Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Mar & Apr

message: I'm wondering if anyone knows the best way to deal with this.  This list has been added multiple times to multiple articles over the course of months.  It comes from different shared IPs for various Asian ISPs each time, so IP blocking is not effective.  I saw a reference to a spam blacklist someone mentioned, but there wasn't link to it, and I can't find it.  Hopefully someone here knows how to take care of this.  Thanks.  Deli nk 20:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sheesh, what a mess ... it looks like the work of a bot.  You can have the urls added to the Sitewide Spam Blacklist.  Instructions are on the talk page.  Monkeyman(talk) 20:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  I added it there.  (Hopefully I did it right.) Deli nk 23:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ton of spam 

message: I'm still finding articles with links to this prolific linkspammer.  See User:Just zis Guy, you know?/Fisheaters (and also User:Just zis Guy, you know?/Linkspam for my "worklist") - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 23:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fisheaters 

message: Please have a look at this guy's talk page. Not just the latest version, but also a couple of previous ones... See also this VIP archived entry and my (failed) plea for help at WP:AIV. I don't have a lot of time this coming couple of months, so if somebody could help watching out for his repeated linkspamming, this would be great. BACbKA 13:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User talk:Vinni-Puh]] 

message: Serial link spammer; added about 30-40 entries promoting some sites. I've undone about half of these (the top half at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Maj_IIM - mostly from 20th January), but
it's time consuming. Anyone like to help? Also needs checking for sockpuppets. Caravaca 08:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  The other half was mostly done by Durin, who also left a warning on eis talk page. JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:43, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Maj IIM]] 

message: If everyone, particularly admins, could just keep an eye on this . . .  started with linkspam, but he's mostly given up on that.  An employee of Rushbrands showed up a few months and is continually attempting to make the article an ad for poppers, currently evading a one month block through socks.  check out the talk page for some more background.  (Dealing with him is what compelled me to join this project, btw . . . )  --Heah talk 03:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Alkyl nitrites]]

message: When you guys have time, can you dive in :Category:Lists of software, or monitor Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Lists_of_software?!  Our software articles and lists badly need spam and advertisement trimming. -- Perfecto  03:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A call for help 

message: I propose we remove the following section from Spammer behavior ...
*Spammers will usually do anything to get their links in.  They will sap as much energy as possible in the Wikipedia community, debating their "right" to add their links, and pretending (in opposition to the dictates of WP:SOCK that they really do have standing and entitlement to use any Wikipedia procedure that they think will result in their links being added, as if they are really members of the community rather than single-purpose account holders.  They do not care how much of our energy they waste in Wiki-politics and arguing.  It costs them nothing.  They do not value our time or resources at all, and will act accordingly.  Don't put up with the crap.
Is this section really necessary?  What is it adding to the project page?  I'm not sure it has a purpose other than to just vent frustration.  Monkeyman(talk) 00:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This section was removed in my efforts to clean-up the project page (see below). Monkeyman(talk) 03:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spammer behavior section

message: I've just completed a cleanup of the project page that I hope will clarify our effort to combat spam.  The clean-up included: merged sections, added some content, removed duplicate content, moved discussion to talk page, condensed "How to identify spam and spammers" section, etc.  Feel free to review my edits and make/revert changes.  Monkeyman(talk) 03:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good job, overall, although I would like to keep the distinction between edits which might be spam and edits which almost certainly are spam.  That had kind of been lost a while back.  I may go through and separate them out again, and make it clearer.  What I was getting at when I first wrote the section was that two unrelated added by a single anonymous editor might be spam, but thirty links to the same site added to different articles by any editor and replaced whenever reverted are definitely spam. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 15:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Project page cleanup

message: Check out the behavior of .  He's clearly promoting his site.  He claimed to me that one editor had looked over his links and passed them.  I disagree, and I expressed my reasoning on his talk page.
Any comments? Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 15:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These links do not belong here.  The user is going right down the list of coutries in alphabetical order adding the same link to every page.  I would encourage the user to add his or her information from that website directly into the Wikipedia articles.  Monkeyman(talk) 16:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  oneworld.net linkspam 

message: Contributions look like linkspam to me. But my French isn't great, and I'm hesitant to unilaterally remove. I've remarked on all of the relevant talk pages. If someone else has better French & would like to follow up, that would be great. - Jmabel | Talk 05:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  86.203.203.165 

message: Hi all.  Just a heads-up on some recent edits I've encountered.  Take a look at this guy's contributions.  Instead of adding his linkfarms to the "external links" section, he will add them as references in the body of the article.  The red flags are 1.) the excessive linkfarms on the page and 2.) vagueness in the data, "It is estimated that 1 in 4 women may suffer from some type of hair loss" from here.  Please add this user and his pages to your watch list.  Monkeyman(talk) 14:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have noticed this as well. One way to combat this is to go through the link references and convert them to Wikipedia:Footnotes. While it is very popular for many users to read their news online and then go to wikipedia and edit an article with that news reference, simply citing the URL alone directly in the text is not a good idea, primarily because what if that site removes or archives the article we've referenced? Then we have a dead link. So it's better to use the footnotes - that way, even if the site removes the article, we still have the information on who wrote it, when it was published, and where, as well as what the title was. Dr. Cash 18:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Increase in alternative spamming method

message: I just made a template  after putting  on an article page proved successful. I hope that's okay? --Fasten 21:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NoSpam 

message: Today I cleaned up some links from 163.121.179.232.  I found these links to a blog in Redundant array of independent disks, Network-attached storage, and Bulletproof vest(!?)  Despite being a blog about photography, there were articles about those subjects.  I assumed he thinking "hey! I wrote about that...other people would be interested."  I was even planning to write a gentler version of the Spam tag.  Then I googled his site. It looks like he has added links to a good many forums, etc.  I won't say he is consciously spamming, but it does seem to be a habit.  So googling to determine prior behavior can make it easier to decide intent.  Google also showed me something unfortunate; in the 4 hours between the link's (in Bulletproof vest) creation and my deletion, not only had answers.com picked it up, but google had indexed answers.com's version.--Straif 15:57, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:AGF|Assume Good Faith]] vs. Google

message: How do I get it unblocked....I didn't even contribute anything...some user named Master of the Bulls did according to your warning.  How do I get unblocked? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.188.117.70 (talk • contribs) 
:This IP address was last blocked 16 days ago; it's not blocked currently. 01:49, 1 February 2006 Vsmith blocked "205.188.117.70 (contribs)" with an expiry time of 1 hour (ongoing vandalism).  In any case, this is not the place to request unblocking. JesseW, the juggling janitor 08:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  You are blocking my IP address because I am AOL user 

message: Well this case is a tricky one, I prefer to discuss it here before taking any action. This guy User:Nmyers is introducing the Jargon of a not so notable organisation (n3p) Neutral Third Party and presenting it as if it was Universal and Encyclopaedic. Here are some examples: Universal Enterprise Infrastructure, Business process interoperability, BPI Project, Information silo, more can be tracked by looking at the history of his contributions.
The origin of this vocabulary can be seen here :  http://www.n3p.org/
Although the organisation claims to be non profit and the guy has apparently got the authorisation to post the material in WP and the approach the organisation has adopted can have some merit, I still see many problems here.
* The vocabulary he is introducing is presented as if it was universal, while it is clearly just the vision of (a not so notable organisation) so I suspect a case of disguised promotion going on here.
* The guy is nearly the only one engaged in modifying these entries this shows even more that he is engaged in a promotional campaign, he is also linking to his entries all over the place.
* Last but not least, maybe he is in good faith, but the main problem for me is he is presenting a vision of a specific organisation (which I am not aware of the real agenda) as a universal and encyclopaedic content so he is completely muddying the fields of Service-oriented architecture and Web services, those are subjects I am interested in and I can say this is not an orthodox vision of these fields. I see this as a really dangerous activity and potentially frightening for WP if many organisations engage in something like this, as it is really tricky and it will be very difficult to track those entries once they have been introduced!.
I am sure there many other cases like this in other fields I am not aware of, but as far as I know there is no specific policy in WP to deal with this problem, please correct me if I am wrong. or maybe this is just a case of original research--Khalid hassani 15:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I can gather, N3P is a community of individuals, not a company.  Their main product is the Universal Enterprise Infrastructure (aka "the infra") which is an online database.  I'd be curious to know who the "community of individuals" are and which companies are adhering to these standards.  My main concern is that this is a non-notable community with non-notable applications.  I also agree that it could be considered original research WP:NOR.  I don't believe it can be classified as spam though because no product or service is being sold and there is no advertising on his site (http://www.n3p.org/).  Monkeyman(talk) 16:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I agree and that's why I said that the case is a bit subtle here, for me they are more advocating their ideas than a product, the problem is that in the same time they are muddying things but presenting their own views as Encyclopedic and universal for unsuspecting readers. It is more a case of intellectual advocacy here. I have just read WP:NOR now and it clearly states that articles must not define new termes, which is clearly the case here, see section What is excluded?.--Khalid hassani 23:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I tricky case of Spamming, your opinion please 

message: Watch out for sirlinksalot links, random blog links, in the American Idol contestants' articles. It is pure spam. Occasionally anonymous users and IP addresses will attempt to add it in surreptitously.
:MyIdolSpace.com is another spamlink to watch out for.  is/was perpetrating it on American Idol. Feezo (Talk) 11:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam links in Idol contestants 

message: Is it such a good idea to look for red-link user talk pages? When I RC patrol, I first check contributions by IP addresses with blue talk page links; more often these are warnings than welcome messages. Any other thoughts on this? Feezo  (Talk) 00:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've noticed that the second step for a spammer (after getting warned for spamming using an IP address) is to create a user account.  For some reason they think that having an account will keep them off the spam radar.  One way to catch this behavior is to check for the red talk link.  Monkeyman(talk) 13:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Identifying spammers 

message: I think there are too many links on the QWERTY page, the information on which is mostly already in the article. Would someone from this project see what they think? 218.102.218.250 03:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: None of the links are spam. I would say that removal or retention of those links is an editorial decision, best discussed on the talk page for the article. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 11:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  QWERTY 

message: There has been a user (or users) that have been placing many (over 300) links to a organisation called ARKive  (User:195.188.139.172/talk). He's been warned on the talk page - should I just delete these on sight? Sabine's Sunbird  talk 15:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It certainly is worthy of suspicion. He is putting these links at the top of links section on each page which is bad form.  However, I'm not sure they should be deleted because the Arkive site seems like a reasonable resource. -- Barrylb 16:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  link spammer on animal articles 

message: Here's one to keep an eye on. Has a history of adding almost nothing but linkspam since starting here last April. Has been warned previously but has somehow managed to get away with blanking the warnings. Seems to have stopped after I issued the  warning but judging by his past behavior he'll probably be back after a while. -Loren 04:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Sarpicaste]] 

message: In order that linkspam doesn't live on in spoken form for too long after it has been removed from an article, it might be helpful if participants in this project, on seeing a link to a spoken version in the External Links section of an article, drop a note on the spoken article producer's talk page informing them of the situation. Editing a spoken article is best done by those that have the original, uncompressed version of the audio to work from. --Macropode 10:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spoken linkspam

message: has inserted the same link into World Baseball Classic twice in the past 24 hours, and a total of 5 times since January. His three other edits were also spamlinks. I request that an admin block him/her. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 01:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: from what i can tell he hasn't done it since the last, final warning.  if he does, drop me a note on my talk page.  --He:ah? 01:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, of course, take it WP:AIV if he continues . . .  --He:ah? 01:48, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 02:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spammer 24.53.194.27 

message: Hi,
I ran into a guy who's adding his personal blog to Lake Braddock Orchestras...It's relevant to a certain extent but what bugs me is the inherent self-promotion that he is doing...I've removed the link once and he's put it back so instead of a revert war I want to make sure I'm justified in taking it out? Can someone more experienced than me clarify on this matter?
Jarfingle 06:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your decision. The blog is mostly unrelated to the article, and is certainly not encyclopedic. Not only that, but it's hosted at blogspot, and the guy doesn't even give his real name, making it unverifiable, too. Feezo  (Talk) 07:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding personal blogs 

message: Here's a relevant request for comment that might get some more attention here.
*Talk:Tornado warning -- Request consideration for the addition of a link to an external, commercial website that describes tornado warnings by phone. 21:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevant RfC 

message: Hello. Could I have your opinions about links to http://www.islamicarchitecture.org which seem to be being inserted on an industrial scale. The website seems to specialise in Islam-related retail such as books, and there are lots of affiliate (Amazon) ads on the site. There seems to be no content which could not be put into the encyclopedia. You can see the links being inserted by related IP addresses here and here and here (and there are others) and at least one registered user. Yahoo shows 389 links from Wikipedia. I think this is linkspamming on an industrial scale, and I would like your opinions on the website, and the edits. Jim182 13:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. This looks like a case of serious linkspam. I'd suggest removing all but the most revelvent places that it's linked to. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 16:24, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: islamicarchitecture.org

message: The IP started out with this and after being warned stopped. Then Cinema-astoria started, got warned and then blocked for 3 hours. All of the links are to the same site. So can someone double check and ensure they are spam and also keep an eye out on Cinema-astoria as I go home soon and won't be able to watch them. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:11, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Cinema-astoria]] & [[User:85.0.101.102]]

message: Over the last few days Dave Mott has added a number of links in company-related articles to buyblue.org.  Usually the description is something like "Company X Ratings and Political Contributions".  The ratings and commentary on the site have a strong political bias--and I'm not sure how accurate it is.  I've removed about half of the links--so far everything from today, but there are still some from 4/11 and 4/9.  My revert finger is getting tired, so if anyone would like to take a look at these (be sure to check for valid changes after the link was added), I would welcome the help.  For the sake of POV honesty: I happen to lean the same way the website does.  I just don't think it has any business being here.  --Straif 17:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Addendum: it looks like this has been systematic.  Back in September there were a number added by User:12.210.54.72.  They were given a spam warning on their talk page.  All but on of the articles were for companies starting with the letter 'A'.  The other one started with 'B'.  I don't think this is simply the case of a person adding a link here and there.  I do want to make this clear: my issue isn't with having that information available.  If it is verifiable and a published source exists, it might be a valuable addition to the article itself, but this kind of widespread linking is not the way to do it. --Straif 18:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Addendum 2: Now I am annoyed: http://www.buyblue.org/node/5324 http://www.buyblue.org/node/4343  --Straif 19:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'll keep an eye out for this. -Loren 23:43, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text:  Did a quick search, and it seems additions from this site are quite extensive. Additionally there seems to be some dispute over whether this is indeed linkspam. Needless to say a consensus is needed. I'm leaning towards removing all of it as linkspam but would like some more opinions first. It might also be worthwhile to post this on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for more opinions.  -Loren 23:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I strongly feel that it is linkspam that should be removed, especially after reading the forum posts above suggesting wholesale abuse of Wikipedia for promotional purposes. OhNoitsJamieTalk 23:57, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Dave Mott|Dave Mott]] and buyblue.org

message: Can someone please look at the recent contributions of User:Alpheus and decide whether the additions of this link is appropriate?  Thanks. Deli nk 14:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow. 100% spam, IMO. He admitted it was his website and decides to spam his link in over 50 articles. To me that's more than spamming, that's vandalism, and a pain for any non-admin trying to clean it up. Mrtea (talk) 15:18, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a response to this matter on my talk page, under 'External links'. Good day. Alpheus 01:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely admit my error under Wikipedia policies, done in good faith, and unreservedly apologise. Alpheus 04:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: CounterCulture Wikia

message: I keep running into pages with links to this company. A google search for crossflo reveals about 15 different articles with links to it. (For reasons I don't understand, Wikipedia's search facilities only reveal two).  Most of them are posted by either Joinarnold (talk • contribs) or 206.171.118.254 (talk • contribs). There also seems to be an article on Crossflo Systems.  Almost by accident, I discovered that there had been earlier versions of the article which had been deleted. See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Crossflo,  and . I don't understand what to do in such a case.  Nominate it for deletion all over again? —Veyklevar 09:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Crossflo Systems and Crossflo DataExchange

message: Note the contributions by . While the user is adding content, it almost seems as if all content is intended to provide an opening to add a Factsmart.org link, which does have some Overture ad scripting code. Spam? OhNoitsJamieTalk 19:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, this is clearly spam. Feezo (Talk) 23:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sneaky spam?

message: is adding links in dozens of articles to various pages at http://super70s.com. It's pretty clearly an attempt to promote the site, but the links are all at least somewhat relevant, so I'd like to get some input from other users. Feezo (Talk) 09:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Relevent doesn't meet not linkspam. I'd say remove the links where they are redundent. (Which, from a brief look, looks like all of them.) --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 14:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I asked here, since this guy seems to be one of the more determined spammers. Sure enough, he's defending his links and vigorously adding more. What's the protocol in this situation; RfC? Feezo (Talk) 01:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Try reasoning with him first. (You may find the replies to common spammer strawmen on the wikiproject spam main page useful.) If that fails a RFC is the only way forward. Having read the short conversation on his talk page, I'm glad you are dealing with this instead of me. I'd be very, very angry already. I find it next to impossible to WP:AGF with spammers. Good Luck! --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 13:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: If you feel that it is necessary to add "NOT SPAM UNLESS THE OTHERS ARE!" to your edit summary, than perhaps, just maybe, it is spam after all.  --Straif 18:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  68.98.103.108 

message: I took the time to summarize and explain an important aspect of link spam on my user discussion page below.
Some Editors expressed the opinion in the past that the proposed solution will not help to significantly reduce the problem which I vehement reject. 
Even if the impact is not as much as I expect will it still have enough impact to justify the necessary work to implement the solution. 
Being an enterprise solution developer myself gives me the authority to make the statement that the implementation of the solution can only be a matter of hours. An amount of time that will be saved multiple times over with absolute certainty in the future when it comes to link spam removal.
This will not immediately, because the word about the change has to go around and get to the potential link spammers first. 
Unless it will be picked up by the media and other means (bloggers etc.), a gradual impact should be expected.
I invite everybody interested in this to join the discussion. Wikipedia Developers and Admins are more than welcome to join as well.
*What the F**k is REL=NO FOLLOW?
--Roy-SAC 11:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're acting like nofollow is a perfect solution to spam, but it isn't. Wikipedia has already had a large discussion about using nofollow. Mediawiki already has the technical ability to insert rel="nofollow" into links, but the community decided against it. See Wikipedia:Nofollow. Rhobite 15:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Rhobite. Thanks for the Move to the Discussion Section. It is not a perfect solution, but a working solution for one (major) part of the problem at hand. I will go over the comments at Wikipedia:Nofollow in detail. It's been over a year now since the vote. The nofollow attribute was quite new back then and the traffic to wikipedia has also more than quadrupled since last year. I assume the issue is today also several times bigger than it was back then. The Solution works for other Systems and Sites such as Blogs very well and reduced the issue a lot. Spammers are now creating the blogs themselves via programs (using API's) though  :(. A different problem which requires a different solution. The nofollow attribute is not diminishing the true purpose of an honest placed link. It works for a visitor who is clicking on it (and hopefully finds some more useful content) the same as a link without the attribute. This little attribute restores the original idea of hyper linking, when Links where only placed on Sites for Visitors to follow, not computer programs. Google is the no.1 search engine worldwide with 50-60% Market Share despite the attempts of Yahoo!, MSN and ask.com to compete with Google in the Search Engine game. Yahoo threw the towel this January. ask.com was gaining, but only a bit, MSN is working on the problem to get their new search up and running. The situation did not get better, it got worse. the rel="no follow" attribute should be added automatically  by the Wikipedia engine to ANY external link (URL's starting with "http://"), regardless if it is an Article, Discussion Page, User Page or System Page. There should be NO on/off switch. This should be announced loud and clear to the public, also explaining what it does and what it NOT does. I bed with you $100 that with will reduce the amount of link spam you get here at wikipedia at least by a double digit number. Since the current policy pretty much considers most external links as SPAM (-> see recommendation to link to the Yahoo Dir or Dmoz only and that's it)) is the total number of external links placed across Wikipedia a realistic measurement to evaluate the effects of adding the rel="no follow" attribute to all external links. Since this is a topic I do know quite a lot about, I thought that it is a thing I am able to contribute well. Since I shoot myself into the foot with proposing and pushing for something like this, any doubt of an hidden agenda on my part can pretty much ruled out. I do believe in the need of valuable external links that enrich the content of an article at Wikipedia or provide proof for statements made in one. I don't see any reason why the attribute should NOT be added except the reason that you want Wikipedia to be part of the Ranking Game. I can imagine that some Wikipedians do not like the idea, especially the ones that have a personal interest in some of the external links to their own personal/business websites. --Roy-SAC 15:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My objection remains the same as a year ago: It doesn't deter spammers. Pagerank isn't the sole reason people spam Wikipedia. This is a very visible site, and if I were a spammer I would want to be linked from here, even if it didn't improve my Pagerank. A link from a prominent Wikipedia article could generate a lot of revenue for an unscrupulous person. Furthermore, Wikipedia can and should improve the Pagerank of good, relevant links. rel="nofollow" punishes operators of useful sites for the actions of spammers. Rhobite 16:57, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It will certainly not deter all of them, probably not even the majority of them, but it will for sure deter some of them. if something is becoming less lucrative, less people will be tempted by it. That is an undeniable fact. You are probably for qualified to provide some rough numbers here. Let me ask you this? How much spam is removed by members of the SPAM project across all pages of Wikipedia every month? Lets be very pessimistic and assume that only 1% of the spammers are detered by the fact that they only have gain from a link via visitors that read the article and actually click on that link but don't gain anything else in the long run by increasing their rank in the Google SERPS and getting (a lot) more visitors from there? How much time would 1% less spam save? Put that number next to the time it takes to implement the nofollow attribute (which is already in the code as you mentioned). And also how much LESS links that should be in the article get removed because of suspicion that the intent might be more selfish by the person that added it than it actually was? You say that it will not deter any spammer at all which means that the amount of spam will remain the same if the nofollow attribute was added. This statement is based on what? Intuition? Facts? Show them to me. I can PROVE to you that the reduction and even better, the complete elimination of page rank of a link will deter people from adding knowingly links for selfish reasons. If you get the chance, talk to a DMOZ Editor of an important commercial category. He will tell you, that he still gets more submissions than he can handle, but he will also tell you, that it is much less since Google de-valued links to sites that are listed at Dmoz in their Ranking Algorithm. The "punishment" of useful sites will be less of an issue than you think. Regular Sites that can not be changed by every john and joe out there will still link to those sites. People who discover the site because of the Link from Wikipedia will also pickup the URL and link to it (I have done that myself more than one). If a sites reaches a certain popularity, Pagerank becomes less of a factor for the ranking. An increase from a Page Rank of 6 to a rank of 7 for example is huge, it gets even harder to impossible to get to a rank of 9 (There are mayby 1 or 2 dozen sites in the world that have that). Lets summarize. It will certainly reduce spam if implemented consequently across the site and made public, it is easy to do implement, because the Wikipedia code is already ready for it and last but not least, the affect on valuable (authority or popular) sites is minimal. If you disagree, explain why. --71.195.125.110 20:49, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Oops, cookie got killed. The above statement is from me. --Roy-SAC 20:53, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I spent the time reading the complete Nofollow page from the intro to the votes and finally the comments. There was a lot of clutter (on both sides of the argument). I "stripped" out the comments that clearly showed that the writer had no clue about the meaning/purpose of the non-W3C-standard rel=nofollow attribute, or about spamming (link spamming and spamming in general) and especially not about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), in particular Google. The remaining "on the topic" facts and arguments for both opinions were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the attribute enabled. I was surprised to find out that "only" 41% voted to keep the new implemented feature in Wikipedia (which was obviously "enabled" by default after the update that contained it was installed) and 61% voted for its removal (deactivation). I have to speculate to explain this result. I guess a lot of the votes must have been based on "feelings" rather than facts or other motives must have been a factor. But hey, I am irritated by the fact that you Rhobite, somebody who is affected by the spam every single day, as one of  Wikipedias first line of defense against link spam is against the use of the attribute. Anything that makes your live easier without violating any of your basic beliefs and opinions should be welcomed and even embraced by you. Is the spam problem not that bad? You should know the best. Please tell me. Btw, I think you did a great job fixing the grammar of my additions to the Wiki:Affiliate_marketing article about a month ago. You have great language skills and you should use those skills more often on article content than on wasting it on banal Link Spam removals.  I am working on improving my writing skills though (it is my second language after all). Thanks. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 09:23, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In a democracy, or rather, a wikicracy, no one person can decide which votes to accept and which to set aside.  We all apply our own value judgments when voting.  The bottom line is that the wikicracy said we're not doing nofollow, and that's that. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 22:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are absolutely right about the democracy. The voting/election process in a democracy is essentially very simple. Everybody that is part of the society has one vote. All votes are counted equal. The value of a vote can not be reduced or increased based on qualitative criteria. Emotions and feelings influence our decisions (votes) although most people try to be as objective as possible when it comes to that. I just noticed for that particular vote, that emotions and feelings must have played a major role, because the objective information that were available at the same time and should have played a major role during the decision making process are conflicting the actual votes. "wikicracy said" ... "and that's that" sounds very absolute to me. Things that involve larger groups of human beings have the tendency to change over time. Those changes make it necessary for everybody to frequently check and adjust our opinions on things. Those changes can verify existing opinions, but can also make it necessary to question an opinion as a whole and change completely. Ignoring the changes and the refusal to check if the current opinion is still as valid as before lead to no good in the past. The World History is full of cases where absolutism, ignorance and stagnatism caused a lot of pain and suffering, to eventually end very sudden and very violent.--roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 04:22, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree on the statements that the rel=nofollow are anti-search and anti-Internet. I agree that it will have some impact on search, to be precise, search results at Google.com. It will be a positive and negative impact with the negative one further declining over time to something negligible. The positive impact is, that the junk that is currently in Wikipedia will loose ranking and be replaced by hopefully more relevant content in the Google SERP's (I am referring to ANY part/page of the Wikipedia site that is accessible by the public, not just articles). The negative impact is, that good content that is being linked to will drop (may be) as well, but I strongly believe that when it comes to highly relevant and good external sources linked to from active and live article pages will be marginal. "Real" high quality content sites and pages have very often a pretty high and honest (intended) PageRank. The loss of the vote by the one link from Wikipedia will have little or no impact. Furthermore, PageRank is very specific to Google. Ranking based on "Back Links" evaluation are a very small factor for the Yahoo! Search Engine and virtually none for MSN. Google is the only SE where it really matters, but Google has a 50-60% market share. The rel=nofollow attribute was introduced by Google itself for sites that meet certain criteria. Wikipedia is certainly fitting the description of sites where Google recommends the use of the attribute. This contradicts the statement that the use of the rel=nofollow attribute is being anti-search. Anti-Internet is also not being the case, on the contrary, it is as Pro-Internet as it can possibly get. Links to other Websites were never intended for programs and scripts. They were meant for human visitors from the beginning. The rel=nofollow attribute will not change this but remind people of the true purpose of linking between websites. Back to the Roots. This Article from Gary McHugh called "Stinking Linking Thinking" from a month ago hits the Nail on the Head. It explains very well the original intentions for the use of the HREF HTML Tag. A friendly reminder for everybody who has all but forgotten this after all those years of mutilation , rape and abuse of those beautifully simple and user friendly tools. Last but not least, I still would like to know some facts and details that made you come to the following opinion: "doing this won't really deter spam". So far does it look only like a believe or feeling to me without any objective grounds to stand on. I hope you can help me with that one. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 05:39, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to save hundreds or thousands of hours by spending just a few 

message: User:80.201.222.234 () has been adding dozens of references to a single site on Belgium-related pages. Unfortunately I haven't got the time to go through and clean up. Ianb 09:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I've managed to removed all the links. Ianb 20:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  80.201.222.234  / "eupedia" 

message: Can you check out this users contributions. They all lead to individual pages at Cookbook Wiki. Spam or not spam. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The behavior is spam, but in the few seconds I spent poking around the site, it looks like it might actually be a complementary resource (I reserve my right to change my mind on this).  This name of this section: People in Irish Food interested me, but alas, there were no 40 shades of Soylent Green.  This person (if they continue) should probably be warned.  It probably depends on the particular article.  Some might benefit, some probably won't. --Straif 17:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the links were to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook, okay (though, we have the sisters project template for this purpose).  But cookbookwiki.com? not okay.  it's spam. --Aude (talk | contribs) 17:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't know there was such a beast.  That would be the right way to do it, then.  Agreed--spam. --Straif 17:52, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 70.232.48.175

message: Sorry to say it, but Fisheaters has been returning the pagerank linkspam to Wikipedia pages. Scoll up for the sad story. Maybe I can be famous and get another AfD. Dominick (TALK) 19:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume you mean the page User:JzG/Fisheaters?  Do you have some IPs or usernames to review? JesseW, the juggling janitor 19:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same old 15X AoL addresses. Dominick (TALK) 19:20, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Return of the Fisheaters 

message: Is this guy a spammer?  Westfall 16:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. His last warning was  today at 4:54. Judging by the template mesages, he may be blocked if he disregards two more warnings. Feezo (Talk) 06:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: question

message: has been adding nothing but links to articles from the Council on Foreign Relations. While CFR is a legitimate body with good information which is referenced on some articles, this person has not added any content to any of the articles in question. Despite the organization being linked to, this anon's behavior looks suspiciously like spamming and I've warned the anon accordingly. It might be worth keeping an eye out on this guy. Second opinions on whether this is spam also appreceated.-Loren 19:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's spam, albeit of a fairly benign variety. Since CFR is a dot-org with good content and no ads, this is mostly a matter of principle. I think your warning was well phrased; it's important to make clear that it is the behavior we object to, rather than the site. Feezo (Talk) 03:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The anon is continuing to spam CFR links across multiple articles without adding any content. I've issued a second warning, if you happen to catch him doing it again, help with prompt reversion would be appreciated. Thanks. -Loren 06:37, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It seems the 2 polite warnings Loren left on this IP's talk page have no deterred him/her/them, as he/she/they've spammed again . I've left the spam3 final warning on the IP's talk page. --AbsolutDan (talk) 00:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spamming CFR links? 

message: has been adding many links to a website called Platial.  Some seem to me like the might be worthwhile, others are clearly useless.  I've reverted only some of them, but thought that others might want to take a look too.  Deli nk 20:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Platial 

message: An anonymous editor, with three recent IPs of ,  and , adds links to gilbert-wesley-purdy.blogspot.com on a few pages and keeps re-adings them from new IP addresses. Ah, jeez, that's BellSouth. Fat chance of blocking him. Be on the lookout for him. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 01:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like spam to me. Reverted. -Loren 03:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 5 February 2007 -- blacklisted. --A. B. (talk) 19:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repeat spammer on dynamic IPs 

message: User Amotis has been systematically adding a link to a site with videos on hundreds of articles about birds (see his contributions). Now normally whenever I see someone adding the same link to multiple sites with no additional content I remove that link everywhere they inserted it, regardless of what the link contains. However I hesitate in this case because I'm concerned it might actually be considered a useful and relevant link. Could I get some opinions on this? Thanks much! --AbsolutDan (talk) 13:00, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a commercial site with ads on it, so this is clearly linkspam. Feezo (Talk) 13:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think being commercial or having ads makes a site linkspam.  Linkspam is about promoting your own site.  Links to commercial sites can be appropriate (Wikipedia is filled with them), and links to non-commercial sites can be linkspam.  The issue is: is this a single-minded editor who is not really a Wikipedia participant but is instead using Wikipedia to promote a site? Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 13:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, of course, that's the issue — anyone who acts like this is a spammer. The quality of the site is only an issue when dealing with one or two links. Feezo (Talk) 14:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe the people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds would have a better idea about suitability of the site? -- 14:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good thinking - I'll pose the question to them and see what kind of feedback I get. I still welcome any further comments here as well - particularly any notable prescedents for removing or not removing useful links that were spammed. Thanks again --AbsolutDan (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He's linking to HBW, which is where we get our taxonomic world bird list from. I had noticed this before  but let it slide since there were some formatting edits he made. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 18:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amotis - linkspam or useful additions? 

message: I removed two external links to what I regard as link farms from Seduction Community (see diff). I have now received this on my talk page. I would like some other opinions on the links I removed before I pursue this. Thanks. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 22:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Seduction Community]] links 

message: What do we do about spam on user pages?  Nothing I have read says they are exempt from the spam policy.   Anyhow, I had a run-in with  who seems to exist only to promote their own web site, someone other than me should probably take action as I have already had an interaction with them.  - Trysha (talk) 08:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: User pages are technically held to similar standards as normal articles - they're intended pretty much to only contain information relevent to your Wikipedia "life". However there seems to be a great deal of give with those pages; I've seen plenty of completely off-topic advertising that's been deemed ok - usually proportional to the user's (useful) contributions at WP. In this case, however, you may want to consider letting his userpage slide, for now, and focus on his article spamming. If he spams enough, he will be blocked. Just my $0.02 --AbsolutDan (talk) 12:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to be lenient about vanity on user pages, and I really only object to personal attacks in the user space. That said, blatant advertising is a bit annoying. In this particular case, I'm inclined to leave Dogtoyco's user page alone (per AbsolutDan) provided the links aren't being inserted into the article space. --Alan Au 18:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I ignore one or two links but request, and if necessary enforce, removal of mass links (as seen on User:Jason Gastrich at one point). And if they keep reinserting then I block them - mwuahahahaha! I am a wicked rouge admin. Just zis Guy you know? 22:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hereby nominate JzG for President, Prime Minister, or whichever is the high office in his country. --AbsolutDan (talk) 23:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Woot!  Maybe this guy should be blocked, not only do they re-add them, but they are engaging in personal attacks against those who remove their links.  - Trysha (talk) 02:32, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed - will be recommending him for block in a few --AbsolutDan (talk) 02:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: It is time - however someone has to catch him and recommend him for a block fairly quickly after he spams. Unfortunately, it seems most admins don't take a block recommendation seriously unless the person's vandalized within a couple hours of the block request. --AbsolutDan (talk) 23:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  what about user pages. 

message: Please take a look at these. Need a second opinion, thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like good faith edits. (i.e. not promotion.) I'd point the user to WP:SPAM#How_not_to_be_a_spammer. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 15:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks. Done. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Royal Engineers

message: Hi all.  I've changed the "To-do" list section to a full page width.  Its previous formatting (as a 40% right justified column) cut into the body of the page and disrupted the flow of the article.  Feel free to revert or improve if you don't prefer this.  Monkeyman(talk) 15:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like that it's full width now, but perhaps it should be placed elsewhere on the page - like more towards the bottom? --AbsolutDan (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "To-do" list format change

message: I've noticed that , who describes himself as a "Search Engine Marketer," has been adding Motor Trend reviews to links of just about every vehicle page.  While I think Motor Trend is good car magazine and a good source, I'm wondering if it's a bit excessive. Given that he only adds Motor Trend links, I'm guessing they are paying him. OhNoitsJamieTalk 01:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely looks like linkspamming to me. Time for some mass reverts. --AbsolutDan (talk) 02:18, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This guy's persistent. I've been watching him for a couple days. He's continued to spam even after I warned him and reverted all his "work". He's finally been blocked, but not before he had a chance to create a vanity page about himself (it's since been speedied though)! Anyhow, I'll be watching him when his block expires, I recommend others do so too. --AbsolutDan (talk) 02:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Allow me to join the club. I really do not understand why some people behave in this manner. To gain fame? --Siva1979Talk to me 17:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Motor Trend reviews