Looks like there's some sort of spyware which inserts links to www.ntsearch.com when an infected user edits any page. Should be blacklisted not only to prevent the damage, but also to prevent false accusations of spamming towards the infected users.

Some sample diffs (you can find a lot more using a google search for "ntsearch.com site:wikipedia.org"):

• [1] on enwiki
• [2] on enwiki
• [3] on frwiki

--cesarb 18:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Added after request on IRC [4]. --cesarb 17:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Link added by spyware. Should be blacklisted to avoid accusations of spamming towards users infected with the spyware.

• [5]
• [6]
• [7]

--cesarb 15:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Added --Cspurrier 15:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Last months have seen repeated attempts at adding various links to hundreds of articles related to Nigeria. The links are virtually content-less and overly commercial. Keeping them out has proved a timewasting experience for quite a few editors over at the English Wikipedia. It concerns the following domains (sometimes the links are to subpages of these, all morasses full of commercial links):

• nigeria.tz4.com
• nigeriaplanet.proboards43.com/
• nigeriaplanet.tk

See also the section #muturzikin / nigeria.tz4 below. Thanks for fixing this! — mark ✎ 19:47, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Added by Raul654. — mark ✎ 08:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

guitar-poll.com has hundreds, maybe thousands of links across many languages that link to their main page.

added - Amgine / ^{talk meta} 22:32, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• http:///republika.pl [8] Naconkantari e|t||c|m 21:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

added - Amgine / ^{talk meta} 22:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• xrl.us.-Gadfium 08:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• tny.se - confirmed it was a "Last Measure" site using wget. --Peruvianllama 10:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
• compactURL.com, also a LM website. --Peruvianllama 07:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Over the past two months I've been repeatedly reverting spam from someone who hits one to three times a day, almost always from a different IP address. In February, these have included:

68.8.45.66, 68.227.179.70, 69.70.248.117, 81.184.104.122, and 207.216.193.165. For January and December, there are probably 40 or more different (additional) IP addresses.

Here are some page diffs: [9] [10] [11] [12]

Request the following URLs be blocked (these are the ones that are being repeatedly posted):

• pills-pharmacy.us
• cheap-airline-tickets.be
• airline-tickets.kwik.to
• cheap-phendimetrazine.assexy.as
• cheap-tramadol.bestdeals.at
• cheap-valtrex.rr.nu
• cheap-triphasil.passingg.as
• cheap-valtrex.ontheweb.nu

Thanks! John Broughton 6 February 2006

Continues plaguing articles about cities, regions and even Russia itself on Russian Wikipedia: [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21] & so on. Active for over 2 months. Please blacklist 'em. MaxSem 22:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

spam for a hotel reservation system, is placed by this IP in different german articles. TheRunnerUp from de.

The owner of this site repeatedly spams it to several electronics-related articles. Has been asked several times to stop, has had an IP blocked at least once because of it, refuses to discuss its inclusion, and continually comes back with anonymous IP addresses to add it. It was suggested to me in IRC that I request the domain be added to the blacklist.

A few instances of his IPs that exclusively spam the URL: [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27].

His only known named account; also used exclusively for spam: Refikh

Refikh being warned: [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]

... and blocked: [34]

Refikh's only given explanation for his actions: [35]

His entries on en:WP:VIP: [36], [37], [38]

As you can see, Refikh clearly persists in his actions without recourse or explanation. I believe blocking inclusion of his domain (which has very little relevant information in the first place) is the best solution to this particular linkspam problem. Thanks for your consideration. -- uberpenguin 01:53, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

A "free newspaper" (cross between a forum and a blog provider) which is used by hu:User:IGe (a troll permanently banned from huwiki) as a ranting space. He is spamming several :hu articles and user pages with links to his writings. A few examples: [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46]

He is using swarms of sockpuppets and various ISP-s, so blocking has little effect. Please blacklist magyarvirtus.hu until he cools off (a month should probably suffice). It is not a popular site, and no article linked to it at the time of the last dump, so including it should have no side effects. Thanks. --Tgr 19:33, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

• Seconded. (Would be a nominee of a local blacklist, if there was one...) --grin ✎ 18:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• [47]
• [48]

--217.224.118.115 08:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Spam at en.wikibooks [49] --Derbeth 10:11, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Seems to be one person continually adding links to their website in turkish related articles eg [50] [51]. Often creates orphan talk pages just for inserting link spam[52]. Coming from multiple IP addresses ([53] has current list). Vandalising multi wikis e.g tr: [54], with reports is doing the same to az MartinRe 08:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

And this is the link to az:wiki spam [55].--Ugur Basak 08:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Spamming links on multiple butterfly-related articles were made on the Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese Wikipedia (and maybe even more languages). Robotje 12:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

See contributions: [56]

• http://www.xlsite.com/md/
• http:// *.itis.in
• http://pharmacyvip.com/ -> Target of redirections

Platonides 16:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Spamming links to a page promoting an unrecognized, artificial language of his own making. Example: [57] [58] He creates some articles about the language, and are speedied for almost 15 times. Sylphie 11:39, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

For over a year, operators of several ad-supported tourism sites relating to en:Put-in-bay, Ohio have been spamming and edit warring with each other on en. This occurs in several articles about the region. I have tried semi-protection three times over the past month, but the spammers immediately come back after the article is unprotected. They use AOL and Level3 dialups, so blocks are ineffective.

Examples:

en:Put-in-Bay, Ohio: [59] [60] [61] [62] [63]

en:South Bass Island: [64] [65] [66] [67]

en:Port Clinton, Ohio: [68] [69] [70]

I am requesting that these sites be blacklisted:

• putinbay.com
• pibinfo.com
• putinbayphotos.com
• put-in-bayonline.com

www.put-in-bay.com probably does not need blacklisting since it is the Chamber of Commerce, and it is semi-official. Thanks. Rhobite 01:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Spam at en.wikibooks [71] --Derbeth 21:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

To be completely transparent, I am an administrator on OmniNerd.com. I am also an avid Wikipedia editor. At one point in time, those two things collided, resulting in an ugly issue. However, since that time, the issue has been resolved. I have and will continue to refrain from adding any links to the site to maintain NPOV. I also have demonstrated my interest in the Wikipedia project (see my contributions or user page). Having established those two things, if I see an article published on OmniNerd that I feel would make a good addition to a WP article, I have the situation reviewed by an impartical administrator interested in that article and allow them to add the link. No OmniNerd links are added as, nor can be contrued to be, spam. I respectfully request that the site be removed from the blacklist.

Here are the requested items:

• Site blacklisted: www.omninerd.com
• Article attempting to edit: iTunes on Wikipedia

70.120.210.190 06:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC) (Wikipedia:User:Uriah923)

Also, per the policy listed on the blacklist page, a site should not be included if it can be "dealt with by user blocking or protection of a small number of pages." This spam issue was handled in exactly that manner. Specifically, I was forbidden to add any links to the site and had to prove that I was interested in the WP project. Once that was established (see Wikipedia:Special:Contributions/Uriah923), I was allowed to suggest links to impartial admins and have them add them if found worthy. One such instance of this is shown on Wikipedia:Talk:Conventional_warfare, where my mentoring admin (Wikipedia:User:Taxman) observed and OKed the process. Since the spam issue has been handled, per the blacklist page policy, it should not be added to the list. I respectfully request that you review the situation and take quick action on my request for removal. 70.120.210.190 02:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC) (Wikipedia:User:Uriah923)

I'll pull it (I'm the one that added it) until I hear of a further need for it to be on the list. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 06:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The site provides short-URL aliases to long URLs. It has never caused any problem that I know of. The page I now can't edit is my own User Talk page, User_talk:Bill_Thayer. . . ! 24.148.19.254 12:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

See below. -- Smjg 13:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

This site was previously blacklisted and subsequently whitelisted here. As I mentioned at that time, I believe the blacklisting to be against Blacklist Policy. The Wikipedia admin who requested the blacklisting (Wikipedia:User:Dmcdevit) was involved in a very long argument with me concerning links to OmniNerd a few months ago. At that time, I had been adding links from Wikipedia articles to relevant and informative articles published on OmniNerd.com. I was told to stop and an argument ensued (see Wikipedia:User:Uriah923/OmniNerd). Since that time, Wikipedia policy has been modified to specifically state that a person affiliated with a site should not add links to it in order to maintain NPOV. I have complied with this request and will continue to do so. I also have demonstrated my interest in the Wikipedia project (see Wikipedia:Special:Contributions/Uriah923).

My only actions since that time with respect to OmniNerd articles on Wikipedia has been to suggest a potential link which can be reviewed and added by an interested, impartial administrator. I have found no WP policy against such action.

It is my opinion that Taxman and Dmcdevit are acting because of a grudge they hold against me, and not because of any spamming actions that have taken place. A simple review of how each added link was reviewed and added by an impartial third party will reveal that. Some examples of such interactions follow:

• Wikipedia:Talk:ITunes#Blacklist issues
• [72] - Diff on Wikipedia:Hybrid vehicle
• Wikipedia:Talk:Battle_of_Poitiers_(1356)
• Wikipedia:Talk:Conventional_warfare#Alleged_linkspam

Here are the requested items:

• Site blacklisted: www.omninerd.com
• Article attempting to edit: Wikipedia:Talk:Battle_of_Poitiers_(1356)

I respectfully request that you review the situation and take quick action on my request for removal. 204.126.127.253 00:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC) (Wikipedia:User:Uriah923)

This is a completely bizarre assumption of bad faith. I don't hold a grudge, in fact, I have never had anything to do with Uriah outside dealing with the spam. And the fact that I have dealt with it doesn't make me partial, any more than a vandal fighter becomes partial once they've blocked a vandal. This user, an administrator of the unnotable site in question, has a long history of adding this spam. There was an RFC on the issue (the one linked at the listing) and consensus was reached that the site doesn't belong on Wikipedia at all, and Uriah is either merely attempting search engine optimization or vastly overestimates the value of his website to us. In either case, there are quite a few en administrators who have weighed in and determined this is spam; despite which, Uriah has continued to violate the consensus in the matter. The listing here is useful and there is no reason for it to be removed (as not only are the links spam, there is demonstrated consensus that they don't belong). Dmcdevit 03:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

First, calling the site spam does not make it so. Would you mind presenting proof what it is, exactly, that you consider spam on the articles linked to on omninerd.com? Second, I have not violated any so-called consensus. Would you mind presenting proof what I did to break any rules after being made aware of them? Third, blacklist policy specifically states it is only for problems that cannot be dealt with using the normal methods of blocking. If I am running some sort of spam campaign, or have done anything but be upfront and follow WP rules, then simply provide proof and take action against me.

Any cursory investigation of the site with show it to be very much not spam. Any cursory investigation of my activities on Wikipedia will show obvious and plain attempts to contribute by the rules. Any cursory investigation into the purpose of a blacklist will show that it is not the place for entire domains of healthy content to be banned simply because an admin doesn't like an editor because of a past altercation. 70.120.210.190 07:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC) (Wikipedia:User:Uriah923)

Well lets see, the relevant consensus was here including the direct quote: "there is a clear consensus that links to ON should not be in Wikipedia articles unless added by a longstanding contributor, and not prompted by Uriah." That was backed up by your assent on your talk page to "It's been decided to not link to the site, or anything in the site's domain from our articles." You violated that numerous times including here asking people to review your link after there was a specific consensus on that talk page not to include the link. So lets keep the blacklist so we don't have to waste any more time on the issue. - Taxman 17:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

First and foremost, Taxman only attempted to provide proof for one of the issues I brought up, that of me breaking consensus. I'm sure everyone agrees this is not the place to discuss that. Also, Taxman quoting himself is an inaccurate and misleading way to summarize the happenings on the so-called "consensus" page. Those interested, please read it (all of it) and see for yourselves. Try to identify anywhere on that page a reason why omninerd.com should be blacklisted. In fact, even more appropriate would be to visit omninerd.com and try to find any reason it should be blacklisted.

Some other important things Taxman failed to mention:

1. That page is outdated. It dealt with an old problem (me adding a lot of links to a site with which I am affiliated almost six months ago) - a problem that has not been repeated.
2. He overestimated the duration. The issue was for me and the site with which I am affiliated to be put on probation as punishment. The resumption of full privilege should be contingent on me demonstrating my priorities, which I've done by contributing much content to WP and following policy. There is no reason for the restrictions to remain.
3. It's obvious his issue is with my actions, not with the content on the site. As such, punishing the site is not fair to its owner (not me). If I've broken rules (and I don't think I have), then the action should be taken against me, not a site that I like. If I was high up the chain on kuro5hin.org and started adding links to WP all over the place and refused to stop, would it make sense to blacklist kuro5hin? Of course not. (To continue the analogy, if I ceased adding kuro5hin links and made solid contributions to WP for six months and then a third party reviewed, accepted and posted a link to kuro5hin, should the site then be blacklisted? Again, of course not. Unless the opinion of a couple of admins that kuro5hin articles aren't worth linking to in a WP article qualifies a page for a blacklisting. If that is the case, your list is way too short...)

To those making the decision: Please look at the present state of affairs and don't let the old issue taint the decision. The past has been dealt with and for the last five/six months, all WP rules have been followed. The content on the domain in question speaks for itself, and that is what should be considered in this case, not the conflicts between me and Taxman. 204.126.127.253 18:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC) (w:User:Uriah923)

That is your assertion that the consensus lasted for only a little while, one not backed up by the rest of the people involved in the consensus. And of course that assertion is self serving for you. The bigger point is that we don't want Wikipedia used for advertising, and that won't change ever. The present state of affairs is that you are again wasting people's time trying to promote your site. The easiest way to deal with that is to blacklist the site. We ideally don't care to block you because your other contributions are fine, but that doesn't give you free license to violate consensus and act in a manner not conducive to the best interests of the project. Though if you continue, blocking you once again is an option. We want this specific behavior to stop. So again, this is the easiest way to end the problem with the least wasted time. That to me amounts to the best solution. And again, if promoting ON wasn't your primary goal, you would have dropped this long ago. - Taxman 19:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything Taxman presented here that I haven't already addressed above. My interest is fairness, consistency, and my rights as a WP editor. I leave this in the hands of those responsible for whitelisting and hope that they will be able to dig through the mess, as I think the issue is actually quite clear at the core. uriah923 19:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course, there's additional support for the site staying on the blacklist here, here, and as part of the arbitration case you filed, here, and here. - Taxman 04:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Good thing Wikipedia isn't a democracy. I re-emphasize my point that no matter how much Taxman and others don't like my actions, the blacklisting still goes against policy. In fact, Taxman's "support" is telling: The problem everyone has is with me, not with the content of the site.

Think of it this way: The problem here is some combination of A) my actions and B) OmniNerd's content. If the issue is A, then I should be blocked. If the issue is B, then all other sites with similar/lesser content should be blacklisted. You may say that other sites don't have someone adding links to them, but if that is the determining factor, we are back to A being the problem.

Another thought exercise: Would OmniNerd be on the blacklist if five different unconnected and well-established editors added links to it of their own volition? Would anyone even have noticed? Of course not; no one happening upon the site or a link to an article thereon would think, "This site needs to be blacklisted." If they disagreed with the use of the link, they would just remove it. In fact, experience shows that editors and admins who are not aware of any of my actions or history almost never have a problem with the OmniNerd content:

• On the iTunes article, Mushroom reviewed and accepted two references to OmniNerd articles here and here. Of course, Taxman removed them and told Mushroom to read up on the history of the situation. Why? Because without knowledge of my actions, there is no reason Mushroom should have a problem with the link; the content by itself is not a problem.
• On the Booting article, DavidCary reviewed the link and moved it to the page from the Bootstrapping article. Taxman came along and removed it, citing an SEO campaign. Of course, since DavidCary didn't know about any of my actions, he thought the link to be a great inclusions for the article. Once again, it is only bad in the context of my actions. Even more noteworthy is the fact that a this exact article (in a less-refined form published on a different and less-reputable website) was added to the Bootstrapping article by its author back in August. After the author had his work upgraded and published on OmniNerd, the URL was updated. Is the old article of higher quality? No. Is the old site more reputable? No. What's the difference, then? Uriah923. Again, the site content clearly passes established standards of quality; it's only my actions that have caused the problem.
• On the Battle of Poitiers Talk Page, two separate editors reviewed the content and found it to be worthy of inclusion. In fact, their exact words were "... a superb external link. It is well-balanced, well-argued, and well-sourced. No arguments." Again, they didn't know of my actions and they judged the content alone; more proof that the content is not the issue, just me.
• On the Conventional warfare article, Gracefool reviewed the link and read the history of the situation and still added the link. Not only was the content found to be good, but good enough to outweigh any potential SEO campaign issues. Again, what's the problem? Not the content.
• On the Hybrid vehicle article, Sfoskett reviewed the link and added it. Same situation: judged purely on its content, the link is found to be fine.

It's obvious the problem is not with OmniNerd content, but with my actions. If you have to block me, block me - but to punish the site over something it has no control over is flat out unjust. uriah923 19:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

And if you had dropped your promotional campaign long ago, we wouldn't be wasting time on this conversation or be in this position. The fact is you have for months been doing everything you can think of to promote your site and add mentions of it to Wikipedia. It appears almost every, if not every one of those above links were prompted by you, in addition to the what 30-40+ others you had posted. Now that there is a final solution to the problem, you don't like it because it doesn't allow linking to your precious site. Sorry. Again, if you had wanted it to end differently you should have acted differently. You were given plenty of chances. Again, as it is this is the easiest way to end the issue with the least wasted time, and that is clearly what is in the best interest of the project. But that's never been your primary concern as clearly demonstrated by your unwillingness to drop the issue. And you're right, we're not a democracy, luckily we can just uphold what is right, and that is to keep this site on the blacklist where no amount of your arguing can change that. - Taxman 15:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Taxman understood the gist of my argument, as he played right into my hand. He provided no evidence that OmniNerd.com's content is objectionable or not valuable in the face of multiple instances (prompted by me) in which various users found it to be quite useful and worthy of a link. Instead repeated his same contention that this is all a result of my actions alone. uriah923 18:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem for you is you are playing a game, and I'm working for the best interest of the project. That makes my position easy to defend. The easiest way to solve the problem is to leave it on the blacklist so you can't add links to your site from anonymous IP's as you have already done. - Taxman 18:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we can look at this a different way. There is one reason and one reason only for a site to be on a blacklist: when there could never be a justified link to it. Let's examine if this is the case here. Let's say that a year from now some well-established editor out there is reading about hybrids and comes across this claim: "Finally, the typical hybrid vehicle is more expensive than corresponding non-hybrids (e.g., Civic vs Civic Hybrid). Although the variables involved are many, those more concerned about economics than the environment might steer away from hybrids in favor of traditional economy vehicles, as they would result in a lower cost in most cases." He identifies the need for a citation, starts some internet research, and stumbles upon an OmniNerd article (third result in Google for "hybrid economics," first result for "hybrid worth"), reads it and thinks it might be a good external link. He brings it up on the talk page, other users weigh in and together they decide it sufficiently supports the material and attempt to add a link to it as a note on the unsupported claim. Finding the blacklist prevents the addition, I can picture how the ensuing 2007 conversation (maybe on this very page) will go:

• OmniNerd discoverer: I wanted to add this link, but it says it's blacklisted. Why?
• Taxman: Because uriah923 used to try and add links to ON and that violated NPOV because he is an ON admin. <crickets chirping> Oh, and he argues a lot.
• OmniNerd discoverer: But the site is perfect for documenting some unsupported content on the hybrid vehicles site.
• Taxman: Stop trying to promote your site.
• OmniNerd discoverer: But it's not my site; I just think it would make a good external link.
• Taxman: I've given you plenty of warnings. Stop it, or you will be blocked.
• OmniNerd discoverer: Stop what? I just want some justification.
• Taxman: I've blocked you. If you really cared about WP, you would have dropped this already and stopped wasting everyone's time.

Sound familiar? It should - that's just how this whole thing got started. uriah923 23:43, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I would have given you credit for knowing that mocking me and completely misrepresenting the situation would only make you look bad and weaken your position, but I guess that wouldn't have been a good idea. - Taxman 15:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It's an accurate summation of how this whole situation has been blown out of proportion. From the beginning I've persistently asked for clarifications and justificiations and only been given threats and commands - and since I didn't kowtow to them, Taxman has removed all "good faith." It's rediculous and the example shows that. uriah923 17:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It's far from accurate. You're putting words into my mouth that I would not use in the situation as you have represented it. That's what misrepresentation means. Its deplorable that you would act as if I would say those things in your contrived situation. The situation wasn't an "ON discoverer", it was you, an admin of the site who added 30+ links to your site, and refused to listen to a consensus against your actions. But as that should be obvious to anyone, I should probably just not comment anymore and let your comments make it clear why the site should stay on the blacklist. - Taxman 18:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

If by "refused to listen" you mean "stopped adding links, became a legitemate contributor, and after a few months made a few link suggestions," then I guess you're right. uriah923 19:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It also should be clarified that in addition to being removed by Essjay after being added before, OmniNerd was also specifically rejected from the blacklist after considering the same evidence that exists today. Can a user just repeat a request over and over until he/she finds a sympathetic ear? Is that the way this works? What about the evidence that silsor required that was never provided? uriah923 17:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, more has happened as has already been discussed. - Taxman 18:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's see, what more has happened of which silsor wasn't aware when he rejected the listing? He reviewed the infamous section of my user page, so that is inadmissible ... Oh, wait - that's all there is! After that everything I've done has been within WP policy (suggesting links, not adding them myself) and would only bolster the argument to remove the blacklisting. uriah923 22:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

As requested on Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat, I had a look at the history of the external links related to this domain and felt that I'm not comfortable in removing omninerd.com from the blacklist on meta. --M/ 15:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

A site maintained by banned user Lir. Useful as a source in at least one article (Criticism of Wikipedia), and perhaps a handful of others. Was added to the blacklist by Raul654 because links to articles on kapilism.net were added to Wikipedia by a user assumed to be Lir. An attempt at compromise was discussed offsite, at which lir.wikipediareview.com was also blocked, indicating perhaps something more than "spam blacklisting". and more along the lines of blatant censorship. I recommend removal, because I assume that the spam blacklist is a tool that was created to deal with actual spam, and in this case, there is none. --Blu Aardvark 06:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

This site was blacklisted because it contains "lesbiansex". However it's not a commercial porn site providing pictures of lipstick lesbians for horny men to ogle, it's a not-for-profit BDSM support group exclusively for women (hence the name). It was successfully included in Wikipedia:List of BDSM organizations for months but when I tried to reformat the article's sections, it got caught in the spam filter. 85.76.152.179 17:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

• (www.)fried.dynalias.net — my personal web site; I'd like to link it on my Wikipedia profile page! I understand that a lot of spam comes from the dynalias.net domain, but if you get anything from fried.dynalias.net you'll know who it's from (not that I'd ever do that, of course). Dave Fried 21:03, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, missed this request before. dynalias.net was added after being spammed by only one person on meta so I have removed it. silsor 19:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

• www.nevskiy-district.newmail.ru — Site about Nevsky municipal districts of the St-Petersburg. --Kaganer 10:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
• www.andtan.newmail.ru/list/ - Site about spiders --de:Benutzer:Fristu (is there a whitelist)?

• • newmail.ru now has been restricted to subdomains too. However, with the frequency of this kind of site being used for bad, whitelisting might be better. I don't know. - Andre Engels 13:06, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Can someone unblock this one? Thanks!

4mg.com might be unblocked if there were a useful site on it that somebody wanted to add to an article. silsor 23:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

4mg.com is currently unblocked, but that site is still awful. silsor 23:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• www.geto8.com -- Official site of Geto highland resort in Japan. Please could someone add a dot in front of to8\.com? Thanks. --Brevam 11:38, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. silsor 13:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• http:// kempo dot 4mg dot com -- Nyunanshin Kaisho, a dojo of Kiyojute Ryu Kempo, so the link can be added to that wikipedia entry. --12.203.161.60 18:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

4mg.com is now allowed. silsor 23:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Generally I agree that online casino sites are harmful and abuse wikipedia for links. None the less I have a real problem. I was creating an article regarding Playtech and wanted to include a cohesive list of all online casinos using their platform. The best unbiased list I could find is located on the above URL. Among other external links on the article I have posted a link to this list and the entire article has got blocked for spam. I am going to submit the article without this link but I still think it's a shame I can't add a genuine piece of information to an article.

re Ann Oakley bio page, which is blocked because of the external link, the link is to the Institute of Education (university of London) webserver. Maybe there are sources of spam there as students may get their own addresses while there (though spammers are probably not from within) but the link to her or other specific staff pages is OK and excluding anyone who works in that large academic instution could be over-restrictive

http://www. beauty-of-paris-hilton .com is being flagged as spam for an external link addition to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton. Is this correct? Note that I can't add the url to this area either. Please review and correct as you see fit. Very best regards, Cisco.

That site is blocked because it matches the "paris-hilton" pattern. It's also a crap site so that's fine. It's full of ads and the images that you would go there for are all broken. silsor 17:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

In en.jurispedia, maybe in wikipedia nextly...

allisonhugs\.org kievconsulting\.com 7restaurant\.us summerspage\.com quickcomminc\.net hartsflorist\.com Kind regards, Hjv 09:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

In en:European School, Bergen, one of the external links links to www.go.to/esb/ . This website is a listing of alumni of that school and is therefore relevant to the article. If the domain go.to has a reputation of being a hotbed for spamlinks, could you please make an exceotion for go.to/esb/? Thanks. 146.50.202.133 14:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, that's still an evil site; popups on join and departure, and what look like spam links within the text... Sj

Didn't notice the popups - oh the joys of FireFox.

Anyway, I've discovered an alternative URL for the site - http://www.jeetje.101.nl/ which appears to be identical to the site and this one does not have any popups, so there is no need to unblock www.go.to/esb/ anymore 146.50.202.133 16:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

midnightrain.100free.com

Please unblock - offical australian band website.

Article - Midnight Rain (band)

I tried to add http://www.sector42(dot)uni(dot)cc as a link to the sector42 page, but it was blocked. I think this is due to the .uni(dot)cc domain thing being banned. This is not a "bad" website so could some as http://www.sector42(dot)uni(dot)cc as an exception to the uni(dot)cc block.Ok, thank you for your times guys. - Matthew

(note i have replaced "." with (dot)because i can't put post this message due to the blocking of uni(dot)cc .

An edit to wikipedia:Business jet reports "http:\\www.go.to" as blocked by spam. That domain appears to be a home for many personal pages and it doesn't surprise me if some need blocking. However "http:\\www.go.to\execjet" does contain information useful to the article and would be a good inclusion. Is it therefore possible to whitelist this specific site? 212.6.220.66 10:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC) (This request was added by me - I came from wikipedia and assumed I was still logged in under my name there Kcordina 10:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC))

Unable to link to TinyURL homepage on w:TinyURL because "tinyurl.com" is blocked. There should be no problem with allowing the homepages of these sites to be linked, since they won't redirect anywhere. Evil saltine 04:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It's an incredibly bad idea to allow URL shorteners. Not only do they allow people to subvert this blacklist, but they really *really* have no place in the encyclopedia because of their ephemeral nature. Raul654 05:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you mean to allow a link to the main page, but not any of the subpages? I don't think the software has the capability of supporting that. Raul654 05:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Allowing a link to the homepage but not subpages would be easy; change the pattern to disallow 'tinyurl.com/' but allow 'tinyurl.com' (without the '/'). 71.141.167.101 05:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It's an incredibly bad idea to block URL shorteners. On many occasions I've used TinyURL to shorten URLs so that the diffs aren't too wide to be readable. There is a perfectly plausible solution: MediaWiki should follow the link to see what it redirects to and whether that is blocked.

Now I can't edit a page that already has a TinyURL link on, such as w:Talk:List of songs titled as acronyms or initialisms. -- Smjg 12:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I've just filed my suggestion in MediaZilla: bug 4891. -- Smjg 13:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

This suddenly started causing a problem today on the w:Talk:Space Shuttle program. There had been a tinyurl ref on that page for a long time. Today suddenly new edits were rejected, because of the long existing tinyurl reference.

Apparently something recently changed in the spam filter's handling of tinyurl. Anytime a change like that happens it risks breaking many pages. Was this changed by accident or was it intentional? Joema 15:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The addition of tinyurl to the spam filter has exposed problems in some articles. This is not a problem with the blacklisting of tinyurl, though. The articles need to be fixed. There is no valid reason to use tinyurl or other link shortening services on Wikipedia, and in fact preventing this usage helps prevent abuse. silsor 19:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Was there any post on any page notifying of this change? Before making the change, did anybody examine how many articles would be affected? Joema 20:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

No decision was made from on high, if that is what you are getting at. The GNAA started using these to vandalize, and it didn't take us too long to realize that it is a Really Bad Idea (TM) to allow these to go into articles. Raul654 20:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

One problem is it doesn't just block new uses of tinyurl, etc. It disallows updates for any article which previously contained a link shortening URL. I can't tell for sure how many articles are affected, maybe in the hundreds. If so maybe not too bad out of a million+ articles. What about adding a note to the Wikipedia talk pages for w:TinyURL, etc, saying usage in Wiki articles is now deprecated, and starting 6-Feb-2006, edits will fail if a link shortening URL exists anywhere in the article? Joema 14:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to rephrase my above comment - it was a bad idea to have ever allowed them in the first place. Articles should *never* contain ephemeral URLs. The blacklist message now clearly identifies any offending URLs in the wikitext, so it's relatively easy to fix the problem. The number of affected pages should drop exponentially with time. Raul654 15:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Silsor, please read the comments leading up to what you've just said. Why, exactly, is stopping diffs from being too wide an invalid reason? -- Smjg 11:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about wide diffs, that's a MediaWiki bug and is irrelevant to this discussion. silsor 23:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

But I was. What do you mean it's irrelevant? I brought the subject of overwide diffs into the discussion for a perfectly legitimate reason, namely that avoiding overwide diffs is the reason we have at the moment for using tinyurl. Besides, the bug report you're pointing me to is at cross purposes - the bug itself is about the widths of the columns relative to each other, and it's only the commenters (none of which are the reporter) who are hinting at talking about the absolute widths of diffs. -- Smjg 14:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

There are many sites that shorten long URLs (see notlong.com/links/) It would be interesting to see how many of these sites are already in use by Wikipedia posters. --jwalling 20:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It's an incredibly bad idea to block tinyurl in this way - I am being prevented from adding a comment to en:Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 February 2 to prevent an article (en:Operation Bernhard) from being improperly deleted because another site has copied our content rather than vice versa. The block should be removed until a better way of handling the problem can be devised. -- Arwel 12:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it too difficult to implement what User:smjg suggested above : MediaWiki should follow the link to see what it redirects to and whether that is blocked. ? 208.246.215.5 20:43, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

For one thing, it's a bad idea. Let's say I create a page I control to be a redirect to google.com, and then add it to the 'Loan' article. Wikipedia scans it, see it's a redirect to google, and lets it through. I then make it a redirect to (the hypothetical) www.foo.com, a site known for spamming which is on the blacklist. I have now successfully evaded the spam filter. Raul654 21:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

But if it's a page you control, then (if this is what you mean) it probably won't be on their spam blacklist to start with, so you can just as easily

• put some bad material on the page yourself, instead of making it a redirect
• put some innnocent material on the page yourself, link to it, and then turn it into a redirect

Please read my report on MediaZilla. The commentary makes a distinction between TinyURL-type services and redirects that can actually be changed. -- Smjg 14:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that this service has been abused by spammers? Since tinyurl links wouldn't increase the page rank of a spammer's site, I don't see why they'd bother using it, especially since most wiki spam is now hidden from humans in invisible div tags, meaning the only aim can be to influence search results.

The Spam Blacklist is shared by a lot of non-Wikimedia sites, so we need to be sure the URLs listed there are really spam, and not something which is going to cause problems for valid links on other wikis. Angela 23:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The GNAA (using the new vandalism technique of one-vandalism-per-throwaway-account to avoid the autoblocker) started spamming their shock site (an alias for lastmeasure.com) to the featured articles. We blacked listed that one, so they started using URL shorteners to avoid the blacklist. This happened starting last week (first week of Feb 2006). It doesn't take a genius to realize that the blacklist is utterly useless if we allow URL shorteners as a trivial workaround. This applies equally to other wikis that use the blacklist - it's just as useless to them if they allow URL shorteners. Raul654 04:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it actually possible for Mediawiki, or whatever extension is implementing the blacklist, to discern what URL the shortener is leading to? If this were possible, then we could allow some shorteners—those which are immutable, like tinyurl, whose entire rationale is that they are immutable—based on whether the eventual target URL was on the blacklist. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 07:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[[73]] i want to nominate 00de.de they allways spam in the german section. my signatur doesnt work here, ´couse i´m only loggt in at the german section. --84.155.93.110 13:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

On the English Wikipedia, when I save pages that use blacklisted URLs predating the spam filter's installation, I get blamed and I can't save without digging through the whole bloody talk, even if I didn't add those URLs. Can this be changed to only check the changes an edit makes for blacklisted URLs instead of the whole edit? Johnleemk 09:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I think robots to "clean" Wikipedia (remove the http:// part) would be the best solution... Every edit is a FULL edit, there is no diff-function when you press the save-button. Fantasy 11:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Then, uh...how does this shiny "Show changes" button work? Does it figure out the changes my edit made through some bizarre Tantric rite? Johnleemk 17:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

It retrieves the versions you have selected, performs a comparison on them, then displays the results. silsor 19:33, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

That was a rhetorical question -- I know how it works. So why can't the software only parse the changes made, since it can determine what those changes are? It's such a bitch when you're editing talk pages with tons of tinyurls in them. Johnleemk 09:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I share your annoyance, I've just been prevented from editing Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 February 2 because there's a tinyurl.com address somewhere on that huge page. If en:Operation Bernhard gets deleted because I wasn't able to point out that militaryimages.net has violated our copyright rather than the other way round, I shall be extremely pissed off. -- Arwel 12:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I fixed teh problem there. Raul654 21:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. -- Arwel 14:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

This is not fixed. Editing pages containing invalidated links needs to work throughout the entire project. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 01:56, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It would be very useful if only new content was filtered. It's entirely understandable to maintain a spam blacklist, but it's a bit unreasonable to force the removal of pre-existing blacklisted sites, particularly if there are a number of them (perhaps legitimately). This is particularly true concerning URI redirectors (eg TinyURL) as it can take a bit of extra work to figure out the original link.

I'd much rather only be responsible for the content I add.

--Eibwen 03:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. It's unreasonable to allow editors to create new content and not be able to save it into an article because of a pre-existing presumed spam link that was there all along. In the absence of the above suggestion, please scan the databases when you add a site to the blacklist and remove the offending links at that time instead of inconveniencing the unsuspecting editors. --JeffW 14:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
• I heartily concur. Blackcap (talk) 06:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Why were many unresolved add/remove requests just sent to archive? -- uberpenguin

Being that hte page was very nearly 200 kilobytes mixed in no particular order, I didn't see any way of seperating the resolved from unresolved requests. Also, with two exceptions (Johnleemk's and Eequor's threads) I did not see any threads that had been active in three weeks. Raul654 02:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

So nobody would object to me re-adding my request for addition to the list? -- uberpenguin

Go ahead. Raul654 03:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll add mine back as well. I'm glad I checked this. It seems meta needs more admins managing the spam blacklist. Rhobite 04:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please do. Many discussions just get dropped by the original submitter, who doesn't realize that they need to make a case for removal. Sj 20:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

What happened to the guideline boxes at the top of the page and sections? In the future are you going to dump everything to /archive? silsor 19:13, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

What about my previous request ? Croquant 08:22, 11 March 2006 (UTC)