Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2006 Archive Nov

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textamerica

Links to textamerica seem junky. If anyone want to have a go at them, there are only about 20 on article pages. JonHarder 05:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Another easy cleanup for someone is ticketdepo. JonHarder 14:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to whoever cleaned up ticketdepo. JonHarder 02:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Anti-spam warnings for article pages

I saw this text added to the wiki-code for the Voice over IP article in the external links section:

<!-- THIS IS NOT A PLACE TO ADD A LINK TO YOUR OWN SITE. -->
<!-- Before adding a link here, please make a proposal on the talk page. -->
<!-- This is NOT an SEO opportunity. We're watching like hawks. Don't try it. -->

It won't stop determined spammers, but notices like this added to some other frequently-spammed articles may deter a few good faith newbies that just don't know the rules.

--A. B. 18:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

If this is aimed at newbies it should be less militant I think. Taking out all the all-caps should make a big difference in that regard. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Such warnings are found in many, many articles. There is even a template that adds the warning in HTML comment, just like that one. -- ReyBrujo 19:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Check {{NoMoreLinks}}. -- ReyBrujo 19:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Agreed that the caps are a bit agressive. I suppose it's meant so that this is clearly visible but maybe something like

<!-- ===============================================================================================================-->
<!-- Please read before adding new external links to the list below -->
<!-- Before adding a link here, please make a proposal on the talk page. -->
<!--External links that do not conform to the Wikipedia guideline for external links will be quickly removed. -->
<!--Inappropriate links that are added persistently with no regards to other editors' opinions will be blacklisted. -->
<!-- ===============================================================================================================-->

is both very much visible, civil and to the point. Maybe we can make a template from something like this and add it to articles that have persistent spam problems. Pascal.Tesson 19:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


Oh well, edit conflict. But the NoMoreLinks template could be a bit better in terms of civility and should probably refer to the blacklist scarecrow. Pascal.Tesson 19:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


I added this to the SCADA article over a month ago. In that time, about 20 new spamlinks would normally be expected. There has been only one.
<!--
 == External Links ==
                      Attention!  Before adding an entry, read this!

 This section historically attracts spamlinks:  links to websites which exist primarily to sell products.

 Yes, we know that your website probably offers some educational materials and might have useful reference information.
 We also know that an example of a related product could possibly be a useful addition to the article.

 Against "possible" and "probable", we know for certain that a link to one commercial link will attract another, 
 until the article resembles a trashed alley in a derelict part of town.

 The official wikipedia guidelines can be viewed by
 1.  Typing WP:EL (or "wikipedia:external links") in the search box and pressing "Go", or
 2.  Items 3 and 4 under  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wp:el#Links_normally_to_be_avoided   


 If you feel your link fulfills the intent of the guidelines, by all means add it.  Someone will be along shortly
 to review your addition.  Beware:  Due to the history of this page, external link additions are presumed to be
 spam until proven useful!

 Thank you.
 -->
It intentionally includes the expected == External links == section within a comment to foil novice spammers. While the suggestions of others do a good job of warning, I think it important to include a significant educational effort. Many newbies don't realize there are rules, and don't know about watchlists, etc. Refering them to the rules, and warning them what to expect may well be the most effective spam protection. — EncMstr 23:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Very nice. Maybe we should update the NoMoreLinks template to some generic version of the above since it seems effective. Pascal.Tesson 23:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I must note that these warnings are only useful IF the external links section uses ; instead of level-3 headings, because in this last case the warning can be baypassed. I proposed the modification in the EL page, which apparently has been accepted, but many articles still use level-3 headings. -- ReyBrujo 03:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Well that's easily enough fixed then. Everywhere we place one of these nice and educational notices we can convert the level-3 headings to ; headers. I mean, since we've got the edit window open anyway... :-) — Saxifrage ✎ 04:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

rel="nofollow"

(copied from above as it may have been overlooked)

The debate at Wikipedia:Nofollow in February 2005 is now 20 months old. Many of the keep votes then argued that nofollow was too bleeding edge or that the issue of spam was manageable by vandalism patrols. Neither of those arguments can no longer be used. — Moondyne 09:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

My reading of various blogs as well as occasional comments on talk pages is that there may now be some support for this debate to be reopened. Nofollow tags are added by the Wiki software for all pages except the English Wikipedia article space. The only arguments I can see for not having it is a) from vested interests who continue to add spam links or; b) wikipedia somehow has a moral obligation to provide pagerank benefits in return for incoming links. Neither of these hold any water for me. — Moondyne 06:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Moondyne on this. I have no knowledge of any previous discussions on the topic, but it seems sensible to me to just adopt the same policy for English language articles as for user pages and non-english articles. There's no implied commitment of a bi-directional linking arrangement with anyone, is there? I think making Wikipedia less of a juicy target for link spammers would cut down on a lot of the unproductive maintenence work. --Loqi T. 07:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I very much agree and this is brought up every now and then on this talk page. I don't want to sound like I'm pushing for a cabal of spam-fighters but I think that if we hope to reopen the debate formally, it would be good to work beforehand on a well thought out set of points in favor of rel=nofollow with a few statistics and facts from our experience to back it up. Pascal.Tesson 07:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm new to this. Any leads on what to read up on? --Loqi T. 07:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Well I think that if you read Wikipedia:Nofollow you'll get a pretty good idea of the issues. But be warned: it's not the most exciting thing you've read on Wikipedia... Pascal.Tesson 07:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the "nofollow" idea, very much. --Elonka 21:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Being linked from Wikipedia has become a popularity contest, and at worst it's become a coveted revenue-stream. In theory, a good External links section only has a few select links even when there are many equally-good links. Since we are not concerned with linking to everything of relevance on a subject fairly, we end up promoting a few links over others and thus the reward for having "your" link chosen is disproportionately high. Our goal isn't to tell our readers what links are good or not but to collect useful information here. The way we use links is fundamentally at odds with the way Google and others want us to use them, and so I think using rel=nofollow on all links in articlespace is very much warranted. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree, Saxifrage. Even with using rel=nofollow, an idea I support strongly, we'll still be subjected to intense and repeated lobbying (often economically driven, as you point out) to include ever more links. Article editors need to establish and enforce firm and very conservative standards about what will be included in a given set of articles (i.e., there's not one standard that will necessarily fit all kinds of articles). We especially need to watch the syndrome of people actually creating WP articles about their target web site, as a dodge around the WP:EL guidelines that would tend to apply to their desired link being inserted in a core article. Cases like these have seen us (for an actual example) get into endless and pointless debate about whether a given site is really notable because it was once mentioned in a newspaper columnist's contribution in central Minnesota. In my mind, the fewer external links in an article (other than as source references), the better. This is wholly consistent with WP:EL's declaration that External links should be used sparingly and kept to a minimum.' -- PKtm 19:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I've been plodding through Wikipedia:Nofollow. You were right Pascal, I've had more fun at the dentist's. I intend to learn all the arguments, but for now, the biggest thing that strikes me is that the remove position means "stop using nofollow"; meaning before the vote to remove, nofollow was the standard. So was there a time when nofollow was the standard for English article space, which has since been overturned? If so, we might be able to see if changes in spamming patters were influenced by changes in Wikipedia policy? Am I missing something here? --Loqi T. 05:07, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
As I understand the history, Google came up with the nofollow idea initially in about January 2005, announcing it here (as well as at other places I presume) and the Wikimedia developers adopted it without consultation believing (reasonably) that it was a sensible idea for adoption across the entire wikimedia universe. The debate at Wikipedia:Nofollow subsequently ensued and it use was ceased here as of March 6, 2005. As for changes in spamming patterns before and after those events, I cannot imagine how any quantitive data could support either side of the argument as the SEO industry has ballooned in the same period. Opponents might argue that that SEO growth proves that nofollow is inneffective and therefore, why bother having it. — Moondyne 07:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
nofollow is not a significant spam help. In general there two reasons links are spammed here, seo reasons and direct website traffic. Since it takes 30 seconds or less to add a link it is pollyanna-ish to think removing one of the two reasons will have any effect. Traffic from a link is still worth taking 30 seconds to add the thing. The thing to think about in combating spam links is that 30 seconds. If a spammer had to take the time to be a registered user to add an external link, maybe 90% of spam links would be eliminated (not to mention the spammers would be easier to track). I don't have much opinion about nofollow other than it is basically pointless in this context. It won't make much difference (if only because half the spammers would be too dumb to know the nofollow was there). Nofollow would lessen spam here by a tiny amount (notice this is the experience on the rest of the web). Making it harder to spam by requiring a login would reduce spam at least ten times more. 2005 11:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Hey, thanks you two. Right now, when any kind of submission contains a blacklisted link, the wiki software currently (buggily) turns the edit back and asks the user to remove the offending link. Is there an existing technical way to do this for anonymous submissions containing any external link? I'd certainly support using something like that. --Loqi T. 15:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
No there's not and what you said might be considered at odds with one of the basic principles of editing - anyone can edit without registering as a user. Also we assume good faith in all edits. To allow addition or removal of text but disallow addition of external links does not make much sense to me. A better proposal is to ban anon edits altogether - that has been considered and rejected before I believe (but I cannot remember where). — Moondyne 15:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't see it being at odds actually. External links are the least-desired addition to an article: all our spam templates exhort the adder to please add content, not more links. Removing the ability of anonymous users to add links would stop anonymous editors of all kinds (who very rarely understand or even know about WP:EL even if they're not spammers) from adding inappropriate links. The only editors who this would impact are those few who don't have accounts but are effectively regular non-anonymous editors because they have a fixed IP address. If outbound links could only be added to non-Article and non-Template space pages, then collaboration on Talk pages would be unimpeded, which is where new links really should appear first anyway. — Saxifrage ✎ 23:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
On further consideration, I realise there's a flaw in my argument above. Though I think it would be wonderful to keep IPs from adding links, how can I expect IPs to add content if they aren't allowed to add a link that references the content? I realise most IPs that add content don't bother referencing, but there's definitely a conflict there. — Saxifrage ✎ 16:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I first started using Wikipedia as an anonymous reader. Eventually, I was correcting a word here, a comma there. Over time, it became paragraphs and whole pages. It was only when I wanted to participate in something controversial that I felt I needed an account. I probably never would have made an account just to scratch my grammar itch. I tend to be suspicious of sites that require login for "enhanced content". I can say from my own perspective being allowed to edit anything I see except outbound links would not have set off my AGF radar, then or now. AGF has its limits. I wouldn't be offended if the guy who picks me up hitchhiking wants to see my license before letting me do the driving. --Loqi T. 15:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Automated user reputation management

Is there some work going on with the wiki software development in the area of user reputation management tools? This is related to spam, vandalism, personal attacks, and any other sort of antisocial behavior on Wikipedia. All we have is our own personal memories of our separate interactions with each-other. We need a way of earning and squandering our standing based on what our peers think of what we're doing around here. Then we can spot the trouble makers, as well as get tangible feedback on the good stuff we've been doing that maybe wasn't so good after all. This seems like an obvious idea that someone must have thought of before. Can anyone point me in the right direction on this one? --Loqi T. 09:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I've not heard of such a thing other than a user initited peer review at WP:ER. We always try to assume good faith of other editors and any grading based on past behaviour would probably be at conflict with this. — Moondyne 12:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps you're right, Moondyne. Sometimes the old ways are best. Still, I do have some great ideas on the topic, and would like to take them to the right people. If anyone has any leads, I'd be most grateful. --Loqi T. 16:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
In the discussion about small item vetting in the section below, A.B. mentions some foreign language articles and points out that the German Wikipedia has a different cultural approach toward user disruptions. PKtm describes the german wiki concept of "Vertrauensnetz" ("web of trust"), in which users publish standardized personal assessments of the trustworthiness (as opposed to agreeability) of other users they've encountered. This is one of many possible tools to make researching users more efficient (and probably more accurate). Such a feature may or may not offend political sensibilities, but I think it could have tremendous practical benefits. Has a similar idea come up in the past on the English language side? --Loqi T. 18:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

LAN Gaming Center

I've run into some fairly aggressive and in-your-face spammers in the past week, but the gamers at LAN Gaming Center are proving more resistant than blatant spammers. The article history shows a revert war between the gamers and more experienced editors, with little fruitful discussion coming from the gamers. The anonymous IPs blank all the warnings from their talk pages; I thought this was considered vandalism, and many editors say so in in their edit summaries, but I can find no guideline that speaks to it. I'm wondering what to do next: is this now a content dispute that needs to be resolved through a dispute process or is it a simple case of spam that needs to be dealt with through the spamX templates and blocking? JonHarder 01:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

As step one, go to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection and request semi-protection for the article. If that doesn't work, request full protection. And yes, deleting warnings is vandalism. There's a series of warnings just as there is for regular vandalism:
  • Template:wr0
  • Template:wr
  • Template:wr2
  • Template:wr3
  • Template:wr4
  • Template:wr4rfc
I hope this helps. --A. B. 01:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
That ia a matter of contention. See the discussion at Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Removing_warnings. -- Donald Albury 04:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
See User talk:Freakdomination#LAN Gaming Center sock? --A. B. 23:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Or maybe a meatpuppet. The LAN Gaming Center folks are showing their irritation again today.[1] JonHarder 00:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Well if its the external links that bother you then why don't you so called "experienced editors" do something about the external links in LAN Party? Freakdomination 04:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there were any problems with the LAN Party page as it was. The collection of external links were relevant and not spam. Murray-Mint 22:53 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The frictionless graylist

I'm no fan of adding extra layers of bureaucracy, but this idea seems to have the potential of massively reducing spam patrol workload, while increasing fairness [accuracy]. The increased fairness [accuracy] benefit comes through deeper scrutiny of fewer cases, by knowledgeable, interested parties. Consider this idea:

One problem with how we've been treating the blacklist is that it takes work to get a site listed, and it takes work to get a site de-listed.

What if we had a graylist of suspected spam domains, where anyone can conveniently add a link at any time. Then, to get the link moved to the blacklist or whitelist would require discussion.

The graylist could mean something like "links to domains that someone is suspicious of". So then, any instance of such a link on the wiki could be flagged with a little symbol of suspicion. And then any interested party would have a heads-up to give the link further scrutiny.

The whitelist could mean "domains that have been on the graylist, and have since [that have formally] cleared a discussion". These domains would be treated the same as unknown domains, and allowed on the wiki, except that putting whitelisted domains on the gray- or blacklist would require discussion.

The blacklist could mean "domains that have been condemned in discussion". These domains can be revived after new discussion. But this list should not carry any sanction other than that the links can't be added back to wiki pages without discussion. (The blacklist should not be confused with the proposed list under discussion above.)

Hopefully in this way, an article with an excessively long EL section would begin to attract "suspicious link" symbols, giving that article's editors additional incentive to clean up their act. Casual encyclopedia readers would get a bold clue, differentiating the good links from the potential spam links, and spam patrols don't need to be quite so ponderous. Instead of figuring out what every link means, we could be deleting the obvious spam, and just flag the stuff we're not so sure about.

Any thoughts?

Loqi T. 15:35, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Such a list would be extremely vulnerable to spammers adding their competitors to the list. The amount of discussion and bureaucracy would spiral out of control. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

This would actually be a three-list system. If the problem is that it's too easy to just sneak a link onto Wikipedia, this would provide a convenient mechanism for identifying links that have not received sufficient scrutiny by the respective topic experts. All the graylist means is that someone (i.e. a spam patroller) saw a suspicious looking link that wasn't clearly spam, but didn't feel enough confidence to make a determination to totally remove it. Identifying the link with a caution symbol for readers, would hopefully spur discussion among those with knowledge on the topic of the article. A competitor would be unwise to use the graylist, since that would risk whitelisting the link. All the graylist does is encourage informal discussion on an article's talk page. And possibly formal discussion if the link keeps being improperly added (or deleted). A competitor would more likely choose the traditional, less risky option of furtively deleting a link. Additionally, this could be a potential compromise in the nofollow attribute debate. If people object to a universal nofollow policy, maybe it could be nofollow for non-whitelisted links. --Loqi T. 23:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

On the bureaucracy point, I'm not so sure it would be unmanageable. When the stakes are low, and the discussions are of limited interest, few people need to participate. It's only the rare case of genuine controversy where there needs to be broader attention. I don't have much experience with such formal discussions, so I may be totally off base here, but I foresee a bunch of hit-and-run spam links being swept into the graylist, a consolidated discussion on the catch of the day, and a perfunctory series of 'blacklist them all' recommendations. When the occasional 'except for this one' appears, the admin in charge can start a separate discussion on that special link, while emptying the dustbin of the rest. That level of bureaucracy might be too much (I don't know first-hand) but it seems to me it might actually be less than what we're doing now. Then, when someone later tries to enter a blacklisted link, they can be given a message like, "if you honestly beleive we made a mistake, follow the directions on page xyz." That way we don't have to be quite so cautious about using the blacklist. The main point of the graylist is a convenient place to gather the not-so-obvious spam, so others can have a deeper look if they care. --Loqi T. 15:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

PF Flyers

Hobbes3821 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) has been repeatedly making significant edits to the PF Flyers article, some of which seems to be advertising content (probably cut and pasted from some official site), some of which seems to be a hoax (the D.R. Samuels bit). Editor has not responded to comments left on his talk page and has not explained any of the edits on the article talk page or in edit summaries. Anyhow, I'm up against the 3RR limit, so I'm sending it here instead. --Alan Au 23:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

copyvio from pfflyers.com. User warned, article reverted. 3RR certainly doesn't apply to copyvio. JonHarder 23:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Fitting into our jeans

I think we need to acknowledge that a spot on Wikipeda means something to the world, and that the rest of the world may not have the same understanding of its meaning that Wikipedia experts have. Explaining, contesting, and evolving the meaning of our external links among ourselves is important. But we'll never fully educate casual users about the more subtle points.

Mostly, I'd like to avoid sinking vast amounts of energy into debating which external links are slightly better, only to end up flipping a coin, or giving in to the most stubborn or vicious among us. Since Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, there may be a simple technical fix for the chronic problem of too many good links for too few appropriate slots. Consider this idea:

We could create a new wiki markup tag that means "for most readers, render x number of randomly-selected items from the following list". So, in an article's discussion page, the editors can decide in the usual way, which site or sites are the best in the world for the illustration they're trying to make. If there are more than would seem appropriate to the article, they can collect all the links that are more-or-less equally the best, put them all in the article, but not show them all to the reader. Each time a reader visits, a different short list will appear.

In this way, editors can sidestep a discussion that might sap their will to live, and focus their attention on spiffing up the body of the article. New, on-topic external sites don't need to feel slighted; they can either be added to the back-end list or be sent away with encouraging words. Readers don't need to see an excessive list of links. And all the links in the box would have a fair chance of being the Google winner each month.

Has this idea come up before?

Loqi T. 15:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The risk, of course, is that the list of links would be dominated by dross and so the randomly-shown links would also be, most of the time, dross. Also, there'd be nothing to stop (and in fact, lots of motive for) and spammer putting their links just outside such markup. Then again, this would increase the links we have to the point where we are, in fact, storing a directory of all links conceivably related to an article. Even if we're not serving them all, nobody here is keen on devoting half or more of the project's disk space to lists of links. — Saxifrage ✎ 23:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, Saxifrage. I think that in this case, as a favorite slogan of mine has it, "there's no substitute for tedium." We have to remain vigilant against link insertion on the one hand, and dogged about preserving our WP "way of life" that resists the mistaken notion that "more is better" and that any link somehow adds value. There are no easy shortcuts here. -- PKtm 02:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Keeping out spam is a balancing act: while we want to keep out spam, we don't want to keep out relevant external links. We have to remain vigilant against link insertion of links that don't meet WP:EL, not against all links. While more is certainly not better, "less is better" is just as bad. When overzealous editors label any external link they don't like "spam", even if it isn't, it confuses the whole definition of what spam is. It's just gaming the system to avoid actual debate of merits, an "easy shortcut". It seems like the wikipedia equivalent of screaming "rape" when someone is snatching your purse (how's that for a controversial metaphor?). According to wikipedia policy, external links are not defined as spam. Links to unofficial sites or fansites aren't spam. And individual pages or wikiprojects don't get to define "spam" according to their whim. There is no substitute for the judgement of the editors of wikipedia, and putting up a wall to all external links certainly isn't a solution. --Milo H Minderbinder 14:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually less is better. The "perfect" article could as easily be one entirely lacking in external links as one with. We just don't need links in most cases. The clearly-beneficial links are ones to the page of the subject, but anything beyond that is a matter of taste. We're an encyclopedia, not a links directory, and anything we provide beyond the bare, bare minimum is icing on the cake. The fact that many people like the icing better than the cake does not change the fact that we're making a cake an encyclopedia. — Saxifrage ✎ 16:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I think I wasn't clear enough. I think "less is better" is nice as a general guideline, but it shouldn't be used as an absolute. Specifically, it's not always true that "less is better", and it's not grounds for excluding a link that meets WP:EL. After all, if less was always better, then why not remove every EL on every article? It's also a straw man argument to say that someone who adds a link is doing it for the sake of "more is better". As WP:EL says: "Wikipedia articles can often be improved by providing links to web pages outside Wikipedia which contain information that can't or shouldn't be added to the article." --Milo H Minderbinder 17:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
"Less is better" is a terrible, incorrect idea that is not backed up in any way by guidelines, policy or even the motivation of the encyclopedia's founders. The correct overiding concept is "small number". "Less" is not a consideration. Having one external link is not "better" than two, in general. The idea behind when someone says "less is better" is often a valid one: intergrate content in articles via citations, make complete articles, and so on. But there is no validity to "less is better". Deleting an official site from an article with two other external links is less links and it is not at all "better". 2005 20:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Like all overly simplistic phrases, it's not absolute and it's absurd to take it that far. Note also that I said less not none. (As in, a "small number" is less than a "large number".) An official website—say ibm.com in IBM—is necessary. But, as far as optional links go, fewer is better (not "none"). Sometimes, fewer means none at all, but this is not always the case. (I mean, c'mon, we're not robots. We have common sense.) — Saxifrage ✎ 20:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
We do have common sense, and as I said I don't doubt the idea you are trying to get across isn't a valid one, but the problem comes when trolling editors don't care about common sense, but rather latching onto anything that can justify their trolling. "Less is better" is not a right concept from any perspective. Sometimes in fact more IS better. Sometimes "none" is better. The point is we AREN'T robots, which means arm-waving over-generalized statements are neither needed nor productive. A small number of external links are appropriate, but generally content/ideas should be integrated into the article as best as possible. There is no value whatsoever in an editor going to an article with four external links, removing two and leaving a note "less is better". No, it isn't. It's a non-concept. 2005 20:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
This idea is not meant to address the problem of crud accumulation. Disk space is cheap, and discussion about a link always takes more space than the link itself. The main point is that there may be a way to ease legitimate editorial disputes while raising the quality for readers. The main reservation I'm hearing on this idea is that it might relieve pressure against Not A Directory, thus causing directory creep. This idea is not meant to encourage any rules or norms to be relaxed. It's just a way of lowering the stakes in a dispute. An attitude like, "now there's a new markup feature, so we can have dozens of EL's per article," should never be allowed to fly. Suppose expert opinion at a particular article says there are four world-class sites, but only two slots would be appropriate. What is the preferred way to hande such a situation in the Wikipedia of today? --Loqi T. 16:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
The current way of handling that is to pick the best one or none of them, and add an appropriate link to the DMOZ category. — Saxifrage ✎ 16:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't like the idea of quotas/slots on wikipedia. If the four sites all solidly meet EL and provide information that isn't on wikipedia and is unique to each other, I'd say they should all be included. If the sites are redundant with each other, I'd pick the ones that are most complete or most notable. It seems counter-intuitive that the existence of too many good sites would be a reason to include fewer or none of them. The way to keep the number of links low is to set the bar high, not to set an arbitrary number that is "enough". Each potential link should be judged by the editors on its own merits, there's no shortcut to substitute for that. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
But that's no different than saying "we should include a link to all world-class sites on Textiles", which is contrary to WP:NOT (a links directory). No matter what the cut-off line we give for what sort of links we give—world-class, reliable, useful, etc.—including all that satisfy that is by definition trying to give a directory of world-class, reliable, useful, etc. links. That's DMOZ job, not ours.
What it comes down to is that adding links does not build an encyclopedia. They are handy additions, but it does not further our goal of buidling an encyclopedia, which is about content, not links. Links are nice icing, but cake doesn't need icing. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't like using the term "world class" (because it's not really defined). But if there are sites that meet WP:EL and especially provide info that wikipedia doesn't contain, at least some should be included. If I'm looking for info on textiles, I'd hope that wikipedia would have one or more links to sites with more detailed information if they exist. I don't know where you quoted does not build an encyclopedia from, but it's not in WP:EL - I respect your opinion, but I don't think WP:EL supports it. As long as the links are to content beyond what wikipedia has, it's not "frosting", but a pointer to an external source of "cake". --Milo H Minderbinder 21:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
(Milo, I think the italics were for emphasis. They don't have quote marks.) --Loqi T. 23:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
(You're right, thanks for the clarification. My bad.) --Milo H Minderbinder 23:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
(comment insertion) I'm using "world class" as a shorthand to mean "chosen from a worldwide pool, according to an article's unique criteria". It's up to the editors of that article to decide what belongs and why. On the matter of "slots", that would be an implementation detail, but the way I meant to describe it allows editors to control how long a particular front-end short list and back-end longer list will be in their article. (Editors would set a number for "x number" and fill in the longer "list" with line items they agree on.) Maybe an interested reader can zoom in if they care to see the longer list. Anyway, there's no need for additional orders from the top on this, just slightly revised style guidelines that usually work best. --Loqi T. 14:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

(resetting indent) I agree with 2005 that a simplistic "less is more" rule can become a stick with which editors beat other editors into poor decisions. But I don't agree that just because a site is good and meets WP:EL, that it should be included. One of the purposes of an encyclopedia article is to focus the reader. Having good but similar links is potentially a disservice to our readers. I recently came across an article which had links to 6 excellent university portals. Each one contained soemthing unique, but to keep them all in the article would have provided an overwhelmingly US academic POV to the links, and meant that our readers would trawl through sites that had significant overlap. By cutting down to two or three that cover the greatest breadth and quality, we provide readers with prioritization and focus - something they should expect from an edited publication. --Siobhan Hansa 22:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I find myself agreeing with nearly every point made here. My main difficulty is with over-reliance on Not A Directory. I think Wikipedia would be diluted if it attempted to catalog the web. But on the other hand, vetting [selecting] "further reading" resources on a topic, like vetting [editing] encyclopedic facts within an article, should be what we're good at around here. WP:NOT is a concern, but it needs to be balanced against all the other concerns. DMOZ might be more useful to readers if it had some reliable mechanism for helping them choose [find] the highest quality, and most on-topic websites. Maybe they'll start doing that someday, but until they do, I have slight concerns about linking articles to DMOZ pages instead of straight to the good stuff. A link to DMOZ is worth its weight for some readers, but what are most readers going to do with the white pages of textiles? As a Wikipedia reader, I'd rather get a small sampling of sites, that may or may not be from a somewhat larger pool, that (hopefully) have all been vetted by experts. [are thought to be useful by Wikipedians] --Loqi T. 23:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC) >> (revised by Loqi) 'vetting' is too strong a word for this paragraph 14:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Link not added by site owner - is it still spam?

I've seen many instances where an external link is removed and labled "spam" even if there's no evidence that it was added by the linked site (or even fits the other spam criteria). Where is the line drawn between legitimately adding a link to what the editor feels is a useful and relevant resource, and spamming? --Milo H Minderbinder 14:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As a sometime "spam-deleter", the primary way many of us volunteers at WikiProject Spam]]‎ try to identify and delete spammy material is by following spammy editors through their contribution histories. So if we see that someone blatantly spams 4 articles and then writes something borderline in a fifth, we'll usually delete that fifth statement. 98% of the time, that probably improves the article in the eyes of an disinterested third party, but I'm sure I've personally made mistakes along the way. So far, the negative feedback I've usually gotten has been from the most blatant, serial spammers crying foul and insisting their links somehow improve Wikipedia (these are usually the worst links, not the borderline links).
Sometimes these quests lead me to articles that are just inherently spam-bait. I'll often go ahead and delete some other links to get the total number down. When I do this, I try to differentiate in my edit summaries between "redundant links" (a link to some non-spammy site that adds little to what's already in the article), "promotional links" (promotional-type links not necessarily added in bad faith) and "spam links" (promotional links added, if not in truly bad faith, at least with no intent of improving Wikipedia -- they're there purely in pursuit of someone's marketing goals). I'm usually more aggressive in the "External Links" section than the "References" section. I'll delete promotional links and spam in the References section and main article, but I don't try to reduce the number of links (if anything, articles are improved by having lots of links that meet WP:RS). Having said all of this, I'm a volunteer doing this in my spare time on a catch-as-catch-can basis, so I'm not always consistent.
See Wikipedia:Spam Event Horizon -- once an article gets far enough out of control, the links and POV snowball. --A. B. 16:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Others may take different approaches. --A. B. 16:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Finding spam in Notes and References

While we're focusing our attention to the external links sections, who knows how many smarter, less considerate spammers are taking Jimbo up on his call to source as many facts as possible.

Today's featured article, Eric A. Havelock, contains an External links section weighing in at four on-topic, authoritative, in-depth resources. By contrast, the Notes and References section contains 32 external links, and could probably do with a few more to go with some of the facts asserted in the article. I have no way of reliably checking those sources without being an expert on the topic, and manually following each link to see what's there.

I think citation footnotes are extremely vulnerable to spamming. It's how I'd do it if I were in the business. How often do the footnotes get a good working over by a spam patrol? Should a patrol even try to do this? The way things are done now, a clever spammer could source a fact about some obscure children's television character to their ad for Viagrigra, which could go undetected for years.

There's probably some prior work on this that I'm unaware of, but I think it could use a deeper look. I'm thinking there might be some way for each link to begin accumulating invisible certification, based on who has looked into it. Then over time, the unreviewed links can begin to cry out to spam patrols. Less work, more results.

Any thought on this?

Loqi T. 17:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The core of this idea is about whether it's a good idea to add a feature to the wiki software that helps editors manage the vetting of small items, like web links. I'd like to hear if people think it's a good idea, or what the criticisms would be. The idea could even be extended to human-language memes as well. If a sentence or a link is flagged thumbs-up, or don't know, by a respected editor or two, it could eventually make naked vandalism or spam start to have a homing beacon, even after that editor has moved on to other articles. Is this idea worth pursuing further? --Loqi T. 00:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea but I think pursuing it will be hard, politically. It's worth pushing, but it so goes against the grain of Wikipedia culture. My vague impression is the the German Wikipedia has been much more hard-nosed about spam, vandalism, anon editing, etc. I think I heard that they have also been progressive in trying out new ideas before the English Wikipedia. This maybe something that would happen elsewhere first.
My own assessment is that the English language Wikipedia community sets ideals of openness, anonymous editing and tolerance of vandalism/disruption above encyclopedic reliability/quality. These general values run deep and are unlikely to change without some semi-crisis -- perhaps something that discredits Wikipedia or an expensive lawsuit over another Siegnethaler-type incident.
At least the community is really down on spam (I think it's the commercial aspect that bothers folks). It may easier to take baby steps in the vetting area on the spam front than on any other.
By the way, it may be worthwhile to find out what the other big Wikipedia versions are doing about spam. There's probably a lot we could learn from them. Unfortunately, my foreign language skills are inadequate for the task. --A. B. 00:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting article: German Wikipedia, especially "Reviewed versions" and "Community organisation". --A. B. 01:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
(insertion: That page on the German Wikipedia has been a great help to me. Thanks A.B.) --Loqi T. 19:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, very interesting indeed. I especially like the idea of the web of trust (Vertrauensnetz): "they use a special template on a subpage of their user page to list all the other users whom they trust, along with reasons for the trust and links to the other users' trust pages. This "trust" is not meant as personal sympathy, but as testimony of serious engagement with the Wikipedia project. By using the "What links here" feature, one can then also obtain a list of all participants who trust a given user." That "personal sympathy" sounds to my ears like a mistranslation: what is meant there by "sympathy" is the notion of likeability. A web of trust like this might augment the overreliance we now must place (sometimes to our detriment) on simple "assume good faith", by giving us a sense of patterns. I also think the Germans have something to teach us about quality — they certainly seem to tend more towards a spirit of deletionism, which I applaud. -- PKtm 01:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Links to English language articles on the other Wikipedias: Category:Wikipedias by language --A. B. 01:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I share the ethos of open editing you describe in the English side. The reason this idea appeals to me is that without it, the standard response to something questionable is shoot on sight. --Loqi T. 01:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedian bot-writer wanted

I have not seen that much (yet) in the established articles I've checked. I've heard one preferred technique for more sophisticated spamdexers is to create multiple, new, somewhat obscure articles that appear to pass the cut as legitimate articles and then embed a legitimate-looking link in each one -- sometimes to a seemingly legit site, which in turn has one or two embedded links to their real quarry. That intermediate site would get high ranking due to multiple inbound links from Wikipedia; that high ranking would in turn rub off on the ultimate destination.

I suspect we're catching many of the beginning- and intermediate-level spamdexers but not the truly slick ones.

If Wikipedia has 1.4 million articles, I'll bet there are hundreds of thousands of little, never-edited stubs floating around that no one's really ever scrutinized. Most would be benign if unencyclopedic, but I'll bet we'd see some of this spamdexing phenomenum. Special:Newpages shows 2200 new pages created just in the last 24 hours.

It would be great if some Wikipedian wrote a bot to troll those pages collecting external links to a list that would rank-order linked-to domains with a list of the articles involved with each one. Since there would be many frequently linked, benign sites, the bot could have a white-list filter just as anti-vandalism bots have blacklist filters of red-flag words. --A. B. 19:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, links are already indexed within the database, so pulling a list such as this out of the database would be only slightly more work than Special:Linksearch currently does. So, this would be better as a feature request for MediaWiki than in a bot. It would be less resource-intensive too. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
This is already done, though in a different form. Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#IRC LinkFeed (agian) for a basic description of what has been done —— Eagle (ask me for help) 23:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Clearly I need to figure out how to do IRC. Thanks for doing this. --A. B. 00:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Using wikiHow to "spam through" to Wikipedia

wikiHow.com] is a useful wiki on the Internet not directly connected to Wikipedia. It's not always policed closely for spam and some editors have taken to spamming wikiHow, then linking articles here to the spammed wikiHow articles, some of which are content-light.

Here's the current list of links to wikiHow -- many are benign links to useful articles, so please edit with a light hand as you look at these links. --A. B. 18:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

So far, most links are not super-abusive (although WikiHow does have Google ads). I did find one fascinating use of Wikihow, Wikipedia and various blogs to promote a business, however. See Inventoritis -- they've done a very, very clever job. --A. B. 06:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

IRC LinkFeed (agian)

Ok, I have this channel #wikipedia-spam on the freenode network, (same network as the rest of the wikipedia channels) all set up and operational. I was going to make a separate project or page for this channel, but it inherently is part of this project. I would suggest that members of this project come and check it out. Also, any ideas on a project subpage I can have for describing commands to the bot, and other general functions of the channel.

Basically the bot parses through recent changes and identifies the ones where links were added. Thus it becomes really simple to identify spam. There is a "red-list" (list of sites that are most likely spam, and a "white-list", which you can guess is a list of sites that are most likely not spam. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 23:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I also did a little bit of archiving, I hope I did not cut anything important. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 00:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The IRC channel can be found @ #wikipedia-spam :) --Sagaciousuk (talk) 00:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Since promotional articles almost always contain a link, this is great for catching blatant advertising articles for speedy-deletion, apart from the linkspam. If special:newpages could filter results by whether there are links or not it would have the same effect, but in the absence of that feature this works nicely for that. — Saxifrage ✎

Working relationship with Google

Continuation of earlier discussion, initiated by A. B. 20:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC), and found in the archives here.

One way to reduce the value of spamming scruffy little stubs on Wikipedia would be for Google to stop giving the stub pages much authority unless Wikipedia seems to be heavily interlinking them. I am only speculating here, but if I were in Google's position, I'd certainly be writing custom algorithms for each of the most important sites on the Internet, as well as constantly refining the broad, general algorithm for the rest. They're probably already treating Wikipedia different from the rest of the Internet, and not just by giving it a high PageRank score to spread around. If they're not, they certainly should be. Any search service would be wise to treat all the stray stubs and secret gardens of Wikipedia the way it treats them on the rest of the Internet. Not every page hosted on Wikipedia is created equal. Maybe an intra-site PageRank-style score would be in order for Google, to pick the corn out of Wikipedia for their search users, and possibly to help us out as well. Do we have an ambassador to Google? --Loqi T. 00:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Block request - how?

OK, I've had several spammers blocked in the past, but I absolutely can't remember how to make the request and can't seem to find it in all the places obvious to me. When a spammer has run through spam4, or in this case, has exhausted the community's patience, where do I post the IP and evidence? I would appreciate a memory refresh. The info would helpful if posted in a logical place on WP:SPAM, WP:WPSPAM and WP:VAND. JonHarder 00:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I am thinking WP:AIV. That is where we stick our vandals that go over test4, so it is only logical that we stick the spammers in there as well. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 01:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Eagle's right. Go to WP:AIV and report them like any other vandal. I asked about this earlier and was told this was the place to go. If they edit using multiple accounts like so many spammers, report the other accounts (noting the link between them all), even if not every account has received a spam4. Also, I've tried to note when multiple accounts are used that collectively, the accounts might have more than 5 warnings, even if the highest for any of them is not necessarily spam4. As with all vandalism reports, the reaction will depend on the individual admin fielding it. I usually add some remark like "expect this user to keep spamming Wikipedia as long as spam links are financially worthwhile" just to underscore that an escalating series of 3 hour, 24 hour, 1 week, etc. blocks doesn't much phase a spammer.
Let us know the spammer's account and what happens -- if you don't get a good response at WP:AIV, maybe some admin here will do something. --A. B. 01:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I posted a request there; it was declined as inactive. It was in reference to 66.93.251.114 (talk · contribs) and activity at LAN Gaming Center. The user replaces deleted spam links every day or two. Semi-protecting may help in this case because there is at least one other IP reverter. Time for me to call it a night. JonHarder 05:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

  • User is a WP:SPA and is now blocked, but I suspect he'll be back. — Moondyne 05:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that should help. JonHarder 16:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
A new IP has joined in. The article is protected now. JonHarder 23:30, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Spam-aware admins

It's good to see active spam-aware admins like Centrx (talk · contribs) who closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anaplerosis. Other admins seemed reluctant to close the AfD, which remained open longer than most. Centrx went against the prevailing discussion and deleted every article as spam. Thanks! JonHarder 16:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

colocationprovider spam

There has been ongoing spamming on behalf of colocationprovider. From anon 24.227.168.170 (talk · contribs) and from throw-away accounts Benjamm N (talk · contribs), Wcreator (talk · contribs), Librarian87 (talk · contribs) and Benevolent Coordinator (talk · contribs). It is mostly links embedded within the article text, with a few in External links. It has been going on for over a week with only a very few being reverted before today. No spam warnings had previously been given. I had actually come across it earlier but didn't recognize the pattern until today. The attempt to add colocationprovider spam probably is not over and bears watching. In fact, as I write this, more has appeared. I'll let someone else have a go at it. JonHarder 23:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

That page is of such limited use (and questionable "officialness" as a community effort) that I can't imagine Wikipedia ever needing one link to it, even in Colocation centre. There isn't a scrap of referencable material and being a directory listing is of dubious value. I say blacklist it. — Saxifrage ✎ 00:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

ourbodiesourselves.org

ourbodiesourselves.org links have been added by single purpose accounts 24.58.107.144 (talk · contribs) and 71.192.37.81 (talk · contribs). I think they should be removed. Other thoughts? JonHarder 21:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Microbicide? Rely (brand)? Yeah, that's spam. (I took the liberty of cleaning up the multiple links to the site at the subject page too, being redundant. Few subjects need multiple official links, let alone to the same site.) — Saxifrage ✎ 21:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I've gone through the rest and cleaned all but those used as actual references. JonHarder 03:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Endlex.com

I first encountered the endlex.com links when answering machine came on my watchlist with a horribly generic buyer's guide. I found that some person (or group of people) all with different IP addresses seem to have added these links to external links sections. [http:// consumers.endlex.com/Entertainment/walkietalkie.html The entry for walkie-talkie] is a good example, but there were similar buyer's guides for such diverse products as flutes, sleeping bags and mp3 players. I have also removed all links to endlex.com's myriad of (usually badly written) articles about biology and life skills, as well as links to lists of amazon books. Some of this content may be useful but each page contains ads and it's clear that the primary purpose of endlex.com is commercial. Keep an eye on special:linksearch/*.endlex.com. I have removed nearly a hundred links to that site, many from commonly looked up articles and many from the top of the external links list; check my contributions for the list. Graham87 17:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

That must have been some work! The only difference between "How to Purchase a Car" and "How to Purchase a Toaster" is a paragraph on paying in installments, the same one as in "How to Purchase a Home". What a load of... Looks like typical link farming. Femto 12:56, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

manualshark.org

Single purpose account Wikifanatik (talk · contribs) has added links to manualshark.org. Helpful or not? JonHarder 00:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

That link seems OK to me - no ads and probably useful. As long as not too many links are added, I'd have no problem with it. — Moondyne 01:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
A collection of manuals has no relevance to the topic of RTFM. IF we link to a manual, use direct links. The site only links back to the official company pages, these middleman links are not appropriate. Femto 12:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

217.162.77.70 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log)--Hu12 09:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

histopathology-india.net

Adsense pub-4269481315839809

It looks like histopathology-india.net is spam. There are 254 such links. I spot-checked a few to see who added them and every one was an anon IP, most in the 221.135.209.* range, which resolves to India. Because of a local DNS problem, I can't actually view the external site. I'm hoping someone can double check and give the green light to start cleaning this up. It would help if others would pitch in and spread the load around. JonHarder 01:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree, that's spam, big-time. Kill it. — Moondyne 14:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Some of the links may contain good content but the way they have been transferred to wikipedia is absolutely unacceptable. Also there is no peer review. Therefore I am working on it now but I am mentioning the site name in the edit summary in case there is a problem. I have also been focussing on articles with multiple links to histopothology-india.net - one article had ten links! Graham87 02:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
All links removed. I just hope I don't catch any of those scary diseases! :) Instances of adding that link have been reverted before; see User talk:221.135.210.185 and User talk:221.134.46.159, but it should be all clean now. Graham87 07:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Humpath.com

On a similar vain, I've removed all links to www.humpath.com and proposed the article humpath.com for deletion. See special:contributions/Patho. Graham87 03:06, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Don't know about that one. The site appears to be a free, well referenced database. Pascal.Tesson 15:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Let's assume good faith and not call it spam. But there should be some sort of consensus established (for example at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine) before any larger number of links gets added, especially by a single user, to what potentially may be thousands of articles. Femto 16:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

James Love & Mile Media

Seems Jameslove has been busy throughout this year adding links to websites that are are either definitely his own or are run by a "Mile Media" group (probably his own too). Check out his contribs - I've cleaned up most of the recent ones, but he's added milebymile.com to, oh, a few articles. Needs some cleanup but unfortunately I'm about a week backlogged on my watchlist and don't have the time to do this. Thanks --AbsolutDan (talk) 05:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I've removed those links that were either contributed by Jameslove, Sharla, SharlaZ or 24.70.100.159, all of which seemed to only add links to milebymile.com. The site seems to be of reasonable quality and has been cited as a reference a few times; I have not removed it in that case. Graham87 03:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok fair enough - I'm not convinced it qualifies as a WP:RS, but considering our atrocious lack of cites in our articles I suppose some latitude ought to be given in cases such as you describe. Thank you kindly for your work --AbsolutDan (talk) 22:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Brokerblogger.com

This comment was initially placed after: "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)"

My comment = "I feel that my blog post comes under the 5% catagory of "appropriate" external links."

The "Self Published Sources" section of Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS#Self-published_sources ) under the definition of "Reliable Sources" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Reliable_sources ) says: "However, editors should exercise caution for two reasons: first, if the information on the professional researcher's blog (or self-published equivalent) is really worth reporting, someone else will have done so;..".

I recently had a blog post of mine (FiOS Does Inconspicuous "No Turning Back To DSL" Disclosure Brokerblogger blog post (7/19/06 Updated)" under the "External Links" section of "Verizon FiOS" deleted by someone (would like to know if it can be anyone or has to be an administrator)who evidently did not think it appropriate for some reason. Before I post it again, I want to make sure my thinking on this is not totally biased, because that deleted post was "really worth reporting", since someone else DID so. The someone else is the well know OM Malik (Om was a senior writer for Business 2.0 magazine covering telecom and broadband stories) on his blog "GigaOM". His article is entitled "GigaOM " Verizon FIOS insures future monoply".

Besides OM Malik, right on the Wikipedia "External Links" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Fios#External_links ) part of "Verizon Fios" are 3 links to "Broadband Reports FiOS" which is a very well known forum for discussion, and someone posted a topic for discussion with a link to my blog post on FiOS ( http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/76326 ) which has two long pages of opinions attached to it.

I have done extensive research on the FTC's mandates on "Disclosure", and I am fair and balanced with Verizon in that post of mine that was deleted. As a consumer advocate, I feel it important that other people know that once they agree to FiOS installation, they can't go back to their Verizon DSL service even if they get their money back within the 30 Day Money-Back Guarantee.

Before I repost it, I wanted someone to give me their opinion of my point of view. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brokerblogger (talk • contribs) .

The issue isn't that you are knowledgable: the issue is that there is no way to verify that. I've written what I (and many other people) consider to be excellent articles about Bucharest on my personal web site, but they are not citable, nor would they make appropriate links from Wikipedia articles. So, sorry, no, unless you are a significant public figure or have also published on the topic in more conventional venues, your blog and forum posts almost certainly should not be linked. - Jmabel | Talk 01:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Jmabel, we may have to agree to disagree eventually, but when you say "The issu iwn't that you are knowledgable: the issue is that there is no way to verify that.", I'd rather see you say that "It would be difficult (in some/most cases), and time consuming, for the Wikipedia Administrators to verify how "knowledgeable", "credible", and "neutral" someone's blog post is (forums are usually an open discussion each having their own set of rules). I must say that I find it incredibly ironic that Wikipedia's own "knowledge", "credibility", and "neutrality" has been challenged by traditional media (whose own credibility and neutrality could easily be challenged at times) = http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20411-2279162,00.html , as its presence is relatively new compared to more established brand name print encyclopedias. This is the same challenge that some "new presence" bloggers have even though their blog post does "provide relevant and non-trivial information that isn't present in the page", and therefore brings substantive value to Wikipedia. (I must learn how to "sign" my name here). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brokerblogger (talk • contribs)

Though you may not be directly selling anything on your page, driving traffic to one's personal/business site can certainly be viewed as indirect "business networking." Your bio suggests that among other things, you are in the "search marketing industry," so I'm sure you are well aware of Wikipedia links effect on PageRank. You're not the first to make lengthy arguments about why your links should be included. Historically, few folks are able to convince a majority of editors that their blog links are appropriate. See this discussion for example. OhNoitsJamie Talk 17:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Just in case anyone thinks I'm being hypocritical here: I recently had occasion to remove a link to my own site on the basis that it does not meet Wikipedia's current criteria for a reliable source.
Brokerblogger, the main point of this rule is precisely to increase Wikipedia's credibility by insisting that material be cited from reliable sources. I'm not necessarily completely supportive of where this has landed—in particular, I think we ought to have more of a means to recognize that some of our own editors are genuinely expert in certain areas, and that they shouldn't need to cite like highschoolers for other, more routinely credentialed people's often lesser expertise, but that is the decision the community has reached, and they certainly could have reached worse ones. - Jmabel | Talk 18:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


11/13/06 - Thanks for moving the discussion here, jamie, but I feel it appropriate that people be also directed to your talk page where I did a better quality (more detail) comment. Please see "New To Wikipedia Editing - I'm Against All SPAM In Its Purest Form, But Sometimes Its Definition is Debatable" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ohnoitsjamie . I don't want to repeat the entire comment here, but here is my last paragraph and your response:

"Finally, I believe that my blog post does "provide relevant and non-trivial information that isn't present in the page", and therefore brings substantive value to Wikipedia. My blog is not "commercial in nature", and the content of the deleted post is definitely "relevant", as many prospective buyers of FiOS probably look at Wikipedia in doing research before they make their buying decision. I'm just trying to help them make a totally "informed decision" with all the facts made "clear and conspicuous". I, therefore, believe that I am acting in the spirit of Wikipedia's written policies. I hope you agree, not for my benefit, but for the benefit of many broadband consumers. I look forward to your more experienced input, and if you convince me that my deleted post is hurting the spirit of Wikipedia's written guidelines, as well as Wikipedia itself, I will gladly "cease and desist" in further promotion of my POV. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by brokerblogger (talk • contribs)."

Jamie's response = "I don't believe that 100% of blog links are inappropriate for the reasons you mention. However, Wikipedia does strongly discourage editors from adding links to their own site. At this point, I'm taking a neutral stance on it; I won't remove it, but I won't support it's inclusion if others object to it. OhNoitsJamie Talk 19:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)"

Now to respond to your latest response: "Though you may not be directly selling anything on your page, driving traffic to one's personal/business site can certainly be viewed as indirect "business networking." - "Indirect 'business networking'" implies that I am making money somewhere and somehow. That is not the case, right now.

"Your bio suggests that among other things, you are in the "search marketing industry," so I'm sure you are well aware of Wikipedia links effect on PageRank." - I am NOT "in" the search marketing industry, but I am an observer of it. I do not know how to do coding of any kind, and I have no desire to. My background (when I was working) was in sales, marketing, and advertising. At the same time, I have always been a buyer (consumer) advocate, a client advocate, a seller advocate, and an advocate for intergrity as a philosophical (not financial) "intermediary". I've always believed that "power" is more of a responsibility than a priveledge, no matter who has the "power". That said, I must admit that I do know that a lot of people use Wikipedia to do research before they buy something. I've done that myself, and I believe in the useful information that can be discovered there. Yet Wikipedia is a "work in progress" and I'm glad that it is constantly being improved upon.

As for "PageRank", you probably wouldn't know this (no shame), but the actual "PageRank" of a web page NOW has very little to do with the "ranking" or "positioning" of a website or blog. Google has improved its algorithm to the point that the old "tricks" that "Black Hat" search engine optimizers (I've never been one, and won't in the future) used to use don't work anymore. I do admit that Wikipedia links do contribute part of the TOTAL amount of ingedients that go into better positioning on a search engine results page, but if that was my main concern (it has never been) than there are many other ways to improve my post's positioning. What I have done to make my posts read by more people is to post comments on blogs like "GigaOm" and "Technology Evangelist" mainly to join in the discussion and contribute my POV. That has had, as a side effect, improvement of my blog post's positioning. Please remember that besides my blog (weblog) having no advertising, if you'll look on the left hand side near the top, you will see that I make it very hard for anybody to "network" with me by saying "E-MAIL (Use "Comments" To Contact Me)", and I reqire all commentors to "sign up" with TypeKey Authentification Service before they can TRY to comment (I review all comments first). I would not call that "aggressive networking". In fact, it has held back the promotion of my blog, but that's OK with me.

"You're not the first to make lengthy arguments about why your links should be included." - Jamie, no offense, but it is a mute point what other people have done or not done, as well as whether or not the "argument/debate" is "lengthy" or not. Please "judge/evaluate" my blog posts, me, and my motives on my own merit. However, as I look at the "this discussion" you linked to, the first thing that caught my eye was that that person had a website "(which uses Google adwords)". I don't! I do hope, though, that not ALL personal websites are considered "not reliable sources", especially if other authoritative people have published on the same topic, and the personal website author has put a good effort into the neutrality, validity, credibility and fairness/balance of the presentation of his POV, with links to what Wikipedia would consider "reliable sources". The reason for my hope is that there are many esteemed researchers, presidents of companies, etc. that have their own blogs and write about what they know best.

"Historically, few folks are able to convince a majority of editors that their blog links are appropriate." - I'm sure you're right, as I believe what T-rex said: "Granted, about 5% of the time these links are probably appropriate, but the vast majority of the time they are not.". I personally think there is a lot of "junk" on the web taking many forms (not just the majority of blogs). But, I do believe that my "consumer advocate" blog has much good research put into it, and does "provide relevant and non-trivial information that isn't present in the page", and therefore brings substantive value to Wikipedia. Obviously, Jamie, you agreed to some extent with me, or you would not have said: "At this point, I'm taking a neutral stance on it; I won't remove it, but I won't support it's inclusion if others object to it." I do hope other Administrators read what I put on your "talk page" before making any decisions (plus give me a chance to respond in order to make sure there are no misunderstandings).

Joe, I agree with you saying "..the main point of this rule is precisely to increase Wikipedia's credibility by insisting that material be cited from reliable sources." The key is to make sure "reliable sources" is defined in such a way that it carefully (it does take time to evaluate properly) doesn't eliminate content that "provides relevant and non-trivial information that isn't present in the page" at the same time as bringing "substantive value" to Wikipedia. I also agree to a good degree with "..,I think we ought to have more of a means to recognize that some of our own editors are genuinely expert in certain areas (who does the "certifying" of their "genuine expertise"?) , and that they shouldn't need to cite like highschoolers (that's degrading vs. educating others by citing written or "spirit of" guidelines) for other, more routinely credentialed people's often lesser expertise,.." (who decides who is "routinely credentialed", and if they in deed have "lesser expertise"?) I like what Abe Lincoln said: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." In my opinion, power is more of a responsibility than a priviledge.

Finally, I want to remind everyone that I have already said I will, in the future, go to the "talk page" of where I'd like to place a link to a blog post of mine, and let the Administrator there decide if it should be placed or not. Also, I truly hope that you believe me when I say that my motives for placing links to some of my blog posts are "selfless" and not "selfish". Again, my blog has no advertising on it, and I do not sell anything except the free education of sometimes ignorant (no shame) consumers. "Buyer Beware" rules on the Internet just like it does off-line. As for my own ego (pride), I realize that I am nothing without God, but everything with Him. Thank you for reading my "wordy" POV. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brokerblogger (talk • contribs) . Brokerblogger 01:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


11/14/06 - I'm not sure how all this will work out (I know about the deletions), but in any case I wanted to sincerely thank all the Wikipedia Administrators for the volunteer work that they do in trying their best to try to improve Wikipedia's NPOV and overall quality. I especially want to thank Jamie for her patience with my newness to all this, and her kind responses to my questions. Brokerblogger 15:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Chambers of commerce strawpersons

I regularly clean up the external link sections of articles about cities in Oregon. And every so often, I get someone who says: "But you have a link to the chamber of commerce, so why not have my link too?" I actually think the chamber of commerce links should go too (even though they are usually quasi-governmental and not-for-profit), but it seems to be a generally accepted practice to have links to local CoCs in regional articles. My argument to the well-intentioned (i.e. not-for-profit) linkspammer who questions me is that the CoC has information of a more general nature about a location, while the link the spammer is trying to add is promoting a non-city-related cause (not to mention all the usual stuff about promoting one's own organization, etc.) Anyway, my question is: Are links to local chambers of commerce legit, and if so, why? Thanks! Katr67 23:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

We had this debate a few months back. The conclusion, as I remember was go on a case by case basis. It does not make sense to have a unified rule. Pascal.Tesson 00:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Great, thanks for the link! Katr67 00:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

blackcomb.co.uk

I'm not quite sure what's going on here. We've suddenly gained links to google maps via this website, see linksearch. They've arrived in little batches, see the contribs of walbert4, Oasisfresh, SoulSuit, Blowfish34, etc. I looked at a couple of links, and they are just googgle maps. Any ideas? Mr Stephen 23:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, 'tis also at WP:RFI. Mr Stephen 23:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Remove the links, and make sure these users received a friendly note not to mass-add links to external map services. I believe those things are handled through the mapsource page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates, one could ask there for their conventions and procedures. Femto 11:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi there, I noticed this yesterday too and made the RFI. My guess is that it's someone trying to enhance their Google pagerank or clickthrough rate by trying to dress their spamlink up an innocent "helpful" map. The use of multiple single-purpose registered accounts is clearly an attempt to cover up the activity, but it's still pretty blatant. DWaterson 23:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

religioustolerance dot org?

I came across >500 links to this organization, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. The site has a ton of ads but on the other hand, it has content (and a Wikipedia article). I suggest looking at it and seeing what you think. I'd be careful about wholesale link deletions, however. Were these links added by 100s of different good faith editors or as part of a campaign? Even if they were added by a campaign, I suggest leaving a note to this effect on the article's talk page for its regular editors to decide about. I'm sorry I don't have more time to investigate myself. --A. B. 16:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

There's apparently some history behind this:
--A. B. 19:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I have been invited to comment here by A.B. Religious tolerance dot org is run by a well meaning sexagenarian Ontarian, who is a retired engineer. He is quite open about his background (namely one of someone with an interest but no formal education in religious affairs), and also his group under whose name the site is run - him and five of his friends - none of whom have any formal education in this field either.
The site largely contains essays written by himself. Those essays give the appearance of someone interested in the subject, but with no real ability to write academic essays. For example, some of his essays reach the opposite conclusion to that provided explicitly by his sources.
That, in itself, is not a problem. BA Robinson is as entitled to his view as anyone else, and clearly writing these essays and researching into them gives him pleasure (even though his research skills are similar to those of a poor undergraduate). That's great. A hobby should give someone pleasure. Good luck to him
(Un)fortunately, and partly because his site is old (as far as webpages are concerned), he has a very good name for his site. This has increased his site traffic beyond what might be expected for one man's personal essays on religious matters that interest him. Also his viewpoint is nonstandard. This appeals to many, who, despite BA Robinson's self-admitted lack of education or reputation in this area, have cited his site as support for their own claims.
I really doubt that the author of this site is now adding spam. He doesn't need to - he's a guy with a hobby who's quite honest and open about himself and his qualifications (or lack thereof) to write about the subjects he writes about. So the problem is not spam.
The problem is that BA Robinson is not a quotable source - or a reliable source. He has no reputation in his field, and his essays are his personal views and not necessarily supported by the sources he himself has chosen to use. (Which puts them on a par with comments in a blog for quotability and reliability.) And I'd be surprised if he didn't agree with that himself. For these reasons we really shouldn't be linking to the site, and why we should not use the site to support claims made on Wikipedia, jguk 00:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the update, jguk. I appreciate all the time you spent on this in the past. Based on your comment, I'm personally going to leave these links alone -- my work here is more about deliberate spamming than fixing good faith editors' mistaken judgements. I'm busy enough with other issues as it is.
If anyone else wants to take these links on, however, I put together a page of research and links at User:A. B./Sandbox2. --A. B. 01:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't rule out that some people are spamming the site - I really have no idea one way or another. But I really don't think it would be the site owner, jguk 07:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Horrible as this sounds, I think that the source is probably not what would be called a generally reliable one. However, there is a (remote) chance that there may be some information on his site which can't be found elsewhere. I think that the only way to fairly decide which to remove is to go item by item, see if there is anything of substance on the site which merits a link, and removing those which don't qualify. I can try to get to that when I go around adding the new Religion project banner to those pages that merit it, which should be (I really, really hope) a bit later this week. Badbilltucker 18:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
If this site is notable, (and an AfD concluded it was) it can be permissible to quote its opinion (even if it's not cited as a factual reference): "on the other hand, Religioustloerance.org has stated that ..."
We don't use the Pope as a source of "fact" in covering Christian topics (other than himself) but I image his opinion is quoted frequently within Wikipedia: "According to Pope Benedict, all ..." In many cases, the fix may not be to delete the link but to change it to quoting an opinion.
Also, it might be good to make a note on talk pages so it doesn't look like one man's silent witchhunt. jguk got pretty chewed up dealing with the same issues earlier from what I can tell. After all my research on the issue, I concluded there was no spamming going on, but a lot of good faith/poor judgement by hundreds of editors in using this website as an encyclopedic source of fact.
I left messages several days ago on the following Wikiproject talk pages about this topic:
Badbilltucker, I appreciate jguk's taking this on in the past and your doing so now. --A. B. 20:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Spamdexing article

Anybody know what's happening with the redirect to Spamexing? If nothing else, this has effectively deleted the talk page and history for the orignal article. I note that the editor that did this is a high volume editor, so I don't know that this is bad faith, but it is odd. --A. B. 16:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Reverted it. Femto 19:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggest an admin go over this page :D there is a link in it which qualifies as linkspam, and i've been laughing quite hard when i saw it :), especially since the owner added it himself :) --Jdevalk 21:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Looking around for more of those, i'd suggest an admin go over all pages concerning SEO, and evaluate the outgoing links... Most of them have at least 1 or 2 spammy links on them. --Jdevalk 21:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I've talked to AbsolutDan a bit, and went ahead and deleted a **** load of spammy links. --Jdevalk 23:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting Ideas

See Revenue Girl on "Wikipedia Links: How to Get Them and How to Keep Them", especially the comments by Dave (exploiting cross-Wiki links) and Bill Perry (temporarily turning off Google Adsense). --A. B. 22:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: using the article How to Win Friends and Influence People, see the edit histories for the article and for 71.36.51.19 (talk · contribs). If you click on the name of the blog contributor for the Bill Perry comment, you'll find it links to the same site he was spamming the article. The guy was warned last month but has continued spamming. --A. B. 23:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I see he got a 48-hour block. --A. B. 01:08, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I saw that too, linked from a a post on a forum that has several topics on how to get links to stick on wikipedia (check Wikipedia_talk:Spam for links to a couple of interesting threads). It's interesting to read the logic of people who are trying to get a higher page rank from WP. As open as some of them discuss this stuff, I wonder if they see anything wrong with what they're doing. ScottW 04:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
ScottW, they see no wrong, they're just earning money :) --Jdevalk 21:32, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Searching for links on other Wikipedias

In order of Wikipedia size (number of articles):

Just change the initial "de." to the language version of your choice and you will get the familiar web link search page, just in a different language. --A. B. 01:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

wvpics dot com

Front page is a pretty, ad-free site for WV photos. Inside pages have lots of Adsense ads. 22 links. --69.241.131.62 00:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it's been spammed by multiple (likely dynamic) IPs, including 64.119.242.6, 64.119.242.5, and 63.116.12.120. I'll remove all the links for now. If they return we can request addition to the blacklist. --AbsolutDan (talk) 16:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd suggest you'd check if these IP's have been used for other (spam) purposes as well, might be proxies... --Jdevalk 21:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you - the ones I did check only added this link. If I run into others that re-add it I'll be sure to check for other related spamming from them. --AbsolutDan (talk) 21:16, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Awards

We have the Spamstar of Glory barnstar for diligent spam-fighters.

Maybe we need something for spammers that are especially dumb, say the Wile E. Coyote award.

Of course, someone might say it wasn't very civil.... --A. B. 01:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

PS I see at Wikipedia Review that I am now officially humorless.

You must be doing something right if you've caught their attention. --AbsolutDan (talk) 02:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I suppose that's a tad uncivil. But of course, one might expect that from humorless people like you. :-) Pascal.Tesson 03:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the Spam Star could be improved. Anybody got a camera, a slice of spam, and a star-shaped cookie cutter? Femto 12:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, it's already at the zenith of its artistic glory! --A. B. 02:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC) (editing with a COI)

Busy guy with a passionate interest in medicine and science

74.106.179.56 (talk · contribs) has done a good job adding links totally under the radar for a while now. I uspect he has some other accounts as well. Here are the various health and science "resources" I found, all pre-linked for your spam-hunting convenience to the search web links page:

Some links were not added by the account above -- I wonder who else to look at; those other accounts' contributions may have additional blogs. This guy seems to create "blogs" (Scraper sites) pretty fast and populate them with scraped content.

Perhaps more damaging than the spam, the spammer will add "scientific" text and embed his link in a footnote. If you delete the link, you should still delete the text since it's very unreliable. --A. B. 04:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Additional accounts: 74.106.186.175 (talk • contribs), 70.28.179.201 (talk • contribs). All have been used only to add links (with some text) to these web sites, all registered to Kottapurath Kunjumoideen.
I'm afraid I don't have time to follow up on any of this right now. --A. B. 21:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Alaska cruising guy

Would you guys take a look at the rather blunt activity of this user? --JossBuckle Swami 04:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Yup, low-key linkspamming. Looks like it's taken care of for now. --AbsolutDan (talk) 16:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Back again in new guise:
  • Susan4590 (talk • contribs) edit summary: "Replaces dead link + few minor changes."
  • JoshBk (talk • contribs) edit summary: "Revised last change. Made few minor additions."
His old, heavily warned personna was:
--A. B. 18:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)