User:Nanite/Onion linking guidelines draft

(I'm saving this in user space due to draft quality, but if anyone wants to edit, feel free!)

Draft to be titled: Guidelines on .onion linking.

In general, .onion addresses are not especially helpful as external links because most users lack the software to access them. Various clearweb proxies (such as .onion.link) have bypassed this problem, however due to the problematic aspects of many onion sites and the frequency of spammers inserting malicious links, there is a general ban (with some exceptions) on .onion hyperlinks, be they proxied or not.

Templates

A few templates are available for the formatting of onion links, whether they are defunct, blacklisted, or whitelisted.

• {{Onion URL}} and {{Onion defunct}} for use in siteboxes.
• {{Onion Official site}} for use in External links sections.

The blacklist

Presently, almost all .onion links cannot be turned into hyperlink due to a general blacklist of the form \b[_\-0-9a-z]+\.onion\b. According to the Blacklist module documentation, this forbids all hyperlinks containing strings of the containing "<alphanumeric characters or _,->.onion" except where it is immediately preceded or followed by a letter. Some special exceptions are however made in the MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist.

Reason for blacklist

It is desirable that .onion links (as well as proxy sites .onion.link, .onion.cab, .hiddenservice.net, etc.) are generally blacklisted for the following reasons:

1. Spam, malware, and illegal content (snuff / child pornography, copyright violations).
2. Difficulty of access, needing a special browser (see WP:ELNO#7). Note that neither proxy links nor WP:ELOFFICIAL are not subject this.
3. Impostor sites. Onion names have non-intuitive random characters, making it difficult to visually confirm whether the domain name is the proper one. There have been Whenever listing an onion address (whether hyperlinked or not) you must provide at least a semi-reliable reference that confirms the correct domain name.
4. The low stability of many sites.

When you can get whitelisted

Whitelisting of .onion sites is generally handled on a case-by-case basis. A good reason for whitelisting a site would be that it is the only official website for a notable article.

1. If you do not have a good source and citation for the authenticity of the onion domain name, your request will be turned down.
2. When accessed, the landing page does not immediately present illegal content, nor does it deceive the user into accessing illegal content.