there information in this book that is not covered by other works that are already mentioned/used on Wikipedia? I know that most of these questions are answered with yes/of course/absolutely, so that is the case you have to make (and that for each occasion) whenever you get challenged (for whatever reason). And understand that, in this case, that disqualifies this work as a further reading on these subjects (but there are places where this does/could belong). And because I know that most of these questions are answered with yes/of course/undoubtedly, the 'mass addition' too strongly suggest that most additions were inconsiderate of those questions (strongly evidenced by the addition to Alcatraz). (note: I have been vigilant about linking to external material (in the broadest sense of the terms) and I know the arguments carried forward - arguments which have proven to be straw men even under the best of intentions). -- Dirk Beetstra T C 04:14, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
This page discusses spam on articles, but not on article talk pages. Does Wikipedia have any guideline pages about that? I ask because of the comment that I noticed on Talk:New York City Public Advocate. Should the comment be removed, or left on? Is this even considered spam since it isn't masquerading as encyclopedic content? -- Puzzledvegetable| 💬| 📧| 📜 17:32, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Can anyone explain this [1]?
It's the instant posting, then reversion, of a spam EL. Why? I've seen a lot of these.
All I can guess at is that there's now an undeleted link, with the WP |oldid=
param, which goes to the spammed version. Do ELs like this thus need to be revdel'ed?
As to the Herrysiddle ( talk · contribs) account, then eyeballs and mops are welcome. Andy Dingley ( talk) 11:50, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
Spammed here. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 10:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
People who follow this page may be interested in the proposals at:
Please share links to other proposals that you think are related to external links and spam. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:39, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Can someone provide a link to the discussion(s) that determined this? Otherwise, I would suggest removing the passage as unverified. Glades12 ( talk) 16:09, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
So, I found an image used in an article that is a faithful reproduction of a memorabilia/art produced prior to 1920, then link to the currently active e-commerce merchandise listing as the source. With regard to faithful reproduction image of antique maps, charts, art etc, if current e-commerce listings of the original item is allowed, it opens up a loop hole that may invite the insertion of antique item e-commerce listings as a source.
The image I noticed: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=George_W._Blunt,_No._11&oldid=975287064#/media/File:George_W._Blunt,_No._11.png which uses the current product sale listing at https://www.rarecharts.com where the original piece behind the photograph is sold for $500. Things like art and expensive memorabilia tend to remain in inventory for a long time to sell at the asking price, so this may present a risk advertisement slipping in. A policy modification may help prevent this. I am in no way suggesting that the uploader cited it with advertisement intent. Graywalls ( talk) 19:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Why didn’t they mention copying things with similar names? - Cupper52 < talk> 16,01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
There exists some hundreds WP articles having footnotes which link commercial websites like ebay.com, Amazon.com, walmart.com and so on. They are not so many in relation to 10 milions articles of the encyclopedia, but WP editors could be invited to a case-by-case evaluation and to clean up the remaining articles in order to prevent and discourage further spam, commercial links and payed editing on its contents.
As a general rule, the presence of a link or a banner pointing to a purchase page qualify the whole web page as commercial website that must be removed. A books review, a preface, an interview to the author are citable sources for WP, even if they are provided by a commercial website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.38.236.181 ( talk) 21:27, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
I have reverted plenty of academic citation spam in my time as a Wikipedia editor. But today I encountered something truly novel: an edit that both engaged in self-citation and simultaneously promoted it. The edit proclaimed, in part: "Scientists can also insert their findings in a relevant Wikipedia scientific article. The MIT study has proven that scientific articles on Wikipedia eventually receive more academic citations." This edit to Science communication was promoting academic citation spamming, to increase the citation count of one's publications, as a virtue! I quickly discovered that the editor is apparently associated with a PR agency, https://sciencecom-agency.com, the front page of which says: "We will insert your findings in a relevant Wikipedia article. This MIT study has proven that scientific articles on Wikipedia eventually receive more academic citations."
The idea occurred to me that we need a good essay about academic citation spamming, because some academics appear not to understand the difference between citation spamming (using Wikipedia as a subtle kind of press release agency for their research) and the kind of high-quality contributions that we want and expect from academics. (See also: Academic careerism.) Biogeographist ( talk) 18:50, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
I wouldn't suspect refspamming in that case unless the book was added to multiple articles, but since it is being added to multiple articles by a mostly single-purpose IP address, that is clearly bookspam. Regarding the quality of the book: it's published by a respectable university press, and Google Scholar finds some serious book reviews of Pathway of the Birds in the International Journal of Maritime History, the Journal of the Polynesian Society, and Pacific Affairs. So I don't think that a dismissive comparison of Pathway of the Birds to the children's book Everyone Poops is warranted, but given the IP behavior I can agree that the particular instance you pointed to is bookspam. Biogeographist ( talk) 15:48, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
This edit has an email address as its edit comment. Do I need to do anything besides the revert? Paradoctor ( talk) 10:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
What about spamming like this ? I often see spam links used like this in the middle of the articles that seem like wikilinks to some of the keyterms of the articles unless carefully noticed. I don't see such spamming covered in this Page. Lightbluerain❄ ( Talk | contribs) 09:07, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Hello. I am not the creator of this article. But I have published the article from draft space after some minor copy-editing. I have no idea why this article was listed here as a "spam". I checked the article thoroughly; its contents and references look OK to me. Is there any link(s) which is problematic? -- Gazal world ( talk) 23:16, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi! I'm working as part of team of researchers on a project called the Interactive Nolli Map. It's a project began in 2005, and it is an accurate interactive map of 18th century Rome. Adobe Flash's expiration encouraged a team of researchers to update the map, and now it is equipped with significantly more detailed entries and tools that generally make it more user friendly. There are exactly 1320 ruins or objects listed in the map, and each object has a detailed entry, geographic information, drawings made at the time of the Nolli Map's creation. The map allows you to orient yourself in Ancient Rome, and it allows users to get a remarkably accurate sense of a specific object's geographic location that is nearly impossible to replicate in text. The map is completely free to access and requires no account or registration of any kind. We have read Wikipedia's External Linking Guidelines and think that it would be really helpful to update Wikipedia's External Links on pages that already link to the now defunct site and add specific external links directing users to that exact object in the map to the site on pages that don't link to it anymore, but we keep running into warnings about successive linking. I would love to talk to someone about the potential merits of this site in contextualizing an encyclopedic entry and its overall benefit to these entries. Please let me know if creating these links will be possible. We absolutely do not want to risk getting suspended. I've linked an example of page that I added a link to, so you can see the website and how it connects to the entry.
Column of Antoninus Pius Rendor21 ( talk) 15:03, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect
SPAMMING. The discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 28#SPAMMING until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.
𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (
𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠)
12:58, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect
Wikipedia:ARTSPAM. The discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 4#Wikipedia:ARTSPAM until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.
Andrew🐉(
talk)
10:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion about Anti-defamation League's corporate communications department having employees going around adding their own publications to articles that maybe of interest to people here. Graywalls ( talk) 09:45, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia talk:No original research § Publisher website links and WP:PRIMARY. —
Goszei (
talk) 07:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC) —
Goszei (
talk)
07:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Thought you might be interested in these:
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
More than two months ago I posted a Request Edit here regarding an edit here that added a citation to a website self-identified as someone's "personal portfolio". It looked like an obvious self-citation spam to me added by an IP address with no other edits. If anyone has a minute to take a look, it would be appreciated. I am not suppose to edit on account of a COI and nobody has responded to my request to remove the linkbait for months. David King, Ethical Wiki ( Talk) 20:29, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
I've just seen a "Cheap shared hosting [phone number redacted] phone number@ website hosting india phone number. cheap website hostingservices india phone number" article get speedy deleted, and it was around for five minutes (and appearing in Google results) with an article body containing whatever SEO keyword splurge the spammer wanted.
Would it be useful to have a variant of {{ courtesy blanked}} which explained that a page has been blanked for being unambiguous spam, and which added WP:NOINDEX, to reduce the incentive to spammers to create this kind of article? -- McGeddon ( talk) 11:25, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
hi wiki, we would like to edit the article and resubmit the Athletes authority article and discuss only the creation of the performance optimization model. is this ok ~~Nick Harris~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Athletes Authority ( talk • contribs) 02:17, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello Wiki,
Can you guide us why mapsofworld.com is blacklisted.
And, what steps need to be taken in order to remove it from blacklist. Nitsnitz ( talk) 09:30, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
this edit, adding to an external link is a new trick, to me at least.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits
16:53, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Not sure how that would be a trick. The company is just adding extra information for their site's Analytics package. William Spaetzel ( talk) 17:39, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Spam has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
I want creat a artical page i have created direct artical but it have deleted so i wnt creat artical here Rishi Kumar Kushwaha ( talk) 18:02, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Had a couple of IP's spam a link to articles on my watchlist from this domain. I was initially surprised as I thought blogspot was at least on the XlinkBot list, but I think that's the blogspot.com. Different TLD. Cross-Wiki search shows 200+ links on en Wikipedia, and others scattered. Worth adding to XLinkBot for now? Ravensfire ( talk) 01:35, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
I wanted to reindeer this page to the top of Category:Wikipedia spam, since this is the main project page. 108.210.219.55 ( talk) 19:44, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Just want a second opinion on the site enggcyclopedia.com. It looks pretty spammy to me and it is included in many WP articles' External Links. It appears that every page linked has this text: "Advertise directly with us. Get links to your website. Reach out to our reader base of engineering professionals. Email - admin@enggcyclopedia.com" ☆ Bri ( talk) 14:10, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
Another problem is that sources for its articles are unlcear. I removed whatever remained of it in wikipedia. Staszek Lem ( talk) 20:39, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Seeing this more an more such as:
Good ref does not support the content in question. Other is simple spam. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
In response to the recent discussion at ANI, I've started a discussion to change Help:Edit summary so it directs editors away from spammy external links in edit summaries: Help_talk:Edit_summary#External_links_in_edit_summaries -- Ronz ( talk) 19:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Seeing this more an more such as:
Good ref does not support the content in question. Other is simple spam. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Spam has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
2604:6000:1013:9AD:0:C033:948D:AEFB ( talk) 04:29, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
WP:Spam#Videos contains this text:
"It has links on the video page—the page that plays the video—that go to a commercial site or to another spamming video, even if it is only one link among many legitimate links."
Wouldn't that pretty much ban all links to YouTube? If you add a link to a Youtube video, on, say, how a particular kind of food is made, the odds are pretty high that there will be a link to a "commercial" site somewhere in there (e.g., a link to the television company that originally produced the video) or that the automatically suggested videos will contain a suggestion for a video that contains a link to a commercial site (e.g., a link to a review of that candy, from a candy seller).
Maybe the problem is with the concept of a "commercial" site. What is that supposed to mean? Is YouTube a commercial site? Is its corporate parent's website a commercial site? (Please ping me.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:39, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I've created {{ uw-refspam}} as I keep on encountering academic spam and thought we could do with a boilerplate message to explain why it is a problem and request that they stop. Does anyone have any comments? @ Jytdog and JzG: as I know you're also active in dealing with it (anyone else?). SmartSE ( talk) 13:04, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Your contributions to date seem to be all about adding references to papers by a small group of researchers.
While we love experts here (see WP:EXPERT) we do not love experts who use their editing privileges to promote their own work, which is a violation of the policy against abusing WP for promotion. This is also considered a form of spam -- see WP:REFSPAM. Please also see WP:SELFCITE and WP:MEDCOI.
We do love experts, and it would wonderful if you would consider contributing more broadly. But please, enough of the refspamming. Thanks.
It should be noted that making mention that certain terms also constitute a "trademark" under the Lanham Act does not constitute "spam". Such is actually a reasonably prudent step to avoid potential accusations of trademark infringement or contributory trademark infringement given the right set of particular circumstances, and thus it is actually good form of policy to make such mentions. I'm not going to make a proposal to officially modify the policy on this issue yet, However this is something that we all need to be cognizant of. 108.178.78.26 ( talk) 05:23, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
In response to the recent discussion at ANI, I've started a discussion to change Help:Edit summary so it directs editors away from spammy external links in edit summaries: Help_talk:Edit_summary#External_links_in_edit_summaries -- Ronz ( talk) 19:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
@ Qwirkle: has objected here to my calling edits such as this by @ RobDuch: to 27 articles "book spam". @ Drmies: also reverted some of those edits by RobDuch as "book spam". I am interested in how other users interpret "book spam". - Donald Albury 18:34, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
so, as you see itNo, that's not how I see it.
Adding them to multiple articles like that is spamming.That’s a blanket statement, based entirely on the number of articles the reference is added to.
These books add useful and relevant information.Howso? -- Ronz ( talk) 17:09, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I will note that "bookspam" is defined in a guideline, and Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines states, "Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." Based on the limited sample of users that have offered opinions here, I do not think that a consensus for a particular interpretation of "bookspam" has been demonstrated. I do not see either side convincing the other, at this point. An RfC might settle the question, but RfCs can be time sinks, so I won't start one. - Donald Albury 19:14, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
if the person who added them cant answer, it's spam)Adding snark in the edit summary doesn’t make your bad argument better. That’s been asked and answered already. Qwirkle ( talk) 19:40, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Why not read themThe persons adding them or arguing for their inclusion should have read them and should be able to answer the question. If someone added them without reading them, they would be spam indeed. -- Ronz ( talk) 19:22, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
And, once again, reverts are being used rather than discussion. If there's no further response here, the material should probably be removed once again. I think it would be very helpful for editors that feel different to summarize the case for inclusion. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:45, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Since you have already concededThis appears to be an outright misrepresentation. Please strike so we can move on. -- Ronz ( talk) 17:37, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Adding external links like that (and yes, 'further reading' reading sections are disguised external links sections - I understand the reasons for splitting certain works out of the external links section, but basically (even when not containing a true external link) they have the same function: point to non-wikipedia material in list format) is spamming. On a non-stub article (and even on a stub article) those additions are very unlikely to pass our inclusion standards (and if you answer the question 'does this work that you added contain something that is not in the article?' with 'no', then you don't understand our inclusion standards of external links, and if you answer the question with 'yes' you also do not understand our inclusion standards for external links), which makes this type of behaviour 'spamming' (and therefore: bookspam' in this case). Please use such material in a way that they deserve instead of bickering that about the definition of bookspam. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 21:06, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, Weaver is a placeholder.-- Ronz ( talk) 17:26, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
I have gone through the edits again, and on all the pages the added documents are about the wider topic, not directly about thesubject of the page. I have therefore reverted them again out. They wereboldly inserted, reverted out. Such challenged material needs to be discussed and a consensus reached before adding them again. I notice that an edit warring warning has been given, the discussion clearly has not come to consensus, so I suggest that come to consensus first before re-inserting the links. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 22:03, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
Sometimes Wikipedia sees bookspam, which is the insertion of text mentioning books to call attention to the books, rather than to contribute to the article.I don’t think anyone familiar with the sources or the subject can see this here. Qwirkle ( talk) 07:34, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying.... Are you saying that doesn’t strike you as a personal attack? Qwirkle ( talk) 20:12, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Still going on about calling this bookspam. Even if we agree on this not being bookspam the links are still inappropriate. Seeing this added to Alcatraz island shows that clearly. I will have a look whereelse this was added. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 08:27, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
I see we are making progress, thank you. Yes, I know the Weaver book has material on Alcatraz. I also know that Wikipedia has 8 pages on Alcatraz (10, if you print it). Now, the questions are several: is there info in the book that we do not have in Wikipedia? Is there info in the book that should be in Wikipedia? Is there info in he book that (significantly) expands on what Wikipediahas and that could not be incorporated? Of the info that Wikipedia has are there any statements (tagged or untagged) for which information from this book would serve as a good reference? Is there information in this book that is not covered by other works that are already mentioned/used on Wikipedia? I know that most of these questions are answered with yes/of course/absolutely, so that is the case you have to make (and that for each occasion) whenever you get challenged (for whatever reason). And understand that, in this case, that disqualifies this work as a further reading on these subjects (but there are places where this does/could belong). And because I know that most of these questions are answered with yes/of course/undoubtedly, the 'mass addition' too strongly suggest that most additions were inconsiderate of those questions (strongly evidenced by the addition to Alcatraz). (note: I have been vigilant about linking to external material (in the broadest sense of the terms) and I know the arguments carried forward - arguments which have proven to be straw men even under the best of intentions). -- Dirk Beetstra T C 04:14, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
This page discusses spam on articles, but not on article talk pages. Does Wikipedia have any guideline pages about that? I ask because of the comment that I noticed on Talk:New York City Public Advocate. Should the comment be removed, or left on? Is this even considered spam since it isn't masquerading as encyclopedic content? -- Puzzledvegetable| 💬| 📧| 📜 17:32, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Can anyone explain this [1]?
It's the instant posting, then reversion, of a spam EL. Why? I've seen a lot of these.
All I can guess at is that there's now an undeleted link, with the WP |oldid=
param, which goes to the spammed version. Do ELs like this thus need to be revdel'ed?
As to the Herrysiddle ( talk · contribs) account, then eyeballs and mops are welcome. Andy Dingley ( talk) 11:50, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
Spammed here. -- Dirk Beetstra T C 10:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
People who follow this page may be interested in the proposals at:
Please share links to other proposals that you think are related to external links and spam. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:39, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Can someone provide a link to the discussion(s) that determined this? Otherwise, I would suggest removing the passage as unverified. Glades12 ( talk) 16:09, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
So, I found an image used in an article that is a faithful reproduction of a memorabilia/art produced prior to 1920, then link to the currently active e-commerce merchandise listing as the source. With regard to faithful reproduction image of antique maps, charts, art etc, if current e-commerce listings of the original item is allowed, it opens up a loop hole that may invite the insertion of antique item e-commerce listings as a source.
The image I noticed: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=George_W._Blunt,_No._11&oldid=975287064#/media/File:George_W._Blunt,_No._11.png which uses the current product sale listing at https://www.rarecharts.com where the original piece behind the photograph is sold for $500. Things like art and expensive memorabilia tend to remain in inventory for a long time to sell at the asking price, so this may present a risk advertisement slipping in. A policy modification may help prevent this. I am in no way suggesting that the uploader cited it with advertisement intent. Graywalls ( talk) 19:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Why didn’t they mention copying things with similar names? - Cupper52 < talk> 16,01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
There exists some hundreds WP articles having footnotes which link commercial websites like ebay.com, Amazon.com, walmart.com and so on. They are not so many in relation to 10 milions articles of the encyclopedia, but WP editors could be invited to a case-by-case evaluation and to clean up the remaining articles in order to prevent and discourage further spam, commercial links and payed editing on its contents.
As a general rule, the presence of a link or a banner pointing to a purchase page qualify the whole web page as commercial website that must be removed. A books review, a preface, an interview to the author are citable sources for WP, even if they are provided by a commercial website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.38.236.181 ( talk) 21:27, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
I have reverted plenty of academic citation spam in my time as a Wikipedia editor. But today I encountered something truly novel: an edit that both engaged in self-citation and simultaneously promoted it. The edit proclaimed, in part: "Scientists can also insert their findings in a relevant Wikipedia scientific article. The MIT study has proven that scientific articles on Wikipedia eventually receive more academic citations." This edit to Science communication was promoting academic citation spamming, to increase the citation count of one's publications, as a virtue! I quickly discovered that the editor is apparently associated with a PR agency, https://sciencecom-agency.com, the front page of which says: "We will insert your findings in a relevant Wikipedia article. This MIT study has proven that scientific articles on Wikipedia eventually receive more academic citations."
The idea occurred to me that we need a good essay about academic citation spamming, because some academics appear not to understand the difference between citation spamming (using Wikipedia as a subtle kind of press release agency for their research) and the kind of high-quality contributions that we want and expect from academics. (See also: Academic careerism.) Biogeographist ( talk) 18:50, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
I wouldn't suspect refspamming in that case unless the book was added to multiple articles, but since it is being added to multiple articles by a mostly single-purpose IP address, that is clearly bookspam. Regarding the quality of the book: it's published by a respectable university press, and Google Scholar finds some serious book reviews of Pathway of the Birds in the International Journal of Maritime History, the Journal of the Polynesian Society, and Pacific Affairs. So I don't think that a dismissive comparison of Pathway of the Birds to the children's book Everyone Poops is warranted, but given the IP behavior I can agree that the particular instance you pointed to is bookspam. Biogeographist ( talk) 15:48, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
This edit has an email address as its edit comment. Do I need to do anything besides the revert? Paradoctor ( talk) 10:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
What about spamming like this ? I often see spam links used like this in the middle of the articles that seem like wikilinks to some of the keyterms of the articles unless carefully noticed. I don't see such spamming covered in this Page. Lightbluerain❄ ( Talk | contribs) 09:07, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Hello. I am not the creator of this article. But I have published the article from draft space after some minor copy-editing. I have no idea why this article was listed here as a "spam". I checked the article thoroughly; its contents and references look OK to me. Is there any link(s) which is problematic? -- Gazal world ( talk) 23:16, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi! I'm working as part of team of researchers on a project called the Interactive Nolli Map. It's a project began in 2005, and it is an accurate interactive map of 18th century Rome. Adobe Flash's expiration encouraged a team of researchers to update the map, and now it is equipped with significantly more detailed entries and tools that generally make it more user friendly. There are exactly 1320 ruins or objects listed in the map, and each object has a detailed entry, geographic information, drawings made at the time of the Nolli Map's creation. The map allows you to orient yourself in Ancient Rome, and it allows users to get a remarkably accurate sense of a specific object's geographic location that is nearly impossible to replicate in text. The map is completely free to access and requires no account or registration of any kind. We have read Wikipedia's External Linking Guidelines and think that it would be really helpful to update Wikipedia's External Links on pages that already link to the now defunct site and add specific external links directing users to that exact object in the map to the site on pages that don't link to it anymore, but we keep running into warnings about successive linking. I would love to talk to someone about the potential merits of this site in contextualizing an encyclopedic entry and its overall benefit to these entries. Please let me know if creating these links will be possible. We absolutely do not want to risk getting suspended. I've linked an example of page that I added a link to, so you can see the website and how it connects to the entry.
Column of Antoninus Pius Rendor21 ( talk) 15:03, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect
SPAMMING. The discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 28#SPAMMING until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.
𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (
𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠)
12:58, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect
Wikipedia:ARTSPAM. The discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 4#Wikipedia:ARTSPAM until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.
Andrew🐉(
talk)
10:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion about Anti-defamation League's corporate communications department having employees going around adding their own publications to articles that maybe of interest to people here. Graywalls ( talk) 09:45, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia talk:No original research § Publisher website links and WP:PRIMARY. —
Goszei (
talk) 07:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC) —
Goszei (
talk)
07:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Thought you might be interested in these: