Talk:Penton Media

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This company has been advertising heavily on Wikipedia since early 2006. See User_talk:65.166.218.250 for extensive details. [text moved from article to talk page] - Jvhertum 12:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] List of Prism / Penton Media link spammers

Penton Media has been subversively adding a large number of external links into Wikipedia since August 2005. By conducting cross-referencing and viewing user contribution logs unusual external link addition activity can be discovered. The is a list of suspected Prism / Penton Media link spammers:

  • 65.166.218.250 (talk · contribs) - 56 link spams, 3 August 2005 - 29 January 2007, Prism
  • 65.242.19.77 (talk · contribs) - 1 link spam, 25 January 2007, Prism
  • 65.242.19.118 (talk · contribs) - 3 link spams, 26 January 2007, Prism
  • 65.242.19.125 (talk · contribs) - 12 link spams, 24 January 2007, Prism
  • 65.242.19.126 (talk · contribs) - 1 link spam, 6 February 2007, Prism
  • 199.0.65.2 (talk · contribs) - 12 link spams, 27 April 2006 - 11 April 2007, Penton
  • Babybear2 (talk · contribs) - 14 link spams, 4 August 2006 - 22 August 2006
  • Erpel13 (talk · contribs) - 39 link spams, 14 July 2006 - 13 February 2007
  • Noddybelle (talk · contribs) - 11 link spams, 15 November 2006 - 7 February 2007
  • Pshibles (talk · contribs) - 5 link spams, 22 January 2005 - 25 April 2007
  • Qsheek (talk · contribs) - 3 link spams, 21 August 2006 - 23 January 2007
  • Splash15 (talk · contribs) - 7 link spams, 12 September 2006 - 12 April 2007
  • Tneedham (talk · contribs) - 14 link spams, 19 June 2006 - 15 February 2007
  • Trav123 (talk · contribs) - 7 link spams, 25 January 2007 - 30 January 2007
  • 63.77.85.254 (talk · contribs) - 14 link spams, 22 February 2007 - 5 June 2007, Prism
  • JHenton (talk · contribs) - 10 link spams, 15 February 2007 - 4 April 2007
  • Hmilgram (talk · contribs) - 12 link spams, 14 June 2006 - 7 February 2007

A whois query on the first five IP addresses reports an owner of "Prism Business Media". The last IP address is owned by "Penton Media." Traceroutes on the IP address reveals three geographically distinct networks that are at unidentified locations. The link spam counts represent the number of link spam additions by that user. The begin and end dates represent the chronological range of active spam activity. The trailing name for IP users represents whois domain ownership.

How many more Prism / Penton Media agents are still waiting to be discovered on Wikipedia? If you find any please add them to the above list. (Requestion 19:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC))

[edit] List of Prism Media domains

The following is a list of domains that have been extensively spammed by Prism agents. The purpose of the wiki special:linksearch tag is to be a tool to aid in the finding of hidden Prism / Penton spam agents. A whois query on the following list all report an owner of "PRISM Business Media Inc.":

Since Prism has merged into Penton the whois queries are expected to change ownership names when the domains expire. Please feel free to add newly discovered Prism / Penton spam domains to the above list. (Requestion 19:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC))

[edit] List of Penton Media domains

The following is a list of domains that have been extensively spammed by Penton agents. The purpose of the wiki special:linksearch tag is to be a tool to aid in the finding of hidden Prism / Penton spam agents. A whois query on the following list all report an owner of "Penton Media, Inc.":

Prism Media and Penton Media are the same company so these two lists will merge in the future. (Requestion 04:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Black List Recommendation

I count 5 sock puppet spamming agents, 131 external spam link additions, and 11 spam tag warnings. Prism Business Media has had sufficient warnings and they have blatantly defied requests to stop their spamming activity. In fact they have become covert in their spamming exploits by utilizing different temporary user names. This has made policing their Wikipedia spam activity difficult. I feel the only action left is a complete black listing.

This is your last warning. The next time you insert a spam link, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted as well, preventing anyone from linking to them from any site that uses the MediaWiki spam blacklist, which includes all of Wikimedia and Wikipedia. (Requestion 21:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC))

Updated count: 11 sock puppet spamming agents, 161 external spam link additions, and 16 spam tag warnings. When does this qualify as a mass spamming? (Requestion 02:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC))
Updated count: 12 sock puppet spamming agents, 174 external spam link additions, and 17 spam tag warnings. (Requestion 01:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC))
Updated count: 14 sock puppet spamming agents, 181 external spam link additions, and 17 spam tag warnings. (Requestion 18:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC))
Updated count: 17 sock puppet spamming agents, 205 external spam link additions. (Requestion 03:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC))
Updated count: 17 sock puppet spamming agents, 211 external spam link additions. (Requestion 00:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC))
Updated count: 17 sock puppet spamming agents, 213 external spam link additions. (Requestion 20:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC))
Updated count: 17 sock puppet spamming agents, 217 external spam link additions. I find this recent Prism Media exploitation [1] of the Virginia Tech massacre to be extremely shameful. (Requestion 20:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC))
Updated count: 17 sock puppet spamming agents, 221 external spam link additions. (Requestion 20:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Self-references in the Penton Media article

Hi. Here's what the opening section of Wikipedia:Avoid self-references:

"Avoid self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project, such as:"
"This Wikipedia article discusses ..."
"Free content projects, such as this website ..."
"While Wikipedia is not a dictionary, ... (in an article about a certain term)"
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers (see Wikipedia:Spoiler warning for alternative text)"
"Such self-references are entirely acceptable on talk pages or in the Wikipedia namespace, but they are inappropriate in articles for two reasons. The first is that self-references are often considered disruptive in an encyclopedia because they distract from the topic at hand. A secondary concern is that self-references limit the use of Wikipedia as an open source encyclopedia suitable for forking, as permitted by our license. Put simply, this policy is about remembering that the goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself, so the articles produced should be useful even outside the context of the project used to create them."

There is a section in the guideline, "Writing about Wikipedia itself" that provides some exceptions, but I don't see any relevant to this article:

"Wikipedia can, of course, write about Wikipedia, but context is important. If you read about Shakespeare's works, you are not interested in reading about Wikipedia's policies or conventions. If, however, you read about online communities, the article may well discuss Wikipedia as an example, in a neutral tone, without specifically implying that the article in question is being read on — or is a part of — Wikipedia. If, in this framework, you link from an article to a Wikipedia page outside the main namespace, use external link style to allow the link to work also in a site with a copy of the main namespace content."
"The following are some examples where such links can be useful:"

The only exception from the list above that could remotely fit is the first, but Wikipedia plays virtually no role in the life of this multi-bazillion dollar publishing company. Presently this article is just a 2 paragraph stub.

I decline to revert this article's self-reference a 3rd time, but I will ask nicely that for the sake of the encyclopedia, the following text be removed in accordance with the guideline above:

"This company has been advertising heavily on Wikipedia since early 2006."

This is not about whether Penton Media is right to spam Wikipedia or whether anyone approves of it or not -- it's simply about Wikipedia's editorial policies and guidelines. It's also not about whether some Penton person or persons have spammed Wikipedia; no one's questioning that they did.

I will also note that, as written, that sentence can be construed by some readers to mean that Wikipedia has some sort of advertising program, which we don't. --A. B. (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Your argument does not make sense. What you are saying is if Penton Media was smaller and made a higher percentage of their revenue from Wikipedia "link spam click throughs" then that would be encyclopedic. I know that Wikipedia does not have a formal advertising program but Penton Media made it their policy to create an informal one. You have not manually gone through all of the 160+ link spam additions. I have, their actions are very systematic and adaptive. Is the fact that Microsoft has tried to hire Wikipedians to make positive Wikipedia edits encyclopedic? Or is that too some sort of bureaucratic self-referential recursive stack overflow error? (Requestion 22:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC))
I don't follow you -- what's a bureaucratic self-referential recursive stack overflow error?
My main point was to quote the guideline verbatim. Do you disagree with it? --A. B. (talk) 01:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
The recursive reference was a computer science joke.
I disagree with your interpretation and your application of Wikipedia:Avoid self-references in this particular case. (Requestion 01:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC))
I've requested others look at this question and at the guideline for their advice. --A. B. (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Great. Penton Media made this topic news-worthy when they decided to target Wikipedia in a coordinated link spam infiltration. Look at the User list above; three geographical attack networks, multiple user names/machines, overlapping dates of account activity. This is more than just a single employee run amok. I don't know if this spam-vertising campaign was coporate policy. But I do know that this was a defining characteristic, heck, the Penton Media page didn't exist until I created it. (Requestion 21:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC))
While editting a corrected start date for the "has been advertising heavily on Wikipedia since ..." line that is the topic of this thread I noticed an interesting correlation. The date of the first external spam link is August 2005 which is the same date that Prism was purchased from Primedia. Just an interesting coincidence, not sure what the significance is. (Requestion 00:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC))

I feel fairly strongly that the line should come out of the article, based on the reliable sources guideline. Until it is published by a reputable media outlet, it is original research by a group of Wikipedians that we have no reason to trust any farther than the distance I can hurl a can of spam. Aside from that, there are some wording problems, but the original research aspect is really the show stopper. ✤ JonHarder talk 03:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This is absurd. If a Wikipedian can't do WP:OR on the investigation of Wikipedia link spam then no one can. I'm not asking you to trust me, I'm asking you to trust yourself. It is all layed out above, look at the contrib edits and make up you own mind. (Requestion 04:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC))
There isn't a problem with investigating linkspam and using the findings as a basis for removing inapproriate links and blocking spammers. There is a longstanding policy of not using original research in the mainspace. ✤ JonHarder talk 00:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)