Wikipedia talk:Spam

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[edit] I do not agree

I want to say that, in my point of view, this anti-spam policy is very nocive for any project that have the will to be really Free. This is nothing more then a way to avoid the little ones in favor of the biggers. Someday there will be a real free encyclopedia in the web and it will grown faster than any wiki projects. Or the Wikipedia cancel this policy or it can not call itself The Free Encyclopedia.

Democracy is NOT a justificative to start cutting freedons and if you put limits it is NOT freedon anymore. Only there is freedon when one have the same power of the other, and the power of everybody else together is not superior to the power of one. I challenge anyone to prove that I am wrong.

So. Or the Wikipedia cancel this policy or it will have to erase the slogan The Free Encyclopedia. You all are confounding Democratic with Free. There is no freedon on Wikipedia. Victorgmartins 22:16, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd much rather use an encyclopedia that was free of advertisements (regardless of what it is called). OhNoitsJamie Talk 21:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Please don't conflate "free" with "anything goes" or "people can add whatever they want". Wikipedia is free because anyone can copy, modify, and redistribute its content as long as that freedom is preserved for others. You don't need to wait for someday; if you think you can make a "real free encyclopedia", you or anyone else can take Wikipedia's content and try to create something better. That's not a dismissive answer, but one of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia.
There is some truth in what you say. Prohibiting self-promotion does hit individuals and smaller organizations harder, because big companies have more money for traditional forms of advertising. But I think it's worth remembering that Wikipedia's primary goal is to provide the best free content possible, not necessarily to level the playing field between all content providers, or to treat everyone equally. At the most basic level, self-promotion hurts Wikipedia because it violates our neutrality policy; it's natural and understandable for people to be biased toward their own interests. I would argue that allowing those biases to influence Wikipedia does not lead to a higher-quality encyclopedia.
Finally, Wikipedia is much more egalitarian than a traditional advertising market, where money is king. If a topic is worthy of inclusion, it's very likely that a neutral editor will choose to write about it. And enforcement of the rules against self-promotion is not limited to individuals; I can think of three fairly large companies whose links I removed as spam in the past week, including a large amount of spam from a company named as one of the 15 fastest-growing companies in the US in 2006, with a revenue of more than $60 million. ―Wmahan. 22:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I read the official neutrality policy and it is possible to create an article, even if it is to promete something or somebody, without trespass that policy. Say that the company X sells product Y is a neutral point of view since it is a fact. It would not be neutral if, and only if, someone make a personal point of view about the company or the produt. The official wikipedia´s policy make no distinction according to the size of the company. Same goes to a person.

Wikipedia is not a democracy. Than is it free or a dictatorship ? Victorgmartins 01:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You make several points here. You are absolutely correct, that it is possible to write neutrally about one's own interest, but in practice it tends to not happen. Often material is presented factually, but in a biased way (highlighting success, ignoring or glossing over failure). Moreover, such articles give the appearance of a conflict of interest, which can be as harmful as actual lack of neutrality. In addition to neutrality, however, there is a question of notability. Wikipedia does not collect all facts (there are several reasons for this, see WP:NOT), so some determination of what should be in an encyclopedia is needed. Notability critera exist for a variety of subjects, including corporations (see WP:CORP).
To answer your second question, it is untimately a dictatorship of sorts. Jimbo, Wikipedia's founder, is the ultimate authority on all things Wikipedia. In practice, however, he rarely intervenes. However the content is not his, only the operations of the site. As was already noted, if you want to start your own online encyclopedia, you are welcome to use Wikipedia's content as the starting place. That is something that even Jimbo can not change, since it is set down in copyright law (so the ulimate authority is the law?). --TeaDrinker 01:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
"Free" has several meanings. The relevant one here is "not costing anything." Goldfritha 23:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

What's the big deal!? Wikipedia has to be anal on this. We should loosen up this policy, especially on new users. I read a few accounts on people who gave up on Wikipedia because they got all this crap that a simple link was considered spam. We should definitely reconsider this policy. -Yancyfry

Unfortunately, anti-spam work has taken a strong tone (since it does infiltrate regularly). There are some new templates: {{welcomespam}} and {{spam0}} which attempt to put a friendlier face forward. Hopefully they will be used more frequently in the instances that you mention. I would categorically disagree that policies should be bent for new users, however. Writing an encyclopedia should always come first, not considerations about the user. --TeaDrinker 04:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, we want to write an encyclopedia here, but this anti-spam rule could turn-off users who only want to contribute. For the longest time, I didn't know what Wikipedia calls spam. If you want to keep this an encyclopedia, maybe, just removing a link is easier. And send the user a message, not warning. Just send a simple message, maybe create a template stating what is spam. If they continue to put the same link, then, in my opinion, that's when you give the first warning. -Yancyfry 05:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Wait, is a fansite considered spam? -Yancyfry 05:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Double checking

I just want to double check on something. I looked through this page, and found no reference to one's user page. There was a brief mention of the talk page for a user (I assume), but nothing on a user page itself. I just want to know if self promotion is permitted on a user page. I'm thinking about making some changes and expanding my user page further with regards to my interests which will include a larger amount of self promotion to what is already there. I'm also toying with the idea of doing a template for personal "upcoming events". Again - on a user page would this be spamming or not? I know it wouldn't be on a Wikipedia article (and fair enough as well) but I want to be given the proper guidance on the conduct of my user page when it comes to such things. Curse of Fenric 05:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure but I think that should be ok. As long as you play nice, most anything is allowed in userspace. The better place to look for an answer to this question is probably our user page policy though --T-rex 22:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know about that. WP:USER#What can I not have on my user page? states "Generally, you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a general hosting service, so your user page is not a personal homepage. Your page is about you as a Wikipedian." I have seen user pages get deleted under MfD for having too much promotional content that has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Probably best to avoid this stuff. I do believe, however, that it is okay to have a link to your personal website, which I see you have done. -- Satori Son 00:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factor canvassing

I would like to factor the section on Canvassing to its own page, for example Wikipedia:Canvassing. Discuss. —Quarl (talk) 2006-10-12 07:58Z

  • I believe the term "talk page spam" sees more use than "canvassing". Why do you want to split them? >Radiant< 08:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I think the two subjects are orthogonal. One is about spamming articles, usually with external links. Another is about internal spamming/cross-posting/canvassing to user talk pages, usually to affect on-wikipedia debates. —Quarl (talk) 2006-10-12 09:05Z
      • Good point. Unfortunately they're both frequently referred to as "spam"... >Radiant< 09:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
        • That's what disambiguation pages are for :) —Quarl (talk) 2006-10-13 08:39Z

[edit] external links

if I want to put in an external link that has good information on the subject, am I right in thinking that I should put it at the bottom of the list and contribute to the page by adding some information that's relavant

  • Yes. Also, please consider whether your link is a reliable source (e.g. not someone random guy's blog). >Radiant< 08:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An untitled question

I recently added an external link to a magazine website that is a good source of information for the topic page I was visiting on Wikipedia. It was removed and I was told to refer to the guidelines, which I read extensively. It seems that linking to a website, such as magazine that focuses on a specific content subject would be a relevant resource. Thoughts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LFW (talk • contribs) 2006-10-16T19:36:49 (UTC)

Who knows? It's hard to say when you've given us little to go on — what link, what article? Thanks/wangi 19:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Offshore magazine (if that's the link you mean) appears to be light on content, at least without a subscription, so I expect it was deemed as having little useful free content. Decency should have obliged the reverter to give some indication why they thought it unworthy, but a high volume of spam links have wearied many editors. (Perhaps a new summary acronym should be used: rvsl.) — EncMstr 19:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Might actully be http://www.laserfocusworld.com/ looking through contribs... I'd say it's rather light too... Thanks/wangi 20:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Excellent thoughts-thanks very much. Yes, laserfocusworld.com. The site has quite a bit of laser information including product info, etc. I thought it would be a valuable resource for those looking for in-depth information. Most of the content does not require registration. perhaps it would be best to link to the "online news" (http://lfw.pennnet.com/articles/Online_Listing.cfm) or product gallery with a new summery acronym. I know these sections do not require registration. Thanks again for the clarification.

[edit] who's job is it to remove the {{advert}} tag from the page?

When an editor puts {{advert}} on a page and then the page gets fixed, who's responsability is it to take that off the page?

And if it's the editor in question, what does one do if this editor has been subsequently blocked indefinitely?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Mgrant0 (talk • contribs).

Ideally the person who fixes the page should remove the tag, but its not a big deal - anyone can do it as long as the problem has been dealt with. -- — Moondyne 10:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Votestacking

From the phrasing, it would appear acceptable to contact people on the grounds that they've editted a certain page, or editted it quite a bit, as long as it's POV neutral -- but is it? Goldfritha 23:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, from my reading it is acceptable. But only so long as it is done neutrally, that is without regard for their expressed or suspected opinions. In other words, don't contact past editors selectively. Derex 23:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External link spam, wihout bots

This is a topic that really isn't covered by this policy, but should be. Rather then spam all pages just looking for google ranks, many spamers look for somewhat related articles and then just add their site to the list of external links at the bottom. Granted, about 5% of the time these links are probably appropriate, but the vast majority of the time they are not. Obvouslly the defacto policy is against this, but it would be easier to deal with spammers if we had a section of this page that delt more directly with this situation. any thoughts? --T-rex 15:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to rewrite this to clarify things. I don't see anything remotly contriversal, but if so let me know --T-rex 19:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Your improvements look good to me. -- Satori Son 20:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jericho (TV series) spam

It appears that Jericho (TV series) has been the target of a mis-directed promotional campaign from CBS. The page is now semi-protected. See Talk:Jericho (TV series). It also seems that VmillerKS (talk • contribs) is a dedicated spam account operated by the producers/writers/publicists, and had created some (now deleted) articles Jennings and Rall and Ravenwood Solutions (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ravenwood Solutions). I'm just drawing attention to other admins in case they pop up again. -- Chuq 12:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exchange

May be potential spamers can somehow exchange themes of their articles to preserve neutral point of view? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DavisNT (talk • contribs).

[edit] Interesting reading . . .

To get an idea of the thinking behind wiki spammers, you may want to take a look at a couple of posts on this forum. There is a lot of discussion on how to get external links to stick on wikipedia.

Here are a couple of interesting threads . . .

If you pay attention, it's possible to match up some of the posters to actual spam. ScottW 00:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

That was some fascinating reading - thanks for the links. A few of them seem to have a genuine understanding of what Wikipedia is, at least, and take a win/win angle. Others, not so much. I need to start checking citation links more carefully.  :) Kuru talk 03:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it was interesting to see that some people legitimately didn't know that spamming wikipedia was frowned upon. Of course, that apparently is balanced out by people who do know it's bad and try to figure out ways of getting a link on there anyway. One person went so far as to copy text from a wikipedia article to his website so as to try to give the appearance of an appropriate citation. Also, I'm sure this has been discussed previously, but it seems like a lot of these issues would go away if WP just used the nofollow attribute for external links in the article space like is done on talk pages. ScottW 11:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm against that. As long as our links are overwhelmingly "good", which I think they are, we do the search engines (and, hence, the search engine users) a service by having our outgoing links "count". - Jmabel | Talk 18:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commercial links

Are commercial links always disallowed, unless they are links such as a corporation's website on the article about the corporation? A couple of times (namely with Manta ray and Red Fruit), I have linked to websites that were commercial without me realizing it for the purpose of citing sources. They were removed, leaving poorly sourced information. --Gray Porpoise 03:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

For specific information on what external links are allowed and which are prohibited, see Wikipedia:External links. -- Satori Son 04:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I came here after reading that. What I mean is, if a commercial is added for educational purposes, is it allowed? The guideline (which I have long been familiar with) doesn't make it clear to me whether links to promotional websites are allowed for non-promotional purposes such as verification. --Gray Porpoise 19:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
There is a pretty strong presupposition against commercial links, and the more commercial the stronger the presupposition. Obviously, there are exceptions. For example, we routinely link to IMDB, which is commercial, but which is also the standard online reference in its field. We routinely link to relevant newspaper articles, and newspaper sites are pretty much all commercial. "Promotional" web sites, though, if I understand you correctly, are another matter. For example, there is a very strong presumption against a site that is advertising a book unless it contains large enough excerpts to be a genuine resource (that is, we might link to a site that provided a chapter or two of a non-fiction work, or (as in one case I can think of) over 30 high-quality images from a photo book.
In short, this is an area that calls for some judgment, and no one is going to be able to give you a hard and fast answer in the abstract. - Jmabel | Talk 18:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Opinion

I have come across the following article VCX and user page User:VCXHomeOfTheClassics. I think the article is something that would be deletable as spam. I am especially leary/worried about the affiliation tracking that is done on the external link. On both the user page and the talk page, User talk:VCXHomeOfTheClassics there is some discussion about this not being spam because the user is affiliated with the company VCX. The user has been around for about a year, and has made a contribution to entries in the adult film industry field. I think that the user page is in violation of WP:USER.

I am requesting a second opinion about the following:

  1. is the VCX spam and as such deletable under speedy or AfD,
  2. is there a concern about the affiliate tracking system, and
  3. is the user page outside of the user page guidelines?

Your thoughts would be greatly welcomed. Thanks. --Gay Cdn (talk) (Contr.) 13:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The topic is probably notable enough, and the page seems neutral. It may push WP:AUTO, but only just. I've seen tremendously worse. Heck, I've seen tremendously worse several times this month.
The affiliate link, though, is out of line. We should have just a basic link to their site. I recently went around this just yesterday with the author of an article we link to. We're not here to help someone else track their traffic. - Jmabel | Talk 07:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spam filter

Very annoying. I just made some edits to a talk page - adding {{unsigned}} as needed, responding to one comment - and now the spam filter won't let me save the page. And, of course, it doesn't give me a clue as to which of the dozen or two existing links on the page (none of which I added, or at least not recently) is the offending link. So unless I'm going to go through the whole page removing links, I'm hosed. So I guess I'll do something like that, but... there seems to be a dubious assumption here that the reason there will be a blacklisted link in a newly saved page is that the latest editor added it. If I didn't know Wikipedia well, I'd find this all as confusing as I now find it annoying. If an engine is detecting an inappropriate link, why the heck can't it report what link has a problem? - Jmabel | Talk 01:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I misread your comment and thought you were referring to this page (hence my odd edit). I thought that the message included the problem link. Which talk page are you trying to edit? ScottW 02:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've now dealt with this through meta. - Jmabel | Talk 07:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link from my home page

If I link to a commercial site like Brass fittings or India Animations from my home page, is that allowed?--Darrendeng 10:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the user page guideline at WP:USER, "you are welcome to include a link to your personal home page, although you should not surround it with any promotional language." The links you mention may be outside of the scope of a personal home page, but I suspect that most people wouldn't object too much. However if you get beyond one or two links, or if your userpage starts to read like an ad, then you may run into problems. Even though the user space uses nofollow and there wouldn't be much benefit to advertising on a user page, I think most people are sensitive to anything that gives the appearance of advertising in wikipedia, on a user page or otherwise. In fact, user pages can be deleted if they give that appearance.
So far as your current user page goes, the "fraction of European costs" line strays a little into promotional language, but I think if you don't take it any further than that you should be ok. Keep in mind that there is always context behind people's judgement. As long as you give no reason to do otherwise, most people will assume good faith and not that you are trying to spam your user page. However, if you were to develop a reputation for spamming other pages, other editors will be less tolerant of external links on your user page. Hope this helps. ScottW 15:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "wikimyspace"

I have made a proposal on the proposal pump on this issue. It would be good if we could get people to give comments (but make sure all talk is there, or at least in one place). -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 19:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Are links in signatures spam?

On article talk pages, are links that editors use in signing their names (links to external sites) considered spam? It's certainly not relevant to the discussions. --Ronz 20:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have an example or two? John Broughton | Talk 22:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Many here: [1] --Ronz 02:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I see - you're talking about something like this - someone ended her posting with Ilena Rosenthal www.BreastImplantAwareness.org. Yes, the www.... seems unrelated to the article (it's essentially an advertisement for, at best, the credibility/authority of the editor, which is still unacceptable), and I think it would be reasonable to delete it. The user is free to say, on her user page, that she works for that organization, and to provide a URL to it, there.
I note that I was a bit surprised because "signing a name" in Wikipedia is usually done as described at Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages - using four tildes. Free-form "signing", as is the case here, is bad form, at minimum.
You could do the deletion, and ask the editor to follow that policy in the future, without getting into whether it's spam, since her doing it right is not only faster, but it really helps other editors follow a discussion (as in, who said what, first). Alternatively, you might use the {{unsigned}} template, deleting her name and the website address, replacing it with the time/date from the history of the page, plus "unsigned". (If that doesn't make sense, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll do it for you as an illustration.) I don't think, however, that you have to get into a "spam" discussion with her - per WP:AGF, just assume that she doesn't know better, at the moment. John Broughton | Talk 20:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I was hoping to avoid any spam discussion anyways. --Ronz 00:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
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