Talk:Spam blacklist

Spam blacklist

The associated page is used by the MediaWiki Spam Blacklist extension, and lists regular expressions which cannot be used in URLs in any page in Wikimedia Foundation projects (as well as many external wikis). Any meta administrator can edit the spam blacklist; either manually or with SBHandler. For more information on what the spam blacklist is for, and the processes used here, please see Spam blacklist/About.

Proposed additions: Please provide evidence of spamming on several wikis and prior blacklisting on at least one. Spam that only affects a single project should go to that project's local blacklist. Exceptions include malicious domains and URL redirector/shortener services. Please follow this format. Please check back after submitting your report, there could be questions regarding your request.
Proposed removals: Please check our list of requests which repeatedly get declined. Typically, we do not remove domains from the spam blacklist in response to site-owners' requests. Instead, we de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their value in support of our projects. Please consider whether requesting whitelisting on a specific wiki for a specific use is more appropriate - that is very often the case.

Other discussion: Troubleshooting and problems - If there is an error in the blacklist (i.e. a regex error) which is causing problems, please raise the issue here.; Discussion - Meta-discussion concerning the operation of the blacklist and related pages, and communication among the spam blacklist team.; #wikimedia-external-links^connect - Real-time IRC chat for co-ordination of activities related to maintenance of the blacklist.; Whitelists
There is no global whitelist, so if you are seeking a whitelisting of a url at a wiki then please address such matters via use of the respective Mediawiki talk:Spam-whitelist page at that wiki, and you should consider the use of the template {{edit protected}} or its local equivalent to get attention to your edit.

Please sign your posts with ~~~~ after your comment. This leaves a signature and timestamp so conversations are easier to follow.

Completed requests are marked as {{added}}/{{removed}} or {{declined}}, and are generally archived quickly. Additions and removals are logged · current log 2020/01.

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Projects

Information: List of all projects; Overviews; Reports; Wikimedia Embassy; Project portals; Country portals
Tools: Spam blacklist; Title blacklist; Email blacklist; Closure of wikis; Interwiki map
Requests: Permissions; Bot flags; New languages; New projects; Username changes; Translations; Speedy deletions

[edit]

snippet for logging: {{sbl-log|19719819#{{subst:anchorencode:SectionNameHere}}}}

Proposed additionsEdit

This section is for proposing that a website be blacklisted; add new entries at the bottom of the section, using the basic URL so that there is no link (example.com, not http://www.example.com). Provide links demonstrating widespread spamming by multiple users on multiple wikis. Completed requests will be marked as {{added}} or {{declined}} and archived.

buatkaosmurahdemak.wordpress.com, linkedin.comEdit

Link/text requested to be blacklisted: buatkaosmurahdemak.wordpress.com
Link/text requested to be blacklisted: linkedin.com

Please see--Turkmen ^talk 20:22, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Turkmen: I think that we have zero chance of blacklisting linkedin, it will be widely added, there will be some authoritative matter there, so would need a clear example of problematic abuse, and a broad consensus of community, following consultation with the big wikis. The first mentioned domain we get COIBot to monitor, which may be more relevant as it has a low abuse rate, and may simply be more appropriate to locally block. Anyway, let us see what the reports show. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Turkmen: if there is significant abuse, we can however blacklist the specific LinkedIn pages (or facebooks, twitters, etc.). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 13:05, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Billinghurst and @Beetstra: Thank you for your comments. Billinghurst I think he's right about Linkedin.--Turkmen ^talk 17:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Turkmen: If you do wish to submit a problematic url, please utilise Template:BLRequestLink and remove the {{LinkSummary}} templates. That will allow us to progress. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:02, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I changed the template.--Turkmen ^talk 13:10, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed additions (Bot reported)Edit

This section is for domains which have been added to multiple wikis as observed by a bot.

These are automated reports, please check the records and the link thoroughly, it may report good links! For some more info, see Spam blacklist/Help#COIBot_reports. Reports will automatically be archived by the bot when they get stale (less than 5 links reported, which have not been edited in the last 7 days, and where the last editor is COIBot).

Sysops

If the report contains links to less than 5 wikis, then only add it when it is really spam
Otherwise just revert the link-additions, and close the report; closed reports will be reopened when spamming continues
To close a report, change the LinkStatus template to closed ({{LinkStatus|closed}})
Please place any notes in the discussion section below the HTML comment

COIBotEdit

The LinkWatchers report domains meeting the following criteria:

When a user mainly adds this link, and the link has not been used too much, and this user adds the link to more than 2 wikis
When a user mainly adds links on one server, and links on the server have not been used too much, and this user adds the links to more than 2 wikis
If ALL links are added by IPs, and the link is added to more than 1 wiki
If a small range of IPs have a preference for this link (but it may also have been added by other users), and the link is added to more than 1 wiki.

COIBot's currently open XWiki reports

List	Last update	By	Site IP	R	Last user	Last link addition	User	Link	User - Link	User - Link - Wikis	Link - Wikis
badoink.io	2020-01-19 06:22:50	COIBot	66.230.188.78	R	Kupulak	2070-01-01 05:00:00	2509	30	0	0	7
charitarthunagar.com	2020-01-19 04:12:44	COIBot	103.129.99.39		2405:205:C88C:E861:440D:7E99:CD57:70DA 123.201.170.176 123.201.219.147 150.107.232.213	2070-01-01 05:00:00		6			2
conmochilaporelmundo.com	2020-01-19 00:48:40	COIBot	54.37.122.168		2001:E68:6BDC:4D01:D0B3:D3A:FE36:4010 2001:E68:6CBD:2001:CD43:FF76:9CD0:C023 103.22.146.170 119.18.1.208 49.245.84.47	2070-01-01 05:00:00		23			2
otorider.com	2020-01-19 06:12:16	COIBot	104.18.56.64		114.5.217.128 116.206.12.58 139.0.161.109 139.194.75.94 139.195.12.22 180.244.228.70 36.77.90.103	2070-01-01 05:00:00		16			2

Proposed removalsEdit

This section is for proposing that a website be unlisted; please add new entries at the bottom of the section.

Remember to provide the specific domain blacklisted, links to the articles they are used in or useful to, and arguments in favour of unlisting. Completed requests will be marked as {{removed}} or {{declined}} and archived.

See also recurring requests for repeatedly proposed (and refused) removals.

Notes:

The addition or removal of a domain from the blacklist is not a vote; please do not bold the first words in statements.
This page is for the removal of domains from the global blacklist, not for removal of domains from the blacklists of individual wikis. For those requests please take your discussion to the pertinent wiki, where such requests would be made at Mediawiki talk:Spam-blacklist at that wiki. Search spamlists — remember to enter any relevant language code

bet365.comEdit

bet365.com

Website of a notable company with 15 sitelinks in Wikidata.[1] It was added to the blacklist in 2007; the log links to a diff to a page that has no spam blacklist log entries since the log started six years ago. Peter James (talk) 09:46, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

A pure betting website with zero encyclopedic information. The site has used referral link schemes in the past, see this spam diff (and probably still does). It has also made news for false advertising and other questionable business ethics (see en-Wiki article). ==> No possible value + high risk of misuse = I am strongly opposed to removing such a site from the blacklist. GermanJoe (talk) 14:56, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

So you think official websites shouldn't be linked in articles or in Wikidata? The "official website" template was once nominated for deletion ([2], and there was strong consensus to keep it. And if you think companies you dislike shouldn't have their sites linked, that's probably incompatible with NPOV. As for "high risk of misuse", all you can find is another edit by the same person at the same time as the diff I linked, twelve years ago (and on another article that hasn't had much spam - the log for that article only shows two attempts to add a Twitter link in 2017). Peter James (talk) 15:13, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

There are several options such as local whitelisting of an about page or simply adding the site information as raw unlinked text to show the official website in main articles on project level. GermanJoe (talk) 21:25, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

@Peter James and GermanJoe: Yes, WD SHOULD have the data. However, that will disturb all wikis that use the data from WD onto their pages (up to 800+ mediawiki wikis). As argued elsewhere on this page whitelisting/excluding the top domain (here) is, IMHO, a very bad idea. Whitelisting on WD is a bit less of a bad idea (as it enables linking on WD and hence would block any other wiki that uses WD, and enables the same technical possibility to evade the whole spam-blacklist completely). I do not see at this time any reasonable solution except for a technical change in the MediaWiki software through a high-priority phab ticket. Sorry. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 11:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

The solution is in the guidelines at the top of the spam blacklist and its talk page: "Only blacklist for widespread, unmanageable spam" (with the exceptions mentioned) and "we de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their value in support of our projects". Peter James (talk) 13:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it was blacklisted because it was widespread (several wikis), unmanageable spam (by several IPS and editors). This was used in affiliate spamming and no, spamming does not stop because it is years ago. This is only in support to one page on every wiki, which each wiki should decide on their own by local whitelisting. Allowing this link in through de-listing allows back the affiliate spamming which is not in support for our projects.

As for having it on WikiData (where it indeed belongs): that needs a separate solution as explained in the threads below. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 14:04, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Then a regex for affiliate URLs (if they still exist) can be blacklisted; it looks like there is something similar for Amazon. Peter James (talk) 14:33, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Sigh. I am giving up. There is a plethora of problems with excluding the main domain from blacklisting, and as the logs show there are cases where the domain itself was questionably used as well, and when allowed it allows back for malicious use (not explained per en:WP:BEANS, though the techniques were already abused and they can also now already be abused with another layer of difficulty - and those things will be abused as it put money directly in the pocket of the abuser - and yes, the affiliate program still exists). That stands in contrast with that this link is only useful for 1 page on maybe 200-300 wikis (by your admission, only 15 ..), not thousands of pages per wiki (like Amazon). That is exactly what local whitelisting is for. I am sorry, this is not convincing me of possible widespread use worthy of delisting, being a betting site with affiliate program there is reason to expect further abuse. If many local Wikis think it is of sufficient general use (as Billinghurst indicates below) we may change our minds (also because that will help to show that the risk is actually relatively small). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 05:30, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment generally the process that the wikis look to for high risk sites is for a local whitelisting of respective /about pages, so that those urls can be added as required, though limits the possibility of abuse. The subject matter is covered in the below discussion about vid.me. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:27, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

There's no evidence that it is a high risk site, only that one person, probably not involved with the company, added spam links twelve years ago. For one or two sites local whitelisting may be reasonable, but there are 15, and also Wikidata where it isn't possible to add unlinked text as an official website. Peter James (talk) 23:18, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not certain that you can say it is or it isn't a high risk site without someone scanning the whole of spamblacklist logs, rather than just for a specific article. Our recommended process for removing sites from the blacklist is to suggest that whitelisting at a wiki first and see how it progresses. Ask at w:mediawiki talk:spam-whitelist and see how you go. [Noting that this is a consensus-based discussion forum, so you can point to this discussion at any whitelist conversation to see if that community has an opinion of the blacklisting anyway.] — billinghurst sDrewth 11:33, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

dailybuff.ruEdit

dailybuff.ru

Hello, many users of the site dailybuff, who participate in discussions and in improving wikipedia, noticed that the site is in the black list. Is it possible to remove it from this list? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 185.64.229.45 (talk)

Not without "links to the articles they are used in or useful to, and arguments in favour of unlisting", and, ideally, from a high-volume user wanting to use that link in an article. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 18:42, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

What exactly do you need to provide? Look for people who noticed that the site is blacklisted, I can not. I do not leave links in Wikipedia. I know that the site has a lot of gaming news that diverge in Google News, Yandex News, Rambler News and which can be published by someone in Wikipedia as a source.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 185.64.229.45 (talk)

Why would we want to have this domain being added to the Wikipedias? Is the site authoritative? Is the site a reliable source? Does the removal meet any of the guidance provided at the top of the page about why we would remove? That not one editor adding the site appears to be a registered user does not lend credence that it is a required credible source. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:30, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Because someone abused them on purpose, at least because it should be removed from the spam sheet. And a non-authoritative resource would not go to Google News.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 185.64.229.45 (talk)

Someone abused them on purpose .. that is the reason it is blacklisted. That other sites are using them is fine, here apparently there are no requests from established editors that the site is of use to them. All we do here is stop abuse of the site. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 06:43, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Can you remove a site from the spam list?

appen.comEdit

appen.com

Hello! I don't know the reason "Appen.com" is in the blacklist. But I was translating the English article into Spanish, and I can't submit the article translations because it contains website name that is in the blacklist. How could we fix this? Regards! --Ryo567 (talk) 00:51, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Jon Kolbert: One of yours and no corresponding discussion. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:07, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Troubleshooting and problemsEdit

This section is for comments related to problems with the blacklist (such as incorrect syntax or entries not being blocked), or problems saving a page because of a blacklisted link. This is not the section to request that an entry be unlisted (see Proposed removals above).

d:Q78682705Edit

vid.me

Because of the \bvid\.me\b entry, this site can't be the P856 (official website) value of this Wikidata item. How to resolve this? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:59, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Also, if in the future there are also many items that are about websites listed in this page, then it's expected that normal users can't add P856 values normally, so can we request such additions by posting this page or not? Or should Wikidata be exempted from global spam blacklist application? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:06, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Bit dot ly, TinyURL are likely. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:10, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

WD is always welcome to utilise their local whitelist to exempt any domain that it chooses, though my understanding is that it isn't that simple, as the further usage at the WPs is not possible due to the blacklisting. There has been that discussion here—which will be in the archives—where Beetstra has propounded on this and I will let Beetstra better express his points rather than do my poor man reproduction.

If you believe that the policy of blacklisting url shorteners is incorrect, then worthwhile raising that matter through a well-structured RFC, as the policy pre-exists WD, and identifying all the aspects of the matter from its collection to its use, and how you expect to deal with spam or abusable urls. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:39, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

@Billinghurst and Liuxinyu970226: Be VERY careful with this. IF you whitelist, say, \btinyurl\.com\b then that allows for not only the domain link as official homepage on the WikiData item for Tinyurl, but also for a lot of tinyurls everywhere throughout wikidata (there is no reason why the globally blacklisted 'myspammycompany.com' for the wikidata item for MySpammyCompany then cannot have a tinyurl redirect to myspammycompany.com). That gives a plethora of problems down the line: 'tinyurl.com' will be transcluded through external links templates, so a page on en.wikipedia suddenly has a link to tinyurl.com. Since it is not whitelisted on the local wiki, it will hence result in a spam filter block on that local wiki on the next edit. It also results in a spam block for anyone who wants to add that transcluded domain through one of the templates upon adding (in other words, they cannot add that through WD transclusion). If tinyurl.com is blanket whitelisted and starts appearing also on other items on wikidata, it may also result in spam blocks on edits on other pages. Please, do NOT do this. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 06:08, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: .. this is not only for url shorteners .. it goes for anything that is blacklisted. Redtube.com will have the same problem, whitelist that and you can just wait for tech-savvy high school vandals to add that as their school's official homepage on wikidata and have it transcluded on hundreds of Wikis at once. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 06:10, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Sure, I know that. It isn't my job to explain folly to them. I was presuming that they were going to whitelist, add the url, the remove, as they would normally only asking for official webpage.

The bigger story is about the impact and consequences of having added links at WD, and then trying to utilise them at other WMF wikis when they are still blacklisted globally, or locally, and the consequences in editing. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:54, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, I had to explain it to them quite some time ago once, when they whitelisted something on WD and someone on en.w came complaining they couldn't edit. What en.w locally does is to whitelist the /about page - that is generally a neutral landing page and not the top page (which is often the reason something got blacklisted - pornhub.com is blacklisted because students tend to replace their school website with it), and it is more difficult to 'abuse' (whitelisting tinyurl.com's homepage also allows tinyurl's redirects). But in any case, whether pornhub.com/about or pornhub.com is locally whitelisted on WD, it will impact editing on all wikis that try to transclude the globally blacklisted page, as pages cannot be edited.

What COULD be considered is that our blacklist rule is exempting a neutral landing page (a /about) on each site that we blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 10:57, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

In Wikipedia they could still be added without linking to the URL. Probably better to use edit filters to block edits such as that, which are vandalism rather than spam. Peter James (talk) 09:59, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

@Peter James: What could still be added in Wikipedia? If WD has whitelisted 'http://example.com', then how can Wikipedia use that without linking to it? They would have to <nowiki> for each of the wiki? And no, these are not vandalism, you want to link to the official website of a subject, exactly the data that WikiData has. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 12:00, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Just to give an example: try to add {{official website}} to en:Cloud mining. You cannot, that will use the data from WD, and that link is globally blacklisted and hence you cannot save the en.wikipedia page. Alternatively, remove the link on WD, edit the page on en.wikipedia (now you can), rollback your edit on WD, and try to do a totally unrelated edit on en.wikipedia on that page. Again, you cannot as then your subsequent edit on en.wikipedia will be recorded as 'adding' the link it uses from WD (which you did not add in that edit) and that is dissalowed. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 12:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

There are already blacklists for specific types of URLs without blocking the entire Google and Amazon websites - could something similar be done here for URLs such as tinyurl.com, possibly using a regex for one or more characters after the domain name? Peter James (talk) 09:59, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Also the spam blacklist doesn't prevent addition of blacklisted links, it only restricts editing of pages that contain them, so for example I couldn't undo this edit. Peter James (talk) 10:36, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I beg to differ, I think that you have that back to front. An undo from no links to links is the addition of links. It is looking for "added_links". — billinghurst sDrewth 11:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I just ask if how the P856 values can be added for items, where topics are websites that listed in this blacklist, if the answers are "no" or "not easy", then I will ask Wikidata community to consider technically excluding application of global spam blacklist, and only use local blacklist to anti-abuse. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 07:14, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226: That will have disastrous effects on all wikis that use that data. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 07:40, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Liuxinyu970226, there are currently existing external links on wikidata that are now blacklisted here on-wiki (these links were spammed to WD before they were blacklisted). There are now on all hundreds of wikis a page where you cannot add the official website by transclusion from WD (like e.g. en:template:Official website does when called without parameters). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 07:51, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226: It was a pretty naive question, and you were given a fulsome answer to try and cover the range of reasons that you may have been asking. I would think that this is a bigger question than just WD where the urls are used outside of WD. I would think that it may be something that all of the WMF community may have an interest in rather than just the technocrats/puritans at WD. As Beetstra said these were blacklisted as they were abused, not because they had the potential to be abused. If you take it to WD, I look forward to your holistic discussion, not something narrowly focused upon that the spam blacklist stops them being added. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:15, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: see d:Wikidata:Administrators'_noticeboard#Local_spam_filter. From a WD perspective this all makes sense (though they would also get the real crap), but WD is however used by the majority (if not all) other wikis. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 09:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

To me, for these items the best option is still to exclude here on meta a neutral landing page. That solves a lot of problems throughout: it enables the WD item to have a representative link in their item that does not result in any problems on other Wikimedia projects (or when local projects want to use that link). That does still protect WD against edits like this and [ this] (can someone tell me why a municipality in Germany needs a link to pornhub.com?). All other options are of a technological level that needs significant changes in the structure of the software that Wikipedia is running on. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 09:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I think we should only permit that for URLs specifically on request, lest the spammers refashion their /about page for promotion. Vermont (talk) 11:11, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment global whitelist. It seems to me that there is now the need for global whitelist page. We know that there are dangerous domain names, though for famous sites. Asking for every wikipedia to locally whitelist is now unreasonable, especially in light of WD, and its methodologies. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
- What about negative lookahead? See encyclopediadramatica\.(?:com(?!/Main_Page)|net|org|se) entry, encyclopediadramatica.com/Main_Page should work correctly, unlike the rest of the variants. \bgoo\.gl\b(?!/maps\b).* is similar variation. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 22:35, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
  - Yes, though I think that it is a little harder to manage and simple pastes of an acceptable url just easier and more overt. We should only ever need the one, and on request. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
    - @Martin Urbanec: ED is a particularly bad example, where the /about was whitelisted on en.wikipedia as the official website, only to see the abuse that landed this wiki on the blacklist to extend to the only whitelisted page. Front pages are often not a good idea anyway, for ED that could be showing the content that we want to exclude, for others it is just the website that is being abused. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 12:55, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
      - It isn't being used as an example of when exceptions to the blacklist should be allowed, it's an example of what is possible with the blacklist - something similar could be used for sites such as tinyurl.com. Peter James (talk) 13:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
        @Peter James: It is my understanding that having a bare domain name is exploitable as people can build on it, or try ot manipulate it. Over the times we have seen all sorts of games from LTAs, determined vandals, spammers and spambot developers. If there is the means to whitelist to a safe landing url that is not exploitable, then I am all for it. If you are asking for simple stem urls even with negative lookahead then I think that is going to be problematic. We need something with resilience to abuse. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:44, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
        It is not possible for any URL that matches the blacklist to be added directly unless it is whitelisted, so it's only exploitable in the same way that blacklisting an entire site is - the difference is in the inconvenience when adding a link that clearly should be added, or editing a page in which that link exists. Peter James (talk) 13:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

WD and blacklisted linksEdit

There are now several threads on this page regarding the removal/whitelisting of links that are needed on WD. Time to write out things in a more general way so we can then discuss.

First: YES, I fully agree that any subject on WD should have a link to their official website, regardless of whether it is blacklisted. The problem is that it will result in many technical problems as we are talking here about the global blacklist. This blacklist is used by 800+ WikiMedia wikis and thousands of non-WikiMedia wikis. I do not know whether outside of the 800+ WikiMedia wikis any other wikis use WD for data, so I will keep it to 800+ possible cases of 'disruption' per allowed WikiData item (noting that some property calls do display WD data of one item on multiple pages on one wikipedia).

whitelisting the item on WD enables WD to save the item. However, any item that uses the WD item (e.g. if facebook.com was blacklisted on meta and one would whitelist en:Donald Trump's facebook on WD and add it to his properties you might disrupt editing of that one page on 207 wikis (if all of them use the WD data); for en:Pornhub (which is globally blacklisted) it could disrupt editing of that one page on the 47 wikis that currently connect to the item; for some subjects it may be several hundreds of wikis). All wikis that use the WD data will have to individually whitelist the same link, which allows that link then to be used on any page on that Wiki, and hence negates the global blacklisting (for PornHub that was the problem, as it is for many spam top domains). (for those with the incentive (which spammers have: it pays their bills) and the technical know-how: this can be (and has been/is) abused to link to any link anywhere on any wiki that followed the WD suit of whitelisting).
excluding the top domain here allows both WD and any local wiki to save the data, and it would not disrupt any of the other wikis. However that allows all wikis to use that link everywhere. Again, that negates the reason for blacklisting the top domain (for those with the incentive (which spammers have: it pays their bills) and the technical know-how: this can be (and has been/is) abused to link to any link to that domain anywhere on any wiki).
whitelisting or excluding a neutral landing page (/about page e.g.) does give a reasonable way to stop random abuse (the random school kid will not add pornhub's /about as it is a) not as fun, and b) less obvious). The local whitelisting on WD needs also whitelisting everywhere else, a problem that is not reflected with the global exclusion of /about (but that requires a large adaptation to the meta spam-blacklist). Of course, linking to the /about is 'not correct' for WD (it is not the homepage), while that is less problematic for the other wikis (it is a representative page of the company; it is the standard practice on en.wikipedia).
Exluding WD from using the global spam-blacklist (or override the global spam-blacklist by a blanket whitelist) would enable WD to do whatever they want, it would however result in the same disruption as described in 1 and 2. Moreover, WD would also get all the spam they do not want except if they then .. blacklist everything that is spammed locally (and yes, some spammers start at WD nowadays, as you might spam multiple wikis with one edit).

These methods are all available, but for all the possible wikis and possible pages that would likely disable editing on hundreds to thousands of pages per wiki, and disallowing using WD data on all those who do not use it yet (but for the latter, they can't add it locally at the moment either).

I can imagine a solution where data on WD can be set correctly, but be blocked from being used by client wikis. That would however need a separate flag to be defined for each WD item, which needs a phabricator ticket and implementation. But I am open to other solutions, as this does need a proper solution. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 12:03, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for summarizing this issue.

A minor note: option (1) is not as disruptive as it may seem, as it is possible to edit a page which actually imports blacklisted URLs from Wikidata. Still, whitelisting on WD is indeed far from being a satisfactory solution.

A technical solution has come into my mind. It does not require a new flag for each item, but still requires much work to implement. The idea is that every WD item has its own whitelist which is editable only by sysops (similarly to editnotices) and affects only that WD item and the pages on other wikis which are associated with that item. --colt_browning (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@Beetstra and Colt browning: Another possible way is to ask Sysadmins e.g. @Reedy (WMF): to request running SQL command *ALTER TABLE* to force adding of a P856-related field, force setting the value(s), and Lock=EXCLUSIVE(?) edit action of that field, but this means that after adding it, we have to see this malpractice everyday: there's a P856 value on an item, which can't edit normally, we can't add further P856 values, nor add qualifiers for it, and nor remove it (or doesn't even have edit button, xor always have a grey edit button that can't click?). --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 04:43, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@Colt browning: I don’t think it works. For en.wikipedia the next edit will try to put the link in the db for that page which is disallowed due to the blacklist. I’ll try to test that.

@Liuxinyu970226: that still gives the problem as described for any wiki that uses it, you are basically doing option 1 in a different way. —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 11:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

DiscussionEdit

This section is for discussion of Spam blacklist issues among other users.

omnislots.comEdit

omnislots.com

Hi, can I please have some more information regarding the reason that this domain has been blacklisted? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:COIBot/XWiki/omnislots.com --Jeditom (talk) 13:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I hope billinghurst I have done it at the correct section.

Are we able to ask why your interest, and where you have tried to add it, and the circumstances of the addition. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:43, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I know that honesty is appreciated, so I can mention that I was requested by this brand (which is 100% legitimate and with official game licence) to investigate the matter of the blacklist.As far as I know, the company tried to create the company's page with some basic business profile info and for some reason the article was removed and the domain ended up in the blacklist. So, can someone please explain what was the wrongdoing, as all references and sources used were from official websites? --Jeditom (talk) 14:01, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Jeditom: The domain was link spammed outside of the criteria for link addition of external sites, a reasonable read would be w:WP:EL, and it is not generally a site that we would be using as a reliable source. We get hammered with gambling, betting and slots site spam, and simply have a very low tolerance for it. I have left some links about paid editing on your user talk and would encourage you to use Wikipedia:Teahouse as the open place to get guidance about information about notability and editing. If the notability threshold is met, they will assist you with getting a short term whitelisting of an /about/ type url to add. — billinghurst sDrewth

billinghurst thank you for the feedback. Believe me the brand -and the company behind it- are legit and there is no problem for them to check if any 3rd party validations are needed. Their domain is clean from spam, has no ads (not even participating in Google ads) and it has all the proper Casino licences. As a reminder, that wiki page was created just for branding. Not for affiliates, not for ads or promotions. I would like also to ask you why the paid editing should be an option for this brand? They don't plan to do any paid advertising, as they are not after doing any promotion. Can you please provide a clear guidance of which links were creating the problem (as I am sure that the content writer used only official sources) and what other actions should the company take, in order to prepare better their content? Also, just as a suggestion, can it be that you have flagged wrongly some links as spammy? In that case, I would be glad to research and give you my feedback for the links that you believe are responsible for the blacklisting. In any case, I am available to perform any checks that are required.

This is nothing about legitimacy, this is not about punishment, this is a technical restriction and control where links have been abused, and have potential for further abuse. For how to get a link added to an English Wikipedia, you will need to discuss that process at English Wikipedia. Links were provided and requirements explained as previously stated. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

billinghurst Yet you provide no actual reasoning behind the blacklisting or what exactly was the mistake/problem. If this is not about a punishment, then I don't really know about what it is.And what you are saying is that you are acting like a domain is guilty in advance, just because you may feel like it could be guilty in the future.--Jeditom (talk) 14:12, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment, as I have provided reasoning and explanation. I have provided you with means to move forward. There are links provided on this page (Spam blacklist/About), and I have provided links to assist you to understand, and to comply. I will not provide commentary about your attempted additions, or your lack of compliance with terms and condition at English Wikipedia, that is an enWP discussion, though it guides my actions and response to you.

There is a community that is here watching this page and willing to make comment about the actions of anyone who makes additions and removals to the list. Their commentary will guide me on your request. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:10, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I can see no real proof of the "link spammed" claim or any other indication of what could be wrong with the posting of that page. No specific examples from that page are used to show what is or could be wrong, even if it has been requested repeatedly. Therefore everything in this discussion is just theoretical with no evidence of any wrong doing. How can I request the whitelisting of that page and the review of the content from another 3rd party? --Jeditom (talk) 11:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Jeditom: Thank you for your unbiased opinion. Not. All available information that you wish to have has been supplied or is available by those links.

I am again directing you to the terms of use and now instructing you to comply with these to be able to edit at this site. Please also note the FAQs linked from that page, and also note the results of failing to comply with the terms. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:39, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

up.toEdit

up.to

This entry was added in 2007 (Special:Diff/598596) and the corresponding discussion is at Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007-05#way.to, up.to. Since jawiki has a request to whitelist bob-up.tokyo (probably because this blacklist entry does not have a \b at the end), just wonder if it is feasible to add it?

Side note: bob-up.tokyo is the official site of a Japanese idol girl group so it appears legitimate - the only question is whether it should be unblocked through whitelisting or through a change on the blacklist entry.--ネイ (talk) 13:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@ネイ: It definitely needs to be a tighter rule. Done Thanks for the note. I even wonder whether it should be tighter still, though it will suffice for the moment. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)