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Kinda busy at the moment - any thoughts on this? Special:Contributions/61.246.151.237 -- AbsolutDan (talk) 03:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
So I have waited 10 days, and I take it there are no longer any issues with us adding relevant content in an appropriate way? If I do not hear from anyone about this within the next few days, we will proceed with our "non-spam" contributions. In addition I will be remove us from the spam list (since you can always add us back in). -- Vanvleit (talk) 14:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi All. I took some links placed to this site out the other day but the poster has asked if she can place them again. I've made my point as I see it promoting the particular website (& being the only contribution) [1] - user - Suzanne@where2golf.com ( talk · contribs). Any one care to comment (&/or to talk page). Thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 10:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Persistent travel-related spam from 213.154.206.178 ( talk · contribs) | 83.170.231.202 ( talk · contribs) | 83.170.231.225 ( talk · contribs) | 193.41.174.188 ( talk · contribs) | 193.41.62.139 ( talk · contribs), creates one-time socks to reinsert links Kos542 ( talk · contribs) | Laker1983 ( talk · contribs) | Sombiuis ( talk · contribs) | Eddy878 ( talk · contribs) | Proff1967 ( talk · contribs)
Links go to subdomains hosted at atspace.com, atspace.us, awardspace.info, awardspace.us.
Targets include Lake Tahoe, Holden Beach, North Carolina, Costa Rica, Big Bear Lake, Great Bear Lake, The Poconos.
Femto 12:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Can I get a second opinion on an external link? Another editor to the article The Solomon Key and I went a couple of rounds of revert-the-spam. He then posted a cordial message on my talk page asking for clarification. After my response, he has "massively improved" the page, and would like to re-add it. To be honest, I'm not sure excalty what changed, but since he's really been polite, I'd like to ask for a second person to review the site out of fairness. The conversation and the link are here. Thanks! Kuru talk 03:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I discovered 48 links to this online magazine; about 30 were Orc-related, and the remaining 20 were to this link on "Googling your race." I deleted some of the Orc-related ones and all of the "Google your race" ones. Most of them were added weeks or months ago, but it's something to be on the lookout for if someone decides to attempt to reintroduce them. I haven't deleted all of the links in Orc-related articles; I figure it at least makes sense to have a link in Orc, since the site is focused on Orcs and may be notable in the...um....Orc-appreciation community. OhNoitsJamie Talk 06:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone might like to take a look at links for www.neopets.com. There is definately some spam linking going on for this site. Some of it is just over-enthusiasm, but I've also reverted examples like this. Its fan-dom territory so removing them is likely to be a bumpy ride, however we shouldn't have a couple of hundred links to this site. -- Solipsist 09:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Reviewing tourism links after finding quite rich veins of spam I came across links to this Lynton and Barnstaple railway railway site. I also looked at links to other similar local organisations such as Dartmoor railway & South Devon railway & West Somerset railway. My view is that Wiki would be well served by one or two external links to this site with the remainder of the pages having relevant internal wiki links to pages that are available rather than more than 30 as it stands.
The person I was in touch with has said that they are reluctant to instantly remove all those links at the behest of just a single wikipedian. I would appreciate opinions on this and will place a note on the talk page to let the person ( Lynbarn ( talk · contribs)) know of my posting. Thanks & regards -- Nigel ( Talk) 15:21, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Just been chasing this link [2]. Kept appearing from different IP addresses - only one post from each. Cleared for now but if anyone feels like keeping an eye? Cheers -- Nigel ( Talk) 17:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely tolerant of links on userpages, as is the community. However this user and this user (which I found through this search) are not interested in editing Wikipedia. I saw this discussed somewhere recently but can't find where it was. What is the policy for deleting this spam? -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I have a disagreement that is getting unpleasantly personal. It is a followup on Organic light-emitting diode discussed above. You can read what has been going on on Talk:Organic light-emitting diode and User talk:Alexander Kelin. (Also check the page history). I think I am no longer able to make cool judgements now. Does anyone think I have said anything that could be interpreted as a personal attack or that is unreasonable? Han-Kwang 14:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I know that some people have quite a bit on their plates however could I ask if anyone would like to comment on the links mnetioned above ( Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Links to private railway site - further opinions please) and Lynbarn's propsed solution to them. I would be quite happy with this solution but as I brought it here it would seem better if someone else's comments were added - thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 14:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I've reverted the same spam link, cheapkoi.co.uk, on Koi three times in the past 24 hours, and it is back again. Would someone else mind looking at it. -- Donald Albury 12:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
See Special:Contributions/Spawn_Man. I though I saw this sort of thing discussed somewhere, but I forget where. -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 19:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I posted this on the Helpdesk, but someone suggested I post it here. I'm not sure if this is actually the right place, the problem isn't ELs being posted to a bunch of different pages, I just want some guidance as to whether or not the links are appropriate.
A bunch of new links were just added to the Brazilian wax article. I've read the EL policy but I'm not absolutely sure if some of them are linkspam. Could an editor experienced with this stuff go take a look at them? I don't think they're all linkspam, but I think some may be. Thanks. Anchoress 17:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here I go. http://www. animals- pictures-dictionary .com/ looks to me like a spam-website, it's currently linked in 16 articles, and I've seen anons adding the site regularly here and there to the external links section. The site also has quite some information tho (some stolen from Wikipedia without GFDL notices), so I'd like to get a second opinion before I remove all links to that site. -- Conti| ✉ 17:18, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
As a person who visits this site regularly i can say that it is a great one.
most of the animals sites use a lot of pop ups and a lot more ads at their site.
this site is much more organized than most of the sites ive seen and it sure has a lot of data!!
After Ive seen what you have written i entered into the site and searched for wikipedia and i discovered that everytime there is an article of wikipedia there is a direct link to the definition in which it was taken from. you could do whatever you want but i believe that claiming this site to be spam and inefficient is wrong. —The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
62.0.187.97 (
talk •
contribs) .
User:Croclover is now blocked indefinitely, but before he departed he left this which gives a small insight into a linkspammers motives. -- I@n 07:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Its just Universe Daily. Remove his spam and report to AIV. Reference Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Universe Daily. Kevin_b_er 07:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Firedog. Came across this one. Valid corp page as far as I can see but contained an awful lot of links. I've pruned some but there is even the company phone number too. Worth watching as you pass maybe. Regards -- Nigel ( Talk) 18:57, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Here's an idea to compromise between the freely-editable nature of WP and the desire to prevent linkspam: Allow unregistered users to edit, so long as their edits do not involve adding external links, which are the least important part of editing. Unregistered newbies could still edit to their heart's content, just not add links.
If that needs to go one step further, we could restrict link-adding to accounts older than, say, 30 days, and which have, say, 30 edits under their belt. - MichaelBluejay 23:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't actually be that difficut. The edit script simply needs to scan for a http:// string that didn't appear in the previous version and then check who's editing. The general programming on this site is pretty impressive, this idea should be a piece of cake. The real roadblock wouldn't be technical, it would be whether WP really wants to go in that direction. - MichaelBluejay 04:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
So, the sheer number of links on Dog food annoys me, but I can sort of see the reason that they are there. Any other anti-spammers have thoughts on this page? - Trysha ( talk) 19:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Do web search engines search through history pages eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:MaxNetwork&diff=prev&oldid=74475668 ? -- I@n 01:51, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Please support [bug 4288 http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4288]. It is for generalized tagging and may help with your project. -- Gbleem 14:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I have Italian grammar on my watchlist, and a persistent anon has been removing relevant links, and adding a spam link in their stead. The user is clever, in that s/he will make several edits from different IPs in order to circumvent the "Rollback" button from removing the added link. I seem to be the only one watching this article, and would appreciate a little help, especially since I'll be taking a wiki sabbatical for personal reasons. (The other choice is semi-protection, which I'd rather not do.) Thanks all! Mind matrix 23:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I removed external links here [3] yesterday. They have been put back with a comment on the article talk page here [4].
There are two issues for me. The Knowhere guide link - the article for this has been deleted as it had very few Ghits indeed - it would appear that some links may have been to enhance the site's ranking. It was while I was removing these links I found the page in question. I would far prefer to see this link replaced with some more conventional link as citation - a non notable website would not seem to be a good place to look for notability.
The local links - these are all extremely worthy (largely placed by IP's), however my view and understanding is that Wiki is an encyclopedia not a directory and if these type of links were on every page for every town it would become a directory.
Given the editor's comment on the article talk page I feel that other views should be heard please - thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 12:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
| Important Note: all entries in the Knowhere Guide are the opinions of its users. see What is Knowhere for more info about the Guide. |
| We make no claims as to the accuracy of the information in the Guide - our only purpose is to provide a forum for users to share their knowledge and opinions. |
I just wrote a proposal ( WP:PANDA - though probably more of an essay) that's essentially a reductio ad absurdum argument for why we don't like spam, vandalism, and POV-pushing (came out of a momentary whim of mine when responding to a "website fan" pseudo-spammer on WP:VPP). We argue with people about this over and over again here, and don't have a clever, friendly, and fun-to-read page about why they can't link to their site even though it's such a great site that everyone would want to visit it if only we let them link to it from every conceivably related article.
Needs some work of course, but it could come in handy... please add/subtract/correct. <kidding →>And don't delete this posting, I worked hard on that webpage, and I deserve to make a few bucks off it. </← kidding> -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 17:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
(I don't really know where to write that)
Hi. I think this page is some kind of spam for an employees training technique or something like that. This subject can be interesting (and is already studied in many scientific disciplines) but only when the purpose of the page is to tell who does what, when it started, etc. Not when it tries to give a fake scientific aura to some kind of a messy collection of ideas.
Jean-no 21:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
At Logo, I've been in a disagreement over one particular link for a while now. To summarize, I removed a link because in my opinion it looked like a thinly veiled advertisement for a logo design service. A new user, User:Cochese8, came along and re-added the link, so I decided to assume good faith and leave it.
Then someone else pointed out that the link was originally added by the the site owner, User:Jsmorse47, who used the email address cochese8@[removed for privacy] for the website registration (note that this is the name of the user above). Jsmorse47 does not deny being the owner of the site. When asked, the two users avoided the issue, then said they are not the same person but friends who got the name from the same place.
I have removed the link several times, and a couple of others have removed it once or twice, but these two users continue to re-add it. I would be happy to accept any neutral opinions, whether for or against the link, since I've already spent too much time on this one link. Wmahan . 04:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate some additional opinions at Talk:Old-time radio. User:Dnyhagen is insistent that links to his personal website (self-admittedly a 2-man-operation) ought to be present on this and other articles, and has launched into a lengthy tirade about the evils of removing external links. Relevent discussions are also on my talk page here: User talk:AbsolutDan#Need_some_guidance_on_.27notability.27 and his talk page here: User talk:Dnyhagen. Thanks -- AbsolutDan (talk) 13:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I have re-worded the {{ WPSPAM-invite}} template slightly. Normally I'm not one to be too picky about words, but Wikipedia really isn't supposed to be a battleground. I think this wording puts a more positive spin on our efforts. Thoughts? Does anyone even use the template anymore? :) -- AbsolutDan (talk) 01:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed a relatively new editor Kphowell ( talk · contribs) going through and adding wikilinks to some newly created articles advertising products by Lattice Semiconductor (e.g. Mico32, LatticeMico8 - 8-bit Microcontroller). I guess I'm hoping to get a second opinion on whether the articles themselves are notable and can be salvaged. -- Alan Au 05:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I figured the removal of these links to not be controversial, but apparently it is. 24.20.168.65 added dozens of links to arcadeflyers.com on many arcade articles. What was esspecially disturbing is that the IP's geolocation according to dnsstuff.com is in Beaverton, Oregon and the website is registered in Hillsboro, Oregon. Turns out those two cities are both suburbs of Portland, Oregon. From this, combined with the fact that in the case we need the copyrighted content, we have several fair use tagged images on wikipedia from that website's collection. But to have a link to it on every arcade article, all added by the same person, doesn't seem like a good idea. If I get major counterarguements to this, I'll take the initiative and revert myself. -- Kevin_b_er 19:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Any IP whose sole edits are crossposting this EL everywhere it is relevant is definitely spam. On the other hand, the website appears to be more of a fansite than some money cow so the occasional link could be tolerated. Pascal.Tesson 20:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, well, I don't have time to deal with this right now, but 24.20.168.65 is indeed the owner of the website and has registered as User:Dphower, and readded nearly all the links. See the note on my talk page where he claims himself as such and signs as Dan. Would someone else care to talk to him? This goes against links to be avoided #3, because he owns/runs the website, where the additional of them is not neutral. Kevin_b_er 17:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I left a long and I hope useful message for Dphower ( talk · contribs) on the issue with his linking to his site, and a way that he can possibly get his links into the articles legitimately (by getting the approval of the computer and video games WikiProject, they being the best representative of The Community with the right interests). I hope that the message is not only practically useful for him in terms of going about this in a manner that is acceptable to the community, but also that it gives him some perspective and context for how Wikipedia works and so why he's getting such staunch opposition. Let's see how he responds. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Links to this site had been spammed to about 50 different articles. I reverted about half of them; the remaining ones appear to be Indian-literature-specific. While they are more relevant to those articles, it does seem like a spamming campaign. Thoughts? OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I've recently joined the project, and wondered if I might get some advice. The article on fanfiction is a magnet for link farmers. The list of links was agreed on the talk page with one of the main editors of the article last month, but I'm now in danger of getting into an edit war with another user, MookiesDad, over a couple of insertions which I consider trivial examples and s/he considers critical. The problem is that there are probably hundreds of thousands of fandoms, and if we include an example link from each the article will inevitably be swamped. Espresso Addict 22:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Not too sure who around here is an admin and has followed the Cochese8 madness on the logo talk page. He has found someone to support him in user Closercate1 ( talk · contribs). Nothing wrong with that except that this is a new user whose sole edits are to the Logo talk page and two logo-related AfD nominations. The afd noms I also suspect are retaliation against Jkatzen ( talk · contribs) who was vocal on the Logo talk page. I think an admin might want to investigate it, I strongly suspect a Cochese8 puppet. I did leave a message on the user's talk page but I realize now that this might be a bit of a (ahem) "not so nice" move. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 01:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Extra note: I've recommended the blacklisting of www.code-interactive.com since inappropriate ELs to it have created numerous similar problems. Pascal.Tesson 03:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Please tell me that authoritative links in compliance with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links are not considered Spam by your group. One of your members obliterated the External Links section on American Paint Horse - completely - among those links were www.apha.org (the registry). I'm sure that's not the only heavy handed deletions that have occurred. Rather than having to continue going around fixing the errors that have been made - perhaps a discussion about what is actually spam would be in order.
Thank you Lmocr 15:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
It has been suggested an editor work on a review of the links on Old-time radio. As I had started it seemed sensible to continue. I have removed all the links pro tem and created a new discussion page for their consideration - it's here Discussion of links. I have requested that none but put back until we reach agreement and so anyone here who sees a link on the page may wish to revert it regardless of who may have placed it.
Equally I would appreciate the views of anyone with an interest in the page to assist with the discussion - hope to see you there and make this a page we can all be happy with, thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 12:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
The first three templates:
{{ spam}}: Please do not add commercial links or links to your own private websites to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. You are, however, encouraged to add content instead of links to the encyclopedia. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you.
{{ spam2}}: Please stop adding commercial or personal-website links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks.
{{ spam3}}: Please stop. If you continue to use Wikipedia for advertising, you will be blocked from editing.
The spam templates are meant to be used as a one-size-fits-all response to spamming. Unfortunately, the text of them as currently written doesn't quite fit all cases. In addition, I think they unnecessarily (and confusingly) focus on commercial links. In particular, the use of "advertising" and "commercial" prominently in the first three templates gives the mistaken impression that Wikipedia doesn't want links to commercial sites, rather than the correct impression that Wikipedia doesn't want self-promotional link-adding. Really, links to commercial sites are okay (withing the bounds of WP:EL apart from the no-spam stuff).
These templates are sometimes our first point of contact with new editors. In the spirit of Wikipedia:Don't bite the newcomers, I think we need to re-evaluate these templates in light of what they say to someone who is well-meaning. (The ill-meaning ones won't care apart from the overall message of "don't", which they'll ignore anyway.) The important thing, I believe, is that we make these more accurately reflect our policies, do so clearly, and do so in a way that doesn't provoke knee-jerk reactions from or give unnecessary offense to well-meaning new users.
Being our point-of-first-contact there is a secondary goal I have in mind. Spammers fall into two categories: those who are ill-meaning, and those who are ignorant of the "don't be biased, no vanity, no self-promotion" rules we have. A badly-worded template can not only turn the second case into the first (this is related to the problem above), but can also confuse them. I don't know how many people I've seen warned with these templates who then respond with "but it's not commercial" or "but I think people need to be told about this site". These people have missed the point, and it's not really their fault because the templates, particularly {{ spam1}}/{{ spam-n}}, are misleading on those counts. So, the second goal is to answer these responses before a warned user even thinks of them by not putting the wrong criteria for "being spam" in their heads with a poorly-worded template.
My suggestion to start with is to remove all mention of "commercial" and "personal" from the templates, replacing it with language about "self-promotional links". This would, I think, suffice for templates 2 and 3 (number 4 I have no problems with anyway). For template 1, however, I think we need to put more work into it. This is a crucial template because it may be the first time they are made aware of our links policies. So, we have to craft it to very carefully not give offense where none is deserved, introduce our (rather unique, I must say) standards of good and bad links, and not give them easy "targets" (like the word "commercial") to use in a quick denial that they are spamming. Ideally, we want them to read it and say "oh, okay, I won't do that anymore", not "oh, obviously they are mistaken because that message doesn't describe what I did at all" or "oh, well if those are the rules then I can get around them easily". — Saxifrage ✎ 21:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, trying to make {{ spam}} a self-contained explanation of itself is altogether futile. WP:NOT, WP:EL, and WP:SPAM don't really contain answers specific to the needs of the average user whose link was just removed. They don't want to read policies, they just want some first quick explanations, which simply can't fit all in {{ spam}}. Even when it fits 95% of the people, it would still confuse or offend the other 5%, no matter what. And as any contributor to this project knows, these 5% amount to 95% of the debate routine that usually follows on the talk pages. Take those repetitive responses and explanations, and create a page, say, Wikipedia:Common arguments regarding external links. Refer to it from {{ spam}}, then the template can be reduced to its absolutely essential minimum: "I removed some links of yours. Please don't add more. Questions about these policies? Likely already answered in detail here. If not, ask." One side may recognize their own questions and get the answers they seek even before asking, the other side doesn't have to repeat it all, both sides win. Femto 17:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
My thoughts:
In the review should we at least consider views on {{ spam0}} and {{ spam4im}}. My feeling is that spam0 is essentially redundant (could be removed?) and that spam4im is fine - I do tend to use this for ones that appear to have gone unnoticed/unwarned to at least allow following editors to get a block. -- Nigel ( Talk) 07:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
And kind of following Saxifrage's approach I've placed this as a sub head but if anyone wants to separate it feel free. I don't believe that there is a "standard" hidden warning for external links or even if there should be but ... for a while now I have been removing external links that may be a little grey. I have come to accept that on pages such as Digital Photography & Call girl it will be hard to prevent people thinking it is a good place for links. However looking at pages related to tourist areas or "my home town" for example I feel that it may be the lack of understanding of Wiki and external links that is an issue.
On one or two pages I have seen "hidden messages" (seen when editing only) suggesting various forms of "Wiki is not a directory". I've started using this approach myself (sometimes with comments on the article talk page as well). My message would probably be - <!-- Please bear in mind that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a directory. It may be that one or two links will add something to a page however they must only be placed on the relevant page and will always be subject to review by wikipedians.-->
It would be good to have other views in the prevention area, Regards -- Nigel ( Talk) 10:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Could someone else take a look at Mosaic and revert user 71.146.26.177 ( talk · contribs) who has been readding a batch of external links that I removed for being spam or inappropriate over a month ago. From their contributions I doubt they are a new user, but I've dropped them an couple of warnings and they could also do with being warned on WP:3RR. -- Solipsist 19:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
On OTRadio links discussion I have suggested a dmoz link which (to me) looks pretty relevant. There is resistance. What are the views on other "directory type" links here? Google has been suggested though obviously the actual search term will need careful consideration. Help appreciated - thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 12:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
The straw poll is getting a lot of attention. Think it has been "advertised" -- Nigel ( Talk) 17:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
So, I found 66.37.239.14 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (already reported on AIV) today, filling up articles with all kinds of various spam. Lo and behold, the only real edit that this address has had is to NetShops a company that has websites which sell niche products. Go figure. I think that this is something for people to keep an eye on. - Trysha ( talk) 19:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
A company apparently following a similar model to the one above is "Advameg". I reverted spam by different users from two unrelated articles before realizing that the domains were owned by the same company.
Advameg uses copyrighted content licensed from Thomson Gale, plus ads (see this blog entry). Many of the links appear to have been added by established users, so they should not be removed indiscriminately. There's still a lot left to be cleaned up. Wmahan . 22:12, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
This page 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. |
Kinda busy at the moment - any thoughts on this? Special:Contributions/61.246.151.237 -- AbsolutDan (talk) 03:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
So I have waited 10 days, and I take it there are no longer any issues with us adding relevant content in an appropriate way? If I do not hear from anyone about this within the next few days, we will proceed with our "non-spam" contributions. In addition I will be remove us from the spam list (since you can always add us back in). -- Vanvleit (talk) 14:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi All. I took some links placed to this site out the other day but the poster has asked if she can place them again. I've made my point as I see it promoting the particular website (& being the only contribution) [1] - user - Suzanne@where2golf.com ( talk · contribs). Any one care to comment (&/or to talk page). Thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 10:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Persistent travel-related spam from 213.154.206.178 ( talk · contribs) | 83.170.231.202 ( talk · contribs) | 83.170.231.225 ( talk · contribs) | 193.41.174.188 ( talk · contribs) | 193.41.62.139 ( talk · contribs), creates one-time socks to reinsert links Kos542 ( talk · contribs) | Laker1983 ( talk · contribs) | Sombiuis ( talk · contribs) | Eddy878 ( talk · contribs) | Proff1967 ( talk · contribs)
Links go to subdomains hosted at atspace.com, atspace.us, awardspace.info, awardspace.us.
Targets include Lake Tahoe, Holden Beach, North Carolina, Costa Rica, Big Bear Lake, Great Bear Lake, The Poconos.
Femto 12:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Can I get a second opinion on an external link? Another editor to the article The Solomon Key and I went a couple of rounds of revert-the-spam. He then posted a cordial message on my talk page asking for clarification. After my response, he has "massively improved" the page, and would like to re-add it. To be honest, I'm not sure excalty what changed, but since he's really been polite, I'd like to ask for a second person to review the site out of fairness. The conversation and the link are here. Thanks! Kuru talk 03:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I discovered 48 links to this online magazine; about 30 were Orc-related, and the remaining 20 were to this link on "Googling your race." I deleted some of the Orc-related ones and all of the "Google your race" ones. Most of them were added weeks or months ago, but it's something to be on the lookout for if someone decides to attempt to reintroduce them. I haven't deleted all of the links in Orc-related articles; I figure it at least makes sense to have a link in Orc, since the site is focused on Orcs and may be notable in the...um....Orc-appreciation community. OhNoitsJamie Talk 06:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone might like to take a look at links for www.neopets.com. There is definately some spam linking going on for this site. Some of it is just over-enthusiasm, but I've also reverted examples like this. Its fan-dom territory so removing them is likely to be a bumpy ride, however we shouldn't have a couple of hundred links to this site. -- Solipsist 09:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Reviewing tourism links after finding quite rich veins of spam I came across links to this Lynton and Barnstaple railway railway site. I also looked at links to other similar local organisations such as Dartmoor railway & South Devon railway & West Somerset railway. My view is that Wiki would be well served by one or two external links to this site with the remainder of the pages having relevant internal wiki links to pages that are available rather than more than 30 as it stands.
The person I was in touch with has said that they are reluctant to instantly remove all those links at the behest of just a single wikipedian. I would appreciate opinions on this and will place a note on the talk page to let the person ( Lynbarn ( talk · contribs)) know of my posting. Thanks & regards -- Nigel ( Talk) 15:21, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Just been chasing this link [2]. Kept appearing from different IP addresses - only one post from each. Cleared for now but if anyone feels like keeping an eye? Cheers -- Nigel ( Talk) 17:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely tolerant of links on userpages, as is the community. However this user and this user (which I found through this search) are not interested in editing Wikipedia. I saw this discussed somewhere recently but can't find where it was. What is the policy for deleting this spam? -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I have a disagreement that is getting unpleasantly personal. It is a followup on Organic light-emitting diode discussed above. You can read what has been going on on Talk:Organic light-emitting diode and User talk:Alexander Kelin. (Also check the page history). I think I am no longer able to make cool judgements now. Does anyone think I have said anything that could be interpreted as a personal attack or that is unreasonable? Han-Kwang 14:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I know that some people have quite a bit on their plates however could I ask if anyone would like to comment on the links mnetioned above ( Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Links to private railway site - further opinions please) and Lynbarn's propsed solution to them. I would be quite happy with this solution but as I brought it here it would seem better if someone else's comments were added - thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 14:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I've reverted the same spam link, cheapkoi.co.uk, on Koi three times in the past 24 hours, and it is back again. Would someone else mind looking at it. -- Donald Albury 12:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
See Special:Contributions/Spawn_Man. I though I saw this sort of thing discussed somewhere, but I forget where. -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 19:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I posted this on the Helpdesk, but someone suggested I post it here. I'm not sure if this is actually the right place, the problem isn't ELs being posted to a bunch of different pages, I just want some guidance as to whether or not the links are appropriate.
A bunch of new links were just added to the Brazilian wax article. I've read the EL policy but I'm not absolutely sure if some of them are linkspam. Could an editor experienced with this stuff go take a look at them? I don't think they're all linkspam, but I think some may be. Thanks. Anchoress 17:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here I go. http://www. animals- pictures-dictionary .com/ looks to me like a spam-website, it's currently linked in 16 articles, and I've seen anons adding the site regularly here and there to the external links section. The site also has quite some information tho (some stolen from Wikipedia without GFDL notices), so I'd like to get a second opinion before I remove all links to that site. -- Conti| ✉ 17:18, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
As a person who visits this site regularly i can say that it is a great one.
most of the animals sites use a lot of pop ups and a lot more ads at their site.
this site is much more organized than most of the sites ive seen and it sure has a lot of data!!
After Ive seen what you have written i entered into the site and searched for wikipedia and i discovered that everytime there is an article of wikipedia there is a direct link to the definition in which it was taken from. you could do whatever you want but i believe that claiming this site to be spam and inefficient is wrong. —The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
62.0.187.97 (
talk •
contribs) .
User:Croclover is now blocked indefinitely, but before he departed he left this which gives a small insight into a linkspammers motives. -- I@n 07:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Its just Universe Daily. Remove his spam and report to AIV. Reference Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Universe Daily. Kevin_b_er 07:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Firedog. Came across this one. Valid corp page as far as I can see but contained an awful lot of links. I've pruned some but there is even the company phone number too. Worth watching as you pass maybe. Regards -- Nigel ( Talk) 18:57, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Here's an idea to compromise between the freely-editable nature of WP and the desire to prevent linkspam: Allow unregistered users to edit, so long as their edits do not involve adding external links, which are the least important part of editing. Unregistered newbies could still edit to their heart's content, just not add links.
If that needs to go one step further, we could restrict link-adding to accounts older than, say, 30 days, and which have, say, 30 edits under their belt. - MichaelBluejay 23:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't actually be that difficut. The edit script simply needs to scan for a http:// string that didn't appear in the previous version and then check who's editing. The general programming on this site is pretty impressive, this idea should be a piece of cake. The real roadblock wouldn't be technical, it would be whether WP really wants to go in that direction. - MichaelBluejay 04:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
So, the sheer number of links on Dog food annoys me, but I can sort of see the reason that they are there. Any other anti-spammers have thoughts on this page? - Trysha ( talk) 19:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Do web search engines search through history pages eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:MaxNetwork&diff=prev&oldid=74475668 ? -- I@n 01:51, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Please support [bug 4288 http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4288]. It is for generalized tagging and may help with your project. -- Gbleem 14:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I have Italian grammar on my watchlist, and a persistent anon has been removing relevant links, and adding a spam link in their stead. The user is clever, in that s/he will make several edits from different IPs in order to circumvent the "Rollback" button from removing the added link. I seem to be the only one watching this article, and would appreciate a little help, especially since I'll be taking a wiki sabbatical for personal reasons. (The other choice is semi-protection, which I'd rather not do.) Thanks all! Mind matrix 23:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I removed external links here [3] yesterday. They have been put back with a comment on the article talk page here [4].
There are two issues for me. The Knowhere guide link - the article for this has been deleted as it had very few Ghits indeed - it would appear that some links may have been to enhance the site's ranking. It was while I was removing these links I found the page in question. I would far prefer to see this link replaced with some more conventional link as citation - a non notable website would not seem to be a good place to look for notability.
The local links - these are all extremely worthy (largely placed by IP's), however my view and understanding is that Wiki is an encyclopedia not a directory and if these type of links were on every page for every town it would become a directory.
Given the editor's comment on the article talk page I feel that other views should be heard please - thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 12:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
| Important Note: all entries in the Knowhere Guide are the opinions of its users. see What is Knowhere for more info about the Guide. |
| We make no claims as to the accuracy of the information in the Guide - our only purpose is to provide a forum for users to share their knowledge and opinions. |
I just wrote a proposal ( WP:PANDA - though probably more of an essay) that's essentially a reductio ad absurdum argument for why we don't like spam, vandalism, and POV-pushing (came out of a momentary whim of mine when responding to a "website fan" pseudo-spammer on WP:VPP). We argue with people about this over and over again here, and don't have a clever, friendly, and fun-to-read page about why they can't link to their site even though it's such a great site that everyone would want to visit it if only we let them link to it from every conceivably related article.
Needs some work of course, but it could come in handy... please add/subtract/correct. <kidding →>And don't delete this posting, I worked hard on that webpage, and I deserve to make a few bucks off it. </← kidding> -- SB_Johnny| talk| books 17:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
(I don't really know where to write that)
Hi. I think this page is some kind of spam for an employees training technique or something like that. This subject can be interesting (and is already studied in many scientific disciplines) but only when the purpose of the page is to tell who does what, when it started, etc. Not when it tries to give a fake scientific aura to some kind of a messy collection of ideas.
Jean-no 21:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
At Logo, I've been in a disagreement over one particular link for a while now. To summarize, I removed a link because in my opinion it looked like a thinly veiled advertisement for a logo design service. A new user, User:Cochese8, came along and re-added the link, so I decided to assume good faith and leave it.
Then someone else pointed out that the link was originally added by the the site owner, User:Jsmorse47, who used the email address cochese8@[removed for privacy] for the website registration (note that this is the name of the user above). Jsmorse47 does not deny being the owner of the site. When asked, the two users avoided the issue, then said they are not the same person but friends who got the name from the same place.
I have removed the link several times, and a couple of others have removed it once or twice, but these two users continue to re-add it. I would be happy to accept any neutral opinions, whether for or against the link, since I've already spent too much time on this one link. Wmahan . 04:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate some additional opinions at Talk:Old-time radio. User:Dnyhagen is insistent that links to his personal website (self-admittedly a 2-man-operation) ought to be present on this and other articles, and has launched into a lengthy tirade about the evils of removing external links. Relevent discussions are also on my talk page here: User talk:AbsolutDan#Need_some_guidance_on_.27notability.27 and his talk page here: User talk:Dnyhagen. Thanks -- AbsolutDan (talk) 13:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I have re-worded the {{ WPSPAM-invite}} template slightly. Normally I'm not one to be too picky about words, but Wikipedia really isn't supposed to be a battleground. I think this wording puts a more positive spin on our efforts. Thoughts? Does anyone even use the template anymore? :) -- AbsolutDan (talk) 01:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed a relatively new editor Kphowell ( talk · contribs) going through and adding wikilinks to some newly created articles advertising products by Lattice Semiconductor (e.g. Mico32, LatticeMico8 - 8-bit Microcontroller). I guess I'm hoping to get a second opinion on whether the articles themselves are notable and can be salvaged. -- Alan Au 05:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I figured the removal of these links to not be controversial, but apparently it is. 24.20.168.65 added dozens of links to arcadeflyers.com on many arcade articles. What was esspecially disturbing is that the IP's geolocation according to dnsstuff.com is in Beaverton, Oregon and the website is registered in Hillsboro, Oregon. Turns out those two cities are both suburbs of Portland, Oregon. From this, combined with the fact that in the case we need the copyrighted content, we have several fair use tagged images on wikipedia from that website's collection. But to have a link to it on every arcade article, all added by the same person, doesn't seem like a good idea. If I get major counterarguements to this, I'll take the initiative and revert myself. -- Kevin_b_er 19:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Any IP whose sole edits are crossposting this EL everywhere it is relevant is definitely spam. On the other hand, the website appears to be more of a fansite than some money cow so the occasional link could be tolerated. Pascal.Tesson 20:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, well, I don't have time to deal with this right now, but 24.20.168.65 is indeed the owner of the website and has registered as User:Dphower, and readded nearly all the links. See the note on my talk page where he claims himself as such and signs as Dan. Would someone else care to talk to him? This goes against links to be avoided #3, because he owns/runs the website, where the additional of them is not neutral. Kevin_b_er 17:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I left a long and I hope useful message for Dphower ( talk · contribs) on the issue with his linking to his site, and a way that he can possibly get his links into the articles legitimately (by getting the approval of the computer and video games WikiProject, they being the best representative of The Community with the right interests). I hope that the message is not only practically useful for him in terms of going about this in a manner that is acceptable to the community, but also that it gives him some perspective and context for how Wikipedia works and so why he's getting such staunch opposition. Let's see how he responds. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Links to this site had been spammed to about 50 different articles. I reverted about half of them; the remaining ones appear to be Indian-literature-specific. While they are more relevant to those articles, it does seem like a spamming campaign. Thoughts? OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I've recently joined the project, and wondered if I might get some advice. The article on fanfiction is a magnet for link farmers. The list of links was agreed on the talk page with one of the main editors of the article last month, but I'm now in danger of getting into an edit war with another user, MookiesDad, over a couple of insertions which I consider trivial examples and s/he considers critical. The problem is that there are probably hundreds of thousands of fandoms, and if we include an example link from each the article will inevitably be swamped. Espresso Addict 22:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Not too sure who around here is an admin and has followed the Cochese8 madness on the logo talk page. He has found someone to support him in user Closercate1 ( talk · contribs). Nothing wrong with that except that this is a new user whose sole edits are to the Logo talk page and two logo-related AfD nominations. The afd noms I also suspect are retaliation against Jkatzen ( talk · contribs) who was vocal on the Logo talk page. I think an admin might want to investigate it, I strongly suspect a Cochese8 puppet. I did leave a message on the user's talk page but I realize now that this might be a bit of a (ahem) "not so nice" move. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 01:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Extra note: I've recommended the blacklisting of www.code-interactive.com since inappropriate ELs to it have created numerous similar problems. Pascal.Tesson 03:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Please tell me that authoritative links in compliance with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links are not considered Spam by your group. One of your members obliterated the External Links section on American Paint Horse - completely - among those links were www.apha.org (the registry). I'm sure that's not the only heavy handed deletions that have occurred. Rather than having to continue going around fixing the errors that have been made - perhaps a discussion about what is actually spam would be in order.
Thank you Lmocr 15:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
It has been suggested an editor work on a review of the links on Old-time radio. As I had started it seemed sensible to continue. I have removed all the links pro tem and created a new discussion page for their consideration - it's here Discussion of links. I have requested that none but put back until we reach agreement and so anyone here who sees a link on the page may wish to revert it regardless of who may have placed it.
Equally I would appreciate the views of anyone with an interest in the page to assist with the discussion - hope to see you there and make this a page we can all be happy with, thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 12:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
The first three templates:
{{ spam}}: Please do not add commercial links or links to your own private websites to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. You are, however, encouraged to add content instead of links to the encyclopedia. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you.
{{ spam2}}: Please stop adding commercial or personal-website links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks.
{{ spam3}}: Please stop. If you continue to use Wikipedia for advertising, you will be blocked from editing.
The spam templates are meant to be used as a one-size-fits-all response to spamming. Unfortunately, the text of them as currently written doesn't quite fit all cases. In addition, I think they unnecessarily (and confusingly) focus on commercial links. In particular, the use of "advertising" and "commercial" prominently in the first three templates gives the mistaken impression that Wikipedia doesn't want links to commercial sites, rather than the correct impression that Wikipedia doesn't want self-promotional link-adding. Really, links to commercial sites are okay (withing the bounds of WP:EL apart from the no-spam stuff).
These templates are sometimes our first point of contact with new editors. In the spirit of Wikipedia:Don't bite the newcomers, I think we need to re-evaluate these templates in light of what they say to someone who is well-meaning. (The ill-meaning ones won't care apart from the overall message of "don't", which they'll ignore anyway.) The important thing, I believe, is that we make these more accurately reflect our policies, do so clearly, and do so in a way that doesn't provoke knee-jerk reactions from or give unnecessary offense to well-meaning new users.
Being our point-of-first-contact there is a secondary goal I have in mind. Spammers fall into two categories: those who are ill-meaning, and those who are ignorant of the "don't be biased, no vanity, no self-promotion" rules we have. A badly-worded template can not only turn the second case into the first (this is related to the problem above), but can also confuse them. I don't know how many people I've seen warned with these templates who then respond with "but it's not commercial" or "but I think people need to be told about this site". These people have missed the point, and it's not really their fault because the templates, particularly {{ spam1}}/{{ spam-n}}, are misleading on those counts. So, the second goal is to answer these responses before a warned user even thinks of them by not putting the wrong criteria for "being spam" in their heads with a poorly-worded template.
My suggestion to start with is to remove all mention of "commercial" and "personal" from the templates, replacing it with language about "self-promotional links". This would, I think, suffice for templates 2 and 3 (number 4 I have no problems with anyway). For template 1, however, I think we need to put more work into it. This is a crucial template because it may be the first time they are made aware of our links policies. So, we have to craft it to very carefully not give offense where none is deserved, introduce our (rather unique, I must say) standards of good and bad links, and not give them easy "targets" (like the word "commercial") to use in a quick denial that they are spamming. Ideally, we want them to read it and say "oh, okay, I won't do that anymore", not "oh, obviously they are mistaken because that message doesn't describe what I did at all" or "oh, well if those are the rules then I can get around them easily". — Saxifrage ✎ 21:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, trying to make {{ spam}} a self-contained explanation of itself is altogether futile. WP:NOT, WP:EL, and WP:SPAM don't really contain answers specific to the needs of the average user whose link was just removed. They don't want to read policies, they just want some first quick explanations, which simply can't fit all in {{ spam}}. Even when it fits 95% of the people, it would still confuse or offend the other 5%, no matter what. And as any contributor to this project knows, these 5% amount to 95% of the debate routine that usually follows on the talk pages. Take those repetitive responses and explanations, and create a page, say, Wikipedia:Common arguments regarding external links. Refer to it from {{ spam}}, then the template can be reduced to its absolutely essential minimum: "I removed some links of yours. Please don't add more. Questions about these policies? Likely already answered in detail here. If not, ask." One side may recognize their own questions and get the answers they seek even before asking, the other side doesn't have to repeat it all, both sides win. Femto 17:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
My thoughts:
In the review should we at least consider views on {{ spam0}} and {{ spam4im}}. My feeling is that spam0 is essentially redundant (could be removed?) and that spam4im is fine - I do tend to use this for ones that appear to have gone unnoticed/unwarned to at least allow following editors to get a block. -- Nigel ( Talk) 07:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
And kind of following Saxifrage's approach I've placed this as a sub head but if anyone wants to separate it feel free. I don't believe that there is a "standard" hidden warning for external links or even if there should be but ... for a while now I have been removing external links that may be a little grey. I have come to accept that on pages such as Digital Photography & Call girl it will be hard to prevent people thinking it is a good place for links. However looking at pages related to tourist areas or "my home town" for example I feel that it may be the lack of understanding of Wiki and external links that is an issue.
On one or two pages I have seen "hidden messages" (seen when editing only) suggesting various forms of "Wiki is not a directory". I've started using this approach myself (sometimes with comments on the article talk page as well). My message would probably be - <!-- Please bear in mind that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a directory. It may be that one or two links will add something to a page however they must only be placed on the relevant page and will always be subject to review by wikipedians.-->
It would be good to have other views in the prevention area, Regards -- Nigel ( Talk) 10:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Could someone else take a look at Mosaic and revert user 71.146.26.177 ( talk · contribs) who has been readding a batch of external links that I removed for being spam or inappropriate over a month ago. From their contributions I doubt they are a new user, but I've dropped them an couple of warnings and they could also do with being warned on WP:3RR. -- Solipsist 19:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
On OTRadio links discussion I have suggested a dmoz link which (to me) looks pretty relevant. There is resistance. What are the views on other "directory type" links here? Google has been suggested though obviously the actual search term will need careful consideration. Help appreciated - thanks -- Nigel ( Talk) 12:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
The straw poll is getting a lot of attention. Think it has been "advertised" -- Nigel ( Talk) 17:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
So, I found 66.37.239.14 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (already reported on AIV) today, filling up articles with all kinds of various spam. Lo and behold, the only real edit that this address has had is to NetShops a company that has websites which sell niche products. Go figure. I think that this is something for people to keep an eye on. - Trysha ( talk) 19:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
A company apparently following a similar model to the one above is "Advameg". I reverted spam by different users from two unrelated articles before realizing that the domains were owned by the same company.
Advameg uses copyrighted content licensed from Thomson Gale, plus ads (see this blog entry). Many of the links appear to have been added by established users, so they should not be removed indiscriminately. There's still a lot left to be cleaned up. Wmahan . 22:12, 30 September 2006 (UTC)