Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2017 Archive Oct 1

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projectauditors.com

In my opinion my opinion, and apparently also in the opinion of Dialectric (here) and User:Ronz (here), some (all?) of the links to projectauditors.com in Wikipedia constitute WP:REFSPAM.

I have already removed the insertions made by 68.4.165.14 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot).

However, I would be grateful for assistance with the remaining instances, which include most of those made by 70.187.136.20 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot).

Also, would it make sense to add projectauditors.com to the WP:BLACKLIST? I haven't done that before, so don't know if it's appropriate here.

Please WP:PING me in your reply. Thanks, zazpot (talk) 21:55, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

techilover.com

Spammers

Blacklisted. MER-C 08:14, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

saigonhighland.com

All existing instances (4) reverted at time of writing. Unsure if others have previously spammed the same link. —PaleoNeonate – 03:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

More:

By:

Waiting for the other reports. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (tempted to go to meta, but that may be too early). --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks! Yes, this will probably be enough... While I had noticed the few other domains they did not appear to have been spammed as much, so I mostly ignored them... I also found another on Batdongsansg's user page but which I can no longer access (was revdeleted after I blanked the page as an advert; this seemed to be the only instance). —PaleoNeonate – 08:00, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Batdongsansg userpage

@PaleoNeonate: Yep, another one, I did not check what was there, I just saw you blanked. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:54, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (I prefer to blacklist also the less-used links that are spammed by them - no need to go hunting after those after they figured out that the first one got blacklisted - I hope they get the message). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:57, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

daniel-gore.com

daniel-gore.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 have been sustained attempts over the past three months to add link to this website from various IP addresses to General Medical Council article. The webpage appears to do little other than act as a vehicle to publish allegations against an employee of the GMC. The associated text suggests there has been some legal action against the publication of this material. I previously reported this in August. Drchriswilliams (talk) 07:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

@Drchriswilliams: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist - editors have been warned, page has been protected a couple of times, all to no avail. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:41, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

iitravel.org

Spam pages
Sites spammed
Spammers

Dead link spamming, blacklisted. MER-C 10:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

techofficees.com

Unsure if previously spammed, these instances reverted. —PaleoNeonate – 13:02, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Appears to have stopped for now (and COIBot didn't detect previous additions by other users). I noticed that it also failed to detect an addition that was outside of main space (Portal: space), but which also was reverted since. —PaleoNeonate – 22:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

hill-country-visitor.com communitymarketinginc.com

Spammers

Blacklisted. MER-C 11:01, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Still spamming. MER-C 08:17, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The two IPs above that are in the 122.173.0.0/16 network aren't enough to consider blocking the range over.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:22, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Issueticket.com

Spammer created WP:FAKEARTICLE for this [1]. Should be blacklisted to prevent recurrence. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:01, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

The user that Bri listed above created his promotion at User:Issueticket. The user above listed his at IssueTicket.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:43, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Checklist

checklist.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

Linkspam. --Serols (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the page history, I see persistent attempts to insert this link, or to stop it being removed in July 2015, February 2014 and... May 2010. Blacklisted. MER-C 06:45, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

enotes.com

At the time of this writing, there are 300 links with enotes.com as part of the url. Approximately 250 are 'file not found' or otherwise bad urls. The user above was ref spamming more links with copyvios. The links go to teaser pages and if you want to see the full articles then you must pay. The poke led to a new report but there isn't much there. I'm not sure if other accounts are spamming this.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 01:37, 12 October 2017 (UTC) 

MER-C	whoadded enotes.com
COIBot	2169 records; Top 10 editors who have added enotes.com: ClueBot NG (208), Adam Comey7 (66), Citing Bot (63), Dfeldmann (24), Anagram16 (21), 82.177.40.227 (16), Finn Bjørklid (14), Plutoshotfirst (14), CAPTAIN RAJU (13), Kdammers (12)
To answer your question -- no one account, but I cannot exclude a few additions by lots of IP addresses and/or sockpuppets. MER-C 06:39, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
MER-C, you have listed the above IP but I can't seem to find those additions. When looking globally, I do see they are active at pl.wiki but I'm not able to find them there either. The problem there though might be me because I don't speak Polish and am trying to use google translate. :)
Dirk, why don't the above users show up in the poked report? This happens with several of the pokes that I have done where the bot reports some activity but misses others. I think that the last time I asked a similar question, you explained that eventually they would get there but I kept revisiting that same report for weeks (I gave up on that one). The poke report above must have missed the users MER-C pointed out. With another report, you were able to do something somewhere (magic :) and change the way the search strings were working with the bot (that was my impression) and then the results populated the report. This makes me wonder if there is something in the search patterns, maybe? I have to ask at this point because I almost feel like I'm doing something wrong.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:34, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
The IP has deleted edits. It seems related, though on en.wikipedia minimal. Maybe deleted material on other wikis.
2169 is above the limit. The report strangely shows one record, I have to dig in the code, that seems strange. —Dirk Beetstra T C 19:39, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

e-bookreadercomparison.com

e-bookreadercomparison.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

Bestereadercomparison (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

Added as external link on several articles related to e-readers. I have reverted the ones I found and warned the editor. –FlyingAce✈hello 21:46, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

colereview.com

Spammers

Blacklisted. MER-C 12:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

tradingview.com

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzuuzz (talk • contribs)

Already blacklisted on Vietnamese Wikipedia. This is bad...  Defer to Global blacklist MER-C 02:16, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

world-aluminium.org

Not listing users right now and it is possible that some uses are not spam (File:Production_alumine.png appears to be based on their stats and was transfered by an Fr-Wikipedia admin). I however found it suspicious and noticed an old coibot report page existed from 2015. Appears to never have been raised at RSN. I mostly list it to have an updated coibot report. Was recently used at Aluminium about a fringe interpretation (a page that doesn't display any content for me, possibly because of security settings, so I couldn't verify the material; may also not be RS for this). If there's a better place to get a coibot report and I'm mistaken by posting this here, please tell me. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 20:24, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Update: the particular claim could be sourced to a book and its citation updated to point there; as for the new report it's interesting with many established editors listed, probably a false positive suspicion on my part... And this particular editor appears to constructively edit other metal articles. —PaleoNeonate – 21:50, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

flexahealth.info

Blog recently inserted in various articles. Unsure if previously added by other users yet. Existing instances removed from mainspace (one instance exists as external link in a sandbox). "Naph" in the username matches part of the name of the author of the blog posts. —PaleoNeonate – 15:40, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Seems to have stopped after warning, lets wait this out. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:30, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

policybazaar.com

Just reverted yet another single-edit account adding links to this site. Seems to have legit uses, but there is an unhealthy portion of spam. Not sure what to do with this yet. MER-C 06:53, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Sherweb spam on Wikipedia

Spam pages
Sites spammed
Spammers
See also

Blacklisted. MER-C 12:09, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Expertlaw.com

Refs to this site are being added to dozens to hundreds of pages per [2]

The accounts are all IPV6 IPs beginning with 2601 such as this.[3]

I guess the first question is, is this a reliable source or spamming? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:15, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it is an okay source. Strange why that IP range is adding it so many times. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:54, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
@Doc James: spammy, what about XLinkBot, reverting both refs and ELs by IPs and non-confirmed editors? —Dirk Beetstra T C 04:19, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
I don’t like, at all, the ‘’replacing’’ of paywalled sources by free sources (which may be copyvio ...). They should only be convenience links ‘’added’’ to the official link (if not copyvio). Are you sure it is an OK source, I always have doubt with those sites. The allowed hosting is often still a technical copyvio, and I see no real need (need!) to link to a free source. —Dirk Beetstra T C 04:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
I saw Doc James's note on WikiProject Law. This source is reliable for Wikipedia purposes, however it is not 'the most reliable' source. I would never use a source like this to replace something already in an article, and would say that no one else should either. I myself have run a similar website, and had to close it due to the impossibility of keeping it up to date with new laws. Although I don't think this is a bad site per se, and it could be used in some situations where a secondary source is needed, the current editing pattern is simply promoting Aaron Larson and is not acceptable. I expect mass additions like this drives SEO by adding backlinks for Google’s search algorithms, so prompt reversion would be a good idea. In short, replacing links with links to a website run by a law firm is not actually helping our readers. Dysklyver 13:08, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
@A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver: Yes, of course copies of articles published by proper publishers are reliable sources. If the original material is reliable, then any copy of that is reliable. The question here is, whether we should even link to the copy of the material, and whether the replacing of the original paywalled links with free copies is proper. (as far as I understand it, hosting a copy of an article you published in a peer reviewed journal (which is paywalled and copyrighted) is a tolerated form of copyvio - we should link to the original. If the original is not copyrighted, then it is fine to link to a freely accessible copy, though I would still find it incorrect). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:04, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
The articles on expertlaw.com I have looked at so far are not copies of paywalled sources. I would say that wherever possible, sources should be freely available, but if sources are being replaced from that reason, it is best to also get them archived at archive.com and include archive links, else you are just making future deadlinks. To answer your question about copyright, it is ok for the author his/her to publish their article elsewhere (because they own the copyright), but no-one else may do so, and there are exceptions to this to do with exclusive licensing. Dysklyver 14:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes the fact that they are changing their IP address for every article is concerning and makes it look like SEO work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:30, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
@A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver: re: "it is ok for the author his/her to publish their article elsewhere (because they own the copyright)": often, the answer there is 'no', you specifically sign away the ownership of your publication to many publishing houses, especially those behind a paywall (Nature: "The copyright and all other intellectual property rights in the material contained on this Web Site belongs to Macmillan or its licensors"; SAGE publications "The entire contents of SAGE Journals Material (including individual articles and other material appearing in the journals) are protected by copyright."). You are right, there are cases of exclusive licensing, the question is whether that is true for the site in question. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:32, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
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