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Competitor spamming, is that thinkable?

Someone has been spamming several different magic-related websites, like here, to different articles, but it makes me a little suspicious. Is it possible their intention is to get those sites blacklisted? — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 14:10, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

nigeriaschool.com.ng: 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 -download 07:38, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


Lots of related spamming going on:

May not be related, just similar links in similar articles. --Ronz (talk) 16:33, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Looks like the ip's are shared and dynamic. --Ronz (talk) 17:00, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
Needs further review and lots of cleanup. --Ronz (talk) 17:01, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
I doubt these are all the same person, or even groups of people working together. Instead, it appears to be a range of ip's regularly used by spammers. --Ronz (talk) 16:46, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
And it looks like many of these pages are not reviewed for spam. --Ronz (talk) 18:15, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

(Restored discussion - bot archived it far too early) --Ronz (talk) 16:03, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Disqus

The article on Disqus may have been targeted to increase the amount of criticism in it. Currently, Disqus#Criticism and privacy concerns is abnormally long compared to the rest of the article.

Some groups of edits in time gone past, featuring lots of IPs and (at a brief check) possible SPAs:

—George8211 / T 11:45, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

islamicfinance.com sukuk.com

Spammed against a coi by owner of the websites. Nothing suggests these are reliable. --Ronz (talk) 15:15, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Sites are not spam, owner was accused of COI and requested entries be moved. Ronz seems to have vendetta (Islamophobia agenda?) against author and sites. No evidence exists of spam, COI does not equal spam. Naveed.sukuk (talk) 20:39, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Please provide evidence of SPAM activity, it is not appropriate to label my sites as SPAM unless evidence can be provided. My first post was in 2008? Naveed.sukuk (talk) 22:30, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Unless evidence of SPAM activity is provided, then I will remove this section as it is offensive and added by Ronz for reasons of vendetta, perhaps shrouded in an Islamophobia agenda. Naveed.sukuk (talk) 22:39, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
So you are not leaving Wikipedia after all? Then proceed with the COIN discussion. --Ronz (talk) 22:53, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't wish to engage with your offensive views, so will not join the COIN discussion, in fact I find it vile to have to discuss with you here, and wish you'd go and bark somewhere else. Your personal vendetta against me and my sites has turned to harassment. If you are stating they are SPAM, then provide the evidence, before I delete this section. Naveed.sukuk (talk) 22:59, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
You need to stop deleting information from this discussion and stop harassing me. Can you do that? --Ronz (talk) 23:05, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Who is harassing who? I wish you'd leave me alone. I will leave this section here for 24 hours. You have made allegations of SPAM, so provide examples of SPAM. Naveed.sukuk (talk) 23:09, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Comment: You were already warned about blanking this content - to continue to threaten to blank community discussions goes against Wikipedia guidelines and policy. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
So is harassment Naveed.sukuk (talk) 23:17, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
I can understand how community discussions to which you disagree could be interpreted by you to be potential harassment; but discussions on the links are permitted and appear to be appropriate to take place here. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:26, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
  • These are WP:SPS sources - websites owned and populated by Sukuk51 (formerly Naveed.sukuk) (per [this dif and this dif). (Sukuk51 has somewhat pointedly redirected their userpage and user Talk page to the Islamophobia article (see here and here) Generally we don't use SPS, unless the creator is an acknowledged expert in the field, as shown by publications in the standard literature. The user's bio is here. Professional experience yes, but I haven't found publications by him, which is the standard described in SPS. IF we had been able to get through the COI discussion more peacefully, it would have been an interesting discussion at RSN to determine whether these sites would fly as reliable SPS generally for content about islamic finance. We didn't get that far, as the editor blew up over the COI discussion. Since the editor has clearly chosen the path of disruption over the past few days instead of dealing with the COI issues simply and clearly, and there is no indication that this user will exercise the kind of restraint that their COI calls for, we should put the sites on the spam blacklist. Reluctantly. Jytdog (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2015 (UTC) (redirect removed by another editor Jytdog (talk) 17:48, 8 July 2015 (UTC))
I disagree with blacklisting the domains at this time. I agree that the user has a COI and their sole activity on Wikipedia appears to have been to add links to their own website, or to promote their own website at IslamicFinance.com. However, once discussions began on talk pages and at WP:COIN, the user stopped adding the links to any further articles. If disruption should begin again, then blacklisting may still be appropriate; but at this time, it seems overkill for links that are not currently being added to any further articles.
Due to the WP:SPS issue, I do agree that all remaining uses of the domains should be reviewed; and potentially a discussion started at WP:RSN to determine if community consensus supports accepting the links as reliable sources. If not accepted as RS, then the links should be removed from any articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:49, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't see the need for blacklisting, but they don't belong as sources or external links either. --Ronz (talk) 16:30, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

greenlakewalking.net

links
accounts

IPs adding link to a personal blog, and using those links as sources for personal observations on articles - failing WP:RS, WP:NOR, & WP:SPS. Appears to be a new user misunderstanding the purpose of Wikipedia; but has spilled into multiple articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:55, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Similarweb

Link
User

Likely undisclosed COI/paid editing. -KH-1 (talk) 05:42, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

www.credemographics.com

Adding external links and creating promotional pages for:

credemographics.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

--Junkyardsparkle (talk) 00:11, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I've notified the editor. --Ronz (talk) 17:13, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
I wouldn't be surprised if this is an undeclared WP:COI. Definitely promoting the organization. I've seen no discussion on whether or not the organization or any of its products might be notable, but I could have easily overlooked them at this point. --Ronz (talk) 22:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
There are long lists of refs, which gives a superficial gloss of notability, but as far as I can tell none of them actually have anything to do with the products which are the topics of the articles, just general related topics. I doubt anyone looked that that closely. --Junkyardsparkle (talk) 04:38, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 14:29, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
I've requested speedy deletion of the four articles. --Ronz (talk) 14:44, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Since there's been no response other than to say that speedy deletion criteria may not have been met, they are all up for proposed deletion now. --Ronz (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2015‎ (UTC)

howtogetintopharmaceuticalsales.com

Spammers

Dead link spamming, blacklisted. MER-C 11:54, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Archived references at www.londonpropertyvalues.com ?

londonpropertyvalues.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

Can someone please look into the edits recently made by Tabitha78? She appears to be adding links to archived versions of dead references. The archived webpages seem to be archived as expected but they're on such a bizarre website - londonpropertyvalues.com - that I wanted to raise the issue here for someone else to look into. ElKevbo (talk) 00:28, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeaaaaaaaah, no. No no no. Any links to that url should definitely be removed. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 09:10, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
I reverted the edits and gave Tabitha an only warning. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 09:13, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
Seems like there's a couple of socks adding that link: [9], [10], [11] and [12] Knud Winckelmann (talk) 13:24, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
Some usernames: Looks like the last one has been around since 2012-
Lisa.strutton (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)
ShivaLingam418 (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)
Regards Knud Winckelmann (talk) 13:50, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Blacklisted for dead link spamming. MER-C 12:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

tecnicosdemantenimientoaeronautico.com

tecnicosdemantenimientoaeronautico.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

Spammers

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 3amioio (talk • contribs) 12:25, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Timestamp. MER-C 12:52, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

tma-s.com

tma-s.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

Spammers

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 3amioio (talk • contribs) 12:25, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Timestamp. MER-C 12:55, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

launch.wikilinkjacker.com/wikilinkjacker.html

WhistleBlower321 (talk) 04:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

It's the usual dead link spamming, but automated. Blacklist this shit on sight. I've passed this on to the broader admin corps and those who need to know. MER-C 12:36, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Yuck. This approach was likely discussed multiple times here, but the one I remember is from December. At the time there was talk of an edit filter and Ladsgroup took initiative and created a list of dead link replacements which led to much despamming. Pinging others involved in that discussion to see if there have been any developments I'm not aware of: Doc James, Johnuniq, Beetstra, -revi, Samwalton9, and MER-C (even though you've already commented :) ). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:56, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
I'm going to look at making an edit filter to track this kind of spam. I should have done it a long time ago, it's been sat at WP:EF/R for ages. See WP:DEADLINKSPAM too. Sam Walton (talk) 09:21, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
We are hoping that User:Cyberpower678 will fix all deadlinks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:18, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
My deadlinks bot has successfully came out of its third trial with promising results. I anticipate not much longer until approval. That said, it does need it's own place to run on labs, so I'm also waiting for a response from User:Coren. Oh and some issues came up with the archiving process which I may need to contact internet archives over.—cyberpowerChat:Online 14:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

122.108.169.166

122.108.169.166 (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) Spam on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_engineering

That was just vandalism, not spam. With vandals you (typically) need to warn them several times and then report them at WP:AIV if they don't stop. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 18:22, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

yiddishbookcenter.org

The user adds massive amounts of ext links to http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org . I checked some of them and they seem to be on topic. But it worries me that I have doubts that the user has best interest of wikipedia in mind, rather than promotion of the website. Since, as a wrote, the links are not entirely inappropriate, I would like to ask a more experienced person to handle the issue. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:12, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Notified editor. --Ronz (talk) 22:26, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

The ip is registered to yiddishbookcenter.org, and was notified of our coi policy in January, but continued spamming until June. LiaElbaz started editing a few days before the editing from the ip ceased. The first edits from LiaElbaz were modified by the ip, and some of the early edits from LisElbaz modified contributions from the ip. I'd guess that these are two different people from the same organization. --Ronz (talk) 22:49, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Another account that has been spamming links to http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org . I notified her about this discussion. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:54, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Andrea LM Moo has a coi. --Ronz (talk) 15:08, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Hampshire.edu address, so coi as well. --Ronz (talk) 15:16, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Judaism#link_spam_alert. Given the huge amount of spam here, it would be nice to get some help finding any additions that should remain. I've looked over quite a few, and it appears they all need some editing to remove the extraneous link (eg "at the Yiddish Book Center's"), and most should be outright removed as too off topic or redundant. --Ronz (talk) 15:41, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Another Hampshire ip. --Ronz (talk) 17:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
A single edit, so may be a coincidence--Ronz (talk) 15:15, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm doing some very quick-and-dirty cleanup. If there are valid external links in this, I could very well miss them. --Ronz (talk) 17:56, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize this was part of a linkspam, booo. The one added to Wandering Stars (novel) looked fine; it was the Yiddish text of the novel, which I suppose may not be useful to English users, but probably doesn't hurt either. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:14, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
If they didn't have a conflict of interest and weren't adding the promotional link to their main site, it would be far less of a problem.
That's exactly one of the cases I was looking for. It would be helpful to know what the relevant projects think of linking to an original, non-English copy of a notable book. I do wish the book was more notable though. Anyone know? --Ronz (talk) 16:36, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
Looking further, I think it meets WP:ELYES and WP:NONENGEL, so such cases should be kept. --Ronz (talk) 16:48, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
The three links at Chaim Grade you deleted seem to pass WP:ELYES. Choor monster (talk) 14:39, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Nice to have you looking into this. I don't agree, rather I think they fit ELNO pretty well given they have little or no content not already in the article or that should be. If you have any general comments about the spamming and how to address it, especially identifying general cases where the links should be kept, let's make sure those comments are at least summarized here. For specific links in specific articles, which seems to be the case for your comments, we might want to move to the article talk page.
The first link, "Collected Reflections on Grade and Vilne" is too off topic and redundant. I think it should be removed outright.
The second link, "Chaim Grade on Yiddish Literature" is worse, since it isn't about Grade but rather his perspective on the literature.
The third link, "Chaim Grade Reads from His Work and Is Interviewed by Abraham Tabachnick Part 1" is a non-English sound recording of Grade reading his work followed by an interview. The reading his work part is completely off topic. The interview, if it were in English, would be questionable at best. As a whole, it doesn't belong. --Ronz (talk) 15:35, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
I'll respond on Talk:Chaim Grade. Choor monster (talk) 16:02, 20 July 2015 (UTC)


173.9.42.77 is removing the additional links, which is a tiny improvement while ignoring the real problems. --Ronz (talk) 15:10, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

As has Andrea LM Moo. --Ronz (talk) 19:06, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Web hosting spam

Spammers

Blacklisted. There's loads of related domains, keep your eyes peeled. MER-C 10:42, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

poweroak.net

poweroak.net: 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

Currently dead link spammed by:

GermanJoe (talk) 05:42, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Blacklisted. MER-C 10:09, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
tripped the spam blacklist for this domain. MER-C 10:48, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

nigeriaschool.com.ng: 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 -download 07:38, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


Lots of related spamming going on:

May not be related, just similar links in similar articles. --Ronz (talk) 16:33, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Looks like the ip's are shared and dynamic. --Ronz (talk) 17:00, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
Needs further review and lots of cleanup. --Ronz (talk) 17:01, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
I doubt these are all the same person, or even groups of people working together. Instead, it appears to be a range of ip's regularly used by spammers. --Ronz (talk) 16:46, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
And it looks like many of these pages are not reviewed for spam. --Ronz (talk) 18:15, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

(Restored discussion - bot archived it far too early) --Ronz (talk) 16:03, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

(Restored discussion - spamming has continued and still looking over ips) --Ronz (talk) 16:30, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

nigeriaschool.com.ng needs to be added to XLinkBot, if not outright blacklisted. --Ronz (talk) 16:38, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Couple more since last check. --Ronz (talk) 19:08, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

And more. --Ronz (talk) 15:51, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

mazhar.dk

Addition of links in various pages. Spamming since 2007-2008. Should be blacklisted. - Variation 25.2 (talk) 18:25, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

fdmsgroup.com

links
accounts

SPA accounts adding url into multiple articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

labottegadelmistero.altervista.org

links
accounts

Multiple IPs adding links into several different articles. All of the IPs involved appear to geo-locate to the same region in Italy. The IPs only activity has been to add the link, with no attempts to respond to talk page comments or warnings about the links. The site being linked appears to be a non-notable blog, possibly self-published. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

FYI I finally got around to creating an edit filter for dead link spamming at Special:AbuseFilter/711. Sam Walton (talk) 16:52, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Nicely done! Kuru (talk) 23:25, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
Awesome work, many thanks. Of course it will still show some good faith edits as well (but that's easy to spot during manual checking). GermanJoe (talk) 15:47, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
Yeah it could probably be done in a more clever way, but this should show all replacements of the dead link template with a citation. Sam Walton (talk) 15:50, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
Seems to be quite effective. Maybe hide the details of the filter and tweak it as we go. -KH-1 (talk) 07:02, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
@KH-1: I don't see a need for hiding. Partly because I dont see many users making an effort to avoid this filter, and partly because not hiding it allows non-admins to patrol it too. Sam Walton (talk) 11:18, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Tweaks

@Samwalton9: These two edits were made without triggering the filter [13] [14] - could you have a look at it? -KH-1 (talk) 04:19, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

@KH-1: The filter looks for removal of the template and a link being added; the first was only removal of the template which I don't find to be particularly concerning. It's not helpful but it's not really worth tracking with the filter. As for the second edit, that didn't involve a dead link replacement and so is somewhat out of the scope of this filter. I'm actually not sure we could track that anyway. Sam Walton (talk) 12:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: I've seen a bit of {{who}}, {{citation needed}} and the like being replaced with spam recently -- [15][16][17][18]. Worse still, the last three diffs are the typical three edit spam seen in Special:Abusefilter/699 (but weren't caught). MER-C 13:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Hm. Might be worth tracking citation needed removals too in that case. Also, what's the obsession with dental articles? Sam Walton (talk) 13:57, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Just that particular bunch. I blocked another three three-edit spammers today, this time spamming a binoculars related website. MER-C 10:52, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: Would it be worthwhile to remove web.archive.org additions from the filter? Granted, they are only approx. 10% of the filter hits so far, but all of them are most likely valid good faith additions. Just a random thought, feel free to ignore :).GermanJoe (talk) 11:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

@GermanJoe: Good catch, I've added a line so that it avoids when the user adds a web.archive.org link. Sam Walton (talk) 11:18, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
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