Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/To-do

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The To-do list

Contents

[edit] Regular sources of spam-removal tasks

[edit] Some articles that need external links trimmed

  • I'm not feeling very bold, but would a classic "drop-the-bomb" be appropriate on Genealogy software? It looks like something from Consumer Reports (Without any real substance though)! 68.39.174.238 18:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I just offered to do just that on the talk page. Hopefully, one of the contributers to the article will be motivated to clean it up. --Selket 08:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I think alot of the problem is/was the useless "explanatory" text that was added on to the links. The "alphabetical list" however is still in need of work. 68.39.174.238 13:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Book sources looks OK for now. If you think otherwise, lets discuss. DGG 05:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
"Suppliers" MAY be removable as SPAM (The nonsearchable/deeplinkable ones especially), but the rest seem legit. 68.39.174.238 01:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Please note that these two articles are outside article space, and other rules may apply. These pages are linkfarms, but with a specific target and thought. When removing the ISBN search capability per WP:NOT#REPOSITORY (not a directory) article space will see more spam which has to be cleaned out. Now both are bad, but at least the list pages outside article space are manageable. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't want to be the one to do it, but Theology is in pretty bad shape. Selket Talk 07:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I have done some, will you review them to see if I took out something illegitimate? 68.39.174.238 01:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I just took a pretty sharp ax to it again. Have a look; I think some more could still go. --Selket Talk 23:21, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Down to two, I took out the "conservative Calvinist" — Unless we can link to a broad and representative selection of all theologies (Which I suspect would be an even worse linklist) I don't think we should give preferential linking to any part of it. 68.39.174.238 03:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recently cleaned articles:

  • Video game music‎ - Was tagged with {{Cleanup-spam}} tag - have cleaned up links and untagged. Have also added a few references (i.e. where External links were more appropiate as references). -- Rehnn83 Talk 09:41, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Widow spider - Was tagged with {{Cleanup-spam}} tag - have cleaned up links and untagged -- Rehnn83 Talk 08:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some sites that need investigating

  • I may be off-side so I want to have someone experienced with how people creatively spam on wikipedia evaluate this: Template:McGrawHillAnimation. It looks to me like a company, www.maxanim.com (search for links), is inserting a GoogleAds dummy page between the science related wiki pages, and the desired flash animations from McGraw-Hill. The trouble is, the animations contain helpful scientific content, but we no longer have the direct links available on the science related wiki pages, only this template which links through MaxAnimations (i.e. the 'spammer', if it is one, replaces something like http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/olc/dl/120078/micro50.swf with {{McGrawHillAnimation|genetics|microarray}} Jethero 18:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I've commented out the template code to disable all these thinks. The landing page has nothing but ads. This is totally unacceptable user experience. See Template:McGrawHillAnimation. The user who installed a lot of these User:Arcadian, seems to be a legitimate contributor. I think we've been had by Maxanim. The posted link bait and then switched it out for ads. Jehochman (Talk/Contrib) 13:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • www.lodgephoto.com (search for links) They have lots of nice photos, sorted by locations, which are probably useful and interesting to people wanting to see photos of those locations. And yet, they are posting here because they want to sell their photos. Or maybe they just like taking photos and selling them is just how they fund themselves. It's a borderline case, but I think it would be a slippery slope to leave them as is. As nice as the photos are, it's too commercial for my liking. PS. Checkout the new template! Regards, Ben Aveling 02:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • exoticindiaart.com - basically selling crafts
I checked out many of these links and they seem to be legitimate references, not spam or even hawking anything.DUBJAY04 19:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Keep going down the list. The last 40 or 50 of the 138 entries are products/items for sale (sometimes sold). But many of the pages on this site have been linked to from 5 or 6 wikipedia pages. With 138 different links to this site, my AGF exhausts. Regards, Ben Aveling 21:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  • www.eoearth.org Encyclopedia of Earth; this is another encyclopedia website launched several months ago that has articles similar to WP. A group of users (mostly anonymous) are adding external links en masse to the corresponding pages in their encyclopedia on WP (nearly 100 at last count). Many have been warned User talk:128.197.34.220, User talk:KonaScout. They appear to be using WP to promote their new website. A number of other editors and I have removed some of these links, but there are plenty others out there. Calltech 23:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Another anonymous user User_talk:69.182.174.152 joined in today to add a number of links to eoearth.org. Removed these links and placed a message on talk page but I'm sure they'll simply use another IP or identifier. Calltech 00:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Removed a few more today. -- Satori Son 19:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • This is a decent site. I would keep these links if they are references or if they link to an article which is significantly better than Wikipedia's. Otherwise, we can delete them. These links shouldn't be deleted simply because they link to a competitor to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, this site uses Creative Commons, not the GFDL, so we can't simply put their articles on Wikipedia. Andrew_pmk | Talk 02:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, this is about several users who were systematically adding links to EoE, using WP as a promotional platform to this site. Bulk additions of links violate WP guidelines and adding links to a site where there is an affiliation is a conflict of interest. All links to EoE were not removed, just those added in the manner described above. The site has not been blacklisted; it is simply being watched to ensure the link spamming does not continue. Calltech 11:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Dozens of extlinks to David Pietrusza's site which has linkdirs on various subjects. I've removed some of them but am not sure of the best way to handle this. Also I removed several dozen inappropriate links to dorothyparker.com mostly promoting "walking tours" of Dorothy Parker's old literary hangouts, that were in many articles related to Parker's literary circle. I left in a few which were outside article space or arguably met WP:EL guidelines, but the owner of that site (K72ndst (talk • contribs)) restored a bunch of them and there was a reversion contest (he's backed off for now), so someone might want to keep an eye on it (linksearch). Note that dorothyparker.com is not Parker's personal site (she is dead). The owner claims it's an "official" site but this strikes me as dubious--her entire estate went to the NAACP. I removed the link from Parker's biographical page and (after K72ndst reverted the removal) I removed it again and left K72ndst a talk message asking him to supply documentation before restoring the link. 67.117.130.181 04:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • www.emedicine.com seems to be popping up everywhere. The unobtrusive ads are not bad in and of themselves, but it fails WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided #1 in most articles it is linked from. -Selket Talk 08:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • www.chabad.org The Chabad-Lubavitch organisation has some provable authority and chabad.org does appear to have an editorial policy so is suitable as an attributable source for their views, but the Lubavitchers are a very small group within Judaism, certainly well short of the level of influence that would justify nearly 650 links in mainspace. These need a careful review and some pretty ruthless pruning. Guy (Help!) 23:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Amazon.com. Yup, you read that right. There are literally thousands of links to amazon.com, almost all of which should not be there. either we should be using the ISBN syntax or they are links to book cover images, which are being used as references for trivial facts (which is original research). The major problem is that these links can be subverted with referral ids. Guy (Help!) 12:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, they shouldn't be here. But often not spam as much as people who have no idea how to write a citation and link to the amazon page for the book instead. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Users to check out

I checked out the link and it did violate WP:EL. Removed and left warning with user. -- Satori Son 07:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • This anonymous user has almost 100% spam contributions for FHM and the IP itself originates from the FHM office in NYC. -- Tomlouie | talk 17:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Special:Contributions/Tangelise - all "contributions" are for promoting FBi Radio. Camillus (talk) 13:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • User:193.122.103.201, the chemistry lab SPAMmer! 68.39.174.238 15:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
  • User:Cada2 linking to http://www.magistermusicae.com/magister-musicae/frontpage.html in pages he is creating, many of which seem probably inclusion worthy, but the link probably isn't. GRBerry 19:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Not only that, he's doing the same thing in eS Cada ( talk • contribs • [../../../../es/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_move_02c8.html page moves] • [../../../../es/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_block_4a41.html block log] ) Local: User:Cada, where it has been shown that his additions are copyright violations! 68.39.174.238 22:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Special:Contributions/Davemckay - This user has been editing pages and creating pages in order to link to his website. For example, he created The Untimely Meditations in order to link to his own website's hosted version of a translation taken from the living translator's website, in possible violation of that translator's copyright. Apparently user needs basically all of his edits reverted (and presumably new stubs deleted?), and a stern spam warning on his talk page. I need some help from you WikiSpam folks if this is going to happen soon. Wareh 17:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I just now finally finished cleaning out a huge quantity of linkspam. I got rid of linkspam from Davemckay that came from four IP addresses and two user accounts. See my contributions between then and now for the whole long list; see Davemckay's talk page for the IP addresses and other user account. Wareh 03:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlists

Lists of popular articles:

These are also frequently vandalized.

Technology articles are often prone to spam, as are lists, both stand-alone and embedded.

Informal watchlists:

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/k/Wikipedia%7EWikiProject_Spam_To-do_f434.html"