Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Spam blacklist?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Spam blacklist?. This is regarding blacklisting the Heritage Foundation for their plans to harvest the IP addresses of Wikipedia editors. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:54, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

www.halmblogmusic.com

halmblogmusic.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com halmblogmus.com is a music promotion platform which profile famous songs, artists as well as articles related to music. It seems that several artists have their main profile there. Links to the documents of halmblogmusic.com are often placed in Wikipedia articles as sources. As a consequence, it is not possible to publish an edit with such a link now. So I guess it should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nunaklenam (talk • contribs) 14:02, December 26, 2024 (UTC)

Added to block list here MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/August_2024#halmblogmusic.com. Nunaklenam's first two edits in October 2024 were to change the url on the original request from halmblogmusic.com to halmblog.com [1]. Ravensfire (talk) 04:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
no Declined. --* Pppery * it has begun... 20:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

custompackbox.com

Persistent spamming by multiple accounts and IPs. Annh07 (talk) 01:20, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Added to blacklist. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

sci-hubse.com

sci-hubse.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Multiple accounts have been spamming this fake Sci-Hub domain: see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alex Aci. SmartSE (talk) 11:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

@Smartse: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --* Pppery * it has begun... 20:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Relevant IP range and users already blocked at SPI, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Hompp/Archive § 31 December 2024 for more details. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 01:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Dan Leonard: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --* Pppery * it has begun... 20:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

vtforeignpolicy.com

vtforeignpolicy.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

May be a a different domain of confirmed disinformation site Veterans Today as it was added to the corresponding article over a year ago. ToThAc (talk) 02:39, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

@ToThAc: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --* Pppery * it has begun... 20:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

sonixify.com

Persistent spamming by multiple accounts and IPs. Annh07 (talk) 16:30, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

@Annh07: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

travelosei.com

Persistent spamming by multiple IPs. Annh07 (talk) 12:40, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@Annh07: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. May be on its way to global blacklist though ...--Dirk Beetstra T C 19:55, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

nodemaven.com

Persistent spamming by multiple IPs. Annh07 (talk) 13:35, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@Annh07: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:56, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Encyclopaedia Metallum

metal-archives.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com There is long-standing consensus since 2007, and affirmed in 2015, that Encyclopaedia Metallum/Metal Archives is unreliable as a source since it is user-generated content, similar to Wikipedia. It nonetheless constantly gets added as a source. I wasn't opposed to it as an external link, but at this point, I think any potential value to that (which was slim to begin with since the type of information on there should be in more reliable sources, anyway, or else on Discogs) is offset by the sheer amount of continuous misuse in articles and lists.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 14:24, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Blacklisting a domain used in 5000 articles would require a much broader consensus than this venue can produce. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Even though most of those usages are contrary to consensus, and fail WP:USERG?-- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 23:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Okay, looking at those usages, I see that there are a lot of links on image files to denote where the image came from. In light of that, I rescind my request.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:55, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
@3family6 how many of those images are originally from them? For NFCC we should link to the original, not to where someone found them … Dirk Beetstra T C 16:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
The images should be from the media (physical or digital copy) itself? I would pretty confidently say that none of those are from Encyclopaedia Metallum, unless there's some compilation they've released that has an article, which I'm unaware of. This would further make my point above, then, about how nearly all of the thousands of usages are contrary to consensus (and apparently, policy as well for many of those).-- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 16:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
What I mean is that File:Sepultura - Dante XXI.jpg should have been sourced from the Sepultura website (https://www.sepultura.com.br/albums  ; https://static.wixstatic.com/media/b9b68e_4099fe12cd1d4a5c87b0402f2ef73757~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_600,h_600,al_c,lg_1,q_80,enc_avif,quality_auto/Image-empty-state.jpg), not via an intermediate host where it may have been affected or possibly (not here in this case) is in violation of copyrights. I just denied a whitelist request for an altered (cropped) picture without attribution on a blacklisted site, where the likely copyright holder / original could be found (though not easy). I feel that is what is meant with the word original in ‘Identification of the source of the original copyrighted material …’ in WP:NFCC. For most of these images metal-archives is not hosting the original copyrighted material, it is all copies that are hosted there. And yes, it is an argument in favour of blacklisting. Dirk Beetstra T C 19:51, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Okay, thank you for the clarification.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 18:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

forbetterscience.com

forbetterscience.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

For Better Science is the blog of Leonid Schneider, which was added to the blacklist in 2019 at the request of User:JzG, and with plenty of discussions over the years here, the latest around 2022 I believe. I would be keen to see if there has been any change in policy since, especially since endorsement by Elizabeth Bik. If not, would it be possible to selectively whitelist the following pages:

  • /2025/01/14/fake-o-meat-by-ali-khademhosseini/
  • /2017/12/14/predatory-conferences-and-other-scams-of-false-swedish-professor-ashutosh-tiwari/

Thank you, 81.109.86.251 (talk) 00:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC).

Individual whitelisting by consensus may be appropriate, but the two you list? Not so much. The former is personal (and promotional) opinion from a primary source and fails [[WP:RS]. The latter is a personal attack on a personal blog and fails WP:BLP, as well as exemplifying why we don't need links to his website. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

TMDB

tmdb.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

themoviedb.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

TMDB is a user-edited movie database, similar to IMDb. It was added to the blacklist in 2008 after this request regarding edits by Travisbell. A 2016 removal proposal by Travisbell was declined. I'd add that the X account for TMDB says "Tweets by @travisbell", so there are some apparent COI issues surrounding this user.

However, the site has actually gained traction as a resource. It's now the primary source of film data for Letterboxd. ([2]) I don't see any cases where we would want to link to the site within article space, but it does get used similarly to movieposterdb.com, as a source of film posters which may not be on other sites. This came up for me in an FFD where we need to see the copyright notice on a poster, where IMDb doesn't have a high-resolution copy and MoviePosterDB requires account creation to view the full-resolution version. I think we'd be better served by treating the site as we would MoviePosterDB, as in keeping it out of article space but allowing its use in other areas as appropriate and monitoring for COI spam. hinnk (talk) 00:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

As an additional example, TMDB is also the primary film resource for Trakt ([3]). jac roe 02:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
This was discussed recently at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/December_2024. Ravensfire (talk) 02:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Oh, neat! Should I notify the participants from that discussion then?
I'm surprised how much of the thread presumes the primary use for TMDB would be as an external link in an article, especially considering another user ran into basically the same case as me. Looking at uses of the site's name on here, it seems like lots of other users are running into this issue with non-free file uploads and then having to work around it, which makes me concerned about our ability to meet WP:IUP#RI. hinnk (talk) 00:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
@Hinnk: no Declined,  Defer to Whitelist for specific links on this domain. Regarding the non-free file uploads, tmdb/themoviedb is not the source of the original copyrighted material, it in itself hosts it nonfree. Find the original source of the material and link that, per WP:NFCC. I've just recently denied a case where someone wanted to use a link on a blacklisted site to link to material, where that was a cropped, unsourced image. Use the original source of the material. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:40, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

SouthFront.press

WP:SOUTHFRONT has been blacklisted in general but it does not appear that southfront.press is on the blacklist.

- Amigao (talk) 03:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

@Amigao: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist, not this needs some work on SouthFront, whitelists should be implemented for the official website of the subject (/about page there), and the primary source that is used. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

*.mcafee.com

I am trying to save edits I made to BlackEnergy but I cannot save them because one of the citations references a (dead) page on the old "Securing Tomorrow" blog on McAfee's website. I'm not sure what to do in this scenario but blocking URLs to dead blogs doesn't seem to be the correct course of action, either. The archive link is blocked as well. skarz (talk) 16:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

@Skarz: I am not sure which one you mean, you tried to add 'mcafee-labs/updated-blackenergy-trojan-grows-more-powerful', not https://mcafee.com/blogs/other-blogs/mcafee-labs/updated-blackenergy-trojan-grows-more-powerful/ .. the latter seems to work fine. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:15, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Wait, there is a rule 'mcafee' on the blacklist. Why can I pass that one, and why is it there in the first place? --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:18, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Precisely my question. :) Probably improper implementation of the regex filter discussed here. skarz (talk) 17:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
@Skarz Ah, now we are getting somewhere ... No, it is correct, ALL domains containing mcafee are blacklisted (by me), so that part is correct. At the same time I did this, whitelisting \bmcafee\.com\b \bthepatmcafeefoundation\.com\b \bmcafeeinstitute\.com\b \bmcafeesecure\.com\b \bmcafeesecurity\.com\b, this allows https://mcafee.com, https://thepatmcafeefoundation.com, https://mcafeeinstitute.com, https://mcafeesecure.com, and https://mcafeesecurity.com. It does not allow mcafee-labs. You should be able to save your edit with the link on mcafee.com that I gave you. I hope this helps. Dirk Beetstra T C 19:39, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

gcaptain.com

gcaptain.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com Unclear why this is blacklisted. There was a request more than a decade ago to unlist it that didn't get a response AFAICT. Further, we have at least one article with a recent link to it: National Security Multi-Mission Vessel. I don't know it at all, but I'm not seeing a reason to block it. It was put on the blacklist in 2010 for spamming links into our articles. I have no COI, never heard of it before today to my knowledge, and was just copying the link from the NSMV article to another one. Hobit (talk) 21:26, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Blacklisting discussion at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/August_2010#gcaptain.com. Many prior whitelisting or deblacklisting discussions, most of which are declined. No opinion on what to do here. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:53, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
So what's the next step? Are we really keeping a site blacklisted because of something folks did 14+ years ago? On the off chance the same behavior starts up again, we can blacklist again. Hobit (talk) 04:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Trying again. I know Wikipedia is run by volunteers, but its been more than a week since the original request. Does the blacklist just not get updated? Is this an unreasonable request? Something else? Hobit (talk) 23:42, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
@Hobit: no Declined. This was spammed, and in this case the owner of the site was here to argue that they should not be blacklisted. In any case, most spamming is by people involved with / owner of the site. That was indeed about 14 years ago. Spammers are here because it pays to have your links on Wikipedia. Regardless of nofollow, people will follow links to visit your site, and you can still say you are linked from/used on Wikipedia. That is an incentive to keep trying that does not stop after some time.
The site here is a blog (i.e., generally not an RS), and often regurgitating what other, reliable sites are saying (see my analysis here for example, or here where there were many other, better sources for the same info).
We de-list sites if there is demonstrated use, generally that means a consensus on WP:RS/N (which you unlikely will find for a blog), or demonstration of widespread use, which means regular whitelisting. You say that there is 'at least one article with a recent link' (not at least, it really is only one) added by a user who broke the page, repaired by a bot (bots are blacklist exempt). (note, the only thing we have there is a blog post, no official announcements that the actual ship was delivered - which is strange if the recipient did not cheer on the arrival yet).
If you think that specific links are of use, request whitelisting through  Defer to Whitelist, if that gives us an influx of granted links you may have a case that this site is of use. Until now, 0 granted whitelist requests that are actually in use (just a few which are not even in use anymore, probably better sources were found) does not make a case that this site will be of general use. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:30, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
I found a better source for the date on the one use, so I replaced the blog there. No occurances left in mainspace (which is better for non-whitelisted blacklisted material, it can give issues for editors - bots should not be allowed to repair these in the first place). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for responding. I'm to understand that spamming in 2010 is enough to keep something on the blacklist today? That seems odd, but I don't normally work in this space. I agree it seems to be a one-man show (though an impressive one) so I get the blog thing. Still, we don't tend to blacklist things because they are blogs. Just seems odd--we rarely keep anything around because of something done 15 years ago (AfD, etc.), so I'm a bit surprised the blacklist works this way. Eh. Thanks again. Hobit (talk) 17:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
@Hobit:

Still, we don't tend to blacklist things because they are blogs

... where did I say that we blacklisted this because it was a blog, because I really did not say that I/we blacklisted this because it was a blog? And indeed, we are not removing things after xxx years, first because we do run into cases of spamming that continue for such periods of time (as I explained), and why should we remove something that is not useful anyway (I mean, it is 14 years of blacklisting, but also 14 years with 2 granted and still unused whitelisting requests, I don't think that the encyclopedia suffers because of this). Dirk Beetstra T C 19:44, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
I think my point got lost. You are saying that it's not useful so we aren't removing it from the blacklist. And, if I'm understanding you, it's not useful because it's a blog. Now most blogs don't get blacklisted. And I don't see the point of keeping it blacklisted due to a problem from 14 years ago. But I don't knew the ins-and-outs of our blacklisting policy and since I've not hit it before in the years I've been here, I imagine I can live with the way we do things here not making sense to me. Hobit (talk) 04:43, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
@Hobit That is what I said earlier. Spammers are not here because they just add their links, they are here because they know that having your links on Wikipedia pays your bills. We have cases where spamming spans years and years, COI editors coming back 10 years after to make their page and request delisting, sites that got removed and re-spammed by fresh socks. No, we do not have some magic automated threshold to say 'this is long enough', we just leave it. And I am still unclear where you want to use it, you seem to only want to have it delisted. Dirk Beetstra T C 05:06, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

piratebayo3klnzokct3wt5yyxb2vpebbuyjl7m623iaxmqhsd52coid.onion

Can't add this to a page about Pirate bay. That only holds their ICANN supervised URL, and the engine doesn't let to add the decentralized one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.24.104.19 (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

no Declined,  Defer to Whitelist. .onion is not going to be de-listed, and we do generally not link to .onions, except for .onion-only website (we list only one official website), and we need proper sourcing stating that the .onion is the official .onion address for a website. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:13, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

tychr.com

User created just to spam this website, and should not be added to any Wikipedia articles.

DACartman (talk) 17:42, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@DACartman: And a whole list of IP, plus another spam account (see the COIBot reports). plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:17, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2025
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