MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist

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Mediawiki:Spam-blacklist is meant to be used by the spam blacklist extension. Unlike the meta spam blacklist, this blacklist affects pages on the English Wikipedia only. Any administrator may edit the spam blacklist. See Wikipedia:Spam blacklist for more information about the spam blacklist.

Instructions for editors

There are 4 sections for posting comments below. Please make comments in the appropriate section. These links take you to the appropriate section:

  1. Proposed additions
  2. Proposed removals
  3. Troubleshooting and problems
  4. Discussion

Each section has a message box with instructions. In addition, please sign your posts with ~~~~ after your comment.

Completed requests are archived. All additions and removals are also logged.

Instructions for admins

Any admin unfamiliar with this page should probably read this first, thanks.
If in doubt, please leave a request and a spam-knowledgeable admin will follow-up.

  1. Does the site have any validity to the project?
  2. Have links been placed after warnings/blocks? Have other methods of control been exhausted? Would referring this to our anti-spam bot, XLinkBot be a more appropriate step? Is there a WikiProject Spam report? If so, a permanent link would be helpful.
  3. Please ensure all links have been removed from articles and discussion pages before blacklisting. (They do not have to be removed from user or user talk pages).
  4. Make the entry at the bottom of the list (before the last line). Please do not do this unless you are familiar with regex — the disruption that can be caused is substantial.
  5. Close the request entry on here using either {{done}} or {{not done}} as appropriate. The request should be left open for a week maybe as there will often be further related sites or an appeal in that time.
  6. Log the entry. Warning: if you do not log any entry you make on the blacklist, it may well be removed if someone appeals and no valid reasons can be found. To log the entry, you will need this number - 759599300 after you have closed the request. See here for more info on logging.
→snippet for logging: {{/request|759599300#section_name}}
→snippet for logging of WikiProject Spam items: {{WPSPAM|759599300#section_name}}

Proposed additions[edit]

resumevogue.com[edit]

resumevogue.com: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • DomainsDB.net • Alexa • WhosOnMyServer.com

Links to the site are being spammed on multiple articles by multiple IPs. All links added so far have been removed, and warnings have been issued, but the spamming continues. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 11:06, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@Thomas.W: Crystal Clear action edit add.png Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

devart.com[edit]

devart.com: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • DomainsDB.net • Alexa • WhosOnMyServer.com

This one isn't super high volume, but a new account will has shown up every few months since 2008 to add this in various places - the account list in this report is just what I could turn up in a few minutes of searching. Sometimes they start articles on this company's products, too, articles which have been uniformly deleted, sometimes multiple times. I'm reaching the limits of my patience, so assistance would be appreciated. - MrOllie (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Blocked, salted and Crystal Clear action edit add.png Added. MER-C 04:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

thebiglead.com[edit]

thebiglead.com/2015/09/14/jalen-and-jacoby-espn-radio/ was used on article David Jacoby (sportscaster) probably innocently by a new editor - removed by me during a NPP check of the article as it tries to add malware to my laptop (blocked by Norton 365) XyzSpaniel Talk Page 20:49, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

@Xyzspaniel: Symbol declined.svg Declined, unlikely the site itself, maybe an add that was transcluded on that page? --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

88health.ru[edit]

Russian spammer active on Fertility tourism. When that article was protected due to the spamming, they moved on to In vitro fertilisation. Since warnings and page protection haven't stopped the spamming, blacklisting is needed. Deli nk (talk) 13:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed removals[edit]


sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt[edit]

sbs.ox.ac.uk: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • DomainsDB.net • Alexa • WhosOnMyServer.com

I'm adding a citation for Nassim Taleb regarding his academic career at the Oxford Said School of Business but I get the following: "The following link has triggered a protection filter: sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt". The page no longer exists and I'm trying to add the reference to the 2012 version from the waybackwhen machine. The page is the faculty list for the school from 10-12-2012.

It's not clear why this would have been on the list to begin with. Can this be removed from the filter?

VergilDen (talk) 16:40, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Looking through the old logs, it appears this site (University of Cambridge, also ends in ac.uk - Oxford appears to be "collateral damage" here. ac.uk is the domain for UK academic institutions, so lots of unrelated sites seem to have been caught in this entry) was added to the blacklist back in 2012, as a result of someone at the university linking to copyrighted university lectures he had uploaded to his "student hosting space" on the University's servers on Wikipedia, or something of that nature. Not sure blacklisting the Uni domain was the appropriate way to deal with this issue, but I'm no admin or expert, just a regular user. Admins, what are your thoughts? The problem individual may have long left the University, or there may be other more appropriate ways to deal with copyright breaches of this sort? I can't imagine that the management of the University would want or expect us to blacklist their site, even if one of their students is posting University copyrighted stuff on it. They'd see it as their problem to protect their own site from being used to host their own copyrighted material. (i.e. the owner of the site is the very same owner of the copyright, so if they objected to a student uploading lectures - they may or may not care - they would just delete the material themselves (and probably caution or discipline the wayward student, were he or she still there), not give a thought about those who linked to it). I can't dream that they'd object to external links, particularly to their entire site, as a response in this sort of situation. Eliyohub (talk) 10:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
The problem was more of a large, coordinated sockfarm that was promoting the works and books of a single academic. The sock report is here, and the resulting spam report is here. One of the log entries targets "sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt", which was the "BT Centre for Major Programme Management." All of those links are broken at this point, I would support removing it and we can watch to make sure that farm does not pop up again and target wayback or another archive. Alternatively we can whitelist just the link you were trying to use: "sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt/directory/Pages/default.aspx". @Ronz:, as the resident expert on this sockfarm, do you have a preference or any additional insights? Kuru (talk) 15:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
I would support Bent Flyvbjerg being "blacklisted" by all academic institutions and publications, if it can be shown that he's behind this behavior. I don't think this is a BLP violation, as our report you linked to names him. If it is, just modify this to censor the name. Is there any way we can get him to modify this behavior (if he's behind it), should it resume? How does academia respond to its members resorting to spam to promote their work? Eliyohub (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, collateral damage sums it up. It's been such a long time that I don't recall if we even got a response from a single on of he sock accounts, nor the last time I looked for additional socking. --Ronz (talk) 18:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
So Ronz, in conclusion, you think removal of this site from the blacklist is now safe, and the sock swarm will not attack again? Eliyohub (talk) 21:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
No, I'm just agreeing with Kuru, and don't have a preference between the proposals. I can look to see if there's been any subsequent, obvious socking that has remaining edits, but I don't think these old socking problems should hold us back. --Ronz (talk) 22:34, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
It didn't take much work to find the very suspicious looking Benedict Pinches (talk · contribs). --Ronz (talk) 22:57, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
He last struck April 2014. Anything more recent? Eliyohub (talk) 02:23, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Again, this shouldn't hold us back. I'm not familiar enough with WP:SOCK to have a good feel on how to continue, but I'd like to get experts to look at the content for POV/NOT problems, which I don' believe was ever done because of the spamming and lack of responses from the sock farm. --Ronz (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
If I understand this correctly, the consensus is to remove sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt given it is safe. The link is no longer active (the url is dead and links to a 404 Page Not Found) and can only be accessed historically through the waybackwhen archive and so there can be no socking against it. VergilDen (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
That's what I'm reading as well. --Ronz (talk) 18:30, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Done, per above. Kuru (talk) 23:51, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

skyscrapercity.com[edit]

skyscrapercity.com: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • DomainsDB.net • Alexa • WhosOnMyServer.com

I WELL understand why this site was blacklisted, even though it is NOT in any way a spam site. The issue was, it's a forum (not a "reliable source"), and people were massively using it as a reference in mainspace. The link to the listing log is [1].

I AM NOT asking for removal, merely MODIFICATION. Someone asked a question on the refdesk, and I couldn't answer him with a link to a site on this page. Generally, it's accepted that sourcing standards on the refdesks are less strict than those on mainspace. For example, sometimes the best answer to a question is a youtube video.

I AM simply asking that the listing be modified so it only applies to mainspace, which would be fully in accordance with its intended purpose stated in the log discussion. Is this technically feasible under the system?

If not, can you whitelist it for the refdesks?

Eliyohub (talk) 19:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

To underscore your first point, this site was indeed problematic, and it continues to draw hits on the blacklist logs several times a week. I'm not sure if it is possible to modify the target pages; the spam whitelist seems to only allow us to allow individual pages on the blacklisted domain, not target pages here. Maybe I'm wrong on that. You can do a cheesy work-around (like you did) to get the link in there anyways. To be honest, I'm more concerned with maintaining the integrity of the encyclopedia and not really into the ref desk concept; others may want to spend more time on it. Kuru (talk) 15:42, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
So I was correct with what I said on your talk page about technical issues, as opposed to policy issues, with my request? @Ronz:, is there any ability in the blacklist system to do "target page modification" of a listing that you're aware of, or other method to do what I'm asking? Kuru, from what I gather, you have no objections to another admin doing what I ask, IF it's possible?
Just want to make sure that I'm not breaking any rules or policies with my "cheesy work around", as you call it? Can I claim WP:IAR in this situation, as I'm clearly not violating the intent of the listing? You're the admin, what's the rule on this? Eliyohub (talk) 16:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Apologies - didn't mean to imply malfeasance on your part with "cheesy." While I've blocked people for doing that before, they were intentionally trying to slip in spam links by probing the boundaries of the blacklist filters. This particular link simply fails WP:RS, so I really wouldn't get worked up about it unless there was something more problematic happening (linking to a forum post containing outing, copyvios, etc). In all cases, I would bring it up with the person first as long as it was a good-faith edit.
At this point, I would support a non-mainspace whitelisting if technically possible. There is good content on the site that could be used to answer ref desk questions; the site does appear to draw a large number of good editors who create very informative posts. I actually killed ten minutes reading about building fires in Dubai... Kuru (talk) 17:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
YOU FOLLOWED MY LINK! Wow! Astonishing, eh? Sorry to cause you to kill time. Eliyohub (talk) 17:19, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Happens a lot. Spent an hour re-visiting Taleb's Black Swan material on the report above. If I had a better attention span, I'd be dangerous. Kuru (talk) 17:27, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
@Kuru:, Could you in turn ping whichever admin or developer is the Wikipedia expert on blacklist issues like mine? If he or she says my request is impossible in technical terms, I will accept it being marked "declined" due to impossibility. I'm not going to ask WP:PHAB to modify the blacklist system unless this sort of issue crops up regularly. Have you encountered this sort of issue before? Otherwise, I'll content myself with "cheesy work-arounds". Edit filters and blacklists can be somewhat blunt and dumb tools. (Just out of curiosity, how often are sites blacklisted for the oddity of being brilliant unreliable sources? At the time of listing, there were over 1800 refs to the site - and probably at least hundreds of hits on the blacklist logs since? Is this site an odd entry on the list, or are there many entries of this sort?) Eliyohub (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
I have no idea who that would be. @Beetstra:, do you have any idea who could evaluate such an issue?
I'm not sure how many of this type are in the blacklist; there's probably quite a few that are interesting, but fail WP:RS - most other wikis or large collections of user-generated content. There are several of the forum-style sites blacklisted, but I don't know the origin of those actions. I know that some of them are seriously abusive - there's an insanely annoying spambot that houses spam links on an open forum and proceeds to attempt adding it to articles several times a day as part of it's rotating set of URLs. It would impossible to say how many links in the list are like this without going through the entire archive and evaluating each entry. I can personally say that of the 200 or so entries I've made, only one was similar: a really, really amateur chinese mirror of wikipedia that was tricking people to use it as a "source." It would wind up in an article five or six times a day, so blacklisting made sense. Kuru (talk) 14:27, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Symbol declined.svg Declined, per above. We can whitelist individual links if needed, but I'm not in favor of removing this from the list simply to facilitate the ref desk. I've seen too much bad traffic on the blacklist log, so removing it does not seem like a net positive. Kuru (talk) 23:55, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

gocinema.in[edit]

gocinema.in: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • DomainsDB.net • Alexa • WhosOnMyServer.com

It has come to our attention that our site has been blacklisted on Wikipedia. This apparently because of the following two reasons.

Primarily, an arbitrary account has been found repeatedly using 'gocinema' as a reference to add information. The links we reviewed that appeared on Wikipedia are genuine news links. We are not aware of why our site was used to cite these facts. In-dubiously,we do not consider that as a reason to penalize the site for posting genuine news content.

@Cyphoidbomb has stated that ‘It appears to be yet another faceless Indian blog. Main page is an endless wall of posts’. None of the statements hold any relevance, besides appear as vacuous vandalism.‘gocinema’ is a private limited company which is set up for more than 2 years. The company is sanguine about its authenticity. The site aims at providing news, assessments and evaluations of motion pictures and song albums for movie enthusiasts. The source of our content is genuine and original as it is either provided directly from the movie production houses or from our editorial team.

The company further disapproves the second charge stating ‘Their GoCinema Exclusive is useless’. A cursory look at the site will amply indicate that the ‘Gocinema Exclusive’ are aggregation of feature articles, related to motion pictures of a particular language. The 'About' section of any and every other movie contains detailed information, which has been ignored.

The company requests for its removal from ‘:Spamblacklist’ and will also look into the process of being listed in the RSN, as we are a genuine source of movie information for multiple Indian languages.

From Soumi Dhar, Content Manager - Gocinema Product of Sky10 Social Media Pvt Ltd.

Soumi22dhar (talk) 15:03, 4 January 2017 (IST)

Soumi22dhar (talk) 11:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Soumi Dhar

Troubleshooting and problems[edit]

Logging / COIBot Instr[edit]

Blacklist logging

Full Instructions for Admins


Quick Reference

For Spam reports or requests originating from this page, use template {{/request|0#section_name}}

  • {{/request|213416274#Section_name}}
  • Insert the oldid 213416274 a hash "#" and the Section_name (Underscoring_spaces_where_applicable):
  • Use within the entry log here.

For Spam reports or requests originating from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam use template {{WPSPAM|0#section_name}}

  • {{WPSPAM|182725895#Section_name}}
  • Insert the oldid 182725895 a hash "#" and the Section_name (Underscoring_spaces_where_applicable):
  • Use within the entry log here.

Have added a supplement, a general " how-to of sorts. --Hu12 (talk) 10:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Note: if you do not log your entries it may be removed if someone appeals and no valid reasons can be found.

Addition to the COIBot reports

The lower list in the COIBot reports now have after each link four numbers between brackets (e.g. "www.example.com (0, 0, 0, 0)"):

  1. first number, how many links did this user add (is the same after each link)
  2. second number, how many times did this link get added to wikipedia (for as far as the linkwatcher database goes back)
  3. third number, how many times did this user add this link
  4. fourth number, to how many different wikipedia did this user add this link.

If the third number or the fourth number are high with respect to the first or the second, then that means that the user has at least a preference for using that link. Be careful with other statistics from these numbers (e.g. good user do add a lot of links). If there are more statistics that would be useful, please notify me, and I will have a look if I can get the info out of the database and report it. The bots are running on a new database, Eagle 101 is working on transferring the old data into this database so it becomes more reliable.

For those with access to IRC, there this data is available in real time. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

poking COIBot

I notice that sometimes people who are not active on IRC need some link reports. Admins here can now add {{LinkSummary|domain}} to User:COIBot/Poke, when COIBot picks up the edit to that page (and it should), it will put the domains into its reporting queue (high priority, which is, only behind waiting XWiki reports) and create a report on the link(s). The first report should be saved within about 5 minutes, if it takes longer than 15 minutes there is probably something wrong, and it may be useful to add the template with the link again (it reads the added part of the diffs (the right column)), or poke me or another person who is active on IRC personally. Hope this is of help. --Dirk Beetstra T C (en: U, T) 12:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Please don't overuse this function, everything still needs to be saved .. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
It had some startup problems, but all seems to work fine now. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


Discussion[edit]

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