Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007 Archive Jan

message: has been adding links to this (http://mymom.pledgepage.org)  solicitation site requesting money for his mom's surgery. Anchoress 03:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clueless but well-intentioned spammer needs correction & maybe site added to blacklist 

message: I was wondering about the possiblility of using DNSBLs as a preventative measure against crap like this (those spamtraps are currently empty) and other general linkspamming. There are a number of ways we might be able to do this - the questions are which blacklists and what to block (e.g. at least 25% of the change is adding external link(s))? MER-C 04:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like your User:MER-C/Spam subpage. --A. B. (talk) 08:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Forgive my ignorance but what are we doing at the moment if not this? Do we only have a content blacklist not an IP blacklist? Neither is terribly effective mind you, but better than nothing --BozMo talk 07:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Our current spam blacklist is based on domain names. This is rather ineffectual, since spammers/phishers hop domains very quickly. MER-C 08:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just spent hours cross-checking some of our worst spammers against these lists using [www.completewhois.com/ Completewhois]. The ones that matched a blacklist, I then listed at WikiProject Open Proxy. I got some very polite feedback[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AA._B.&diff=95886327&oldid=95519103] that seemed to indicate that this was not seen as very helpful. So I'm not sure what to do. --A. B. (talk) 08:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Get a friendly admin to block them. I know of some admins who permablock spambots on sight. MER-C 08:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Is it me, or is it weird that just "some" admins do that? Isn't there any consensus on how to treat spambots? --Jdevalk 19:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you see a spambot, send me a note on my talk with some diffs and I'll block'em. ---J.S  (T/C) 19:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A different kind of spam blacklist 

message: An established Wikipedia editor has not only been adding good content, but also links to a series of web sites owned by PtS plc. See ChrisNickson (talk • contribs • [/wiki/Special:Log/move?user= page moves] • block user • [/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User: block log]); his talk page lists the 10+ sites linked to so far, plus another 70 PtS is developing. An anonymous IP, 82.19.71.53 (talk • contribs • [/wiki/Special:Log/move?user= page moves] • block user • [/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User: block log]) has also added links.
There is one well-established online publication, GlobalVillageIdiot, in PtS' listings, and it was the only one I noticed that might meet WP:EL. Wikipedia has 12 links to that music review site; all were added by other editors with good reputations on Wikipedia. Most of these editors had extensive editing histories (1000s of edits). I left these links alone. 
All the other links are cleaned up. --A. B. (talk) 07:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links to [http://www.pts.com/oursites.cfm PtS Content Network] sites 

message: I was following up on several spammers' spam trails and noticed these as needing more cleanup; I didn't have any time left:
*Nutrition -- not just links at the bottom but also some inline links + footnotes
*Social bookmarking. JoeSmack Talk 00:47, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recently tagged articles for cleanup 

message: I'm out of time today. Here's what I was going to do for each language version:
# Leave a note at the "Embassy" for that language. (These are noticeboards where Wikipedians from other languages can leave messages such about cross-language issues as multi-Wikipedia vandals, spammers, etc.)
##Leave an html link back to this discussion (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Vinni-Puh.27s_linkspam_via_narod.ru_--_surfaced_again)
##Copy the user/talk/contrib links from the [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam&action=edit§ion=10  edit window for this page] then paste them into my message at the Embassy noticeboard.
#I was reluctant to clean-up Vinni-Puh's edits and links in that language unless I was fluent in the language. For all I know, Vinni-Puh may be adding some stuff elsewhere that folks appreciate. I figure the editors on those Wikipedia's can handle that stuff and probably don't want me cluelessly mucking around.
#Make a note somewhere of what .narod.ru domains he was spamming (and any other domains), then list it here. I thought once we had all the data, we could add it in one batch to the blacklist.
As I mentioned, I've run out of time. Figuring out how to write up this inter-wiki stuff took hours.
Finally, I am worried about blacklisting all of narod.ru unless we're sure it's all spam. My impression is that it may be a big hosting service like a geocities or a yahoo. 
Thanks for any help you can render. --A. B. (talk) 20:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't his behaviour on 23 Dec at [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amin_Maalouf&action=history] a 3RR which gets an auto ban? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.152.166.153 (talk) 22:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like he only reverted twice. He has three edits, but the first was adding the spam, the next two were reverting it back in. Once more and he would have been in violation of 3RR. IrishGuy talk 22:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vinni-Puh's edit histories on other Wikipedia versions

message: Here's what I've seen so far on this and other Wikipedias:
* www.aminmaalouf.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.aminmaalouf.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
*aminmaalouf.ifrance.com
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.aminmaalouf.ifrance.com list] of articles with this link
* dahmaneelharrachi.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.dahmaneelharrachi.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* gadelmaleh.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.gadelmaleh.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* guyalepage.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.guyalepage.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* www.in-gridsite.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.in-gridsite.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* in-gridsite.ifrance.com
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.in-gridsite.ifrance.com list] of articles with this link
* jeandujardin.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.jeandujardin.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* josegarcia.narod.ru/
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.josegarcia.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* jonathanlittell.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.jonathanlittell.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* naguibmahfouz.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.naguibmahfouz.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* o-zone-website.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.o-zone-website.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
* sachabaroncohen.narod.ru
**Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.sachabaroncohen.narod.ru list] of articles with this link
--A. B. (talk) 06:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vinnie-Puh's domains

message: We have more than 1000 links to 1911encyclopdia.org [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Linksearch&target=%2A.1911encyclopedia.org&limit=500&offset=0] which is a scanned copy of the 1911 encyclopedia britannica for which that site claims copyright (probably invalidly but whatever).  In cases where it's a real reference for an article we should use the  template but a lot of those links are just spam, making this a bit hard to sort out even not counting the sheer scale.  To really do it right we have to figure out whether each article actually contains EB text. 67.117.130.181 13:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See more discussion [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles#1911encyclopedia.org_links here]. 67.117.130.181 23:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I see there is just a couple of these ext links now. Am I missing something or someone already did a cleanup? `'mikka 01:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I still see 100s. I spot-checked some edit histories -- perhaps 5 or 6. All the links had been added by high-volume, high-value editors, not link-spammers. I agree, however, that these links need to be replaced, especially given the fact that 1911encyclopedia.org made major errors in OCR converting their scans. These links are sending people to very unreliable pages. --A. B. (talk) 04:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

text: This 1911 thing is very sad. Given www.gutenberg.org seems to have the whole text up as a single document why doesn't someone publish it public domain as one page per article without adverts somewhere? I don't reckon that's more than a weeks work. --BozMo talk 15:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  1911encyclopedia lovetoknow linkspam 

message: As I work through the copyvio material added by , the editor appears to be spamming . There aren't all that many links to that site, but I'm bogged down documenting the copyvio problems, so it would be helpful if someone could check who else is adding the links. JonHarder talk 02:30, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Person seems to be continuing to add articles and links.  They are being more careful now, but purpose seems to be to promote drug companies and about-drugs.com.  I left a note about conflict of interest editing (WP:COI).  I think we're getting close to needing a block. 67.117.130.181 04:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Person is now responding to talk messages, see his/her talk page, and mine.  It's hard to tell what's going on, and the person's English skills apparently all that great.  I guess I'll suggest that s/he join WP:DRUGS. 67.117.130.181 23:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: drugs-about.com is registered in Russia; perhaps the user is a Russian speaker. That could explain why the new articles have been copy and paste creations or expansions. I have found the source of about half of them. It certainly looks like the edits are about promoting drugs-about.com. JonHarder talk 23:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  drugs-about.com 

message: Over the last week or so, several users (and a couple of IP addresses) have been persistently trying to link this site into mostly computer-related articles. Check out special:linksearch/popsnail.com for any new links. Is it time for the site to be added to the spam blacklist now? Users who have added links to the site include , , , , , ,  and . IP addresses linking to the site (based in Asia) are  and . Graham87 07:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Blocked the accounts as spam campaign socks. Femto 12:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The user/s seem to make new accounts every few minutes; maybe the autoblocks might stop the spammer for a while though. Graham87 14:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, now that you mention it I didn't specifically enable the autoblock, I'm rather cautious with that option. If these guys are proxyhopping it wouldn't help anyway. What I did though is to confirm the two IPs as open proxies (*.178 is routing from *.148:80). Blocked with account creation enabled though, because I'm new to the whole proxy business and didn't dare blocking harder, if another admin wants to review, be my guest. Need to keep watching for new links in any case. Femto 16:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popsnail.com 

message: As Jimbo has just started promoted his "Wikiasari" project, outbound links from WikiPedia pages might be considered worth even more than before... I'd say: prepare for a bunch of spam the coming months... --Jdevalk 10:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's "Wikiasari"? --A. B. (talk) 16:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: [upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061223-085944-3351r Wikipedia founder to launch search engine] --Hu12 16:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And "they" say it will show results from Wikipedia and pages WP links to, thus increasing the need for people to have links from Wikipedia, and perhaps changing the linking rules for Wikipedia altogether... --Jdevalk 20:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh crimoney.  What is Jimbo thinking? Now we are MORE attractive to linkspam. (sigh) ---J.S  (T/C) 22:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed, he isn't really helping... --Jdevalk 10:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prepare for more spam... 

message: This article can attract some spam but is generally well-watched. The "See Also" section links to articles for bubbles in different countries, some of which are poorly monitored and frequently spammed. --A. B. (talk) 16:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Real estate bubble]] 

message: User:Lesb246 is spamming every Eastern Oregon-related and many unrelated pages with the link to the Eastern Oregon State University distance education program. Well-intentioned but annoying... Katr67 00:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In need of an admin rollback, perhaps ban. As far as I can tell, he is Director of Student Relations and Marketing for the Division of Distance Education at Eastern Oregon University. And he wants everyone to come see the school's site. Groan.  JoeSmack Talk 00:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: User [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ALesb246&diff=96639526&oldid=96637642 has been blocked] for link spamming (and I [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Les_Balsiger&diff=prev&oldid=96640650 have prodded] his self-submitted bio article prod tag was removed; sent to AfD).  For later follow-up, here's the [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=www.eou.edu%2Fdde URL linksearch] to check for this again. -- Satori Son 00:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (Les Balsiger speedied per A7 & overwhelming Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Les Balsiger.) Femto 13:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

text: What a foolish mistake. I've seen this multiple times now. Editor spams multiple articles with links and submits one or more vanity articles about self and some organization (or recently, even their boyfriend's horse). Other editors object citing guidelines, but the vanity editor persists, earning more warnings and engendering closer scrutiny by more editors. Then they make their really big mistake -- they remove the CSD or PROD tag, leading to an AfD. The AfD turns to an embarrassing discussion of the person's notability and usually reveals the submitting author's poor behavior. Within a week or two, the articles and links are all gone, but the AfD debate remains indefinitely. Because Google gives Wikipedia articles very high weight in calculating page rank, any search on the person's name turns up the embarrassing AfD discussion in the top two or three search results. --A. B. (talk) 03:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, such blatantly embarassing AfDs can be dealt with via  if you feel it would help. 68.39.174.238 02:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Also now using 71.111.124.72 (talk • contribs • [/wiki/Special:Log/move?user= page moves] • block user • [/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User: block log]) as well. --A. B. (talk) 05:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Has anyone yet requested a checkuser for the two IP's? -- Satori Son 05:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need another user to tell this person to stop spamming 

message: Please write a separately visible section in Wikipedia:Spam that describes the wikimedia's spam blacklist (m:spam blacklist). Right now various bits and pieces are in several places: Wikipedia:External links, Wikipedia:Spam some useful can be found in m:talk:spam blacklist. `'mikka 01:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not someone who could write such things, but here's my moral support for this request. Certain aspects of meta: are rather obscure and need to be better documented. Femto 12:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam blacklist 

message: [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Linksearch&target=%2A.answers.google.com&limit=500&offset=0 answers.google.com] Quite a few of these, asside from the google article, these are inapropriate as EL's.. Agreed?--Hu12 17:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how ansers.google.com would be appropriate in almost any case.  It's basically a question and some random person's reply. If the reply is relevant, we would be better off making sure the information is included in the article and citing reliable sources. ---J.S  (T/C) 20:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of those aren't in article space and I'd rather stay out of editorial judgements about whether particular answers are encyclopedic.  It's not as if google was trying to spam us. 67.117.130.181 08:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article space links will surely need to be cleaned up. thanks for the replies. --Hu12 16:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Per JS, try to be a bit careful in doing the cleanup (i.e. merge encyclopedic content into the articles, don't go against editorial consensus for any particular article, drop a note on the article talk page in complex cases).  67.117.130.181 06:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think most of google answers links actually provide valuable info. It's probably inappropriate for external links,  but I'm fairly confident it's not spam in the traditional sense... so it's sorta outside of the scope of this project. ---J.S  (T/C) 06:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: agreed, not in traditional sense..google doesn't need to spam--Hu12 07:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  answers.google.com 

message: Whoa, take a look at Anti-money laundering's EL section --Hu12 18:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same with Money laundering --Hu12 18:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and cleared out Anti-money laundering's EL section.  Seems other editors had noted this problem as well.  Article was accumulating commercial sites, personal websites, those requiring registration, and EL section was 3 times bigger than article.  Since removing all the links was a little aggressive, I'll let the dust settle there and take on Money laundering next because it contains most of the same sites. Calltech 10:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We've definitely reached the Spam Event Horizon for these two.  And while removing the entire EL section is drastic, I can't say I disagree in such an extreme case.  -- Satori Son 06:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So Microfinance would also be considered a Spam Event Horizon? --Hu12 08:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did and took the appropriate (I hope) action. 68.39.174.238 03:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  saw that, looks good. had to do a spot cleanup on Climate change, probably need a second edit somewhere--Hu12 06:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: My head spun on this Lightweight Directory Access Protocol --Hu12 10:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Anti-money laundering]] 

message: After seeing the warning message on Anti-money_laundering above, I modified the Template:Cleanup-spam to conform more closely with WP:EL.  Please review and see if it needs improvement.  Warning should include both commercial and non-commercial sites.  Calltech 19:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Template:Cleanup-spam]] update 

message: Seen while cleaning up Change Management. There are over 20 of these links:
*en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.tutor2u.net
Do those web pages meet WP:RS in terms of editorial supervision? It sort of looks like an online text book, but then again maybe it's just some sort of self-published junk.
I did not have time to see if they were campaign-spammed or just added one at a time in good faith. --A. B. (talk) 09:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most appear to have been added by , who was warned a year ago about spamming and retaliatory vandalism. I'll work on cleaning this up. JonHarder talk 18:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: *Also . JonHarder talk 18:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  tutor2u.net -- appropriate or not? 

message: I looks like I set off the owner of PolyAnalyst by placing a "notability" tag in the article. The two sentence article has been expanded by an order of magnitude with lists of external sites, papers and books, perhaps to make a point. I think among all of the links that notability has been established, but probably the balance of new material isn't helpful. Is anyone willing to smoothe things over with ? I expect something similar will be hitting a related article, Megaputer Intelligence. JonHarder talk 23:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: moved to the talk page, should be more appropriate there.--Hu12 23:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: PolyAnalyst

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 19:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: I don't think that I would call the links to ratemyteachers.com typical spam because they were probably most often added by students from the individual schools that have the links, but after looking at the website, I think that EVERY link to the website other than the RateMyTeachers article should be deleted as inappropriate. I don't have the time to do the link removals. Can it be done by Bot? Here is a list of all 56 links to the website. [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.ratemyteachers.com] BlankVerse 00:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed them. IrishGuy talk 20:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

text: THANKS! I didn't check the related website, RateMyProfessors.com, but I would imagine that it also has too many inappropriate links. BlankVerse 00:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the ratemyprofessors site only had one inappropriate link so I removed that one, too. All told, about an hour of editing. Gotta love spam :) IrishGuy talk 00:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ratemyteachers.com 

message: I'm not certain if this article was already discussed, but it appears to be a magnet for ELs ranging from commercial websites, blogs, forums, non-English, POV, etc.  4 pages broken into 10 categories.  Even citations appear to be piggy-backed with commercial links.  It gets to a point where the really good ELs simply get smothered with opinion or spam.  Not sure where to start, but I'm inclined to clean out the EL section completely and put a warning up to spammers.  Since this is a controversial topic, I'd like other opinions here first.  Thanks!  Calltech 17:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Eeeeek! That articel is HORRIFYING! While I haven't done an exhaustive check of the links, some of the section headers seem to be questionable enough to me. If you do do something about those links I will strongly support you. 68.39.174.238 03:48, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed blogs section per Links normally to be avoided, unfortunatly this article has reached the Spam Event Horizon, and needs be dealt with.--Hu12 04:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Network neutrality]]

message: [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Information_and_Communication_Technologies_for_Development&diff=next&oldid=92716138 This edit] on a page I watch has me confused.  The addition: Low cost computer guide doesn't have the arrow image indicating it's external and it's also written like a wikilink (Low cost computer guide).  But it is the color of an external link and if you click on it it takes you to www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Low_cost_computer_guide.  Appropedia is a Wiki run on mediawiki software but doesn't appear to be affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation.  It's new to me.  Has anyone seen this before?  Will it work for any external site (and how?), any ideas how we would search for links that had been added in this manner?  -- Siobhan Hansa 15:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is question about an obscure topic I can actually answer. Anything in the interwiki map can be linked this way. ✤ JonHarder talk 15:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Jon.  I don't think I'd ever have found that on my own.  -- Siobhan Hansa 15:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I made a request to remove YouTube from the inerwikilist.  Looks like it was added around christmas. ---J.S  (T/C) 18:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a start, though I think this list requires more drastic measures (it usually takes a lot to get such reactions out of me). Anyone feel free to join my rant at Wikipedia talk:External links#Meta "custom namespaces". Femto 12:00, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External link formatting question 

message: I have run across  before and let them go as being relatively harmless. Yesterday a single IP added added links to 20+ articles, sometimes adding multiple entries to a single article. I have reverted all of those insertions. I would like a second opinion about removal from the remaining 100 articles. If you do some checking, yesterday's prolific spammer would often change "External links" to "External Links", change third-level E-L subsections to second level, or add a new "Placemarks" section. I suggest that any edits that fit this pattern can be removed as being from the same spammer. ✤ JonHarder talk 15:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say pull them. They are nothing more than original research personal essays. Nothing encyclopedic there. IrishGuy talk 18:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to those who helped out with this. A spot check of about 10% of the remaining 50 links shows that they were added by good-faith editors. I'm willing to leave it at that for now. ✤ JonHarder talk 01:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  jqjacobs.net 

message: Looks like an adsense scrapper site (MFA). doesn't seem to have any other purpose ecept to catch page views. even the contact info for the site states Be sure to include the words no spam in the subject. If you do not include the words, the email will be deleted automatically.--Hu12 02:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Appears primarily to be the work of User:Wcspaulding who has been asked to refrain from such linking in the past.Nposs 03:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: And he happens to own the website (see: www.aboutus.org/ThisMatter.com).Nposs 03:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like his additions were made in pretty good faith (he has made lots of other valuable contributions.) I've left a note on his talk page discouraging from self-linking (and proposing his links on the talk pages if he thinks they are appropriate.) I've deleted the obvious links he made himself, but left those that were potentially placed by other editors. Nposs 03:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hu12 (talk • contribs) 05:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I restore the comments deleted by User:Wcspaulding that directly relate to ThisMatter.com spam campaign.--Hu12 20:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: He can delete them if he wants. They're archived [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wcspaulding&diff=98135877&oldid=98134932|here.] Nposs 20:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  thismatter.com 

message: Was just made aware  is vandalizing EL sections and leaving edit summaries stating helping Hu12 remove "spam"!. Only contact with this person is removig his spam campain for powdermill-snowmobile-club.com see User talk:Sinned. Any advice, or help would be appreciated.--Hu12 04:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, from what I've seen his recent edits are fairly legit. Am I missing something? His edit summaries might be a bit pointy, but the few edits I looked at looked ok.  ---J.S  (T/C) 04:53, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The irony is I also agree with his edits. Am very opposed to the edit summaries.. for obvious reasons.--Hu12 04:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then stop being so bitey on his talk page :) ---J.S  (T/C) 05:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: chomp chomp, I'll soften it more..--Hu12 05:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll assume good faith that the summaries weren't a tantrum for removing his site. I've had that happen before, so excuse the bite.--Hu12 05:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: We certainly understand someone making a first-time mistake; we've all been there.  I think Hu12's main concern was that your subsequent edit summaries made it look like those edits were somehow approved or directed by him/her. While the handful of your edits I looked at seemed like pretty good improvements to the articles, you can find better edit summary examples at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam#Standardised edit summary.  Thanks and welcome! -- Satori Son 14:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  False edit summary "helping Hu12 remove "spam"!" 

message: On the English Wikipedia, and on others, spam is (obviously) becoming an increasing problem. The purpose of this essay is to propose a few ways to fight spam on a multiwiki, foundational level. While trying to keep it broad, there is some excellent specific stuff that is there that isn't here and vise versa; I'd encourage the editors here to skip over to the meta essay and add their expertise.  JoeSmack Talk 00:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I notice that many of the links posted to en are also posted to other languages. Is there any mechanism or system in place to share information between people rooting out link spam across languages? (For example: our friends at appliedlinguistics.org can be found on es and de.)Nposs 02:03, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is it, you're looking at it. It is the best there is right now. JoeSmack Talk 02:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. Whenever someone adds an external link to Nightwish or Tarja Turunen, I must remove it from also all the other versions. Since I do not know many of those languages (I have accounts there for interwikis and inserting Commons images), I can't warn them. It would be nice to have statistics about which links have been added into several wikis to determine if they can be blacklisted. -- ReyBrujo 03:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Handling Spam 

message: I've been reverting a lot of spam from www.aim-search.com today. For example, see [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pornography&diff=prev&oldid=98314667 pornography], [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sildenafil&diff=prev&oldid=98311667 Sildenafil], [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phentermine&diff=prev&oldid=98302546 Phentermine], [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tramadol&diff=prev&oldid=98302763 Tramadol]. As far as I can see there isn't much value in this "search eninge" beyond acting as a spam portal. Thoughts on whether this is a good candidate for the spam blacklist? Gwernol 01:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As near as I can tell, it isn't a search engine. I searched for "theonion.com" (obviously a popular website) and all I got were spam links to the same sales sites on the main page. This is spam in every sense of the word. IrishGuy talk 01:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I've submitted it to the spam blacklist and its now blacklisted [meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ASpam_blacklist&diff=505912&oldid=505905]. Gwernol 13:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  www.aim-search.com 

message: Many of you have probably seen this – it was first posted back in April 2006 – but blogger Peter T. Davis' first person account of Wikipedia link spamming, entitled [www.petertdavis.net/176-wikipedia-and-link-spammers-a-how-to-guide/ "'How-to' Guide for Link Spammers"], is still an interesting read. It was really being tossed around there for a while, partially reprinted as "How To Link Spam Wikipedia" both by [www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=3240 Search Engine Journal] and [www.lockergnome.com/nexus/search/2006/04/10/how-to-link-spam-wikipedia/ Search Engineer], among others. And spammers have gotten even savvier since then, so we really need to be on our toes. -- Satori Son 01:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They are pretty old links, but still pay heed. Luckily they are still missing some of the more deceitful and crafty tricks. JoeSmack Talk 05:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia and Link Spammers - A “How-to” Guide 

message: Time to stir the pot, but Angela makes me do it.  It was interesting to see (yet again) Angela Beesley "marketing" the services of Wikia.com to the Wikipedia community, this time through the [mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l WikiEN-l mailing list] which is sponsored on Wikimedia servers that we users pay for with tax-deductible donations:
:::::Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:53:30 +0000
:::::From: Angela <beesley@gmail.com>
::::::Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Thousands of *awful* articles on websites
::::::To: "Bogdan Giusca" <liste@dapyx.com>,  "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l@wikipedia.org>
::::::On 1/3/07, Bogdan Giusca <liste@dapyx.com> wrote:
::::::> Wikipedia has way too many articles on websites, webcomics and
::::::> other types of internet content -- likely thousands.
::::::>
::::::> The problem is that around 95% of those articles are not sourced (or
::::::> they are sourced from forum and blog posts) and at least 70% won't be
::::::> able to be sourced because they were never mentioned in the mainstream
::::::> press -- and probably very few were mentioned in books and journals.
::::::>
::::::> I deleted about 50 of them, which looked totally non-notable
:::::This seems a waste.  Just because something hasn't been written about by the mainstream press doesn't make it worthless to people reading Wikipedia.
:::::internet.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Angela&oldid=1943 shows 17 examples of pages you deleted today which I've rescued for the Internet Wiki, but it's a shame so many hundreds like those are being deleted every day rather than moved to a more suitable wiki or rewritten to make them suitable for Wikipedia.
:::::Angela
:::::::::::::::::::::::(emphasis mine) 
So, it's okay to "suggest" to other users a "more suitable wiki", especially if it's Wikia, which will put more Google ad revenues into Angela's pocket.  Nobody else sees this as shameful?  Just a few minutes later, another robotic Wikipedian responded, "Maybe there should be some way to mark the articles which are not notable for wikipedia, but are worthy to be included in internet.wikia.com.  For example, one would include 'I7W' (non-notable website) as reason for deletion and a bot would monitor the deletion log and take the deleted articles marked that way and automatically post them on internet Wikia."
Jesus Christ, should we just make a "bot" that will transfer from every dollar donated to Wikimedia Foundation, one nickel into Angela's pocket, and a dime into Jimbo's?  This is getting completely out of hand! --JossBuckle Swami 03:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed for the most part.  There isn't much wrong using a bot to do this indipendently as the gdfl clearly allows it, however the promoting of the site in links and suggestions like that is a problem.  If Angela wants to do it herself fine, but asking other people to do so is a problem.  That said, you arn't going to find yourself popular for saying so... --T-rex 04:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Heck, life's too short to worry about things like that. --BozMo talk 09:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Or that someone has added a link on every page to 501(c) in a long multi-link advert for WMF. That's pretty US centric... --BozMo talk 09:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Angela spamming list hosted by Wikimedia Foundation 

message: I would like an opinion on www.mymetar.com which contains four google ads per page. It is currently in a few articles including the METAR one and a template that is not being used. It provides weather for airports around the world and would be useful in airport articles. It's almost impossible to link to the individual weather station using the countries weather service. I would like to see the template used but I'm too close to the subject to see if its spam or not. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Weather links

message: I guess "working for the public good' include spamming hundreds of links. User_talk:FisherQueen#Regarding_External_Link_I_added_to_an_online_book_on_the_historical_status_of_the_Klamath_River_salmon_fishery and User_talk:Plbman#Reply_to_your_request--Hu12 02:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is currently a discussion over at Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Hundreds_of_links..._to_a_good_site regarding my reverting these links.  I posted my comments there.  Calltech 23:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  repositories.cdlib.org 

message: See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Dec#“powered by EJRS.com”. These links [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ejrs started returning] today. --A. B. (talk) 05:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  EJRS.com links coming back 

message: 1151 links & owned by LoveToKnow [www.1911encyclopedia.org/LoveToKnow_1911:About About LoveToKnow]
 38 links & owned by LoveToKnow [www.lovetoknow.com/about-lovetoknow.htm About LoveToKnow] 
 holly cow! I stopped countng after 46 thousand links [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Linksearch&limit=500&offset=46500&target=%2A.britannica.com]
 811 links Canadian Encyclopedia 
I'm sure others have see these. I don't se a reason why Wikipedia should be external linking to other duplicate wikis. is there a policy specific to this? I'm inclined to remove them all.--Hu12 06:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: [meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/External_links] "Wikimedia projects are not search engines or link repositories. They should be kept to a useful minimum, and provide relevant and non-trivial information that isn't present in the page. "Does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article alread contains Links normally to be avoided--Hu12 06:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree strongly with removing links to other encyclopedias. While both the Wikipedia article and the one in Britannica would be similarly structured encyclopedia topics on a subject, it is fairly rare that every piece of information has been imported into Wikipedia. Moreover, in the majority of cases these links are in the references section, and other encyclopedias are perfectly valid references. - SimonP 03:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  links to duplicate and scrapped content 

message: the external links section of Net_neutrality needs a cleaning badly. i'm afraid i haven't been following the issue, so I am of less help as it is full of "papers" and "experts" etc. (notice the quotes). JoeSmack Talk 17:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Net_neutrality]] 

message: One to watch User:Wrathoffoamy is persistent in trying to advertise his/her business in Origami. I've gotta quit for tonight... Thanks. Pollinator 07:51, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrathoffoamy 

message: Stumbled on this when Kkong (talk · contribs · [ logs] · [ block log]) posted a link to an article I watch.  Turns out all his edits aare to promote these websites:
*  
*  
* 
These are wikis with a low number of users so inappropriate as external links even if they weren't being spammed.
They are all registered to the same person and all use the same google ad client number (and they are all plastered in google ads): pub-0064587396664963  
Other IPs occassionally post a batch of links: 
* 155.69.74.37 (talk • contribs • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?domain=155.69.74.37 WHOIS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=155.69.74.37 RDNS] • [completewhois.com/cgi-bin/rbl_lookup.cgi?query=155.69.74.37 RBLs] • [ block log])
* 220.255.235.149 (talk • contribs • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?domain=220.255.235.149 WHOIS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=220.255.235.149 RDNS] • [completewhois.com/cgi-bin/rbl_lookup.cgi?query=220.255.235.149 RBLs] • [ block log])
* 220.255.254.15 (talk • contribs • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?domain=220.255.254.15 WHOIS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=220.255.254.15 RDNS] • [completewhois.com/cgi-bin/rbl_lookup.cgi?query=220.255.254.15 RBLs] • [ block log])
* 220.255.247.211 (talk • contribs • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?domain=220.255.247.211 WHOIS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=220.255.247.211 RDNS] • [completewhois.com/cgi-bin/rbl_lookup.cgi?query=220.255.247.211 RBLs] • [ block log])
* 220.255.50.206 (talk • contribs • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?domain=220.255.50.206 WHOIS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=220.255.50.206 RDNS] • [completewhois.com/cgi-bin/rbl_lookup.cgi?query=220.255.50.206 RBLs] • [ block log])
* 121.6.84.229 (talk • contribs • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?domain=121.6.84.229 WHOIS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=121.6.84.229 RDNS] • [completewhois.com/cgi-bin/rbl_lookup.cgi?query=121.6.84.229 RBLs] • [ block log])
More detail can be found at: User:SiobhanHansa/Checks#lifestylewiki.com_airline-wiki.com_chinese-wiki.com
That seems to be it from the trail I have.  I would recommend to the blacklist but I haven't had much luck with the recommendations I've made so I think I'm unclear on the guidelines. Other opinions?  -- Siobhan Hansa 18:25, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Found a second sock account for Kkong, , although inactive I suspect it may become.--Hu12 07:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spamming wikipedia with wikis 

message: has been slowly been adding links to his own sites over the past several months: ,  (1 link remaining), ,  (1 link remaining),  (1 link remaining) and . A whois search reveal they are all registered to the same person. The links have mostly been removed by alert editors; unfortunately no one has yet warned him.
Office complex and Banquet hall were created solely as a vehicle for link spam. The articles are not that great. Is there something they can be redirected to?
:How about redirecting Office complex to Industrial park? ✤ JonHarder talk 23:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ragnarev / Alfaro spam

message: Not sure about this one since I don't see the immediate benefit to the spammer - maybe just driving up page hits. The action is very spammy ([en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.lifeinneurosurgery.com list]): the user has added multiple links to the website from multiple articles even including the link in See Also sections. The content of the pages linked is very thin, not really worth linking (even if it didn't violate WP:COI). With the bad experiences had by well meaning editors, I thought I'd draw your attention to it and get some feedback before taking action.  Nposs 02:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The site checks out ([www.aboutus.org/LifeInNeurosurgery.com about.us]), in fact it might be Dr. Ammar himself (the user uploaded a .pdf about an award the doctor is offering for the best article someone else writes for the website ([en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Research_prize.pdf link]). The actions support this promotional activity. Nposs 02:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I pulled the links out. It is spam. Not one edit that actually adds content. In a few articles he/she added multiple links to the site. I gave the user a spam warning. IrishGuy talk 02:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: www.lifeinneurosurgery.com and [[User:Lifeinneurosurgery]]

message: I added a new "Removal how-to" section on the main project page. This is intended to be a basic step-by-step guide for beginners. Each step increases in complexity; an editor can choose to stop anywhere in the progression. My idea is to make it as basic as possible for someone who is interested in helping but isn't sure of the process. How can it be improved? I think changes that simplify would be better than trying to add every possible nuance and special case.
I think the lead of the main page could be trimmed or parts of it moved farther down. The new material duplicates material that follows. This can be cleaned up once there is a consensus that the how-to is appropriate and stable. ✤ JonHarder talk 02:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice write up JH--Hu12 06:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, helpful. One minor thing though it is worded as though you always pick up spam on a watch list. A problem I often encounter is people picking up spam browsing and then deleting it instead of reverting it. Spam is often an over-write (especially flagrant spam) so doing this loses content. Since I have to explain this on userpages of the deleting editors having a para which explained it and told people how to edit would help (e.g. User_talk:Viperphantom#Re:Vandalism). --BozMo talk 10:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added wording that I hope addresses this suggestion adequately. ✤ JonHarder talk 23:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal how-to 

message: Please take a look at the links in this article: several of them are commercial, but Marceo keeps restoring them to the article when I remove them, saying they address shortcomings in the article. Thanks. A Ramachandran 05:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Yoga]] 

message: *http://spam.jumptv.com
seems JumpTV has turned into a directory/ channel list. Not sure if somone wants to have a look.--Hu12 05:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: much the same with Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. --Hu12 06:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Its hard to get motivated to improve articles which IMHO should be deleted but there are a flock of single issue editors around them so getting AfD through would be hard. I am staying clear. --BozMo talk 10:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually managed to get a Talk page consensus to remove almost all of the "List" external links in Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. We'll see if it holds. -- Satori Son 18:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[JumpTV]] 

message: Site:
*negrosislandonline.blogspot.com/ Nposs 06:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: negrosislandonline.blogspot.com

message: *SEOServices[forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=114][forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=2033354&postcount=4]
**Accounts:
***Seoservices (talk • contribs • [/wiki/Special:Log/move?user= page moves] • block user • [/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User: block log])
**Links
***www.gii.in
****Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.gii.in list] of articles with this link
***www.downloadheart.us/
****Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.downloadheart.us list] of articles with this link 0
***www.amishaworld.com
****Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.amishaworld.com list] of articles with this link
***www.seomeeting.com
****Current [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.seomeeting.com list] of articles with this link
--A. B. (talk) 05:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All cleaned up and warned now. --A. B. (talk) 15:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Got a few this way as well... way to go--Hu12 06:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All cleaned up and warned now. --A. B. (talk) 15:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: All cleaned up and warned now. --A. B. (talk) 15:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: miscellaneous

message: User:208.100.136.104 spammed several articles with a link to the quasi-governmental (?) Central Oregon Visitors Association. A while back someone spammed every city in Lane County, Oregon with a similar link to that county's visitors bureau and I removed them all except the one in the actual county article. For some reason I'm having trouble deciding if I should nuke this Central Oregon link as well. I think I'm much too relaxed after taking a nice long wikibreak, so if someone else could take a look I'd appreciate it. Thanks! Katr67 21:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggestion -- politely delete the links. Tell him he's been a naughty boy. Tell him if he wants to add those links in the future, he must take them to the talk page for each article and request someone else add the link since he has a WP:COI problems. If the other editors like them, they'll add them. On the other hand, if he forges ahead against your request, use warnings, blacklists, etc. --A. B. (talk) 22:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like all the [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.visitcentraloregon.com links] have all been deleted for now. A. B. is right: it is always best to revert mass link apamming of numerous articles by an anon SPA. -- Satori Son 03:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opinions needed 

message: Would this and this bu User:Jrnetwork count as some sort of this an elaborate spam attempt? --Peta 07:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At present neither article explains why the books are notable and there are far to many links to website pages doing nothing more than mention the book. So it is no good. However, the starting point is always to assume good faith. I would start by tagging for cleanup and notability.  --BozMo talk 09:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have a look at Jrnetwork contributions, he states outright in the image edit summaries hes the webmaster for  and . which this is a clear case of Advertising and conflicts of interest  --Hu12 10:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, I missed that. But we still assume good faith, and warn him I guess... --BozMo talk 10:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, we always Assume good faith first.--Hu12 10:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I've tidied up Goldie Alexander, ta/wangi 11:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Complex spam?

message: the external links section of U.S._Route_66 needs cleaning. JoeSmack Talk 03:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[U.S._Route_66]] 

message: see Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Sselvakumar --BozMo talk 22:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple sock fix  

message: The combination of Aliweb, Talk:Aliweb, and User:Aliweb (talk) (contribs) defy WP:OWN and WP:COI policies and fit Wikipedia:Spam#Advertisements masquerading as articles like a glove.
I'm uninvolved, merely taken a look at the situation once in awhile since mid-December.  I'm too new a registrant (three months) to feel easy about slapping on the , and the attitude and persistent reversions of the self-appointed 'owner' lead me to expect he'll remove the tag a lot faster than he'll add a .  And, too, dropping it into CAT:SPEEDY & CAT:SPAM may simply delay a real WP:AFD.  Please advise.   Athænara    ✉     12:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good candidate for posting on Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. While the editors on this page are concerned about conflict of interest edits, the noticeboard specifically deals with the issue and you may be more likely to get a response there to issues that are isolated to one or a few articles. ✤ JonHarder talk 21:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you.  I have begun looking into that as you suggested.  —Æ.    ✉     23:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Aliweb

message: "A wildcard may be used, at the start of the name only, for example "*.wikipedia.org". "
*Any way this can be modified to use Wildcards any where in the hostname? such as "*.wiki*" --Hu12 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Search web links 

message: Anyone remember this discussion (Not so much spam as promotion) ? Anyway its back with category pages see: :Category:Woodstock :Category:Woodstock (1969) Performers etc etc. --BozMo talk 14:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Woodstock 

message: I recently came across this editor, and wondered if his/her multiple insertions of the same link across articles would qualify as spam. The link itself is not commercial, AFAICT, but the articles linked to provide little extra info. Thoughts? IronDuke 16:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your instincts are good.  Links do not have to be to a sales site to be commercial, nor do links have to be commercial to be spam.  This looks like a classic spammer and other editors and admins clearly think so too.  It's also a very clear conflict of interest, and you could follow that road as well or instead of the spam road.  As it is this seems to have been taken care of.  -- Siobhan Hansa 21:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: looks like User:Rjensen has been reverting them back. I only mention this because of his/her dubious past [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=&page=User%3ARjensen]--Hu12 21:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometimes a spamlink is also a good link.  User:Rjensen has several 3RR blocks but no indication of spamming.  He's also a regular contributor on all the articles he reverted on so I think it seems the decision is being made where it ought to be (i.e. by regular editors of the article).  If the link is POV other editors of the article can debate it.  -- Siobhan Hansa 22:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Rjensen is pretty clearly "Richard Jensen, retired Professor of History, University of Illinois Chicago". His own websites tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/ are linked to by the miller centre but it is fairly clear he doesn't work there. BTW when identifying someone start with their oldest edits... this guy was pretty careless adding himself as a reference half a dozen times in the first three hundred edits...[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Republican_Party_%28United_States%29&diff=prev&oldid=17840496]--BozMo talk 22:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second opinion sought 

message: IP addresses continue to add commercial linkspam to truffle articles, especially links to PlantationSystems.com in Tuber (genus). Truffles are a very high profit niche in both online sales and CPC advertising. Sinned 18:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Truffle spam 

message: User appears to have placed 83 links to her site. See [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.katinkahesselink.net]. The user is clearly Katrina Hesse. She states that the site is hers on her user page.  A Ramachandran 22:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From her website: "By profession she is a teacher of math and chemistry - at middle school-level, though she now makes a living doing webdesign and through the ads on this site (but please don't click ads repeatedly - that is considered click-fraud and will cost her money)." (Emphasis mine.) Some of the links might be worth keeping, but clearly the site is "over-linked." She clearly did add many of the links herself: Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=Kh7.Nposs 02:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: And for people to go around reverting all her edits on *principle* is just a mean and nasty way of attacking people and hiding behind the *rules*.  It's also unacceptable behaviour.  Your  posting to her talk page is an unpleasant way to welcome a new contributor.  Perhaps you should look at your own behaviour before you cause this situation to escalate into another ArbCom which no one needs. Wjhonson 20:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur. She was not even warned once before.--Mallarme 22:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, to be fair, A Ramachandran placed a pretty mild warning on the user's talk page. Also, the warning did mention the fact in cases of COI, links should be discussed on the article talk page. Pretty nice behavior in my mind. Also, Kh7 is not a new contributor, but in fact a pretty consistent and reliable one who apparently needs to be reminded of some good guidelines. Nposs 20:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: She is not a new contributor, but she is very clearly an unexperienced one, judging from the low number of her contributions, and none of them in Wikipedia Community Space. --Mallarme 22:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with Nposs. Ms. Hesse has been contributing to Wikipedia for almost four years.  If she is not yet familiar with the WP:EL, WP:SPAM, and WP:COI guidelines, a polite but firm message on her talk page is certainly appropriate. And your message on her Talk page was not accurate: the template very clearly states the option to first suggest external links on the article's talk page, which she should do in the future. -- Satori Son 20:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: (I like to use  for first time contrib linkspam). JoeSmack Talk 20:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Certainly not all, or even most for that matter, were added by herself. I daresay that on some articles, they make defintiely an useful addition. --Mallarme 22:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Some of these edits are pretty naughty. Look at [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theosophy_and_Buddhism&diff=74572785&oldid=58747877] where a (presumably public domain) article on someone else's site has been linked to and she moves the link to a copy on her own site claiming "link moved". The old link is still there of course. --BozMo talk 21:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wjhonson is simply reverting every single removal of links to this site. IrishGuy talk 18:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Feel free to justify that accusation with some evidence. I have not simply removed every single link. I have barely removed any. I removed a duplicate link recently, and I removed a few more a few days past. The few other articles I looked over, I kept them when they were used as references. IrishGuy talk 22:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like Wjhonson has reverted two three of the changes. This editor is experienced and appears to have no conflict of interest. To me this is really equivalent to the COI editor placing a request to include the link on the talk page and a neutral editor then deciding to do it. I see no intent to prove a point or subvert the spam project. Wjhonson is also concerned about not biting someone who has not been adequately warned. That is good sense too. I prefer running someone through all four spam templates without jumping to spam4 too quickly. I also don't have a problem with removing all conflict of interest additions of links without reviewing each one for appropriateness. We already know they are inappropriate because of the COI. The same links added by neutral editors, of course, need to be reviewed. ✤ JonHarder talk 03:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you, but just to clarify, A Ramachandran did use the {spam1} notice, so I don't think biting is an issue in this particular situation. -- Satori Son 03:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Point taken. ✤ JonHarder talk 03:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

text: As I pointed out to Wjhonson on my talk page, Kh7 has been an editor here since March of 2003. That is a fair amount of time to become familiar with the guidelines. IrishGuy talk 18:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

text: You did notice though that after some edits in spring 2003 she was inactive for 3 years, right? And that all her edits were in the backwaters of Wikipedia, not in Wikipedia Community Space? --Mallarme 22:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is being slightly disingenous. Most of her edits were in 2003 so it isn't exactly accurate to say after some edits in spring 2003. She edited many articles including Valley of the Kings, Uncertain, Texas, Zazen, and Liberal Catholic Church. While they may not be to your personal taste, but I wouldn't call them Wikipedia's backwaters. She has an edit history of over 250 edits so I would hardly classify her as a neophyte. IrishGuy talk 00:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's entirely plausible that an editor can plow blithely on, unaware of certain guidelines. Has anyone else noticed how spammers and other conflict of interest editors think the guidelines are for the other guy and what they are doing is "useful" and shouldn't be questioned? And they are completely sincere about that. Perhaps we need a corollary to "Assume Good Faith" called "Assume No Clue" meaning that editors have no clue that they have gone astray of the guidelines until being warned (or demonstrate understanding by using guidelines against their competitors!). Just some thoughts to stir the pot. ✤ JonHarder talk 03:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{User|Kh7}} spamming their own site 

message: * - 25 links 
* - 88 links
Both sites are exactly the same and both appear to be complete ripoffs of britannica.com.  Then I looked closer... In Henri La Fontaine nobel-winners.com was used as a source.... in 2003.[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henri_La_Fontaine&diff=1461838&oldid=1461834] nobel-winners.com has a note that all content is released under GFDL... Not I gotta think again... it is possible that britannica.com ripped them off? If someone knows more about this, advise would be appreciated. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 03:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Every article I've checked is a direct cut-and-past from EB. Even the [www.nobel-winners.com/ paragraph on the homepage of the website] is an amalgamation of a [www.amazon.com/Nobel-Prize-History-Controversy-Prestige/dp/product-description/155970537X book description] and copy from the [nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ actual Nobel website]. Still, I don't get what the benefit of the links is. Nposs 04:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: According to the internet archive: nobel-winners.com reached its basic form [web.archive.org/web/*/www.nobel-winners.com/ Oct. 13, 2003]. nobel.brainparad.com came next ([web.archive.org/web/*/nobel.brainparad.com/ Oct. 27, 2005]) and brainparad.com is first documented on [web.archive.org/web/*/brainparad.com Dec. 20, 2005]. Nposs 04:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aparently this came up befor: User:W.marsh/list#Editors_with_multiple_problems_uncovered. Some were cleared up at the time. I'm starting to think we have a small problem here. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 07:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brainparad & nobel-winners 

message: Mistook him for a vandal at first, but it appears to be an author using WP to promote his website and books. I tried to warn him about WP:COI, but he has subsequently created a page about himself (Andras_M._Nagy) that serves only to list his books. Not exactly sure how to handle the situation. Suggestions? (Some of the links he has added to his own website contain content that might be worth linking - so I haven't deleted all of them.) Nposs 20:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Consider "Please could you also read WP:AUTO carefully. Creating an article about yourself is very strongly discouraged and the article may well be deleted on principle." also consider AfD on the article itself (In my view that's a call on best guess on notability but a lot of people would do it on principle). --BozMo talk 22:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I took care of it. I looked into it and the books are published by a press he himself created. The whole thing is non-notable in the extreme so I slapped an AfD on it. IrishGuy talk 22:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done. I thought the range of titles bizarre but I didn't get further. --BozMo talk 22:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Andras_M._Nagy]] and [[User:Andrasnm]]

message: was caught Spamming bollywoodpoint.com and emzr.com, now he's [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Wisdomking&diff=prev&oldid=101065587 joining the team]... 
Adsense pub-6534719876029376
:Spam sock accounts
 I thought this amusing--Hu12 23:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the title is ambiguous? Wikispam members could after all be a club of people who spam? Tickled me too --BozMo talk 09:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: cracks me up, changed the title to fit, haha--Hu12 15:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Member of WikiProject Spamming! 

message: The Long Tail appears to be a useful article, and many of us have heard of the general idea, but its 'External links' section is filling up with cruft.  I recently deleted a slide presentation from a search-engine optimization company [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Long_Tail&diff=prev&oldid=101250141] and got this response on my User_talk:
:Net Concepts is a Search Optimization company, and to that end they are involved in online marketing. This white paper, however, is not a sales tool so much as it is a presentation of some interesting and relative research with regard to the Long Tail concept as it relates to SEO.
Does anyone have general advice on how to protect the page?  I watch RSS (file format) and that page has an enthusiastic crew of spam-deleters, but The Long Tail seems bereft of a protective community.  Any advice?  EdJohnston 22:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're on the right track Ed.  I've added it to my watch list - I expect others will too.  I've also taken out an SEO Blog link and added an external links tag - which may make come other editors think (it may not:-).  It's  pretty bad list - duplicate entries, blogs, "white paper" type articles from commercial companies.... though I can see why such a new and evolving popular concept might have good reason for a variety of links that would otherwise be inappropriate.  One thing I've found can help is to make a proposal on the talk page about which links you think should stay and say you'll make the edit in 24 hours if you don't get any response.  In general you need to be reasonably aggressive to cut these lists down because once a link is on, people don't really look at the way the whole list is growing out of control. -- Siobhan Hansa 23:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linkspam at [[The Long Tail]] 

message: Does anyone have some insight into this situation:
*on 10-22-2006 joseplacido.net [whois.domaintools.com/joseplacido.net is created] (and joseplacido.com gets [whois.domaintools.com/joseplacido.com new DNS information])
*on 10-30-2006 Special:Contributions/83.99.3.138 adds it to two articles - [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Pl%C3%A1cido_Caama%C3%B1o one relevant], [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pl%C3%A1cido_Domingo&diff=prev&oldid=84525839 one irrelevant]
*today, both sites just redirect to the Wikipedia article for José Plácido Caamaño (where the link remains) Nposs 07:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. They have been cached by google as permanent diverts to Wikipedia too: [72.14.221.104/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GEUA%2CGEUA%3A2005-46%2CGEUA%3Aen&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.joseplacido.net%2F]. More bizarrely google's listing of the backlinks to this site include WP NL (see [www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GEUA%2CGEUA%3A2005-46%2CGEUA%3Aen&q=link%3Awww.joseplacido.net&btnG=Search] ) which has been nofollowed for years and does not have a link to this site on any version of the page in its history. I think this means that the site has succeeded at some point in doing a redirect hijack on the NL page. The page is not currently hijacked. I guess that they are trying to do the same here? This is a bit beyond my expertise I am afraid. --BozMo talk 10:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Bring this up on meta blacklist.  This is the kind of site the blacklist was made for. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 16:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've [meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist#joseplacido.net posted it there], but I still don't understand what the point of this type of linking might be. Nposs 17:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, It's a bit WP:BEANy, so I won't say. It's quite nefarious. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 17:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's WP NL? --A. B. (talk) 04:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Netherlands (NL) Wikipedia.   Athænara    ✉     05:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: joseplacido.net

message: I just finished going through and double-checking all of the link searches in the last talk archive, and it looks like these spam links have flared up again:
:[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.lala.com lala.com]; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Dec#lala.com
:[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Linksearch&target=%2A.peterlang.com peterlang.com]; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Dec#Book / blog spam
:[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.digital-desert.com digital-desert.com]; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Dec#Abraxas Engineering Virtual Environments
I am not sure the digital dessert ones were ever taken out. I have removed all bar two of them but most seem to have been there continually since Oct 2005 when a few IPs put them in (none of whom were warned: doesn't seem much point now they've been cold for 18 months e.g. Special:Contributions/66.146.62.152 
Special:Contributions/66.146.62.14
Special:Contributions/66.146.62.15
Special:Contributions/66.146.62.11 (link diverts to digital-dessert)
Special:Contributions/66.146.62.16 (july 2006 to aeve.com, an affiliate)
--BozMo talk 09:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.lyricsdownload.com lyricsdownload.com]; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Dec#Adsense-focused blogs
Otherwise, our cleanup from last month looks pretty good. If anyone has time to help me remove these again, it would be greatly appreciated. -- Satori Son 17:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam reborn 

message: I have a partial list of domains involved in this contest on my user subpage at User:A. B./Sandbox10. Since this WikiProject Spam talk page was semi-protected a little earlier today, contestants' vandalism has shifted to that user subpage, culminating in the page just being blanked.[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:A._B./Sandbox10&curid=9012982&action=history] Those IPs are probably worth evaluating as potential sources of further mischief unless they're dial-up modems. The ones I checked out were mostly DSL. There might also be an open proxy or two -- always worth bolcking. Also, the user contributions may indicate some additional domains being spammed.
Until the nofollow decision sinks in, I think we'll also see some Joe jobs -- highly visible, provocative spamming of one competitor's domain ... by another competitor hoping to get the first guy in trouble. My personal attitude is, that's OK, bring 'em on. None of these links belong here. Given the nature of all these links, I'm not going to lay awake at night worrying if some globalwarmingawareness2007 domain really "deserved" to be blacklisted or not.
I encourage admins to take advantage of WP:IAR in their handling of all of this. I don't think we need to go through a 5-warning sequence to establish that these people may not be editing in good faith.
Enjoy the show. I'll revert my user page so it can be attacked some more if you want; I don't mind it being used as a honeypot. It may be worthwhile to just put it on a watchlist and keep reverting it for the information it gives us. You don't have to semi-protect it; my versions are always available from the page history. --A. B. (talk) 20:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:A. B./Sandbox10]]

message: I'm not sure what all  has been doing because I think some edits have been deleted, including the main user page, and not available in the contribs. What is going on with the last two contribs though?[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Globalwarming_Awareness2007&diff=prev&oldid=103902802][en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Globalwarming_Awareness2007&diff=prev&oldid=103903163] He appears to still be gaming the system. ✤ JonHarder talk 21:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess he hopes google will see his talk page. I don't see much point in deleting it since that is pretty unlikely... --BozMo talk 21:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: More globalwarming awareness2007

message: The template  has been proposed for deletion. See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 January 19 to help reach a consensus on what to do. Mieciu K 14:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess the issue is that it is not in use. If we use it it will get kept. --BozMo talk 14:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But isn't it subst:'d and only visible when editing? How would one determine if it's used? (And I've used it at least once.) —Wrathchild (talk) 14:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please point that out on the TfD and it may get withdrawn: I didn't realise that. --BozMo talk 14:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:NoMoreLinks has been proposed for deletion. 

message: Anyone had a look at technorati.com for a while? I know it has some legit stuff but there are a lot of links from it to spammers crowing about spambaiting WP etc and it might be worth going through all the techy links to pages on it [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.technorati.com] shows 164 links but many are to non mainspace pages. --BozMo talk 15:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most links I see at my first glance are on AfD pages, to show people have a certain influence in their community by linking to a search result, i see no pain in that. Other than that, in the blog world, Technorati is among the biggest influences out there, so i'd expect a whole lot of links, and am even finding 164 a bit low :) --Jdevalk 22:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  technorati.com 

message: Recently, I decided to make a program that would parse the logs from the linkwatcher bot in #wikipedia-spam on freenode and dump the logs to my userspace. Here are today's, and the archive goes back to around 7:00 PM UTC January 4, 2007.
What do you think? Veinor (talk to me) 21:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Its cool. I book marked it when it got posted on the WP:AN. Best would be if we could get the data into some kind of dBase to track over more than a day. But it is interesting to look at. Actually a few of them like : Special:Contributions/Zbd are pretty clear cut and not yet caught and cleaned up (I'll come back and do it if no one else does). There are quite a lot there--BozMo talk 22:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats great, book marked! --Hu12 22:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm applying for a toolserv account so I can have a dBase like that. Currently, all the reports are manually uploaded (but not manually written; I'm not that insane). Veinor (talk to me) 22:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I just want to thanks Veinor for doing this script, it really makes it more obvious who is spamming... does a better job at times then the live linkwatcher feed. Awsome job! —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 00:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Link addition counting

message: following User:BozMo's lead on Special:Contributions/Zbd, how do we feel about [banglapedia.search.com.bd banglapedia.search.com.bd]? here is the web link search: [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.banglapedia.search.com.bd]. does this meet WP:RS (authoritative, verifiable)? it has some 600 links across bio articles, but it is a wiki with a long list of academic contributors (although i've certainly never heard of the site or the people). opinions? JoeSmack Talk 00:26, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are 495 links that are in mainspace. Personally I don't think this site adds much to wikipedida. Currently it is depending upon a crap load of ads, some are even in the middle of the page text, such as [banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/H_0001.htm here]. I also cannot tell where it is getting its sources. Recommend removing this link from wikipedia, unless I missed something here. Cheers! —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 00:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like a [banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/BoardComm.htm decent source] - mirrored in many places (all with some sort of advertising.) Good site, just overlinked. There is an article: Banglapedia.  Nposs 00:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw a bunch of Banglapedia links a while back and checked it out -- it looks like good stuff. If you have doubts you could ask someone at a WikiProject for Bangladesh. Ads are not a problem -- not even Adsense ads. We link to NY Times or Guardian stories with no qualms and they always have ads. It's just that it's easy working with spam all the time -- with truly mercenary Adsense parasites -- that we lose site of the fact that there's a lot of content out there that meets WP:RS and carries ads. That's my two cents worth, anyway. --A. B. (talk) 01:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This shouldn't be an issue of relativity to something like the NY times. It should stand on its own merits or demerits, whatever we decide here. JoeSmack Talk 01:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I think whoever first wrote the article may have given a mirror site for the URL. I think the source site is banglapedia.org/ which has no advertising (but unfortunately uses frames). Check for example this banglapedia.search.com.bd link [banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/A_0001.htm] vs this banglapedia.org link [banglapedia.org/HT/A_0001.htm]. Can we have a bot change them all? A Ramachandran 01:42, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, that sounds good to me. I will ask around for that bot idea. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 01:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooops, I was thinking of the real Banglapedia. As for the real NY Times, my point was that it's not the ads that should drive our decision, it's the reliability of the material. It's just that a lot of ads may often are a tip off that the link was not added in good faith. --A. B. (talk) 02:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If at all possible I support getting a bot to revert all the sites to the banglapedia.org site --BozMo talk 09:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: BTW are we sure there is no clean site to send 1911 links to? I have half a mind to do one (well, perhaps I only have half a mind anyway. --BozMo talk 11:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, [en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica Wikisource]? A Ramachandran 01:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, I happened to click on a relatively full volume, silly me assuming the others were as complete. A Ramachandran 01:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok. [en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica Wikisource]?  is good. Can we send all the 1911 links there? I have redirected the first hundred or so of the Banglapedia ones to the right place.. only about 600 to go. --BozMo talk 12:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On Banglapedia see user_talk:Zbd#Banglapedia. This guy has convinced me (see my talk paeg) that banglapedia.search.com.bd was actually the legit first version and that the copyright does not allow third party mirrors. I am not going to switch any more links to the advert free version and I've asked him not to put any in. --BozMo talk 10:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  *.banglapedia.search.com.bd 

message: I went ahead and archived a bunch of this page... it was over 300 Kb of data! If there is anything that was still current, that I did by mistake, just copy it back out of the archive. (here) Cheers! —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 00:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 

message: Personally I find it hard to find things in the archives and whether they exist there. Does anyone else think that we should change to some type of AfD type structure where we archive each suspect group of sites on a subpage of the main page and have a transcluded list here of the currently active ones? 
Apart from logic and ease there is a slightly odd other motive, which perhaps I shouldn't mention...it might also make it quicker to get some of the community here to the level of edits on Wikipedia which some people think is needed for a Sysop (as I am just finding out... not sure why)... as AB kindly just pointed out "... include Wikipedia Talk space since that's where most WikiProject Spam activity occurs (compare WP:WPSPAM vs. WT:WPSPAM -- I have no idea why it's that way.)" We can also close blacklist or perm block cases to clean things up. --BozMo talk 10:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We could split the board in two... Leave this page for general discussion about SPAM and SPAM tactics and move all ongoing spam research and investigations here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Incident Noticeboard (shortcut: WP:SPAMIN hehe). We could even advertise it as a place for users to report spam for investigation. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 18:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Great idea, I like it. JoeSmack Talk 22:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone else? If we reach consensus on this I'll make it happen. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 17:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm all in favour of it, so long as we have the resources (i.e. consistent level of activity) between us to support it. CiaranG 17:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea -- I'm all for it. --A. B. (talk) 13:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I have the same problem, and have been leaving offending spam sites and their sock spam accounts on the offenders talk page (practical for the moment of incident, however not realy seachable for others). Only recently have actualy been adding the URL, so at least if a website search is done, the userspace shows up in the result. Such as  would yeild User_talk:Arash72 and socks. It would be no effort placing this info in a centralized area, would be much more useful there. I also like the idea of the shortcut (WP:SPAMIN) LOL. --Hu12 15:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lets start! I'm at work right now, but it is clear that the length of this talkpage shows the need for an incidents page. Can someone set this up? (I'm pretty sure my boss is staring at my back right now...) JoeSmack Talk 16:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll get right on it... ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 05:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: restructure these pages? 

message: Some effects of nofollow :) : 
(1) Google will cache significantly fewer pages from mainspace. Hard to tell of course because the cache goes up and down with the cycle but there was a huge fall in google caching WP talk pages in May and there is a view that the "simplify dataset" part of Google's cycle (when it drops a load of "trivial" pages) is much more likely to drop pages with no external links. 
(2) No noticable reduction in spam: still enough gains from actual traffic, links on mirrors and anchor text (which is probably still considered relevant even if nofollowed) and enough stupid spammers to make not noticable reduction.   
(3) Editors and spammers are much more inclined to argue endlessly about spammy links claiming that as there is nofollow there is no downside in allowing them. Several Wikispam team members turn to drink (anyone for a sweepstake of who?), because of this and upset by being marked "must try harder" by Jimbo.
(4)Downward effect on WP growth curve with switch of traffic to static mirrors without nofollow (relief to WMF I suppose). Easy to test the later as I have an old advert-free (highly compliant) static mirror which gets about 20,000 Unique IPs a day. I reckon it will go up to 30,000 over about three months. 
:(5) Enough external commentators comment on this as a "self declaration of low quality" to qualify as "notable" under WP definition.
(6) Encyclopedia Britannica opens champagne. 
(7) A litigant cites Jimbo's intervention as proof that the Foundation controls editorial content on WP and is therefore liable for it. 
--BozMo talk 21:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm lol yeah. Exactly.  You forgot (8) Google stops paying attention to the nofollow tag on wikipedia, making the entire exercise pointless. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 22:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Ref (4) mirrors are strictly forbidden to copy the HTML tree: they download the database and run a copy of the WM software to generate a mirror. The main ones (the ones important enough to be listed on google backlinks for example) do not use "nofollow" on their links. --BozMo talk 22:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nostra[[User:BozMo|BozMo]]s predicts 

message: Worth keeping an eye on:
* m:Talk:Spam blacklist#Proposed removals (main Wikimedia blacklist)
* MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist (en:Wikipedia only)
You see some good faith requests from neutral editors as well some other requests appealing the occasional big mistake. Then you see some of our old friends, usually with wonderful stories of their own self-reform or else some wrongdoing by a "rogue admin".[meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist#Middlesell][meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/01#I_hope_this_is_the_right_place][meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist#www.animals-pictures-dictionary.com][meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist#Sledtv.org]
Some times you even get a few leads from an IP or user name on Meta:
*[meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2007/01#suite101.com] → a similarly named editor on en:Wikipedia → [www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=pelland+suite101.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8] → suite101.com/profile.cfm/maryan → [www.ontext.com/] → [www.ontext.com/Weeki%20Wachee%20Springs,%20FL.html] → Weeki Wachee Springs → [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weeki_Wachee_Springs&action=history] → [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weeki_Wachee_Springs&diff=100944197&oldid=78319536] → [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:24.28.36.53&action=edit#] → [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/24.28.36.53] → [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:24.28.36.53]
and similarly:
*[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist&diff=prev&oldid=98551815] → [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:24.144.118.135]
Given the number of links cleaned up, perhaps really not worth the 10 minutes I spent on it, but sort of satisfying just the same. --A. B. (talk) 17:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whitelist requests: some of our old friends return for a visit 

message: In the past couple of days I have noticed cases of double-linking to a site. In general the entry is like X/Y at X. My initial reaction is that this is unnecessarily promotional of the site. Since this pattern repeats over multiple articles, it is likely a small set of editors adding the links, but I haven't checked. A couple of examples to evaluate:
* (481 links)
* (338 links)
Thoughts? ✤ JonHarder talk 18:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The americantheatrewing.org entries actually seem to be triple linking. For instance, in the Harry Groener the link says [www.americantheatrewing.org/downstagecenter/detail/harry_groener Harry Groener] [www.americantheatrewing.org/downstagecenter/ Downstage Center] interview at [www.americantheatrewing.org/ American Theatre Wing]. So you have the Groener page on the site, the category that falls within, and the entire site itself. Three links is a bit much. IrishGuy talk 18:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: This is quite common, as spammers intend to promote the name/reputation/legitimacy of their site as well as the pagerank. It is usually a sign of a spammer, but can also be used legitimately (though unnecessarily) to prevent a link being deleted as spam. If the host is that legitimate we probably have an internal link they could use (eg at answers.com) - an example of where I have done this is a .info site I linked [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emergency_management&diff=54577647&oldid=54562483 here], which actually belongs to a government. For another example where this technique could be useful see the history of [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DSA_Driving_Theory_Test&action=history]. The example websites you provide appear have some legitimacy, and the first one has its own article at American Theatre Wing. The second is the Library of Economics and Liberty. They could both be linked internally in these cases. But two external links is usually unnecessary. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (ec)It's also specifically recommended against in guidelines. The correct format, if more then just a link would be something like: [www.example.com/example.php Example] at Example.com.  external link followed by internal link. If no internal link exists, then we just link to it once. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 18:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Can someone with some regex kung-fu load up AWB and push out at least the 2 of the 3 links that are blatant linkspam? You know, just kill the link and leave the wording maybe? JoeSmack Talk 18:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does americantheatrewing have any redeeming value? I'm working on setting up the AWB regex now. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 19:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, it's quite a legitimate site. They run a channel on XM radio and they are the people who run the Tony Awards. I'll run though and remove the redundant links. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 19:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: (Edit conflict): I presume the audio interview does (seems legit, seems accessible), but the other two links are bubkis. Thanks for AWB'n this badboy. JoeSmack Talk 19:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done... Phew. Now I need to go block someone. :p ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 21:16, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Double linking

message: The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		Awarded to WikiProject Spam and its voluntary members for defending Wikipedia against spam! --Hu12 16:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Awesome.  I concur... but then again, I' have a COI. hehe. :) ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 17:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar 

message: User:66.241.87.171 is spamming animal welfare articles after I talked to him/her. I'm not sure the user saw my response to an earlier incident on my talk page, so I just copied it to his/her talk page. If I could get some backup that would be helpful. I also decided the link added to Jackson County, Oregon wasn't too out of line, but if someone removes it, I won't complain. The problem is, the links are being added to articles that are already link farms, so if I remove this person's spam, I'd have determine the legitimacy of dozens of other links. Thanks for checking it out. Katr67 16:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Harsh though it may seem given the good cause, these linkfarms need nuking (example at Animal Welfare) - the DMOZ link is perfectly adequate and leads to a directory, which is what Wikipedia is not. When I have more time, I'll go and do the dirty deed(s). No doubt someone will want to come and set my dog and/or free range chickens free (if that's possible) as a consequence, but I'm not here to become popular. ;) CiaranG 17:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and took care of Animal Welfare.  I added a section with link to List of animal welfare groups, which obviously serves the purpose much better. -- Satori Son 03:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not-for-profit spammer needs a talking to? 

message: I would like some input if [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=www.babblebooks.com these] would be considered spam (as in: to be removed). They are links to digital voice readings of mostly Project Gutenberg books, added by user:Anais9000. --Van helsing 18:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My opinion, and I doubt you'll get a different one, except perhaps from User:Anais9000 - it's a link deliberately inserted in order to try and sell a product. SPAM. By a user account apparently, given the edit history, set up for that sole purpose. SPAM SPAM. CiaranG 20:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed all the links to *babblebooks.com. Cheers. JoeSmack Talk 20:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I stepped aside after the first 15 - you were clearly going far quicker than me. Thanks. CiaranG 20:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks to whoever's responsible for [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sunshine_Sketches_of_a_Little_Town&diff=102284164&oldid=102284125 this] as well. That made my day. CiaranG 21:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks guys. (Shadowbot picks it up pretty quick?). --Van helsing 21:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I see it as spam. The audio is not free; if it was, this might be different. However, you have to pay to access it. The site's main purpose appears to be to sell the audio, so WP:EL comes up here. There are exceptions, but I don't think this is one of them. And your argument is clearly a straw man; please remain WP:CIVIL. Veinor (talk to me) 17:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text: As I understand it, the "robot"-voiced versions are indeed free, but evidently with the intention of promoting and selling the "proper" versions. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. I don't think anyone is suggesting there is, and I for one wish you every success. The only issue is with using Wikipedia as an advertising platform. On the other hand, if you're committed to the free aspect, you could release your audio under a free license and upload it all to Wikipedia. CiaranG 18:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, don't upload it to Wikipedia! Audio recordings placed in the public domain should go to another [wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects Wikimedia Foundation project]. I'm not sure which one: either [en.wikibooks.org/ Wikibooks], [en.wikisource.org/ Wikisource] or [commons.wikimedia.org/ Wikimedia Commons] -- I'm not sure which. But we would very much appreciate good contributions here. You could then add interwiki links from Wikipedia to that content on another project. --A. B. (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Evidently you don't need to advertise here then. Everyone's a winner. Since you've already said your advertising here was [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Anais9000&diff=103194748&oldid=103183687 unsuccessful], I don't know why you're continuing the discussion but if you insist on doing so, can I ask you yet again to remain civil. CiaranG 19:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Something doesn't have to be commercial to be spam. Your edits consisted of putting your own site into many articles. This is spam. It is also a conflict of interest. Being rude doesn't change those facts. IrishGuy talk 20:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Even if another editor placed the link in an article, I still feel like it would be inappropriate. Please understand, I believe you have only good intentions and your website is a great service for many people - but that doesn't mean it is a good fit for the external links on Wikipedia. For example, if the link is allowed from your website - why not then allow a link from other websites with commercial content who also offer some free content? Your link would be a great addition to DMOZ, which is an edited link directory (something Wikipedia is not WP:NOT). I see that the Audiobooks article has a direct link to the Dmoz category for audiobooks. Another way to think of it, the external links for an article is not an excuse for a Google search (or other engine of choice.) I think uploading the content to Wikimedia is a great idea if you really want to share the content. Even if you come up with a better recording, just upload the new one and update the link. External links generally benefit the linked website more than the article. Contributing content to the article (or Wikimedia) - that's the best. I hope you aren't discouraged by the opinions here. It's clear you are doing some very good work. Nposs 22:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: www.babblebooks.com

message: What we are needing is a table with different affiliate programs. In example, I have seen people adding  external links with their own affiliate program (they get an amount of money for every user who buys through their links). In Play-Asia example, the links that start with  are affiliate ones that should either be replaced with the non-affiliate ones (the ones that start with play-asia.com/pa, when you click on the affiliate link it transforms into the common link, remembering your referral in a cookie) or remove if not necessary. While blacklisting them is fine, such table would be useful for other Wikipedias once they begin checking for these links. -- ReyBrujo 19:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed all of *.play-asia from mainspace articles. But continue discussion.... JoeSmack Talk 21:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  We need an affiliate page 

message: Are there any guidelines about linking to websites with pictures in the case of articles about places? Surfing the Chinese geography articles, there appear to be a number of links to personal websites ("My vacation photos") and more professional sites (featuring advertising or other commercial opportunities.) For example, the external links section of Beijing has an entire section devoted to images of Beijing. Some of the sites there (photo96.com and kinabaloo.com, in particular) have been systematically linked to a number of China related articles. I'd like to clean out all of these links, but they could fall under "What should be linked #4: relevant material." I'm afraid my vision might be obscured by the stain of spam past. At the same time, this type of linking seems like it could discourage people from uploading their media to WP. Why not just make a website and stick some ad-sense on it? Nposs 03:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My vote is it depends if they are any good. I took the digital-dessert ones out because the photo tour/ photo gallery were rubbishy pictures probably taken by a mobile phone, of some boring bits of sand. Personally, I leave links to some good site galleries where I think someone looking at the page might well want to browse them (there aren't very good photo gallery lists at DMOZ). A lot of these (here speks someone who edits Kenya at DMOZ) are not primary though: a blogger puts up a good collection gives permission to a travel company to use them who then puts them up again and submits them to DMOZ for a link. Although blogs are blogs they do seem to be primary source for some quite good collections of photos (see yoda.zoy.org/photos/ for example). There is so much clear spam I tend to be more conservative about removing marginaly stuff though --BozMo talk 10:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I remove them on sight, mostly due to unclear copyright status. If they are the taker and own the license (sometimes this can feel like a WP:COI issue, your millage may vary), I usually tell them to upload it to the commons. It is also a pretty dick thing to leech others' bandwidth by *just* linking to images if it ain't they're pictures. The only time I've actually been ok with this kind of linking was with an off-wiki interactive map of thailand that had interchangeable english/thai names of provinces (discussion of the time here: User_talk:JoeSmack#Spam.3F.3F). Other than that kind of special situation, i'd remove em. JoeSmack Talk 13:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links to websites with pictures 

message: I've been a little alarmed by a "now we don't need the blacklist/whitelist"  comment ref whitelists etc so I thought I would run a quick proposal through here:
1) We need the blacklist still (as do the other language WPs) so we need the existing whitelist for its specific purpose 
2) So lets call a list of links which should not be "nofollowed" a GREENLIST
3) Lets get a sysop only or meta page page for a list of url stems to be greenlisted
4) To implement as no one likes playing with the code is create as a pseudolanguage greenlist.wikipedia.org under interwiki and for all greenlisted urls set a dynamic divert from for example greenlist.wikipedia.org/bbc.co.uk/* to bbc.co.uk/*. Google understands clean diverts.  
Anyone who tries it on a link not on the greenlist just gets a 404. Thoughts? --BozMo talk 10:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why bother allowing whitelisted links to be found by Google, and why are we tailoring solutions to Google all the time, does it work with Altavista, Yahoo, Ask.com, we're here to prove a source of information, not links to BBC News. There's enough dozey admins about who would quite happily be nice and helpful and  blindly add a link to the greenlist without checking what exactly the site is. --Kind Regards - Heligoland 13:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Heligoland, I guess "why bother" is a separate question (can we split how and why in parallel?) but I am confident that Yahoo and MSN both recognise transparent redirects as well as Google. I am not sure that other search engines even recognise "nofollow"? The lazy admins point I kind of agree with but prefer WP to give 95% reliable link information to search engines rather than 0% I guess. Ta for vote btw. --BozMo talk 13:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I like this concept. My main reason for being in favor of universal nofollow is that it's too easy to add links to poorly watched pages. Maybe this would be a good solution. I think, however, that there would need to be some type of formal procedure for getting things on and off of the greenlist beyond just any admin being able to modify the list. ScottW 14:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem with a formal process (and the whole greenlist thing in fact) is that there is a HUGE number of external websites linked to (guess 250,000), hence the problem finding spam. We aren't going to discuss each one. Personally I would consider say "all the non-commercial sites listed on DMOZ" or something as a starting point. However, I think doing something is important. --BozMo talk 14:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I think your idea for a starting point could work. So far as the process goes, I'm thinking of something along the lines of what's in place for the blacklist. I don't expect that there would be much more activity for the green list. What I'm most interested in are that URLs are added or removed from the list in an open procedure. In general, most links would likely be added or removed without discussion. However, there would be a centralized place you could go to see the rationale for such modifications, rather than it existing in an e-mail or talk page of a random admin. ScottW 15:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greenlist proposal 

message: Have a look at [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.lyricsdir.com this lot]. The vast majority must be copyvio links. Spam as well? Thanks, CiaranG 13:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lyrics are sooooo copyvio like this. It doesn't have a single stitch of copyright status anyone on any of the site secondly. Remove at will. JoeSmack Talk 13:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's quite a common copyvio... I tend to remove them when I see 'em. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 14:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does that include the 494 (ok, some are in talk pages) I've just shown you. ;) I'm not in the mood for that myself - is this something we could set a bot on? And any thoughts on adding this URL to Shadowbot's list? CiaranG 15:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We would need to look into this more closely.  It is conceivable that a website somewhere has permission to publish lyric-sheets online.  If we can determine that the site isn't legit then a purge would be in order... However, I would really rather find an appropriate replacement before going-though and doing lyric purge. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 15:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't find a copyright section on that page anywhere asserting the right to republish song lyrics, so I suggest the prudent course of contacting the site, have Shadowbot remove new links but hold off on a purge until we can decide what the copyright status of the site is. --Kind Regards - Heligoland 15:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: {ec}Ahh... I like the design of the site. Clean and simple... but it dosn't look legit. It has no claim sugusting they have permission to host the lyrics and the domain is registered in Estonia.[who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=lyricsdir.com&prog_id=godaddy] ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 15:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Not disagreeing with the cautious approach as such, but I think it goes without saying that if you have permission to publish copyrighted material, you would be obliged to (a) say so, and (b) clearly note the copyright status of the work. CiaranG 15:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cautious approach might be out the window after this [www.lyricsdir.com/gorgoroth-a-world-to-win-lyrics.html] --Kind Regards - Heligoland 15:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Can we assume that this is copyvio and remove?  I confess I have removed quite a few the past few days... -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 15:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I had compiled a list of lyrics sites at User:ReyBrujo/Base/Tasks#Lyrics sites, in case you want to check them out. -- ReyBrujo 18:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice list, thanks. Two more sites in [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Turn_the_Beat_Around&diff=prev&oldid=100197342 this] diff if you want to add them. CiaranG 18:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Added, thanks! Feel free to add new sites directly. -- ReyBrujo 16:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second opinon, lyricsdir.com 

message: Headed into a meeting. No time to handle. See:
*:Template:Md link
*Caredemption (talk • contribs • links • [tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate?username=&site=en.wikipedia.org count] • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] • [en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Listusers&limit=1&username= status])
*216.205.244.5 (talk • contribs • links • [tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate?username=&site=en.wikipedia.org count] • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?domain=216.205.244.5 WHOIS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=216.205.244.5 RDNS] • [www.dnsstuff.com/tools/tracert.ch?ip=216.205.244.5 traceroute] • [completewhois.com/cgi-bin/rbl_lookup.cgi?query=216.205.244.5 RBLs] • [www.ippages.com/?ip=216.205.244.5 tor] • [www.google.com/search?q=216.205.244.5 search])
*www.musiciandictionary.com
*Current [ list] of articles with this link 30
*:Category:Wikipedians who use MusicianDictionary.com
--A. B. (talk) 16:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've listed the category for deletion here. CiaranG 08:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: CfD was moved to UCfD; new link to discussion, --A. B. (talk) 14:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I've cleaned all these up from the articles now - the remaining 13 are talk pages and the two templates. CiaranG 18:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Some discussion about this one at Talk:Bad_Religion#musician_dictionary.3F. One of several - same user as before. This is nice as well: [www.musiciandictionary.com/wiki/Musician_Dictionary:Promotion instructions] on how to spam links into Wikipedia using the above template. CiaranG 19:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: musiciandictionary.com

message: Congratulations to admin  for weathering the requests for adminship processes and coming through with a shiny new mop. Well done. Now run along and protect something. ✤ JonHarder talk 04:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Way to go! --Hu12 05:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ta to all. Whose next? --BozMo talk 22:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congrats 

message: So I came across an account adding lots of links to the site doingbusiness.org - on looking into it I discovered that lots of IP addresses registered to the World Bank have been adding links to sites associated with the organization, along with similar behavior from a few other Virginia registered IP addresses and a couple of registered users.
Here's what I have so far:
Websites related to the World Bank group:
*www.worldbank.org  (872 at time of writing)
*www.doingbusiness.org  (59 at time of writing), a World Bank project
*www.publicprivatedialogue.org  (9 at time of writing), a World Bank project
*www.developmentgateway.org  (59 at time of writing) a project of www.dgfoundation.org  (0 at time of writing)  which started life as a project of the world bank.
*www.miga.org  (1 at time of writing) a World Bank project
IP addresses registered to the World Bank Group that have added these links and made virtually no other edits (that I have found so far):
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
I haven't checked all possible addresses since the World Bank Group has the entire 138.220.x.x range!
IP addresses/accounts not registered to World Bank Group with most edits apparently to add links to World Bank sites (that I have found so far):
*  registered to Bell Atlantic, Reston, VA;
*  registered to Bell Atlantic, Reston, VA;
*  registered to Comcast in alexandria, VA
* 
* 
This is just what I've discovered going through the doingbusiness.org links and seeing who added them.  Most, though not all, were added by these accounts.  I haven't gone through the other URLs systematically yet.
Of course this the World Bank is a good source for many articles and there are hundreds of appropriate links for these sites.  Blacklisting is not appropriate.  At the same time the World Bank does have an agenda and isn't considered entirely NPOV, especially in many non-US and European countries, so having their staff edit is a problem from an NPOV perspective as well as a spam one.  
I was thinking of taking this to WP:ANI and asking for a range block of the World Bank IPs to stop them from editing, but it seems drastic. Any other solutions people can think of?
Also, I have doingbusiness.org virtually sorted out, but if anyone would like to help on research of the others it would be helpful.  Since these are potentially useful sites, when I think it has been added as spam (except where the link seems outright inappropriate), I'll be moving it to the talk page asking for regular editors of the article to consider it's appropriateness. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The best course of action is to contact them directly.  I doubt very much that this is some kind of officialy sanctioned activity.  I can give them a call at some point, but I'm at work right now. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 22:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: With respect which of their zillion offices are you planning to call? I don't think they have the internal organisational structure to sort this kind of thing except by central edict which is pretty heavy handed? --BozMo talk 23:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps a talk message on their entire IP range would work better...--BozMo talk 23:02, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm that's perhaps a valid point. I don't really know much about World Bank. I will see who can be contacted.  Each IP address usually has a technical contact... and that would be the person in charge of that specific gateway. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 23:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A problem with the [[World Bank Group]]? 

message: I have compiled a list of the articles with over 100 external links according to the latest database dump (November 30, 2006). There are currently 905 articles listed there (a few have been deleted). Note that templates generating external links like  are considered external links in the database dump. The list is found at here. The full list is over 40mb, so I am uploading the ones with over 100 (which account for 258,885 out of 10,333,272, or 2.5% of the total external links I harvested). -- ReyBrujo 22:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Holy Fritos, that's an interesting list.  Many of them are simply well sourced and excellent articles, some are just - well, I'm not sure yet. Kuru talk 02:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: List of articles with over 100 external links

message: I have archived agian, The page was 239 Kb long. If I removed something that should not have been removed, just slap it back up here. Cheers! —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 01:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 

message: I was talking with User:Toonarific when the subject of BCDB.com came up. I was wondering... what does it have that we can't just put on Wikipedia? It seems to mostly consist of episode guides. Veinor (talk to me) 02:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: BCDB.com

message: I Don't know where to begin. uugh--Hu12 04:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggestion on where to begin: start with a nice note on the talk page, plus a   tag on the links section. Maybe add a dmoz.org link and explain why we prefer dmoz instead of a link farm. Explain that WP:EL encourages a minimal number of very high quality links and encourage them to shoot for ≤5 links (excl. citations). Give them a few days, then politely start trimming. That's my 2 cents worth. Get help from others over time so you don't look like an anti-UCC heavy. --A. B. (talk) 04:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I left a note with some suggestions and they have removed all the links and sections I noted. I would proceed with a big dose of assuming good faith and it will end up much better --BozMo talk 15:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[United Church of Christ]] 

message: Repeatedly spammed link to a site owned by DSB Worldwide:
*texomaland.com  blacklisted 31 January 2007
**Current list of articles with this link
Other DSB Worldwide sites:
*webitems.com  blacklisted 31 January 2007
**Current list of articles with this link
*dsbworldwide.com/
**Current list of articles with this link
*planoland.com  blacklisted 31 January 2007
**Current list of articles with this link
*webitemspro.com  blacklisted 31 January 2007
**Current list of articles with this link
*mylocallink.com/
**Current list of articles with this link
*mycraigranch.com  blacklisted 31 January 2007
**Current list of articles with this link
::Certain domains deleted from this page 10 October 2007 per e-mail request
::--A. B. (talk)  03:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  DSB Worldwide spam on Wikipedia: texomaland.com 

message: See:
*http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com/drug_information_online.asp?title=User:Hu12
*http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com/drug_information_online.asp?title=User:BozMo
Just change out the user name and you'll probably find most anyone else on Wikipedia.
And check out all the mirrors for Hu12:
*http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&client=safari&rls=en&q=wikipedia+spam+%22hu12%22&btnG=Search
Cheers, --A. B. (talk) 21:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What the heck? So this for all users? Or is it just a few? This could have some spam implications if it is for all users, and there is not a nofollow enforced. mmm —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 21:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All users and articles (e.g. this), by the looks of it. Standard Googlebait. CiaranG 22:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, they are simply mirroring wikipedia. Kinda ironic, but legal. (see WP:FORK) ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 22:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm... I don't think they are mirroring, but instead leeching from Wikipedia. No way they could have mirrored a page I created yesterday this fast. Leeching is not right, I think. -- ReyBrujo 22:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is exactly why I have the "This is a Wikipedia user page, not an article" notice at the top of mine. I may update it with some "harsher" language... -- Satori Son 22:14, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am reporting them now. -- ReyBrujo 22:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You’re absolutely right. I just ran a test, and they are improperly leeching live content, which is definitely not allowed. Make any change, it shows up instantaneously. Takes a terrible toll on our bandwidth.  I could have a lot of fun with this if I were ornery ("prescriptiondrug-info.com hates puppies"), but I’ll refrain. -- Satori Son 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Anyway about half of them don't have nofollow and about ten turn up regularly in google's list of backlinks. Algebra.com, answers.com, about.com, etc. are all mirrors. WPs own links are probably as irrelevant as DMOZs. Also an issue is they don't have the right robots.txt--BozMo talk 22:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is about our bandwidth. I posted a note here. I also dropped a note at the irc channel, so they have been acknowledged. Now it is a matter of how long it takes for them to prevent this "bleed". -- ReyBrujo 22:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some of you are famous now in the prescription drug business 

message: heres a whole bunch of questionables. seems spammy, and i doubt it is a reliable source. thoughts? JoeSmack Talk 22:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Article at PureVolume. A random sample of the links suggests no deliberate campaign of spamming. CiaranG 22:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From the article PureVolume, first sentence: "PureVolume is a website for rising bands and musical artists to promote themselves."...you sure? JoeSmack Talk 05:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I meant it doesn't appear any spamming is being done by the site owner. Didn't mean to imply it's not spam at all. Looking at various edit histories, it seems more likely that fans are inserting these links - again, just commenting, not saying the links aren't spammy/questionable. Cheers, CiaranG 11:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  purevolume.com 

message: I'm posting this here for the record since we'll probably see the spammer come around with a whitelist request.
*worldtopix.com
**Current [ list] -- none left
***Now blacklisted
Spammed both English and Swedish language Wikipedias, then blanked a portion of Meta:Talk:Spam blacklist
Accounts used (partial list):
* 70.238.128.51 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.129.214 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.135.231 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.136.253 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.139.71 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.140.103 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.150.118 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.153.199 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.155.14 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.161.204 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.166.148 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.170.113 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 70.238.171.252 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 75.41.208.17 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
* 75.42.148.118 (talk • contribs • links • &site=en.wikipedia.org count • [/wiki/Special:Log?user= actions] • [/wiki/Special:Log/?page=User: logs] || WHOIS • RDNS • traceroute • RBLs • tor • search)
--A. B. (talk) 02:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See m:User talk:LX for more information on the address, etc. of the business spamming these links. --A. B. (talk) 13:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  worldtopix.com 

message: This user has continued to spam after a warning from Hu12 so (with my newly acquired buttons) I have blocked them for 24 hours. I am partly putting the note here as a self-memo to go back and check. Here is the site links he was spamming (we've got all the links for now)  --BozMo talk 12:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User_talk:Taleinfo]] blocked

message: In continuation of ideas trying to automate and streamline efforts to eliminate the spam problem, I'm thinking of ways to improve auto blacklisting. What just came to me is perhaps we should have a mark as spam option that trusted users could use to automatically flag a domain as spam. We could vary the level of trust and how urgently or seriously the designation as spam is, either to auto revert links from that domain or just to flag them for futher review. Ideally we'd have some level where further review was only after the fact of getting the site blacklisted and links removed. Blacklisting in this case could either be just at the spambot level or taking it up to the Meta blacklist level depending on need. The option could be added into popups for example, and when an external link is highlighted with the mouse a popup comes up with options to blacklist or flag for blacklisting, etc. Maybe have the rights to do that limited to people on an approved list like AWB uses. If people don't want to go with one click blacklisting (which I do think we need for truly trusted users) perhaps anything flagged twice or more would get blacklisted. Maybe this could be integrated into the admin tools, so just as people can rollback vandalism, spam can be rolled back with one click, whether or not it's the last edit to an article. In any case, we have to work on automated tools if we want to stay ahead of the game. Thanks all. - Taxman Talk 14:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. I agree but think we need to run through possible issues. e.g. at what level the URL gets blacklisted (just the link or the site etc.), also what happens if the switch is flicked when there are already a lot of links in place to that site (do inexperienced users get stressed because they suddenly cannot save lots of work on a spammed page?). Reverting is tricky too: a couple of times local established editors have come back and stoutly defended links which looked spammy to us (Cut the knot for example). So do we need some form of undo. --BozMo talk 14:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, we certainly need an undo. If only domains auto tagged as spam X number of times are auto added to the Meta blacklist, that would mostly solve the problem of potential disagreements. Of course sites can be whitelisted too, if they're unusual and/or have specific consensus to include them. Perhaps we could do that on a per article basis too, ie ipodlounge is ok on these three articles, but nowhere else. And if a bot is available to help revert/remove all uses of sites that are truly spamming, then that would avoid the problem of inexperienced users not being able to edit. Of course, only Meta blacklisted domains cause pages not to be saveable. What we're looking for is the maximum bang for the buck; the least effort to remove the greatest amount of problem spam and prevent more. I think we can get that down to a few clicks per domain. The popup options might be Meta blacklist, domain flag, specific site flag, and each of those options could potentially include auto rollback/undo. Maybe only certain classes of users or users on a certain access list get access to some of those. Also we'd need excellent summaries providing all the links needed to address the issue. That would help with allowing people to report articles that need to be whitelisted, etc. I think we're already to the point that we need to move some of the manual effort onto whitelisting, instead of removing, and make removing more automatic. The more egregious the case, the more automatic it should be. Of course, I can only offer up ideas, not code, but hopefully that helps. - Taxman Talk 17:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Auto blacklisting 

message: Adsense pub-8168503353085287
Does not seem to provide a unique resource beyond what the articles its linked on already contains. Looks to have the purpose of selling books. Theres literaly thousands of these links--Hu12 17:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First several links I looked at were religion-related -- those are always very sensitive. I suggest you raise the question at some relevant religious WikiProjects for any religion-related links; if you get no response, try a few article talk pages. Then delete cautiously. --A. B. (talk) 18:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The site is certainly very spammy. The content itself, despite the copyright notice, is apparently public domain. Some of the links I looked at are used as references, seem valid enough, and added by editors who had contributed constructively to the article. Others seem to be gratuitous additions in External Links, which add nothing to the article. CiaranG 18:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second opinion on http://www.newadvent.org 

message: I wonder how this one has slipped under the radar.  currently with 381 links of no value. A collaborative effort should get this cleaned up in an evening. ✤ JonHarder talk 23:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record its affiliated to stinz.com which is another one. --BozMo talk 10:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Careful with these, they are a funny mixture. Some are straight drop-in link spam but the site is an online publisher for self-published books (not book-seller) with a few legit links (maybe) to its author pages and to books which it publishes. However a lot of the "legit" links are from pages which themselves need to be deleted as articles on non-notable authors or books. Where I am putting prod I am leaving the links since they given context to the deletion discussion. See also Lulu.com--BozMo talk 10:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Incidentally doing a few of these I came across Vitamin C if someone fancies a look through. --BozMo talk 10:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow.  There are poor links there, but it looks more like a POV/reliable sources issue than a real spam one.  The article seems very pro the minority view of the scientific community and the sources and links they use to justify that stance are indicative of the POV's standing.  I'm not sure I'm brave enough to take on something like that!  -- Siobhan Hansa 17:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  lulu.com 

message: Links to  have been slowly added to bike related articles by someone from Spain:
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
I'd like a second opinion before removing them all. The edits looks like self-promotional, since the registrant of www.bikecyclingreviews.com is also from Spain .
—Red Thrush 13:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have been through them. The site is heavily advertised and IMHO the content is too shallow. None are put in by established editors. It also seems to be a blog with only one person writing the articles. I would delete them with the comment "del link to shallow blog article" or similar. --BozMo talk 13:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  bikecyclingreviews.com 

message: I just notified ANI: there is some kind of spamming by proxy currently in progress. See  and . ✤ JonHarder talk 14:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll try to get them on Shadowbot's blacklist. Veinor (talk to me) 15:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can the linkwatcher bot have a log to allow it to pull up all of the IP addresses related to this?  is collecting them here for evaluation and blocking. See also the discussion at WP:ANI#Proxy spamming. ✤ JonHarder talk 16:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proxy spamming. 

message: Is there a policy to report spamming editors for potential ?  Or should I just wait for them to violate 3RR?  Right now I'm looking at  repeatedly adding links in multiple places to Arlington Heights, Illinois and Arlington High School (Arlington Heights, Illinois), it seems like the editor has made no other edits besides the spamming.  --Milo H Minderbinder 18:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, spamming is vandalism... so if they have been warned up though  then you can report them to WP:AIV.  Otherwise, if the case is more complicated you can report it here and one of the two or three admins who frequent this page can whip out the blockhammer (I keep mine next to the mop). ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 18:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At this point they've reached three reverts, I'll probably just give them a 3RR warning and let them go that route.  --Milo H Minderbinder 18:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like he greatly accelerated his own demise. :)  SubSeven 07:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Unfortunately, this editor continues to be completely unreasonable.  Even though Milo H Minderbinder, A.B., Siobhan Hansa, and I have all either removed or declined to add this link,  continues to flout consensus and instead engage in uncivil ad hominem attacks.  If someone else could please examine the arlingtoncards.com website and give their unbiased opinion at Talk:Arlington High School (Arlington Heights, Illinois), it would be greatly appreciated. -- Satori Son 01:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The site appears to have little actual content and instead is a directory. Seems spammy to me. IrishGuy talk 01:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blocking spammers 

message: The Wikipedia:WikiProject Victoria Cross Reference Migration moved a heap of content into wikipedia, the old domain is now being squatted and we are providing heaps of links to it. Could someone with access to some sort of automated tool, find and replace the links to the external site with a link to the wikiproject instead please? -Peta 05:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eek... looks like about 1300+/- links from here to there according to the . This looks like a job for the bot people... WP:BOTREQ is the shortcut I think. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 07:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've requested a bot - but no action so far. If anyone wants to help. I am removing the This page has been migrated from the Victoria Cross Reference with permission and adding this template on the talk page  --Peta 02:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Victoria cross

message: I thought everyone might enjoy this interesting example of low-key linkspam.  has engaged in a long term link spam of a website which apparently scrapes content from WP, edits it, slaps it with adsense (pub-3054588969723659) and then links it back to WP. From the index of the industrialsoft.org site: "These articles have been hand-picked from Wikipedia, tidied up (by deletion only, not alteration), checked for plausibility and suitability (by volunteers, whom we gratefully acknowledge) and put together." So it's like old versions of articles except with content deleted!  It probably slipped by because the editor also made seemingly useful contributions to highly technical articles. Other links lead to a rather suspicious "download" page for software that seems mariginally related to the articles. There's even a "wiki" about traditional Indian medicine that has been linked.
**.articles.industrialsoft.org (9)
**.articles.co.nr (17)
I'll delete the links. Is this block or ban worthy for the user? Nposs 04:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am leaving a final warning. --BozMo talk 10:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [http://articles.industrialsoft.org/ articles.industrialsoft.org] and [http://articles.co.nr/ articles.co.nr] 

message: A group of IP's is lately adding jewellery.php5.cz/diamond/neil-diamond-play-me.html to pages (disruptively), latest IP: 58.103.65.123.  I can't get onto #wikipedia-spam-t, so I report it here.  --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will relay the message. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 10:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cheers!  --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  'opa.com' 

message: I archived this page again, if I screwed something up, go chase me :D. On a related note, if we are talking about blacklisting a site, can we not link to it here (http://example.com) but rather just put example.com. This would save the meta-blacklist from kicking in, and preventing saving of this page. Archiving this was hell :P, about 10 times I had to go back and forth to the meta-blacklist warning, remove a link, and repeat. 
Also another related note, as this page is very busy, could we think about bringing User:Werdnabot in? I am more then willing to set the bot up, and we can have it archive talk over say... 5 days old. That might make this page a bit easier to use. Cheers! —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 10:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See discussion above (SPAMIN and above again): we want to redo the way the pages are structured. This should help. --BozMo talk 10:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am a bit worried about adding extra layers, SPAMIN sounds like a good idea, but beyond that I think it might be going a bit too far. Right now our problems can be solved by simply setting werdnabot to archive stuff over 4-5 days old. I suspect we will want to do the same in SPAMIN. Cheers! —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 19:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive and a note 

message: While experimenting with the new Wikiseek-and-destroy method, I came across http://www.lindacroppformayor.com/. It is currently linked to the appropriate article (Linda W. Cropp) and looks just fine. The source code, though, shows multiple spammy links. Should I remove the link or leave it since it doesn't really help the secretly linked pages? Nposs 20:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, so the "multiple" spammy links only lead to two websites: a community theatre group (http://scda.org.uk/) and a door company (http://singerdoors.co.uk/). Perhaps this is a bunch of beans and I should leave it alone. Nposs 20:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO, this is the kind of spam that SHOULD be punished... Those hidden links are pure search engine spam, and might very well be placed there BECAUSE the page has a link from Wikipedia. --Jdevalk 18:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah exactly what Jdevalk, just said, leave a crater where that was please :D. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 20:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Funny busines at lindacropformayor.com 

message: second opinions on this review site? it has its own article too, HipHopDX.com. JoeSmack Talk 14:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As a site it looks ok to me... Though it has a LOT of links from WP and you might want to consider if it should... --Jdevalk 18:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think of it as very authoritative... JoeSmack Talk 22:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  hiphopdx.com 

message: here is a lyrics site that needs a sweep, hundred some links. JoeSmack Talk 14:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there a way to see who added all those links? Looks like someone has been slowly spamming that page.... --Jdevalk 18:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Page history, but right now I think I will work on removing most if not all of these (there are 96 of these in mainspace). —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 20:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have taken the total number of links down to 21 articles in mainspace, I am sure that that can be pruned down some more :D. (link to linksearch) —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 20:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  *.ohhla.com