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The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar
For your work with copyright violations at WP:SCV. It's much appreciated so keep it up! :) Theleftorium 16:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. You may be interested in the new Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations, in which we clean up copyvios from individual users. MER-C 09:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiopoly

Very cute. ^_^ DaL33T (talk) 14:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Messages waiting on GrooveDog's page

Hello, MER-C. You have new messages at GrooveDog's talk page.
Message added 16:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

hello!

I added the link to SitePoint blog but it was removed let me know why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcjacobs1978 (talk • contribs)

We don't generally link to blogs (point #11). Note: You can append 4 tildes to your post to sign it, this produces MER-C 13:23, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

I just wanted to let you know that I'm very impressed with your work at WP:CCI and grateful for it. I think it's off to a great start, and I think you are a large part of the reason why. I don't know why I should be happy, since it means loads more repetitive labor for me, but I guess I really do believe in the cause of keeping Wikipedia copyvio free. :D (That and I do hope that more publicity for the issue will result in more assistance in addressing it.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Islands

I stubbified the thread you tagged for speedy, since all islands are, after all, notable. The copyvio source can be given as a reference, and then whoever wants can expand properly based on that. I think I got all the islands. , but any others can be done similarly. Not that your approach was wrong, but I think mine is preferable when it can be done easily. DGG ( talk ) 16:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All I care about is the copyvio being expunged. How it is done doesn't particularly concern me.
By the way, you missed Malanipa Island. MER-C 02:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow

It looks a lot different now. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Hey

You work for sulekha? Syler.mi4 (talk) 06:53, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What? MER-C 07:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
i asked if you work for a company called sulekhaSyler.mi4 (talk) 04:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why did you link me to that page? Oh lol im sorry I was just curious cuz when i ran a search for sulekha your user profile popped up and i saw a few sulekha links, which led me to think you work there

CCI archiving

Hi. I'm archiving Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Lou72JG. Everything that was not asserted under fair use has been deleted or tagged on Commons for deletion. The contributor has restored some of the images under "fair use", but so far not infringed again. If you get a minute, please look over [1] in case I missed something. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good, the only one that I would be concerned about is File:OldOFHS.jpg -- there is no proof that the given license applies. MER-C 02:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Senator Eric Adams

I believe that the information I added about Eric Adams' voters guide score should not have been removed. There is no COI in this case as I am of no current affiliation with EPL/Environmental Advocates. I am familiar with their work and feel that the information I added is of value and substance. They are recognized throughout the state of NY as a reputable source on environmental issues in the state. What can I do to have the information I added remain up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Environmental Advocate (talk • contribs)

Your contributions appear to be citation spam - a new user adding references to only one site is highly suspicious. What you should do is broaden your contribution base - by e.g. editing other stuff and/or citing other unrelated sources - to demonstrate your positive intentions toward the encyclopedia. I'd say after a month of constructive editing elsewhere, you can restore your edits without looking like a spammer edit warring to keep his links in the article. You can also use the talk page to suggest inclusion of the link, in which case you should sign your posts with ~~~~. MER-C 03:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

I had posted few external links relevant to the pages in wikipedia, but they have been removed and it says need verification.

How do I put up the external links? Please guide me in this regard.

Thank You & Regards Manjula —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manju phutane (talk • contribs)

You have a conflict of interest regarding businessgyan.com, so the best course of action is to do nothing. Bear in mind our policies on spam, meatpuppetry and logging out to avoid scrutiny of your edits. It goes without saying that Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promoting businessgyan.com. MER-C 07:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why have you removed an external link at Vixen_(band) pointing to another site with information about the band?

I don't find any difference with the other sites appearing in the external links section such as the one from Allmusic, for instance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metaladies (talk • contribs)

You have a conflict of interest regarding metaladies.com. You should refrain from adding links to said website as such edits may be interpreted to be promotional. People abusing Wikipedia for promotion by linking to their own sites (not implying that you are at this stage) is a daily occurrence here, so I hope you understand the tough stance we take. MER-C 03:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Informing authors of CSD tags

Hi MER-C, when you tag something for speedy deletion would you mind informing the author? At some point we hope to get a bot to do that, but at the moment most tags generate a bit of code that you can copy and paste onto the author's talkpage. For example this was a perfectly correct tag, but you left the newbie who wrote it with a redlinked talkpage. ϢereSpielChequers 13:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the desire to inform the author when they have made a genuine effort to improve the encyclopedia so they can improve it. The majority of speedies I tag are blatant vanispamcruftisement (or copyvios, in which CSB has already informed the author), so I prefer not to. The current speedy deletion warnings don't convey the reason why we delete such "articles" strongly enough. This is more like it. MER-C 04:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not particularly fond of spammers either, but for stuff like the example I gave I think a message of some sort is appropriate. Partly on the offchance that some recipients might become productive users, and in the slightly more confident hope that telling people why their contribution was rejected might reduce the proportion of angry people whose response to their article disappearing is to keep putting it back up and otherwise escalating matters. ϢereSpielChequers 18:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I left custom messages on talk pages regarding this, I don't think I will remain within the civility policy for long. I'd personally go for a "Wikipedia is not a social networking site" type deletion reason - aiming for newbie comprehensibility. That said, I'll see if I can hack up something not too offensive... once I deal with some subcontinent scraper site spamming. MER-C 06:04, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar
For your work in copyright matters in general, in Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations especially and in this now completed CCI on this particular occasion. Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Have not courtesy blanked pending the resolution of the deletion debate on Commons, but our part here is done. :) (And it's not like you haven't gotten this barnstar before but, well, we have a limited amount of them related to copyright work. :D) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, thanks. MER-C 09:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The international conference „Buddhism and Nordland

Was it you who started discussion about (Possible copyright infringement)? To be honeyst this original version of article about The international conference „Buddhism and Nordlandis what has used hier in wiki is written by me. So what? And all this conference "Buddhism and Nordlandand" as a project were started by me years ago. And now ,ll be the queation from my side ,,,whats wrong with this?

DO I need copyright to share my nformation hier in wikipedia about the conference? Ofcourse maybe i get it all wrong that its not reason to notice youabout it but when I noticed the history of article it seems as you game to idea to block the article. Sorry if I got it wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VanemTao (talk • contribs)

See here. That particular article appears to be a copy of [2]. MER-C 03:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CCI

Hi. I've got Derrick on chat. If you're still online at the moment, can you give me an example or two of an article missing on the Craigy144 listing? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First section on the first page is full of them. Ask him if the program is supposed to ignore rollbacks, because some of the missing links are those. If so, the pages still showing up on the contribution survey == bug. MER-C 13:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's supposed to ignore rollbacks. I've never noticed that it still lists those articles. Maybe we've never had one where the only edits by the contributor to an article were rollbacks! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Richardshus one has them too, but it's less obvious. Looks like it's a FIXME for Derrick. If the bug is fixed quickly, it's probably worth a rerun to avoid confusion from outside people. MER-C 13:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
He's fixed it. :) (I don't have that version yet, though.) He's working on the bug that causes it to sometimes drop articles. The strange thing: it's inconsistent. I sent him the output of one where we'd had that issue. When I ran it again, it didn't lose the same articles. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I am in possession of a lovely reworked ContributionSurveyor. :) It has several new functions and hopefully will address some of the old issues. One of the new functions that excites me: we should be able to set a "start" parameter. That means if we wind up having to recheck somebody, we won't have to output the full list, but can start it from the date of the last check. Not that I want this to happen. But the recent discussion about BlackKnight got me thinking about it. I'll test-drive it on Craigy144. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, Mr Bond. MER-C 03:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, a few weeks ago, I finally got a WP login, as I wanted to add some links to a site I frequent (it's linked to from WP on a few other entries that I didn't put in). It's for "spaghetti westerns" movies. I saw a few of those film list entries on WP that linked to "fistfulofpasta.com", and I noticed there were quite a few WP pages that also could use links to that site, as there's a lot of movies over there (it's not a pay/commercial site). So I looked up what films were on WP and added links to the pages over there. Unfortunately, in my zeal ( I was doing several at a time), I missed the warnings about spamming and such, and by the time I saw it, it was too late. In hindsight, it was pretty stupid of me, I shouldn't have tried to add so many at once. Anyways, I don't know if it's blocked or what, but a few days ago I tried adding one back in ("Barrel Full of Dollars") and you removed it. Is there something I can do so I can add a few links every now and then to that site? It's basically a site with a bunch of movie reviews, most of which have more info on the films than WP does, and it would be of interest to anyone looking up those films. I didn't intend (nor do I intend to) spam. Thank you.

Lordradish (talk) 03:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)lordradish[reply]

We don't identify spamming by the rate of link addition. One indication of spamming is whether the editors concerned have done nothing except add links to a certain site. As such, it's best to get some edits unrelated to fistfullofpasta.com under your belt first. MER-C 04:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seeit12, Weekyell

Hi- FYI regarding user(s) adding www.visitingeu.com links: Special:Contributions/Seeit12, Special:Contributions/Weekyell. Maybe sockpuppets? Eric talk 02:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They are at least meatpuppets. I was holding off on an SPI as a quick blacklisting would nip the problem in the bud. That hasn't happened, so Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Seeit12. Thanks for letting me know about this. MER-C 03:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No prob. Wow, quite a list. I admire the idealism of having an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but I wish logins and some kind of verification were required for all the anyones. Eric talk 03:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

artpages.org.ua

Hi, I had posted few external links in wikipedia, but they have been removed. It were the articles about photographers and I posted links on the biggest gallery in web of this photographers. Why do you think it is not interesting? Why do you think that other links on the small gallery on live journal post are more important? I think it is violation and you denied the opportunity to obtain important information for other users. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.122.206.131 (talk • contribs)

This is the English Wikipedia, it is reasonable to expect that our external links should be in English. Furthermore, some of these pages present contributory copyright infringement concerns. (US copyright law is retarded. But it is what we have to put up with.) MER-C 02:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But it is photo galleries, language is not important for this, there are no text in galleries! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.122.206.131 (talk • contribs)

You didn't address my second point. MER-C 03:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eskrimadors

Hi. I see you are reverting some "See Also" links added by the IP 120.28.197.117. However, the article, Eskrimadors, is a new one and does seem to me to be relevant to the articles it has been linked to (The links are incorrectly in the form of weblinks, so I have been changing them to Wikilinks and have explained in the IP's Talk page). I'd appreciate your thoughts. Boing! said Zebedee 08:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The IP also mass-added external links to the documentary's website in articles where they are probably only tangentially related (#13). This addition is promotional. I am concerned that said IP might be abusing Wikipedia in order to promote Eskrimadors. MER-C 09:05, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough - perhaps relevant to a few more general articles, but only tangentially related to a lot of the other ones. Boing! said Zebedee 09:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Diesel Particulate Filter in 3D

Dear Mr. Mer-C

I posted a link to a 3D model of a Diesel particulate Filter to the article about Diesel Particulate Filters.

Why did you remove this link?

Looking forward to your constructive reply

LibakJ (talk) 15:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would tend to agree with Bwilkins. Why are the links you added in bold type when the preexisting ones aren't? MER-C 02:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Control4

MER-C,

Could I ask for your help with an entry I made on MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist? I would like to think of myself as a fairly experienced editor, but this is the first time I've run into a problem with the blacklist blocking a link I don't think should be blocked.

I made a request a week or two ago to remove the website of a home theater equipment manufacturer off the blacklist. The request is now surrounded by other requests that have been acknowledged, except for mine.

Would you mind taking a look, and either acknowledge it (even if it's just to decline it!), or let me know what I've done wrong that may be the reason it has gone unanswered? Thanks. Reswobslc (talk) 19:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The site was blacklisted due to systematic abuse of userspace for spamdexing involving nearly 50 sockpuppets and over 150 domains. Whitelisting the home page might be the appropriate action. Unfortunately I can neither remove from the blacklist or add to the whitelist. That is why I haven't commented on your request. (Yes, it will get answered, eventually. As I said in a discussion further down the page, it can take months). MER-C 03:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Is there any way you can tell how and when that happened? Either that, or is there a way to find a fully qualified URL to spammy content on that domain? That company isn't in the business of hosting content on behalf of others, so unless they've been hacked, there ordinarily shouldn't be any space for pages about "miracle cures" etc... and if there is, that might be worth asking them questions about. Reswobslc (talk) 07:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know the specifics, but the story would probably be: Control4 paid some dodgy (black hat) SEO firm for marketing reasons. One part of said SEO firm's strategy is to create spam userpages on Wikipedia using socks. This is the spamdexing I was talking about.
The WPSPAM item says it was found around April 2008, but we need to be able to view deleted history (admins only) to tell when it was created. Blacklisting tends to be permanent -- spammers are very persistent and we routinely bust spammers who have abused Wikipedia for over a year (recent example: polimore.com, spam as far back as April 2007). MER-C 08:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Spam Barnstar

The Anti-Spam Barnstar
For your extraordinary investigation unveiling that widespread NFLDraftDepot.com spam. Well done! bender235 (talk) 16:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much appreciated. I've seen worse -- Adsense pub-3132917916465494 comes to mind. MER-C 03:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You know...

...what they say about imitation. It's true. And, by the way, I'm so happy to see you chipping away at the CCIs. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Poor communication

If you have concerns, please feel free to contact me directly. I am a bit surprized that you have never left a mesage on my talk page. I am always willing to work amicably with fellow editors. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 12:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but:
  1. You've been down this route before, see [3] and Talk:William T. Miller. I am a bit concerned that you have not taken on the advice given in those two incidents. Resolving this matter between ourselves isn't appropriate due to the potential for similar problems; plus...
  2. You had an autoreviewer flag, the removal of which requires admin intervention. As I have argued, your contributions could do with some more scrutiny.
  3. We would be happy to work with you in checking your other edits for similar problems and addressing them. MER-C 13:28, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Poke?

this might help you here (see). --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've been wanting to be able to do this for a while. Awesome, thanks! MER-C 12:47, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have chosen a fun link to test it on (decided to keep an eye if all works) .. the bot seems to hang on that one. I will give you a dump of the database (very strange, though). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The dump is here. No clue why the bot seemed to hang on it (it does not have anything to do with the rewrite of the 'poke' function). It just seems to dislike the link .. will look a bit further into the issue). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And I solved a 'bug' .. the bot does not like it when ClueBot is one of the editors .. counting all the link-additions that spammer has is just too much work for it. Happy poking! --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:04, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

COIBot apparently sometimes misses a poke (not sure why. I'd suggest to re-poke by re-adding a {{LinkSummary}} with the link if it did not save it within an hour or so (COIBot looks at edits, reading the added part of the diff on these pages). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering whether I should do that. Noted, thanks. MER-C 09:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can also add it again after a couple of days to see if there are any additions you did not see .. the system seems to be quite stable, so overloading will not be a huge issue. Also note that the Blacklist (here and on meta) are also 'Poke pages' (LinkSummary templates added there should also result automagically in a report). Happy hunting! --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

John Brigden

So you don't bother with the AfD nom, I speedied it, A7. -- Flyguy649 talk 03:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of not proceeding anyway. However, deletion solves all problems :) MER-C 03:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Images, CCI, how?

Hi. How do we list images at CCI? :) I've just opened Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Wasimawan, and since there were image issues noted on the talk page checked the image image contribs. I've speedied two of them as blatant copyvios already. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:58, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have two programs that do this:
a) A Java program that works in a similar manner as the contribution surveyor.
b) A Mathematica notebook that you paste the contents of the upload log into.
I have populated the section of that CCI. MER-C 02:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Great; thanks! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas! :D

Check it out! Derrick's worked out most of the bugs, I think, and it is awesome. It's very quick, and it launches wikitext in notepad which can be pasted directly into the CCI. You can tell it to exclude reversions & minor edits (and we usually should) or to include them. Pretty awesome. :) Please let User:Dcoetzee know about any bugs. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cool! Revised the CCI instructions. MER-C 03:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright issue of article Sindhis-ala-Kurdistanica

There were in fact 2 paragraphs under the section Aryan Period that were directly lifted from kurdistanica.com. I can understand how this is tantamount to a copyright issue. I have thus removed them. However, the other paragraphs are not from kurdistanica. Now if the previous version is restored, it is not a copyright issue. But it will become an NPOV issue as that particular section is a highly slanted one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MAKootage (talk • contribs)

Hi,

I love wiki as my favorite place on net. I didn't intend to spam on List of cities and towns in India. I also like www.cityofindia.net which is community driven site for cities of india so I think it is also useful to readers of wiki. What this link http://spam.cityofindia.net you put on my user talk page? (this link not exist). What criteria you apply to decide cityofindia.net as spam site? Cityofindia.net not promote any product nor any business, it's community driven site for collecting data of Indian cities and open to all. So please put link for cityofindia.net on that page which is appropriate and helpful information for users.- Shivcharan Patil 15:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I also review guideline for What to link on Wikipedia:External links. SO please review the site cityofindia.net again. --- Shivcharan Patil (talk) 03:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since they are community driven, both Wikipedia and cityofindia.net can make no guarantee of accuracy. Hence cityofindia.net fails WP:ELNO #2 and (#10 or #12).
Also due to persistent additions from the IP range 117.254.x.x, I am considering the blacklisting of this site (hence the strongly worded warning). MER-C 06:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. :) There are a couple of outstanding image-related CCIs and one text (which I just placed, though Leftorium noticed it). Can you populate the image ones? I'll get the text one up and running. Because that's just what we need: more CCIs. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Yes, indeed. MER-C 06:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Final discussion for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Hello, I note that you have commented on the first phase of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

As this RFC closes, there are two proposals being considered:

  1. Proposal to Close This RfC
  2. Alternate proposal to close this RFC: we don't need a whole new layer of bureaucracy

Your opinion on this is welcome. Okip 03:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CCI Bci2

Just a note, I've ran across this contributor before, on text issues - see this. MLauba (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I also have [4] from [5]. There's also some stuff from PlanetMath which has a license compatible with WP and he appears in the author list but sometimes isn't attributed. Added the text component. MER-C 02:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FPC Misses you

Have a look --Muhammad(talk) 01:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Koman90/templates/now-svg

CCI stuff

First of all, I just want to say that you continue to rock. :) Seriously, I am grateful for your work on Wikipedia every single day. Besides the stuff you do managing CCI, you've been working on them and you continue to help keep SCV under control. Definitely, you are one of the key people in the Wikipedia copyright crew. :D

Second, I've added a bit of information on the new contribution surveyor to the instruction page, which I've realized can be modified in all kinds of ways. Dcoetzee also rocks. :) Finally, MLauba has created some userboxes. If you're interested in them, you're certainly entitled: User:MLauba/CCI boxes. (MLauba rocks, too.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki.java

I've decided to use your java API to create some cleanup programs. For bug support, I'm using Special:EmailUser. After reading the MW API and reading the Wiki.java code, I came up with this: 

     public synchronized void email(String user,String subject,String message) throws IOException,Exception
        {
        // sanitize
        message = URLEncoder.encode(message, "UTF-8");
        subject = URLEncoder.encode(subject, "UTF-8");
        user = URLEncoder.encode("User:"+ user, "UTF-8");
        // start
        String url = query + "action=query&prop=info&intoken=email&titles="+user;
        String line = fetch(url, "email", true);

        // get the email token        
        int a = line.indexOf("emailtoken=\"") + 12;
        int b = line.indexOf("\"", a);
        String token = URLEncoder.encode(line.substring(a, b), "UTF-8");
        System.out.println(line); 
        System.out.println(token);//To see whether token in XML matches parsed token
        
        url = query + "action=emailuser";
        URLConnection connection = new URL(url).openConnection();
        logurl(url, "email");
        setCookies(connection, cookies);
        connection.setDoOutput(true);
        connection.connect();

        // send
        
        PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(connection.getOutputStream());
        
        out.print("target=");
        out.print(user);
        out.print("&subject=");
        out.print(subject);
        out.print("&text=");
        out.print(message);
        out.print("&token=");
        out.print(token);
        
        out.close();
        
        // get the cookies
        grabCookies(connection, cookies);


        // determine success
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new GZIPInputStream(connection.getInputStream()), "UTF-8"));
        line = in.readLine();
        boolean success = line.contains("result=\"Success\"");
        in.close();
        if (success)
        {

            log(Level.INFO, "Successfully sent email to " + user,"email");
        }
        else
        {
            log(Level.WARNING, "Failed to send email:"+line,"email"); //It prints the line of XML (because I've not yet added extensive error reporting see below)

            //I've not added all error types, I'll add them after my problem gets solved. In the meantime, I'll just manually read the XML
            if (line.contains("badtoken"))
                log(Level.WARNING, "Bad token","email");
           //
        }
    }

I've checked pretty much everything, the token which is read is perfect (same as the one in the XML, except for the escaped characters). But, I always get an error code "badtoken" saying that the token is invalid. I've tried unescaping the trailing backslash and other things, yet the token is always invalid. Edit(), login(), and logout() work. Could you tell me why this isn't working? Thx. ManishEarthTalk • Stalk 15:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here's your problem. MER-C 02:52, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
user = URLEncoder.encode("User:"+ user, "UTF-8");
String url = query + "action=query&prop=info&intoken=email&titles="+user;
// should be
user = URLEncoder.encode(user, "UTF-8");
String url = query + "action=query&prop=info&intoken=email&titles=User:" + user;
No, thats not it. I think if that was the problem, I wouldn't have gotten a token in the first place. I tried it out, and it didn't work. I even tried replacing:
//this:
        out.print("target=");
        out.print(user);
//with this:
        out.print("target=User:");
        out.print(user);

Could you try out the code yourself and tell me what's wrong? Thx.ManishEarthTalk • Stalk 04:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That was one of three problems with your code. The second is that setCookies(connection, cookies); should be setCookies(connection, cookies2); -- cookies2 is for transient cookies related to individual actions. Thirdly, you don't want to grabCookies(connection, cookies); -- this logs you out. MER-C 04:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a million! It works! ManishEarthTalk • Stalk 06:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kasur and Kasur District spam

Hello. Thanks a lot for your help in the Kasur spam! I really appreciate it. I had never dealt with such a prolific spammer that it had come down to blacklisting. Unfortunately, it seems that he has a new domain now, mykasur.tk, as seen here and here. Again, I really appreciate your help! Apparition11 Complaints/Mistakes 23:45, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hand twisting performed, blacklisting might happen later today. MER-C 02:51, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sedo redirect chains

I noticed your post at WT:WikiProject Spam#More sedo redirect chain spamming. In case it is of interest, I wanted to investigate a similar situation last year and I wrote a Python script to follow frame redirect chains. In the end, it wasn't quite as useful as I had hoped, but it beats using wget or whatever. For the situation I was tracking, the redirects jumped between hosts with two different IP addresses (say chain is url1, url2, url3, url4, ...; then url1 and url3 resolve to the same IP, while url2 and url4 resolve to another IP). For some of the cases you noted, the IP is the same for each host in the chain. We might hope that one day some software (MediaWiki, an extension, or a toolserver bot) can be given a blacklist of IPs and it would at least tag the addition of links which resolve to one of the IPs. COIBot can assist, but there should be something more closely built into the system (although I know how difficult that would be to achieve). In the case I was looking at, there were 8 IPs and around 200 URLs (each resolving to one of the 8 IPs).

I never worked out why such a chain might be useful (I don't see how it might increase the likelihood of an advert click or an SEO boost). The pages I was tracking had lots of keywords for SEO, but I don't understand what system might use them. If you want to see the script, you might email, and I'll watch here for any reply. Johnuniq (talk) 07:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have installed a FF extension that intercepts all types of redirects (it also kills third party web bugs that evade ABP) which makes detecting redirection trivial. The best solution is XLinkBot/COIBot, but they are written in perl. MER-C 07:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Based on some feedback I've received, I've updated the instructions at WP:SCV and WP:CP. I've left a more indepth explanation at Wikipedia talk:Suspected copyright violations#Header update along with a request for feedback. As we try to get more people involved in this work, we want to be sure instructions are clear. Given your work, your input there would be very much appreciated. :) Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note of thanks

The Barnstar of Diligence
For your exceptional work in copyright matters, both in clerking and contributing to WP:CCI and in WP:SCV. Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to clutter up your page with barnstars, but I think they're pretty, so.... I've just shut down Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Wasimawan. Whoot. I think the CCI board is working very well and hope that we will continue to attract more participants. We may have quite a backlog, but in itself that's not a bad thing—at least these pattern problem contributors are being listed and dealt with, albeit sometimes slowly! So, thanks for all you do. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It's great we've suckered other editors into copyright cleanup. I am relieved that I don't have to babysit SCV any more. MER-C 08:12, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thakshak torpedo

I see you replaced the content on Thakshak torpedo with a massive copyright violation template. Why did you remove all the content? I was just about to investigate which sources and sentences appear to be copyright infringements. Minimac (talk) 07:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Out of habit, there was a time when the copyvio template didn't make the rest of the article disappear. The content is still available in the page history. If you're willing to investigate this editor's (who was indeffed for copyvios and is now socking) contributions then I'll hold off on the presumptive removals per Wikipedia:Copyright violations for now. MER-C 08:02, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image thing you do

Hi. Can you produce a list of images the way you do for User:Amchishalachembur? Not opening a CCI here, but his stuff is being mass-listed at PuF, and it could be helpful. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:57, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. There's only image left; the others have all been speedied. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BL

I'm not very active working the GBL, but if you ever need help with some urgent business do feel free to poke me. If the local blacklist talk page has "died" then that's really not good (well, the Metapage isn't exactly bustling with activity either I'm afraid...) How come you're not an admin here btw, you seem to be the most active in spamworking currently? Finn Rindahl (talk) 14:42, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RFA is our Camelot -- a silly place to be avoided (a casual browse through the recent RFA talk page archives is rather enlightening). The local blacklist talk died because the admin who maintains it is on a wikibreak. MER-C 05:28, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hehe, know what you mean (didn't have to browse the archives - seen too much silliness there already). When you add warnings to ip-talkpages, would it be possible to do so without active links to the sites. These warnings sort of flood the [6] reports and makes it a bit more tedious to see if the links have been removed. Finn Rindahl (talk) 13:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We use such URLs for tracking purposes (and a quick check on whether my spam reports are complete). It's not my fault that there are 49 spammers -- it's probably a record. MER-C 03:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CCI Bci2 images

So I was working through this CCI today and noticed that there was one wikipedia file uploaded by this editor missing from the list and similarly one commons file missing from the list and I was just wondering if you knew how they had been missed and/or thought you should know for future reference in case your magic (as MRG puts it) was malfunctioning. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Three possible explanations for the commons discrepency:
1) Crappy image searching on commons.
2) Stuff may be ported without mentioning the uploader here (especially if image is tagged public domain)
3) (most likely) Stuff may be ported or uploaded during the CCI.
As for locally, I have to delete duplicates manually. I might have taken out one accidently. Let me know if this happens on a regular basis. MER-C 08:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, good to know. Thanks! VernoWhitney (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful what you ask for

… you might just get it:

Thanks for all you do about spam around here! I wish I could do more. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 18:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Well and throughly owned. :) Now all that remains is to blacklist those 50 or so other domains on the SBL talk page... MER-C 07:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image list?

Hi. :) We've got a new CCI with image considerations at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Sisiluncai. I'm running a text survey, but can you populate the images? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. MER-C 13:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And fast! Thanks. :D --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I saw a message from you about my links to www.discdish.com. I only add links to Wikipedia that I believe add information to Wikipedia pages and are useful to Wikipedia readers. I'm new to Wikipedia, but I try hard to make sure that I don't add anything that is not appropriate to the page. Hope this helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ann77 (talk • contribs)

Why do all of your edits insert links to discdish.com? Also, would you happen to know one Trenchant63? Just curious. MER-C 02:44, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Heh

I knew that that was going to be a feature that people might want. I am working on a rewrite of the report saver, and will incorporate this functionality later. Until then, these need to be generated from IRC, I will do that for you (I also did one for EdenDD). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I chose a user whose contributions I investigated manually so I could compare the results if successful. Looks like you've got a bug, though. MER-C 09:54, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Funny, there is, indeed. Looking at that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And a serious one .. and for a long time .. sigh, I have some database corruption that I will need to solve. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

how come is it that my site playriga.com was deleted from the page?

this is the page: Riga

my site (playriga.com) is not a personal site, but a site that is dedicated for the city of Riga

the has a community of Riga residents that contribute content to it

the site is not commercial site but a free site with information to people that are interested in Riga

the site is getting quite popular among its visitors that come back and visit the site and write emails and give me good feedback about it

there are many other web sites about Riga that ARE commercial sites but they are not deleted from the page —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lauferb (talk • contribs)

What is the encyclopedic utility of this site? Bear in mind we tend to exclude tourist guide type sites because they do not provide a unique resource and the presence of other dubious links does not excuse you from adding more inappropriate links. MER-C 07:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CCI request, images

Hi. :) Any chance you could generate a list of the images from User:Aquaplex? I'm not sure we need a full CCI (it's evidently been listed there a few days), but I'd be happy to take a look and make sure that everything left has a valid FUR. If you can, please park it at User talk:Moonriddengirl/sandbox. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. MER-C 06:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:45, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SBL

I saw you added an update, I'll take care of that one in the morning as it's clearly ongoing (need to shut down the system now). I'm trying to work a few entries from that page each day until it's current. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:40, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, and thanks for going through RFA to get things going again. MER-C 06:31, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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