Wikipedia talk:Blocked external links

Rename proposal[edit]

I am proposing to move the spam-blacklisting and spam-whitelisting functions from MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist and MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist to here (and some to-be-created subpages). This is for the following reasons:

The MediaWiki talk namespace is not designed for this purpose.
The existing discussion pages are low-traffic and the same few admins handle all the requests.
The term "spam-blacklist" imputes bad-faith on site owners.

To-do list forthcoming. Stifle (talk) 14:10, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned on the Village pump, I've created a template to serve for requesting a site be unblocked. It is currently at User:RoadieRich/whitelist request. If you feel it will be useful, please move it to the template space. Rich^(Contribs)/_{(Talk to me!)} I can haz review plz? 05:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The change of name should be done - long overdue really. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:50, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note, a rename request is already for years somewhere in the bug-requests on bugzilla. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We can expect this to be done sometime a year or two before the heat death of the universe. We still will need to use the MediaWiki pages called spam-[black|white]list but can at least now keep the requests away from there (and have an additional plus that the request page now has a talk page). Stifle (talk) 12:11, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's mediazilla:14719. — AlexSm 14:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "spam" should be removed from the page names, but I'd rather keep calling it what it is: a blacklist and whitelist. "Blocked external links" just sounds awkward, to me. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relaunch[edit]

OK, I'm relaunching this. I propose that on some specific date, we close off the MediaWiki talk pages (which are hard to find) and take everything over here. Stifle (talk) 11:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would not combine white and blacklist on one discussion page, a de-blacklisting reasoning may then get confused with a whitelisting request, and those discussions are significantly different in nature of the blacklisting requests.

Hard to find .. that is a matter of creating some redirects and proper links in the proper places. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The blacklisting, deblacklisting, and whitelisting are all on separate pages so can be transcluded, or not, to the one page if desired. Stifle (talk) 12:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, we could start this process by splitting the current black and whitelist requests into such subpages (/requested additions, /requested removals, etc.). Might also give possibilities in archiving the things easier (botwise). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Played with the idea .. if anything .. that speeds up loading and other problems, and indeed, we could automatically archive the /Proposed additions to /Completed proposed additions after one week .. and then /Completed proposed additions after e.g. 3 weeks to the real archives. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:58, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand grouping the discussions onto a page which avoid the word "spam", which can lead to misunderstandings on the reason a site was blocked - similar renaming discussions have taken place at WT:WPSPAM in the past. For that reason, I can support the new discussion location. However, the argument of ease to find seems false to me ... giving it a new name won't make the discussion boards easier to find. A discussion, no matter where it takes place, is hard to find if that location is not widely publicized. It's a question of how broadly are the links listed in nav-boxes and help pages (for instance, I don't see a link to it at {{Noticeboard links}}, which is listed at the top of ANI and other pages). Those who know the shortcuts can easilly reach the pages using WP:SBL and WT:SWL, but they are simply not widely posted for others to find those shortcuts.

On the other issue ... I fully support breaking the discussions into subpages, and have supported this change for a while now (almost as long ago as when this proposal was first created). There are several benefits to this; easier to add new threads with a simple "new topic" link to add new entries to the bottom (not possible under the current layout), as well as making archival much simpler to handle. --- Barek (talk) - 20:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At w:de I merged the request pages for SBL and SWL a long time ago (w:de:WP:SBL), because by this discussions are kept together and new users are less confused. If for example a user wants a page at w:en not to be blocked, this user doesn't know inuitively, whether he has to make the request at the sbl page (for unblocking) or at the swl page (for whitelisting). Technical stuff like this should be handled by admins, not by users. At w:de there's just one page for adding to sbl, adding to swl, removing from sbl, and removing from swl. There is also just one combined archive of black/white-discussions at w:de. So any user can quickly get all discussions about a specific domain.

For this reason I support the idea of merging those pages at w:en.

Concerning the name problem ('spam'), actually I don't mind the name, but some users do, so probably it would be better to get rid of the term "spam". -- seth (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The name "Spam" still seems appropriate. Well over 90% of the links that reside on the SBL, are spam or were spammed. Other sites added for blatently failing RS and OR, all have an extensive spam-histories. A few links are there resulting from having virusus, illegal content or being attack pages. Who is being offended?

Looks like a duck to me and current naming convention seems appropriate. A combined white and blacklist would be a nightmare for request handling efficiently because the discussions are extremely different in nature. It would be nice to have a combined archive of black/white-discussions like at w:de, however, we must keep in mind that en.wikipedia is the largest language project. Archive size could push the limits of usability for those who need to view/review them. As for subpages.. my position is still the same as previously. Don't think any of this would be a practical improvement.--Hu12 (talk) 19:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would support any rational proposal which made it clear WHY charlierose.com was blacklisted, and whether I'm supposed to post to get it off the blacklist, or onto the whitelist, or both, or something else. There is no reason this process should be so complicated. To start with, I don't know why a bot should automatically be able to put a long-running and well-respected PBS interview program on a blacklist in the first place. imo this is a disgrace, and I see no reason why I should have to waste so much time jumping through hoops (AFTER wasting so much time trying to find them) because a bunch of Admins like to make things as complicated as possible. What on earth is going on at Wikipedia these days? Are you trying to run everyone off, or just keep us so occupied with this sort of garbage that we don't have any time to make actually useful edits? Flatterworld (talk) 03:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Per my comments at the white-list page, it may have to be MediaWiki talk:Blocked external links. Versageek has expressed concerns that we could lose the functionality if this left the MediaWiki space. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:26, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, putting aside the matter of which namespace would be appropriate, a move to "Whatever:Blocked external links" would be an excellent idea. The links may be blocked because they have been spammed on en:WP, because they point to mere spam, because they point to pages that are too defamatory or contain too high a percentage of untruths or contain egregious copyright violations; no matter. -- Hoary (talk) 00:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]