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LPFM

List_of_LPFM_stations_in_New_Zealand#Wellington

no link was added. The link was already there 60.234.144.222 (talk) 22:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


Re: Lonelygirl15 Episode delete

I'm simply updating the list of lonelygirl15 episodes on the very extensive list of them (we're up to 410), so the deletion of the last six episodes that I added and provided links to like every other single episode was unnecessary. I put them back in, and unless you're planning to delete the whole article, the deletion of the episodes once again would be extremely contradictory to the rest of the entire article, seeing as how I am only providing updates to the article. Zombiejaci (talk) 09:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted the bot's removal of your additions. SquelchBot reverts additions of links which are often spammed by anonymous users and new users who aren't familiar with our External Links guidelines. Your account will be auto-confirmed in a few days and you should have no further problems adding episodes. --Versageek 14:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

A link on the page Martin Lukes was deleted. The comment from Squelch Bot said in part ... "Note that such sites should probably not be linked to if they contain information that is in violation of the creators copyright (see Linking to copyrighted works), they are not written by a recognised, reliable source or contain original research."

The last to me looks like a misunderstanding of the idea of No Original Research. Wikipedia is not meant to contain original research, but surely linked pages may contain original research.

Not sure this is really an issue for the page that is relevant here, but still, it looks like a misunderstanding here. --81.178.97.181 (talk) 17:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

SquelchBot reverts additions of links which are often spammed by anonymous users and new users who aren't familiar with our External Links guidelines. Links to blogspot.com fit into this category since anyone can create a blogspot account & publish their opinion (see the self-published sources section of our Verifiability policy). Having looked at your addition, I'm inclined to leave it as an example of someone who didn't realize it was fiction. As you discovered, the bot won't revert the same article twice in a row.. this doesn't mean the addition will always stay, as it usually prompts a human review of the edit. --Versageek 15:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually you missed the point of my posting on this page. I'm saying that links to original research must be fine (it's Wikipedia that should not contain o.r., not the pages it links to which may well do. So I think the comment from SquelchBot was misleading.
You're right, I removed that part. Thanks for pointing this out to us. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Blogspot.com

This shouldn't be up here. There are situations where it is 100% acceptable if not desirable to link to this site. For example, if a BLP's personal site is at blogspot.com. Lawrence § t/e 14:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

There are enough concerns for blog/mysite sites to be on this list, the majority of the edits by new accounts is not in accordance with policy or guideline (one or more out of: WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:NPOV, WP:COI, WP:EL, WP:SPAM, WP:COPYRIGHT). In the blogspot case e.g., how do you know that it is the official blog. The bot does remember new editors to check that and if they do feel it is appropriate, they can readd it without being reverted or experienced editors who know about these concerns can add the link if they do think it is appropriate (they don't get reverted). SquelchBot is not the spam-blacklist. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Before adding the external link, I reviewed the External Links policy and believe that the addition of the link adds an important and current information to the entry. Based on my review of the Wiki article and the variety of players and insights into the city of Portland, the link is extremely revelant and offers information that is not offered by the current Wiki entry (and is better added through use of the external link). Please revert the changes. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.41.55.3 (talk) 23:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Please explain this on the talk page of the article. If the other editors of that article feel the link is appropriate, it can be put into the article. --Versageek 04:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

About the anthems of Kalmykia, Sakha, Tatarstan

Hi SquelchBot,

Yes. It's my fault to use sources with ambiguous licenses. I'll be careful before citing any source from YouTube next time. Apologies for inconvenience.

Sincerely,

140.112.90.224, 2008-01-29 (Tue) 00:53 UST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.112.115.2 (talk) 00:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

About Christell's Article

Hi SquelchBot, about the links from my article, Im sorry, I already extracted the external links, I didn't know that I couldn't put them all the times a wanted. But what is the problem with the external links from the two videos from youtube I posted??? Or those are ok?? because I've seen links from youtube' videos in wikipedia so I thought that was ok, and I just put two.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CarolBkn" —Preceding unsigned comment added by CarolBkn (talk • contribs) 05:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

About Paper Shredder Edit

Hi Squelchbot, just a question here on why an external link was deleted.

According to Wikipedia's guidelines for external links, articles "should include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia if they are relevant. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability." In this case, what could be more relevant than an article listing what documents should and shouldn't be shredded? Especially given the fact that the external link that remains (for OfficeZone) is no less commercial than the one that was deleted. It looks like the deleted link contained original research and was in accordance with the rules.

Thanks...User:Market224 —Preceding comment was added at 13:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You are talking about this edit: diff. You seem to be quite persistent in adding that link. The external links on paper shredder should be about a paper shredder, not about what documents you should typically throw in to them (see WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided, number 14). Also, we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm. External links are OK if they are on-topic etc. (as you read in the external links guideline), but it is content we are after here. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. I apologize if the link was out of line...I genuinely thought it was on-topic (paper shredder/what you should and shouldn't shred...not exactly apples to oranges) and was only trying to be helpful....User:Market224

Official blog

Okay, so how do you want me to add Jolie Justus' official blog as a State Senator, if I can't link to blogspot?? 205.167.180.130 (talk) 20:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I reverted the bot. --Versageek 20:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. It's always enlightening to spend some time as an IP and see what simple tasks become exponentially more difficult. 205.167.180.130 (talk) 21:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Your comments at User talk:Deana175

When you told off User:Deana175 off for inserting links to multiple geocities documents at English Standard Version, I think you missed that he/she was simply reverting edits of mine. So I think the edits were in good faith. I've invited him/her to discuss the edits at Talk:English Standard Version. Peter Ballard (talk) 23:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"told off" is a bit harsh, the bot left an informative warning about why the links were removed. I understand the bot's name seems BITE-y, we will be changing to a less obnoxious name soon. Thank you for taking up the content discussion with this user. --Versageek 19:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Marguerite Perrin

I have reverted your change to the Marguerite Perrin article-- you removed the link to her MySpace page. Since the link it to a page belonging to the SUBJECT of the article, it is a valid link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.251.45.216 (talk) 01:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, Thanks! --Versageek 01:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

About my revision of The S-Word (The Boondocks)

I only linked to a YouTube video because the article referred to it; I thought the article would look better with a link to an actual video rather than saying what the video's called and saying that one could find it on YouTube. I'm sorry! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.133.111.233 (talk) 05:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

K-pop

I think http://krnloop.wordpress.com/ should be included in the external links. It provides translations of Korean entertainment news articles with a neutral point of view (and links to original Korean sources). Some people have been adding sites such AllKpop.com and other resources are either biased or do not provide enough information. I believe Krnloop should stay on the list since English news about Kpop is very limited. 75.15.86.252 (talk) 06:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunatly the External links policy on blogs are Links normally to be avoided. thanks--Hu12 (talk) 10:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Great to see you up and running!

I'm a big fan of yours. Enigmaman (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The Technology Barnstar

moved to bot's userpage

If the bot gets a new name, Please feel free to change that above...--Hu12 (talk) 13:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Themerson

Hallo, you deleted the external link I add. OK, it's a blog, but it's the only which issued the Themerson's experimental video Calling Mr.Smith. So I think we could leave this external link. Best, Marcocrotone —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcocrotone (talk • contribs) 16:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you give us a link to the page or the revert? Otherwise it is difficult to see what you mean. Both Themerson and Calling Mr.Smith do not exist, and I don't see the edit in your edithistory. Blogs would only be allowed if they are the official blog of the subject of the page. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Themerson the blog http://mellart.blogspot.com/2008/01/calling-mr-smith.html isn't official page, ins't a famous blog, but it's the only blog which analize the short films Calling Mr. Smith! talk • contribs) 20:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, that sums it up. The blog is not by the subject of the page, it is not about the subject of the page, so it does not belong on this page. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Question

Hi, why was the link to a 1956 document not deemed acceptable? Thanks!Rocky2276 (talk) 17:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you supply a diff, please? --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see, priory-of-sion.com. There are (now two; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/priory-of-sion.com) accounts that are pushing that link, while other users try to make clear that the link, especially in the current format. May I suggest that before further additions are performed, the involved editors start discussing on appropriate talkpages first? Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hans Keller

Could you take a look at my edit here to see if this is valid or not? The link is to a video where Hans Keller (the subject of the article) interviews a band that was on a television show that he hosted in the 1960s. I looked at the guidelines and don't see how this is a violation of them, but could you check just to be sure? It was not an attempt at spam. You also erased my infobox, which am pretty sure is not spam. Cheers. 70.186.172.75 (talk) 12:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably it is, the video might very well be a copyright violation, do you know by any chance where the original is? Also, it is not an interview with Hans Keller, it is an interview by Hans Keller. That does not tell more about Hans Keller, it tells more about Pink Floyd. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, cool. That makes sense. What about the infobox? I thought all bio articles were supposed to have them? That got zorched, too. 70.186.172.75 (talk) 15:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
No problems with that, you are right, you can insert that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, thanks, just making sure. Thanks for the assistance. 70.186.172.75 (talk) 15:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Intel 8085: reverted edit due to link to freeware program relevant to article

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intel_8085&diff=188135564&oldid=188120245 which was reverted due to regex match of "geocities", while I do understand the reason for the regex (and could basically re-add the edit without said link), I feel that adding additional freeware resources to that article helps because, 1) the article deals with an electronic component that is frequently used all over the world by numerous universities in computer science and engineering courses to teach microprocessor and microcontroller design/architecture, thus it is highly likely that readers may be interested in freely available educational programs about said component (namely, microprocessor simulators), thus the encyclopedic value of the article is increased by such links (even though a couple of links are added), 2) the originally mentioned program 'gnusim8085' (while free and open source) is currently restricted to one single OS (namely, Linux) 3) however, an significant portion of computer users today is still using Win32-based OS, and 4) all added links refer to freeware programs, thus there is no commercial interest at all. Therefore, please reconsider the edits of the bot. Thank you!—Preceding unsigned comment added by Parallelized (talk • contribs)

You can make that decision to revert. Though, wikipedia is not the yellow pages, the external links do not provide more information about the Intel 8085, they provide information about free software. So no, I do not concur that these links (this one, and also the other ones) have their place on this page. Geocities is there since they generally do not provide information that should be linked to in external links sections. Being commercial or not is not the only reason why links are on the revertlist. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Your psycho-bot is removing inter-Wikipedia Links like:
The planet Earth's temperature extreme records are:
See the reversions at Planetary human habitability
198.163.53.10 (talk) 18:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but that was because you inserted a link which is on the revertlist (blogspot). The rest is a form of 'collateral damage', the blogspot would not be allowed per our external links guideline. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
It's not psycho. It just brought a rocket-launcher to a gun fight. :) Enigmaman (talk) 18:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The 22nd Bomb Group was a very forward unit of the USAAF in World War 2. President Lyndon Johnson got a silver star for a 30 minute ride with the Group. In compiling historical material for the 22nd Bomb Group's entry, contributors are encouraged to provide historical sources. Three incredibly important sources have been discovered and added to the Wikipedia website: 1. a personal account of the first action seen by the Group: an attack on the Japanese Fleet at the Battle of Midway, by Lt James Muri. 2. a personal account of the first action seen by the Group in New Guinea 3. a video of a crash landing of a survivor from the mission that LBJ went on for the first 30 minutes (his flight turned back). These are important sources that get posted onto the internet ... and I scan the internet regularly for new, important material to add to the site. I don't understand the exclusion of these really important historical sources. I am the creator of this entry and have not logged in because I've lost my login set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.191.124.102 (talk) 23:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the bot. Please consider establishing a new account to avoid being reverted by the bot (or other users). --Versageek 20:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Counter productive bot

Hello, I just wanted to say that in my opinion the bot is counter productive in the respect that it removes links to youtube for example, without apparently any forethought as to whether they are valid or not. If you do not want any links to some sites, why not simply blacklist them ? Jackaranga (talk) 20:18, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

XLinkBot is intended to deal with domains which may have a legit use on-wiki, but are frequently misused by new and anonymous users (or have a history of being misused). The bot allows established (autoconfirmed) users to add links, while reverting links added by others. IP's and new users can still edit a page that contains links on the bot's revert list, they won't be reverted unless they add or change a link themselves. If a site is on the Mediawiki blacklist, no one can add it and pages which contain it may not be saved.. this is especially problematic if you are an IE user.. since IE will lose all your changes if it gets a "can't save this page" message. Only sites which are completely inappropriate for Wikipedia belong on the Mediawiki blacklist. --Versageek 20:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

glass tiles

I suggest that the 'installing glass tiles' ext link from the Dec 20 version of this page should be reinstated:

"Wikipedia articles should include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia if they are relevant. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews)." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtbaldyred (talk • contribs) 05:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I reverted the bot.. apparently the page was vandalized sometime last week.. the IP was just restoring all the categories & material that was removed. --Versageek 05:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Caracal Pistol

Hello, I am this IP, you reverting edits by Quickload, and now this user make a Copyright infringement, the new text is from here, sorry for my bad English. Greetings from Austria. --195.3.113.176 (talk) 14:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I have reverted the copyvio additions. -- Versageek 19:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

As stated on my talk page, I am the author of both texts in the wikipedia article (that I started) and the informative site referring to the Caracal pistol. Same for many other texts and pictures that can be found on both my sites and Wikipedia articles referring to historical firearms, mainly submachineguns like the Bergmann MP 18.1, the Colt 635, the Steyr MP 34 etc...

Edmond HUET (talk) 13:47, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Mark Bunker

As statet here [1] you did remove the Link to the YouTube Page were MB does show his OWN Videos. so please do insert this Link again. 194.76.29.2 (talk) 10:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the links are to Xenu TV pages, not to pages telling things about Mark Bunker. Hence, not directly linked (see Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided. Hope this explains. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 13:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Newsoul.jpg

Please delete the file. I'm sorry for any trouble I have caused. Thank You, User:Cool-guy357

deleted, thanks for letting us know. I've placed a welcome template on your talk page, hopefully you will find it helpful :) . --Versageek 01:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

From Logic to Ontology: The limit of "The Semantic Web"

The limits of the semantic web are not set by the use of machines themselves and biological systems could be used to reach this goal, but as the logic that is being used to construct it does not contemplate the concept of time, since it is purely formal logic and metonymic lacks the metaphor, and that is what Gödel's theorems remark, the final tautology of each construction or metonymic language (mathematical), which leads to inconsistencies. The construction of the Semantic Web is a undecidible problem.

This consistent logic is completely opposite to the logic that makes inconsistent use of time, inherent of human unconscious, but the use of time is built on the lack, not on positive things, it is based on denials and absences, and that is impossible to reflect on a machine because of the perceived lack of the required self-awareness is acquired with the absence.

The problem is we are trying to build an intelligent system to replace our way of thinking, at least in the information search, but the special nature of human mind is the use of time which lets human beings reach a conclusion, therefore does not exist in the human mind the halting problem or stop of calculation.

So all efforts faced toward semantic web are doomed to failure a priori if the aim is to extend our human way of thinking into machines, they lack the metaphorical speech, because only a mathematical construction, which will always be tautological and metonymic, and lacks the use of the time that is what leads to the conclusion or "stop".

As a demonstration of that, if you suppose it is possible to construct the semantic web, as a language with capabilities similar to human language, which has the use of time, should we face it as a theorem, we can prove it to be false with a counter example, and it is given in the particular case of the Turing machine and "the halting problem".

um.. interesting, but why post it here? --Versageek 03:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

References and links...

Rugby league in France
I understand very well what you say:
. official links of the French republic (government(s) or its institutions) are false,
. official documents of the French republic (the image provided by government(s) or its institutions ) are false,
. official infos provided by the French historians are false.

Consequently
. why want you this: "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable" ?
. why require you this: "Reference(s)" ?
. why want you this: "the writings have to be documented ?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.216.5.2 (talk) 12:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The bot reverts links to imageshack because they are often copyright violations, that doesn't appear to be a problem in this case. Links to government institutions are fine, however, images of documents placed on a free image share service such as imageshack can't be considered official government documents because we have no way of knowing what (if any) changes may have been made to them between the time the government issued them & when they were placed online (this is a general statement, not intended to suggest you have done anything improper). It would be better to link to a copy of the document on a government website. --Versageek 13:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


I understand what you said but governments, official institutions, Historians don't add on internet or in theirs books all documents they issue or find; you are obliged to do searches with the info they give and to do photocopies of the documents that you put after in a free image share service.
Moreover for a French who provides false official documents it is several months in prison and several thousands € of penalties, for a French state civil servant prison and penalties are huguely more important; where is my interest or of L. Bonnery's interest ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.216.5.2 (talk) 13:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


You suggest that you have to link to the imageshack documents, because otherwise you can't make references? It may look strange, but there does not have to be a link to the document, if you state that someone published something in a document called something, in some month of some year, and you make sure that description is referring to a unique document, then it is a valid reference already, and that information is verifiable. The link to the document is merely a service to the wikipedia-users. Images on servers like imageshack are often copyright violations, and could easily be documents that are not an exact or good copy, or they get replaced by the user who put them there (and how do we know it is an exact copy if we don't know where the exact copy is .. ). In all cases it is better to refer to the official document, and if there is a link to that official document, then that is a good link. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


1) I always give my sources (in references or links).
2) have you read above the consequences for providing false official documents (where is my interest) ?

Could this be a Bot error?

I entered www.my-plasma-tv.com under External Links for Plasma TV's and it was rejected by XLinkBot with this reason "The external links I reverted were matching the following regex rule(s): rule: '\bblogspot\.com' (link(s): http://plasmatelevision42.blogspot.com/) ."

The my-plasma-tv does not link to a blog, forum or free web hosting service. It is a site dedicated to explaining how plasma tv's work, comparing them to LCD's, how to hang above a fireplace, how to hide the wires, affects of sunlight etc.

It is a current and up to date site as opposed to the link from 2004 (Plasma display panels: The colorful history of an Illinois technology by Jamie Hutchinson, Electrical and Computer Engineering Alumni News, Winter 2002-2003).

Yes, there are adsense ads on it but who doesn't have those. Could this be a Bot Error? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wendi789 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

No, when you reverted the user who removed your link the first time, you also added back in four other links. One of those was a blogspot.com link, which caused the bot to revert you. --Versageek 03:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining what happened. I would still like to add http://www.my-plasma-tv.com to the Plasma TV page. I'm concerned that if I add it again I will get the same error and a "second warning". Could an administrator add this site in the External links section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wendi789 (talk • contribs) 12:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi --You need to upgrade your algorithm

I am not able to understand the reason behind reverting the update on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_QuickTest_Professional You can have an expert check for this website http://mercuryquicktestprofessional.blogspot.com This links gives some of the very practical solutions for beginners and advanced users of QTP. Your algorithm penalize any site hosted on blogspot...that in my opinion is insane. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.91.144.90 (talk) 18:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Please take a look at the specific requirements of our External Links and Reliable Sources guidelines. I don't think this link meets either guideline.--Hu12 (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

East York, Ontario

Please leave the link to the googlepages weather link for this page. A useful service. Bellagio99 (talk) 14:37, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Second Life

I tried to add a link to http://slgames.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/alternatives-to-second-life-uber-edition/#more-340 I do think this adds value to the article. Please consider allowing this particular URL to that page. I understand that many blogs are unreliable but this particular article I think does add value. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.183.100.8 (talk) 01:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I recently re-inserted some unique links that were deleted by a user who is bitter that his link (he couldn't wait to word it and post it in a backhanded way to try to further call Secretariat's greatness into question) with Secretariat losing in the 1973 Wood Memorial was deleted; his continued denigration of the horse in his previous "correcting" posts spells him out as a troublemaker. This user has an ax to grind with anyone who enjoys Secretariat and his accomplishments, he seems to detest Secretariat because he thinks he is overrated. After he deleted said links, he has NOT deleted any other YouTube horse racing links, ANYWHERE on Wikipedia. That is MOST peculiar, and telling.

All I ask therefore is that ALL automated BOTS on Wikipedia are THOROUGH in their deletion of YouTube links by scanning for and deleting CURRENT links as well, not just deleting links via a more stringent screening of illegal YouTube links added in the future. To not do so is unethical; Wikipedia's own words: "Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors." An automated scanning system for active YouTube links (for that matter, ANY video links from copyrighted sites and/or containing copyrighted footage) so far overlooked is needed; otherwise, the rejection of the re-insertion of the links I speak of (13:10, 16 February 2008) is patently unfair.

Please link to what you're talking about. Anyway, the bot isn't programmed to scan pages for links. It's checking for new links that are added. Enigma (talk) 17:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Enigma: My original concern was that I was wondering IF it was indeed possible for a bot(s) to be developed and programmed to scan for and erase illegal video links, somehow. If not, no problem. I notice that you are a "recent changes patroller"; I am rather new to this process, forgive me for not including a live link, but I thought the subject header was sufficient enough to get my point across. Point taken, and I thank you for your time.
I reverted the bot, but I suspect all of the youtube.com links on the page (including yours) go to some sort of copyvio material.. (all of the videos contain television footage). One of the reasons the bot rejects youtube links from new and anonymous users is because we don't have enough people to manually check the thousands and thousands of links. Just because other stuff exists doesn't mean we need to allow more of it. --Versageek 18:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Versageek: I appreciate your reverting the bot's changes. I put those links of Secretariat's "Alternate Footage" up for Secretariat admirers and horse racing lovers in general to enjoy; the footage is obscure to find and would be likely lost forever to the majority of racing fans if not unearthed by said means. It was purely posted to enhance the experience of "Big Red." That said, it is still illegal to post broadcast footage in any shape or form, and I accept future deletion of those links if Wikipedia deems them to be unacceptable. I thank you for your attention and time in this matter.

Loyola de Palacio

I do not undertand you, how can you say false things about a death person as Loyola de Palacio and clear what is right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pukvega (talk • contribs) 17:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Pukvega, the blog link you included is inappropriate as it can not be the official blog written by the subject of the article, because this person is deceased. --Versageek 18:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I was linking through to an article originally written by the Douglas motor company promoting the first circumnavigation of Australia in 1925 on a motorcycle (which happened to be a Douglas). The text of the article has been typed out and appears on a geocities site. Kevin Cass re-created this journey and it thus seems wholly relevant to include it as a reference. This is the link which has been removed http://www.geocities.com/xs400/Aust1925.txt. I would argue that this is a very robust source, not under copyright since the company no longer exists, and it is of interest to this article.

Further to this, Kevin Cass built a winning motorcycle which is featured in the registry of classic bikes and which I remember him building. This link has also been removed. http://www.classicmotorcycling.com.au/default.asp?cat=registryview&ID=136

Furthermore, I would like to say that the era of motorcycle racing which Kevin Cass was involved with in Australia is extremely poorly documented anywhere and particularly online (outside of forums) and that I am lucky to find the references I have. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kakeass (talk • contribs) 12:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Request to remove from Revertlist - whatbird.com

Hi, Pls remove whatbird.com from the Revertlist of the XlinkBot. The link contains the birdcalls and songs of the birds that cannot be added to the wiki. Thanks for your consideration. Ropm (talk) 18:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The blatant way this link is currently being spammed (including people offering money to spam wikipedia) suggests that this may actually be a good candidate for the meta spam blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Would agree with Dirk, and it is now blacklisted--Hu12 (talk) 19:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

distributist.blogspot.com

Yes, I have been removed from three main sources. The first is "Father Vincent Mcnabb," another for "Social Justice" and "Cooperative." As all of these fall under my site, "The ChesterBelloc Mandate" I would like them to be unedited. The site in question is a website dedicated to G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Fr. Vincent McNabb specifically about the Catholic application of social justice, to include private ownership and cooperative movements.

Regards, Gen Ferrer www.distributist.blogspot.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.44.188 (talk) 04:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

blogs are generally not accepted on Wikipedia, as such anything from blogger.com is removed. See here. Enigma msg! 04:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

I noticed that your bot deleted the references to the "666" image in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town." Why would that happen? I've never seen this satanic symbol mentioned in any other Deeds discussion, it must be an original discovery. The YouTube link took the user to a Deeds clip that showed the symbol, so there was no doubt left in anyone's mind as to its validity.

Deeds was made long before The Omen and Damien Thorn's symbol, and Deeds is an entirely different type of movie than The Omen series. That's what makes the 666 appearance in Deeds that much more confounding; why was it there? An early subliminal, perhaps?

But now we'll never know, as a Wikibot has deleted it! Now what do we do? Or, rather, what are you going to do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.153.180 (talk) 04:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you give us a more precise description of the revert? Which page, which diff? If you were linking to an image, please consider uploading the image. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I found it. You meant diff. I have reverted the bot, but removed the youtube link. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

"Please Check Thoroughly"

> If the external link you inserted or changed was to a blog, forum, free web hosting service, or similar site, then please check the information on the external site thorougly.

Why? If the link is being caught by a bot, and there's no way to override it, then checking it thoroughly is a waste of time, no? The link at issue is to Rick Cook's blog, verified to be him, and really only pertinent in the inline context. --Baylink@en.wp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.96.225.135 (talk) 05:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You can revert the bot, or undo the edit; that is the way to override it. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

warning vandals

Hi, I noticed you've been adding titles with ===, instead of ==. Can this be changed? The standard way for a new month is with 2. Thanks, Enigma msg! 17:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Will do, thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Done. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Bushmaster ACR

I tried adding information about the Bushmaster ACR, which is an updated version of the Magpul Masada rifle. I tried adding two links to my entry: a video of Drake Clark (one of the designers) from SHOT Show 2008 where he shows the various changes that have been made to the original Masada design as it became the ACR; and a link to the press release where Bushmaster acknowledges that they will manufacture Magpul's design under the Bushmaster ACR name. I thought this link was more valid than a bunch of links to various internet forums. Also, based on Mr. Clark's presentation in the video it is clear that the image depicted on the wikipedia page is of the original Masada design, NOT the Bushmaster ACR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skullworks (talk • contribs) 17:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the bot. -- Versageek 18:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Help Me Request

Hello, there is currently a user saying this bot is malfunctining and reverting good faith edits. Just thought I would let you know, please contact this user. Thanks and Happy Editing, Dustitalk to me 18:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The bot was not malfunctioning, it did exactly what it should do, remove external links where there may be a concern. In this case the youtube-video seems to be copyvio, and it does not assert anything due to the damage that was done to the video. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Nick Thompson

I made lengthy changes last night to the Nick Thompson thread. I added references supporting all of the info, and organized all external sources. Is it possible for the changes to be recovered?

P.S. I see now that I am able to revert back to my changes, and I did that. I provided an explanation on the talk page for the article.

Thanks,

Nathan

Joh02639 (talk) 19:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite understand...

I don't quite understand how I was advertising when that was the video I found the information from... unless you meant the one leading to my YouTube channel. In that case, I will change it to my User Page here on Wikipedia. Nutty Gorilla

..."one" means link... Nutty Gorilla
The bot is designed to revert additions of external links where the majority of these additions is in conflict with or strongly discouraged by one or more policies or guidelines (see Wikipedia:External links). That includes advertising links, but also youtube movies. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Caprice Crane

Hi,

I dont see anything wrong with the link I added. It is to her official website. Her other website is for her book and movie. I am not trying to promote or advertise for her. Her bio is a stub and needs more info.

24.44.191.252 (talk) 04:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure this was a good revert ...

[2]. Philip Trueman (talk) 18:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Nope, it was not. I reverted the bot and cleaned the article .. I don't think the youtube video is a reliable source here. Thanks! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 19:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I tried to update the Avastin/Bevacizumab page by changing one of the external links to an updated version -- but the automated bot reverted my change. (It was a link to my online web Journal, as was the original link.)

Why, if the original link was accepted, was not the updated link?

Here is the page link: Avastin ````Irv Arons

The bot only started running in January 2008, the link was there prior to that time. --Versageek 21:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Pyrsogianni/Geocities

An article about the Greek village Pyrsogianni was input in Greek. When it was tagged "needs translation", the author provided an English version which was instantly reverted by XLinkBot because it included this link to the village's web-site on geocities.com. I have restored the English translation, but not the geocities link; however it seems a harmless and indeed useful and relevant one. Is there any reason why I should not restore it? If I do, how can I prevent XlinkBot removing it again? And why does XlinkBot disapprove of Geocities - I don't see anything specific against it at WP:EL? Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

  • I have restored the link and it has survived for 10 minutes, so maybe XLinkBot didn't notice. I would still like to know if I need to do anything to protect it permanently, and why the Bot thought there was a problem. JohnCD (talk) 16:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
XLinkBot reverts new and anonymous users (who are often unaware of our policies and guidelines) when they add links to blogs, forums, free web hosting services, or similar sites because these sites often contain information that is in violation of the creators copyright (see Linking to copyrighted works), are not written by a recognized, reliable source, or involve conflict of interest issues. These users may revert the bot if they choose to, the bot won't revert twice in a row, nor will it revert more than three times in a day on a given page. Established users won't be reverted by the bot unless the domain they add is on the override list, and items which might be placed on the override list are more often placed on the Mediawiki:Spam-blacklist instead. --Versageek 19:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, the group Planet Youth has its own youtube channel where it uploads all original content relevant to the group itself...if this is still wrong to put up a link, then that's fine, I'll take it down...however, if this is an error, please revert the revertion of the link =) thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Tron (talk • contribs) 16:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

the vid i put on GM U platform was beside A youtube link... i don't see why that other link wasn't removed...does wikipedia show Favoritism?72.218.118.6 (talk) 21:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Here just to report out that XLinkBot undid a revision incorrectly on the Ladyscraper article. This may be because of the swear word in it ("http://myspace.com/proudhonarefuckingdead"). Just thought it would be necessary to report it. --—Mr. MetalFlower · chat · what I done did do 18:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. These links should not be on this page, they should be mentioned on the bands pages. I have adapted the section. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Weird

You're really strange, I just add source to the article. Don't you realize that? It looks to me that you don't know anything, thank to your question. 96.229.126.4 (talk) 09:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

If the reference was inside reference marks, then the bot should indeed detect that you were adding a reference (see WP:FOOT). Are you sure that the geocities page is a reliable source? Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe This Is Uneventfull

But is there a way you can work without removing hangon tags like you did here: [3]? -WarthogDemon 01:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That is difficult, then I would have to parse more extensively. In most cases with spammed domains also the rest of the edits are vandalism (though indeed not always). Killing only the unwanted link(s) could be an option, though not easy to do. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

When I made my first edit, there were 3 youtube videos already listed under Air Car (unless I'm confusing it with Motor Development International), so the bot removal looked like an automated thing, not an edit by a person. Then I removed a duplicate youtube link and added a link to a video for the Air Car that wasn't listed. I assumed the robo-messages I received weren't done by a person, so I kept adding the link, changing the style of the link (if it doesn't like youtube links, then how did the 3 original links get there?). Now, all the links to Air Car videos are gone, which is the worst thing possible, since the articles referring to a car that runs on compressed air, no longer have videos from reliable news sources (BBC, CNN, etc) that prove that it does exist and works. Since many people I talk to don't believe that the car is a "real car", having the video from the news agencies is very important. So in trying to improve the article, it got over-edited and made worse imo. Pablo70 (talk) 22:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You could of course link to the videos on the servers of BBC or CNN? Or use the information as a reference, since it is from a reliable source.
Established editors, who know the concerns with Youtube links, and many other, for new users it is often the case that the links are in violation with one or more policies or guidelines (summarised here: Wikipedia:External links). Such link additions are reverted. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I can understand simply editing out the one link from Blogspot that would be offensive, but why edit out all of the other links? Some of them were very useful! The first one in particular serves as the most official site for the band that will probably ever exist short of the band reuniting and starting up their own official site. Please help me out. I was not trying to reinsert link spam but was rather trying to do an article more justice than has been done to it, to enrich it, to enable it to be more of a resource than it is at the moment. If you want the external links section to be without the Blogspot link (though it links to a music blog that I personally, as a New Wave/early '80s modern rock fan, respect), then fine, so be it. But please don't edit out the whole external links section. And please do something about the warning. I didn't mean any harm. 69.148.174.204 (talk) 07:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It just reverts whole edits, it is difficult to see which part is the really unwanted part, and to parse that cleanly. Now the user itself can have a look and perform the edit with either removing the 'offensive' links, or decide that this specific case is appropriate. The warning is a standard first-level warning, with an explanation of why the link gets reverted. The top warning should assume good faith, but warn. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Flames of War Fan Sites List

Not allowing http://flames-of-war.blogspot.com/ to be listed under Fan Sites just because it is a blogspot blog seems a tad anal. Saying that it is in conflict with you linking policy is ludicrous when you consider the remaining Fan Sites left on the list are either DEAD LINKS or are ALSO in conflict with you linking policy. 222.154.239.87 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 01:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. If the others are dead links, then review and delete them, if the blogspot you want to add is OK with regard to the guidelines (note, the bot says "probably shouldn't be included", not that it is totally not allowed), then feel free to revert the bot. Can it be verified that this is an official fansite? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


Gamma Phi

Please turn off your bott for this site. RealOldSchool (talk) 10:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

No, sorry, the links you are adding are not appropriate. Please review Wikipedia:External links, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, etc. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi XLinkBot,

This was a valid link that was referenced off a Blogspot. I'll reference the specific target link though if it conforms better to the guidlines.

-AlienDjinn —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlienDjinn (talk • contribs) 21:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Happens, are you sure that it is a good primary source (see also the reliable sources guideline), is the information not e.g. scraped from other sites? If so, just revert the bot, it should then ignore you. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Canada Basketball

What is the mechanism for adding a valid, but whitelisted, link to an article Canada Basketball? The bot deleted an entirely appropriate EL because that link had been marked as COI (appropriately) due to the editor who originally added it. Nonetheless, the link is the official web site for the subject of the article and should be added. The subject of the article is I think sufficiently notable to remain even if its original author had a COI problem. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There are a couple of IPs adding the link, and they sometimes create new accounts and perform mainly/only link additions. XLinkBot only reverts new users and IPs, established accounts can add the link. Also reverting the bot should not result in another reversion (though we get warned about that). I guess you can revert the bot, or add the link. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize that "established accounts can add the link" and I didn't want to be reverted myself. Thanks. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

YOUTUBE

WHAY CAN'T YOUTUBE VIDEOS BE ADDED AS EXTERNAL LINKS?!?!?!?!?!? IF THE HAVE INFORMATION RELATED TO THE SUBJECT IT IS HELPFUL TO HAVE THEM!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.172.117.40 (talk) 03:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the external links guideline and policies like what wikipedia is not and copyright, in many, many cases youtube links are not appropriate (though there are exceptions). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
And get your broken Caps Lock key fixed while you're at it. :-) -- 217.171.129.73 (talk) 02:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

overzealous bot

This bot is out of control. It is removing legitimate links from wikipedia. Someone needs to disable this rogue code. 75.172.75.141 (talk) 02:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Links to support groups do not comply with our external links guideline, or with the policy 'What wikipedia is not' (not a repository of links section). --Versageek 03:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

thanks

I see your point i removed both the youtube reference and the link from the videos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benpreston2001 (talk • contribs) 11:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

youtube

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gittler_guitar

quotes video content in text

added link to youtube is killed by XlinkBot

why that??

btw: the bot is killing other content changes made in the same edit session as well ... a little bug, I guess —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frankpaush (talk • contribs) 10:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Removed again. We are not a web-directory. Sites should provide more info, not a just video. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 15:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there a limit for reversion?

For example, here it reverted lots of added text only because it contained, among other things, a myspace link. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 10:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, difference in diff-size of larger than 1500. It can be changed in the settings, but this is generally fine. Sometimes people add and delete a lot of data, making the difference smaller than 1500, and then the bot reverts. If that happens on a good edit, just revert the bot. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 15:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Unidad de Fomento

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unidad_de_Fomento&diff=200829300&oldid=200827939

Your robot not only reverted a legitimate link, but also other non questionable edits I had done.

I thought someone could delete a link just because it was in Blogspot. What I didn't think was that it would be a robot the one who would not read my message. If someone manually deletes the link I won't revert it.

200.111.44.186 (talk) 18:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

This link is nowhere near legitimate, please don't add links to blogs to articles as they are considered unreliable. Of course, that does not mean that the bot was right by reverting other additions such as infobox. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 20:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

A bug in the bot

Hi! I've recently received a test from your bot and I was accused of entering external links, but I only reverted vandalism ?! Please have a look at your bot's edit and please remove this test template from my user talk. Regards, Patrol110 (talk) 21:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 15:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Listed as a bot

Could this account please be listed as a bot rather than a regular user? Gary King (talk) 23:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I assume you are asking because you'd rather the bot's edits not appear in RecentChanges?
We actually prefer that XLinkBot's reverts appear (in the same manner as reverts performed by the anti-vandalism bots). In many cases, follow-up by a human can be helpful, either to assist the good-faith user or to deal with other nonconstructive edits made by vandals & spammers. --Versageek 19:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

myspace

Below are external links that are listed on just one of the pages that I posted the New London County Myspace page. I have also seen Myspace pages at the bottom of many actors pages. How is that any different?




New London County's Official Myspace Page New London Main Street - Non-profit organization for the revitalization of New London's Historic Waterfront District. Greater Mystic CT Region - Local directory of organizations serving the population of Greater New London (Greater Mystic). New London County Historical Society - Incorporated 1870. Historical and genealogical research library in the 1758 Shaw-Perkins Mansion. The Antiquarian & Landmarks Society - Keepers of the 1678 Joshua Hempstead House in New London, the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry, and others. New London Maritime Society - Museum in New London's 1833 U.S. Custom House, site of 1839 Amistad landing. Chart Room - Selected historic maps of New London since 1614. Ocean Beach Park - City park since Hurricane of '38. New London's beach and boardwalk on Long Island Sound. Connecticut Storytelling Center - At Connecticut College. Holds annual storytelling festival in April. Connecticut East Tourism - Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism. [17] - The official doublethink website. One New London - Local political party. New London Official site - New London government run site —Preceding unsigned comment added by Newlondoncounty (talk • contribs) 00:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, myspace is only allowed if it is the official myspace of the band, in by far the most cases the additions (by new editors) are not. If your edit is correct, just revert the bot. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 15:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The Explorers Club

removed external link —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davellis41 (talk • contribs) 06:00, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I see you already reverted. That was the solution. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 15:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Fenton Art Glass

I finally found an article I found interesting, and that I had a lot of knowledge about. I own over 400 pieces of Fenton, and numerous books on Fenton Art Glass. I plan on doing a lot of work to this page. I started out by linking to a few pages for some easy to verify info and then added a list of collectors groups and online groups that are about Fenton art glass. Your bot objected to The Fenton Art Glass eGroup. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fenton-glass/. The bot then proceeded to undo all my edits to the Fenton article, even those before I added the link? Why did it revert multiple edits if the last one was the issue? What exactly is wrong about adding a link to a group that collects Fenton on the Fenton article? AlbinoFerret (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 05:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

groups.yahoo.com is not allowed per WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, and fails WP:RS, and therefore often a concern. That it reverts all edits by one editor is a choice, if it only reverts the last, in most cases a lot of spam/vandalism stays, if it reverts all it also reverts good edits. Both methods have been tested in the past, it appears most edits fall in the first group. Hope this explains. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 15:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Too thorough You apparently rolled back two consecutive edits made by an anon ip on Hum (band). One of them was adding content and the other was simply adding a MySpace link. Since you rolled back both edits, you deleted the content from the first edit as well. -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Is a difficult choice .. in most cases consecutive edits by spammers are all spam, and are therefore (just like rollback and the other anti-vandalism bots) reverted all. Indeed sometimes that is too effective, but in by far the most cases correct (if it would only revert one edit, a lot of vandalism/spam would stay). --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 15:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

your bot reverted a perfectly good edit

Your bot reverted this edit [4] on the grounds that it came from wordpress; however that link is completely appropriate given the author (Terence Tao) and subject matter (Prof. Tao describing a recent result in geometric measure theory that has gotten a lot of attention from all over the math community). I realize a lot of blog links are inappropriate, but whether to include any particular one is a content decision, a matter of editorial judgement that should not be made by a bot. 207.241.238.233 (talk) 21:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wordpress has no editorial overview. For that a better source must be available, if it is notable enough to mention this (e.g. in a journal about mathematics). I replaced it with a {{cn}}. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 14:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Surely a link to Terence Tao goes to verifiability, not notability, and this is a textbook case where a wordpress cite is acceptable. I am a fan of XLbot, btw, but its scrupulous msgs and carefully-weighed practices maybe undone by Template:uw-spam1, which says "do not" rather than "may not". 86.44.28.245 (talk) 14:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ditto the above

You removed (at Flo Steinberg) an excerpt from a 1971 Rolling Stone article. I think we're on pretty thin ice when some automatic censor removes legitimate published journalism from a longstanding, legitimate news organization. --151.205.28.11 (talk) 23:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Perfectly good edit? Nah. You link to a scrape of a document. I am sorry, that is not a reliable source, I guess you should link the original (or mention the original, there is not a need to link). --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 14:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

James Amann

Documentation on gasoline taxes is from the CNBC website Documentation on three strikes is from a Hartford Courant blog

Is this an example of "bad externa links"? Hello..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.9.141.78 (talk) 03:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are linking to a scrape, why not link to the original data on the CNBC website? Or provide data about the newsitem (when, which program), the link is not needed, if you connect it to the CNBC item it is verifyable, which is more than can be said of an item on a blogspot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


Essex Junction, Vermont

Great bot! Peculiar incident though. It caught a newbie putting myspace in Essex Junction, Vermont. It immediately reverted it. He apparently thought he hadn't put it in right and re-added it. The bot did NOT seem to catch it the second time! Student7 (talk) 00:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

No, that is correct. The bot does not revert to itself or to one of the antivandalism bots (at the moment Cluebot and VoABot II), as well as some other protections against edit warring etc. The bot only reverts links which are generally used wrongly, but it is possible for users to override the bot by reinserting the link (e.g. the official myspace of the subject of the page would be an allowable link). It will result in an off-wiki alert (see #wikipedia-spam-t on IRC), and when people are watching the channel, that should be checked. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Timeout.com blacklisted

Your blacklisting of Timeout.com lead the bot to revert this attempt at adding a legitimate reference to an article. Food for thought, Skomorokh 15:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there has been quite some spamming from Dennis publishing, and apparently there was quite some inappropriate use.
And more items. But I think that User:COIBot is better here to monitor (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/timeout.com, it is indeed an appropriate source. Hope this helps (though it may be good if someone would have a look if there are no SPA's from Dennis publishing active anymore). --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Msg structure

Whatever is the case in other instances, the structure of the msg you left on an IP talk page that i had occasion to review is horrible.

Your sig style gives the appearance of an unsigned msg, coincidentally followed by a signed msg. If you would simply refrain from indenting the sig line, as i am doing with this msg, i think it would be clear that the sig applies to the whole edit, and not just to the portion that is indented at the same level. I think you'll see how doing it as your bot does would change the natural interpretation.

--Jerzy•t 18:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

the bot blanked the NASA page

The bot apparently all but blanked the NASA page [5]. I don't have time right now to look into why, but I reverted it. --rogerd (talk) 10:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That is certainly curious, that edit is bound to be bigger than 1500, so the bot should not revert. I will have to look into that more closely, this is a bug, probably. Thanks for reporting and reverting. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It is more curious than that, the bot made a mistake while reverting:
I don't see where this glitch comes from, all it should have done is load the data from the last 'correct' version and save that. I will keep an eye on this 'glitch'/'bug' or whatever it is. Thanks again for reporting. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

A moment ago I reverted a revert by XLinkBot. (It was a very unfortunate action by the bot, as it completely destroyed a newly created page.) I conjecture that the XLinkBot action was caused by the appearance of a myspace URL. However, that URL occurred in comments, not on the page. Maybe it is a mistake to kill pages because of comments. Perhaps the parser in XLinkBot can be improved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.84.53.62 (talk) 21:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. it should not have done that. There indeed needs to be something improved in the parser. Could you give me the diff, maybe I can see where it went wrong, what would really help to see how to improve. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the anonymous editor's contributions, I would say it was this edit to Artmoney. He/she should not have made us have to hunt for it, he should have posted at least the article name, and it would have been nicer to have posted the diff. --rogerd (talk) 13:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Squire, Sanders

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Squire, Sanders, and it appears to be very similar to another wikipedia page: Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 10:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

See post below. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

--142.165.222.6 (talk) 19:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)www.myspace.com/robdonison is not a site that promotes an artist. it is simply a collection of Christian rap artists that record that genre of music. is is possibly the most informative source of Christian rap artists on the internet and is an essential link ofr anyone wanting to connect with artists in this genre of music. if you are not clear on this, please check the site itself www.myspace.com/robdonison rob donison is the manager of the site and is an music award judge, not an active recording artist.

Yes, see Wikipedia:External links, the link is not appropriate, it may be appropriate on the wikipage for Rob Donison, in almost all other cases it is not. If however you think it is really appropriate, just revert the bot, it should not revert you twice. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Verbose messages, no template comments

The messages left by this bot on user talk pages should be more concise and follow the escalation patterns of prior warnings given by the uw-spam1, uw-spam2, uw-spam3, and uw-spam4 templates. Other bots (ClueBot, VoABot) manage this quite well, and they leave inline comments indicating the warning level. When XLinkBot comes along, the message it leaves doesn't indicate a warning level meaningful to either bots or humans.

For example, on User talk:203.123.154.98, XLinkBot should have left a level-2 spam warning with the comment <!-- Template:uw-spam2 -->, instead of a long essay with no warning level. The essay was incorrectly indented too (which I fixed), making it look like a reply to the prior warning. Please consider these improvements. Thanks. =Axlq (talk) 06:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No, that 'essay' is part of the first warning. It gives a {{uw-spam1}} and an explanation of why the bot reverted. Do you think that that part of (each) warning should not be indented? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:59, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see. I thought someone else left uw-spam1, and the bot added indented material underneath. That's what it looks like to someone reading over the page.
Anyway, why is uw-spam1 insufficient? If it's good enough for humans, it's good enough for bots. However, if you want to add more information, that long-winded 3-paragraph 'essay' could be reduced to a few lines, something like this:
Your edit [diff] was reverted by an automated bot. For information about why, see the external linking guidelines as well as the guidelines for Linking to copyrighted works and conflict of interest. If this bot's revert was in error, please let the bot creator know on User talk:XLinkBot. If this is a shared IP address and you didn't make the edit, please ignore this notice.
Naming the article in a heading is redundant, because uw-spam already names the article. The bot should also pay attention to the heading or sub-heading under which it's posting. If a ===January 2008=== heading already exists, and it's still January 2008, the bot shouldn't insert its own heading. =Axlq (talk) 15:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I have chosen to add a bit more information, as it is often the case that the link is not spam, though an unwanted link. Therefore it includes extra information (where possible) to tell why this particular link was reverted (images because they are better uploaded etc.). I could remove the indenting, that makes it clearer that it belongs in one post.
I will have a look into trying to obey the 'January 2008'-headings used by the other bots one of these days. That should not be too hard. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I think I solved the "January 2008"-heading. I'd like to hear some more input on how to make the warning proper for the type of link, without flooding the page. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, as I suggested above, a few lines of explanation with some "fill-in-blanks" might do the trick. For example:
Your edit [diff] was reverted by an automated bot, because [bot inserts reason below]
  • links to blog/fansite/community/forum sites are discouraged by the external linking guidelines and the reliable sources policy, except in case of an official link pertaining to the subject of the article.
  • links to promotional sites, whether commercial or not, are discouraged by the external linking guidelines.
  • Linking to copyrighted works should be avoided where it isn't clear that the copyright holder gave permission for reproduction or distribution.
  • Your edits have predominantly focused on adding this link to articles, which suggests a possible conflict of interest.
  • (any other appropriate reason taken from WP:EL)
If you are associated with this link, please review conflict of interest guidelines and discuss your link on the article's talk page instead of adding it to the article. If this bot's revert was in error, please let the bot creator know on User talk:XLinkBot. If this is a shared IP address and you didn't make the edit, please ignore this notice.
How's that? If you complete the first sentence with one of the bullets, you get a concise and civil message explaining why the bot took action. You don't even need to split it into paragraphs. =Axlq (talk) 16:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll have a look at making the warnings more consise later, at the moment the four things that users get customised warnings for is for 'pay per view'-pages (free hosts where people can create an own page, and when others see the page the user gets money from the site-maintainer), 'free hosts' (often problems with COI), 'media files' (which often link to copyrighted information), and 'petition sites' (not a soapbox etc.). The ones that have not been categorised get a shorter warning.
I'd like to add here, that this bot is doing something different than reverting vandalism. Vandalism does not need an extra warning, while people who add, in good faith, an external link, often don't see where their link violates WT:SPAM or WP:EL, so I think in this case a better explanation is necessery (but we do agree on that). --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not particular about what message the bot leaves, but I've noticed that Cluebot will ignore prior messages that don't say what warning level was used (like in this example). What ever the visable text is, do you mind putting some invisble text that signifies what warning level is being used so the other automated bots will do their jobs? Thanks, NJGW (talk) 21:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Simmons

A non existing edit was reverted ending with a substitution of the disambig Simmons page by the Simmons & Simmons page.--Stone (talk) 14:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Bllooodddyy .. I know what the problem is, the stupid ampersand. One of the other bots had the same problemI saw that this was happening, and I have repaired that 3 days ago .. and now I look further, I actually repaired it in this sequence. There was a spammer active adding a link to a whole series of lawyer-companies sites, a lot of them with the ampersand in them. I hope I have really repaired it, please alert me if you find one after the 16th (my calculation of time has a problem now, the box is 5 hours behind me, so I have tried to repair it on April 16 at 11:18, and you are posting this at Apr 16 at 14:23. The bot reverted at 11:27 .. hmm .. that would be after the repair .. I have to keep my eyes open for this one). I do hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
some refactoring, was not another bot, I implemented another attempt to repair, and I did not see another revert on a page with an ampersand in the log. I really hope this has helped now. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
It seems to have been resolved: XLinkBot tried to revert this edit and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gavin_%26_Stacey&diff=next&oldid=206924462 this] was the result. Thanks again for reporting this! --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

extra reverts

The bot is reverting more edits than just the one which adds links. If an editor has made multiple edits in a row then all of those edits may be reverted, including edits that don't add links. See Freyed knot (if noone has deleted the page yet). 144.110.129.62 (talk) 07:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Its a choice, general, anti vandalism bots revert all edits by the same user. When only reverting one edit, often not all 'vandalism' gets reverted, when reverting all it sometimes reverts too much. Difficult choice. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Illinoise

Why was the "in other media" section of Illinoise deleted? Check the edit log - the reason for deletion is not good enough. If you're gonna remove this for one page, you have to do it for every single page on Wikipedia that is laid out like this. Simple as that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.161.206.86 (talk) 12:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I have read the entire links "rules" page and fail to see any violation to a fan forum that is designed to provide discussion of the the article subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.4.163.198 (talk) 05:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. You were adding ezboard.com, which is generally not a suitable page in external links sections. If you believe in this case that the bot is wrong, just revert the edit. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Non standard warnings layout

Please use the layout described in Wikipedia:UTM#Multi-level_templates thanks -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 19:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It does add {{uw-spam1}} untill {{uw-spam4}} .. I am not sure what you mean. Could you explain? --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The messages Xlinkbot leaves are so long that it seems other bots don't notice prior warnings (like in this example). Maybe you should move the warning level to the end of the posts. NJGW (talk) 20:17, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I have added <!-- Template:uw-spam# --> to the end of the message. Now waiting for further examples to see if it works. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Linking to YouTube videos is not banned on Wiki. Nor do the links contravine copyright. Stop reverting! I am reporting this stupid bot. 88.107.110.247 (talk) 20:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have the bot report when the user edits again after being reverted, instead of reverting again? I know most vandalism bots work that way. -- lucasbfr talk 21:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
The bot does not revert a user twice in a row on the same page, it does report to IRC for that. It has quite some 'safety features' installed (obeying 3RR, not reverting twice in a row, and when a user is adding to many links to too many pages which are 'of concern', I hope that the report on AIV gets checked properly by the admins before blocking. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

THIS BOT(PROGRAM) IS MALFUNCTIONING - get a real person in here!

SOMEBODY needs to deactivate this bot - it does not know what the hell it's doing.

75.8.35.177 (talk) 21:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it did what it had to do, and you did what was then a solution. But still I think these links should not be there, you should discuss that on the talkpage. The page in mainspace is not a place for discussion, and XLinkBot did tell what the solution is when you upload images. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Bad Editing

I recently tried to edit a page and did it incorrectly, my apologies.66.210.5.90 (talk) 17:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

over zealous deletion

1. You are reversing edits if any part of them is adding a myspace link. This is deleting good material also. e.g. [6]

2. We have no absolute rule against linking to myspace if that's where a subjects official page is. WP:EL says "normally to be avoided" not always prohibited. Are you doing this automatically, or is a human looking at what you are doing? DGG (talk) 22:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Re 1. Yes, it reverses all edits by the editor (can be changed in the settings), it is impossible to parse out only the link, that is too prone to leaving garbage, as there are too many ways of inserting external links.
Re 2. Indeed, therefore the bot can be reverted, it only reverts once, it does not revert to other antivandalism bots, it obeys 3RR, it only reverts unestablished and IP editors (except when whitelisted), and it does not block itself (I hope the admins reviewing on AIV do check before blocking after bot-reports), etc. etc. Rules here should have a pretty low error rate, but there will always be errors (and therefore the built-in safety features; if there are indeed too many errors, then the rule should be removed). All reversions are mentioned on IRC, and there are quite often people watching (unfortunately there are not enough people watching the link addition feeds, as opposed to the recent edits patrollers (though they probably also remove quite some unwanted links). --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

My bad

I was unaware of the Youtube thing, sorry.72.0.36.36 (talk) 04:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Eagle Claw

I do not see anything wrong with what I did but thanks anyway if I did do something wrong. --86.41.91.199 (talk) 20:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with my edits?

I added an external link to Maajid Nawaaz's and Ed Hussain's blog - the link is relevant. Why was it revereted??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Javk (talk • contribs) 23:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You added an external link to a blogspot. Links to blogs are only OK when they are the official blog of the subject of the page, which is here not the case. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Dirk, that is not the policy, from WP:EL "Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority" are normally to be avoided. That gives considerably greater flexibiity than you specified. Any blog may be used if there is a particular good reason & it isnt being used for spam.Agreed, 95% or so of the blogs added here are improper, but the tolerance is not quite as narrow as you say. DGG (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
You are right, David, my mistake (your description is also what the bot leaves on the talkpage after reverting blogs). Here, a blogspot was added to the external links section; though it may be that a whole blogspot not written by the subject of the page is relevant for the subject of the page, I do believe it may only be a few posts on that specific blogspot. If the bot and I are both mistaken, then please revert the bot. It should not revert you twice in a row. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The external blogsite review of the theology of this page is clearly substantive, relevant and contributes. Please advise in light of the above actual policy why this site is still excluded? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jak54 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Leona Lewis Edit

It has been confirmed both on her my space & her site that she's filming a new video, it's not on wikipedia so i added it with the factual reference, why did you remove it? Could you add it yourself then please, thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MusicAngel16 (talk • contribs) 08:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Your ridiculous note on my talk page

Hey! I never even added any links to Demi Lovato! I think something got to your head or maybe you're dumb, but I did not add ANY LINK to the Demi Lovato article! I think that it was stupid and unfair to leave a ridiculous note like that on my talk page. I don't even care if you still think I changed the Demi article. i just don't want you to leave messages like that on my talk page again. DemiLovato15 (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You edited a myspace.com link that was already there (btw: either of those link formats work for her site.. the longer one redirects to the shorter one).. It's good that the bot reverted you though. When you made those two edits, it seems you inadvertently removed some wiki-markup which broke the page formatting. --Versageek 02:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
You shouldn't be butting in on conversations that don't even involve you! This is between me and XLinkbot, not you! Mind your own business! DemiLovato15 (talk) 21:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Please, stay calm. It actually has everything to do with Versageek. XLinkBot is, as the name suggests, a bot that is run by Versageek. Any problems with the bot should be forwarded to him. Paragon12321 (talk) 21:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey! Mind your own business next time! This doesn't concern you. DemiLovato15 (talk) 21:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I do have to agree with you. You didn't add a link, you just fixed one. I don't know specifically how this bot works, but it probably just reverts any myspace links. Just remember, this is a bot, and there are false positives. Just stay calm next time. You can remove the warning if you want. Paragon12321 (talk) 21:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for agreeing with me! By the way, I removed the warning just now. The warning practically filled up my entire talk page! Again thank you! DemiLovato15 (talk) 22:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
No problem. Just keep a cool head and you'll find that people are more helpful. Paragon12321 (talk) 23:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't get it. Demi, were you expecting the bot to reply? Enigma message 00:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I guess this isn't the only bot... Enigma message 00:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It is also possible that Demi didn't know that they were automatic bots or just someone that has "bot" in there name. Paragon12321 (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey! Don't talk about me behind my back! DemiLovato15 (talk) 01:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
See User:DemiLovato15 and Category: Wikipedia sockpuppets of Kristy22. DemiLovato15 is now indefinitely blocked. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Random, spurious "1" in the automated user talk message

The bot is leaving a random, spurious "1" in the automated user talk messages. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you give me an example(-diff), I may have mistyped something, but I don't see it anywhere?? Thanks!! --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:08, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Found it, an error in my perlwikipedia library (returns "1" when the page is empty) .. repaired, thanks for notifying me of this! --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Allen Raymond

Hello talk people. I have a (civil!) question.

It relates to the Allen Raymond page. I added two links to video in which Raymond is interviewed. Both were automatically rejected. In the one case, it is on youtube. I am the creator of the video on youtube (also posted on Viddler.com) and own the rights to it and think that it is relevant to the Raymond page.

Raymond is known for breaking the law in an election in 2002, and he wrote a book about it, and this video is him talking about the book, American politics, and election laws. Raymond is going to be speaking to the US Congress this week, and I think people who miss that and/or hear about him on the news will find the video of him on youtube (and a second video piece on him, on the Velvet Revolution site) relevant to who he is and what he has to say about American political election process.

Is it possible to have these videos posted? Or is this not acceptable? I'm not sure that the auto-rejection, in this case, is helping support wikipedia. But then again I am new to wiki and while I have read all the relevant support pages, I am a new person to wiki policy.

Wikiliterary (talk) 16:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Youtube videos are in the large majority of the cases a problem, but there is legit use. The bot is used to notify new and unestablished editors of that. If however, you believe an external link you added is appropriate (in line with the policies WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, WP:NOT#DIRECTORY (and more in WP:NOT), WP:COPYRIGHT, and the guidelines WP:EL, WP:SPAM, WP:COI and other policies and guidelines), then you can revert the bot, it will not revert twice in a row (though the bot operators will be notified off-wiki). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Jerry Cornelius edit

Hi - I've just edited the Jerry Cornelius page, and my edits were removed because of having myspace page links. I am in one of the bands referred to, and this was a preliminary action to me putting on a page about our band..... I've just read the conflict of interest page.... I've contributed to other wikis, so I'm used to NPOV policies, which hopefully should be evident from this initial edit - can you do a page about your own band, if you restrict yourself accordingly? (please reply on my talk page if possible!) --The Space Banana (talk) 13:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

replied on user's talk page --Versageek 18:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks to this bot for the quick reversion to Pat Burrell. It's quite a nice touch to have all these bots revert things that would take us all a while to find. Thanks! KV5 (talk) 20:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Not added references

Crazy bot :) my change's diff is [7] Correct settings, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.76.116.39 (talk) 16:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

High Rollers

I wasn't trying to vandalize High Rollers. I was adding links so that interested people could see the pilot episode of the Wink Martindale series. Where's the harm in that? --24.106.53.166 (talk) 02:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm and not an internet directory. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

video about color revolution

It is a documentary movie. The sound track is in Japanese, the subtitle is in Chinese. If you know either language, you should know the reason I add this to external link. However, I don't care too much.--70.79.204.95 (talk) 15:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

If you really believe it is appropriate (see the policies and guidelines cited in the warning on your talkpage for concerns), then you can undo the reversion by the bot, it will not revert you again. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Love the welcome, but...

...you need reprogramming. I was repairing damage that someone else had done to the Fouke article. 65.163.115.254 (talk) 04:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, sorry, that indeed happens, and is impossible to detect. You can just revert the bot, it will not revert twice in a row, I'll remove the warning on your talkpage. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 09:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for my total lack of Wiki experience! Thanks for following revision (BOT - Notifying 213.174.185.143 of reverted changes to Sonic Belligeranza (first warning)) I noticed the external link to myspace doesn't work because of a mistake in the url: an / more at the end of the url. Can you remove it or is better that I do myself? Thanks again! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.174.185.143 (talk) 13:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You can undo the bot if that fixes the problem, or, when the link is not in line with policies and guidelines, remove the link. Thanks for helping out! --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Sir/madam

In Student-centered_learning, would you agree to allow the following link to be included under External Links? Children First: the case for child-centred education. The website (of which I am NOT the author!)includes a paper discussing the practical experience of applying a child-centred approach to learning in the Primary school as well as a video of the approach in action. I think it is both relevant to the article and would be interesting for visitors to the page.

Yours sincerely MargyW (talk) 08:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I see you've asked this on the talk page of the article, which is what I was going to suggest. You may also consider inquiring at WikiProject Education. --Versageek 16:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: May 2008

The external link I added on the Ace Hood page was not advertising or spam, and it was his MySpace link. Many other articles have rappers' MySpace links, so I was simply adding Ace's. Sorry if I wasn't supposed to, I was only trying to help. ♣ ℳakaveli ♣ Talk ♣ 04:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The bot expresses concerns which are generally there with myspace links, if you believe it is correct, just undo the reversion. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Rabbit Rescue

add http://youtube.com/watch?v=0vC9taroEsI&feature=related ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.161.90.238 (talk) 03:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't see the direct link between the movie you link to and the subject (see WP:EL, links to be avoided), and it is to an advertisement. Would say this removal is correct. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Adding External Link to Big Wednesday - Why am I regularly squelched by some lame random computer?

All i did was add an external link (of the trailer) for a movie, Big Wednesday. I don't understand why it was reverted, and in fact am getting a little upset that when I make small improvements so often that their squelched by some random computer. can this be reverted back or should I just bloody give up on helping the Wikipedia project? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.133.108.219 (talk) 13:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Though I think that trailers should be linked from their primary source (the page of the movie), in this case it is correct to link. Just revert the bot (use the undo functionality), it will not revert you again (I see you reverted). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Linking to youtube

"There is not a blanket ban on linking to" YouTube, Google Video, and similar sites Wikipedia:External_links#Linking_to_YouTube.2C_Google_Video.2C_and_similar_sites, yet the bot removes links and warns the users automatically. It is a good way to violate WP:Bite and drive away new users. Although these links may be spam (I'd agree in most cases that it is), it is not necessarily so and think there must be some way to fix this on the bot. 66.177.175.115 (talk) 17:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

True, and therefore it is not blacklisted, but on autorevert. Most of the youtube links (or myspace etc.) added by new and unestablished editors are questionable against policies and guidelines (though some may be OK). That is why the bot can be reverted (it will not revert undo etc.), and it does leave (at least in the beginning) a good faith warning and an excuse if it made a mistake (we could consider making the 'warnings' even softer; e.g. not leaving a {{uw-spam1}} in the first warning, but just a message).
I concur, they should be all checked manually, but with an average of about 11 external links added to en.wikipedia per minute (3 day average), and only something like 4-5 people watching the feed (if they are really watching), that is quite undoable. If the bot really makes too many mistakes then a rule should be considered for deletion, but I don't think it does make that many mistakes on these. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Tour de Wayne

I added links to the Wayne County Chamber of commerce with Tour de Wayne information which is an annual event hosted in Wayne County, they were reverted. Why?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.52.232.147 (talk) 21:11, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You (probably accidentally) inserted also a link to example.com (see diff, on top), which is on the revert list. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

i am sorry i did not know that and was just trying to add as much info about him as i coul. please remove the links you feel are bad but please re enter all the other info i gave about him.

bloodline —Preceding unsigned comment added by BloodLine Video (talk • contribs) 22:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I see you did the correct thing, you reverted the bot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The two YouTube external links I attempted to add into the Roswell crash section...are genuine videos of interviews I conducted with Beverley Beanm who father was a soldier at Roswell air base in 1947. I own the copyright to these interviews, and I thought Wikipedia would be a good site to share these authentic interviews with a relative of a genuine witness to Roswell - Nabil Shaban

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjS3sC6dmnw http://www.youtube.com/v/usLDpin6G-Y —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.44.38 (talk) 18:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

You conducted the interviews, which gives you a conflict of interest. You may a) want to discuss on the talkpage, and b) if these people tell something interesting that can be used, then maybe these videos can serve as a reference (see WP:CITE, [[WP:FOOT]). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, there were, before you added the link, 22 external links, I think that is more than 'a few' as expressed in what wikipedia is not. I removed the youtube videos from, and added a {{linkfarm}} to the section. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

New Myspace account.

Hello, the myspace account for the artist formally known as Violet Blue has been deleted pursuant to the lawsuit. I am now known by Noname Jane and I have a new myspace page to reflect that, which is why I changed the myspace page for me aka Violet Blue aka Noname Jane to www.myspace.com/noname_jane. I'd appreciate it if you don't change it back to www.myspace.com/violet_blue because that is a dead link. Thanks! Love, Noname Jane —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.7.140 (talk) 20:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

You might want to check the conflict of interest guideline, but if you use the undo function on the bot, it will not revert you again. Please make also clear in the edit history why you change. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

the music link to the bowery boys was only added so fans had a chance of contacting each other - again there are not many bowery boys sites on the internet. So I don't understand why these have been edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.219.41 (talk) 00:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Request for manual review

This revert was of a link I added to an ongoing comparison of three popular distributed revision control systems. It looks quite useful and relevant to the Comparison of revision control software article to me; it's really primary research, and blogspot.com is just used as a convenient place to hold the information and receive feedback.

On the other hand, I also understand the general policy that blogs are of questionable provenance, and the value has to be high enough to overcome the cost of clutter. But such comparisons of actively developed software grow stale quickly, so current (June 2008) information is extremely valuable.

I'm not quite certain enough to just override the bot, but could someone else please review the matter and render a tiebreaking opinion? Thank you. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 06:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it is good to first get some info on either the talkpage, or on an appropriate WikiProject. If specialists in the subject think it is a good link, use the undo functionality to undo the bot (or let an established editor add the link). Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Gedo

This edit reverted all of the edits made by 65.60.138.17 (many of which were valid), not just the last edit containing the blogspot.com link. I have already reverted to an intermediate version. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Always a difficult choice, revert only the last (which may leave other questionable edits), or revert all (which may also revert good edits). Good you kept an eye on it! Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not intend to break rules by changing the link to the Richard Biggs tribute video. The link I posted was to the Youtube page that had the same video. The only difference was that the Youtube video loaded faster. My intention was to give impatient surfers quicker access to the video. It was *NOT* to provide access to spam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.202.40 (talk) 02:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess the choice should be the 'official' site for the video, even if that would be a slower site. If there is no difference in the former, just undo the bot's edit. It should not revert you then. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Turkey United States Relationships

Whomever you are, please stop acting idiotic by reverting links put in the above article. Those video links do not fit in any of the filmsy excuses you list in desperation to justify your vandalism. The link is a historic political video of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, for reference purposes, directly relevant, appropriate and with great intellectual value (where you stumble). Do not fartz about in this page again. 64.179.16.177 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Just revert the bot, or use it as a reference. I hope the video is not a copy of a news-broadcast from a company, as it is then likely copyrighted, please check, and please, as you think this is a person (it is a bot actually), please read WP:NPA. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:34, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Character (computing): Citation I added was removed

I added a citation to Character (computing) where the text says "citation needed". Unfortunately, the source is the Google Blog, which is on blogspot, so the change was reverted. Can some Wikipedia user please redo my change? ([8]) 213.39.218.170 (talk) 10:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Just undo the bot's edit, or use it inside reference tags (see WP:FOOT). It should not revert again. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Dick Tiger, Boxer

I added a myspace link in regard to Dick Tiger. It was apparently barred. The page itself is the biggest repository of information of information on the subject matter on the web. It contains photographs and links to audio and written materials on the World Wide Web. It is utterly ludicrous to bar this page given that it surpasses the link which claims to have the most photos on Dick Tiger on the web and another which simply gives the address of a gymnasium run by a person who claims to have been his nephew! How does a gymnasium run by a purported relative add to an understanding of and provide vital information on the life of Dick Tiger? Can we please get our priorities right here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.85.185 (talk) 12:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

If the link complies with guidelines/policies, just undo the bot revert, the bot will not revert that again. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portugal_national_football_team&diff=218166307&oldid=218166258 doesn't really match the message your bot left http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:85.27.111.54&diff=cur --85.27.111.54 (talk) 13:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Right .. there is something wrong there. Thanks for showing me this, this is the first time I see this going wrong. I have adapted the section, though. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe the external link I added to St Brigid of Kildare was valuable and information in terms of it being a link to photographs of the St Brigid's Well at Liscannor. Might it be re-instated? Clodagh831Clodagh831 (talk) 17:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

There was already a linkfarm, we are not a linkfarm. I reverted, and left you a response on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Second Supper

When I added a link to The Second Supper's official Myspace, the bot threw the baby out with the bathwater and reverted the entire article back to last week. There have been improvements on the page since then which make it far more relevant and current than the old one, and I will continue to improve upon it. Feel free to check the validity of the myspace address if you wish, and please keep the improvements made to the article. 68.113.253.202 (talk) 05:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The bot indeed reverts all consequtive edits by the user who adds a link under concern. The link you added was in this case fine, and I (as the bot also suggests) reverted to the version with the link. Happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Tuborg GreenFest

hi again, as am new to wikipedia and this is my first article i accept your edit although i will probably need to go back and read the rules governing external links. i thought that this particular was ok. in any case, thanks for the alert. i'm learning all the time...

Shibuyacat (talk) 07:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I added some tags to the page, and did a bit of cleanup in the external links. Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Cedarvale edits

Dear XLinkBot,

I am working on succesfully creating my first page, Cedarvale. Please let me finish the page before you make more edits.\

Thanks

Addition

Due to continuous spam at the ref desks, I've added anontalk (dot) com to the list and logged it. Let me know if I've done this wrong or if more detail is required. Seraphim♥Whipp 17:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

You added it correctly - unfortunately, it won't help since XLinkBot sees only actual URLS (those which start with "(protocol)://" ) . ClueBot might be better for catching this.. I know it's pretty good at picking up other vandals based on specific strings.. the topic could be moot if the sysadmins have gotten to that bugzilla request that was made a few days ago.. once that is done, we shouldn't have any more problems with this particular string. --Versageek 20:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank-you for explaining that :). Seraphim♥Whipp 20:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Text

But why did all my text get deleted as well--Airplane18 (talk) 12:48, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Stephanie Adams on Myspace

That is her official page and has been reflected as such in her article. 69.204.224.140 (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

If the link is conform the guidelines and policies cited, just undo the bot, as it suggests on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Anti-Spam Barnstar
For efficiently reverting yet another groups.yahoo.com link when it was re-inserted by a determined anon editor at Chronic lymphocytic leukemia yesterday. (I'd give you a cookie, but I'm not sure that the bot would eat it!) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot Mistakes (not a big deal, but still)

I have noticed that bots repetitively welcome users despite the fact that many have been around for a while. I know it's not my place to say this, but if a bot reverts an edit made by a vandal, their "welcome" message will not really help --Maurice45 (talk) 19:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

XLinkBot only 'welcomes' in the good-faith message, and in the first warning. If a user manages to get a handful of those good-faith messages and first warnings, it may indeed add up .. but the user is still quite new (as it stops warning/reverting if the account is a couple of days old). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:35, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Abigail Washburn

I undid the removal of the myspace and facebook links on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Washburn. Those sites are run by Abigail and they represent her just in the same way a personal home page would do. I therefor believe that they are not spam but valueable places of information.

--Krautmaster (talk) 17:31, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Good revert. It is also what the bot suggests on links which are conform the guidelines and policies. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Imageshack.us

In User:XLinkBot/Reversion reasons, would you be able to change "imageshack.com" under the domain column to "imageshack.us"? imageshack.com ≠ imageshack.us, and the page is actually talking about the .us regex. Imageshack.com isn't on the blacklist anyway. And while I'm here, a request (though this probably isn't the place to put it). Your blacklist for imageshack (assuming I'm reading it right) disallows jpg, jpeg, gif, png, and svg filetypes. Imageshack, however, actually supports jpg, jpeg, png, gif, bmp, tif, tiff, and swf filetypes. Any chance of modifying the blacklist (and the Reversion reasons subpage, which mentions the regex) to add the other filetypes? Dreaded Walrus t c 08:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, that first one was quite a stupid mistake, sorry for that. I have done some things about the rest as well, cleanup was necessery there anyway, thanks for pointing us there. Funny, we have the .us on the list, but not the .com. As far as I can see on the database, the .com does not get added anyway. I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks again! --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, there's no need to add the .com site - it's just some silly squatter site intended to get cheap hits from people who forget it's imageshack.us - I can't see people adding it here for the same reasons they'd add other things on the LinkBot's blacklist. If the owners of the site ever start spamming here, then there's the regular spam blacklist for that. Still, the changes I wanted have been made, so I'm happy! Thanks! :) Dreaded Walrus t c 12:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This bot violates WP:BITE

This bot should be blocked for violating WP:BITE. 82.46.8.90 (talk) 10:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

When it leaves first 2 good faith remark on a talkpage before actual getting to the more direct warnings? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me

I wrote the morganville texas article i just didnt have an account when i did i immediatly made one after i wrote it check my IP i wrote that article please respond

Tkstreet (talk) 01:08, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't sign article contributions - signatures are only for talk pages. Also, unless the myspace.com page you tried to add to the article is the official page of the author or publisher, it fails our external links guidelines and shouldn't be linked. --Versageek 01:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, XLinkBot, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! SJP (talk) 07:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, but we've been here for a while :) --Versageek 21:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Careless reverting

If you are going to keep example.com in your revert list, you should stop it from reverting edits like this which do not add links to the domain (which I agree makes no sense) but add references to it. Referring to example.com is an important encyclopedic practice in web-related topics. 89.240.60.228 (talk) 20:09, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that will be very difficult to detect, and only a very small fraction of the additions are actually of this type. You did the correct thing, undo the bot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Icelandic cuisine

Hello. I saw you reverted my edits to Cuisine of Iceland, presumably because of a link to a blogspot.com site. Is there a general rule against Blogspot sites? The link was to the best site on Icelandic cuisine I could find in English, so it would be a bit of loss if it can't be included in the article under External links. --Akigka (talk) 02:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Not a real hard rule, links to blogs are generally to be avoided, as there are often issues with linkfarming, spamming, copyrights, conflict of interest, or other parts of policies/guidelines. If you believe that in this case the link does add to the page, just undo the bot's revert (the bot will not revert undo-actions). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Reverted bot's revert on Hard disk drive

This one. Seemed a valid edit to me. shreevatsa (talk)

Good call, the insertion of the tag probably fooled XLinkBot's reference detection, seems to work properly otherwise (maybe I should do some work on making that stronger). --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Checking: works indeed (not reverted addition of blogspot reference). --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Carlo Giuliani - link to Youtube

it's a link to Youtube, but video is composed of real footage, not object to copyright, and the soundtrack is by band Petrograd, an alternative punk band that has anti copyright policy, so I don't see a problem in puting a link there. Can you change it? I know that for many people who are interested in the topic would like to find that song. - vrbova4grana —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vrbova4grana (talk • contribs) 01:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The external link that I added to the United Planet Wiki page is a reputable site, as it is written and revised by the staff at United Planet. Please allow the external link http://unitedplanet.wordpress.com/

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertne (talk • contribs) 15:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

If you think the page is not in violation of the policies and guidelines, then just undo the XLinkBot-reversion. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Can I....

Hello! You have removed all my external and internal links in the article "Julie-Jane Myers". I'm sorry, I don't understand why the internal links were removed? Can I restore them or not? What was wrong with them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by MadeTruly112 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You can restore them, the bot just reverts edits by editors, as it is nearly impossible to only remove the external links only. You can undo the bot, and either leave out the links if they do not comply with the policies and guidelines cited in the remark from the bot on your talkpage, or leave them if they do. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

references

The other two links I added as references were from reputable newspapers and thus serve as a good source of information. Why were they deleted? Thanks.

- Alfonso129


The link I added to you tube is a documentry about gurning the subject the wikipedia entry was about it does not infringe the copywright because I produced the documentry I have tried to submit it 3 times —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drevilbreakfast (talk • contribs) 00:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

William Swain Lee

What was wrong with the BudLee edits? You reverted them? It is me i think (talk) 22:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know which edit you reverted, but if you think the added external links are in line with policies and guidelines, then that is fine. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi XLinkBot

The clips I linked to on YouTube are for films I produced and own the copyright on. Is it OK to remove the bot? How do I do that?

Thanks Colemancreek (talk) 23:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC) Peter Ladue

You can revert (undo) the bot edit, but you may want to read WP:COI, WP:EL etc. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Revert of Peter Ladue

I reverted the bio of Peter Ladue because I own the films I linked to on YouTube. I did this so another reviewer who asked for major revisions could review the changes.

I think that this is the same as the above post. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry

Sorry, but i have only copied the information from Leopoldo O'Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetuan. If the links were spam, I didn't know it. I think that the information could be write again but without this link, ok? Thank you.:)--83.180.216.14 (talk) 09:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

There may be concerns with the links, it is not only reverting spam. If you revert (undo) the bot edit it will not revert you again. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

W47CK

For some reason, the "WMyW" low-power TV station W47CK (MyTV, Shallotte) does use a MySpace page as its primary web presence. I'm getting multiple false-positives on this. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 11:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Just undo the bots edits, as you did, and the bot will not revert you again. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

recent edit, omagh

hey the recent edit to the omagh wiki page, which contained two links to the offical websites, which are not of a dot com, or dot co uk nature, but are on bebo and myspace.

they have been blocked and reported as spam, i wasnt fully aware of these sites being blocked, being cited as spam. may i please have them back on the page they were added to.

regards William —Preceding unsigned comment added by Williamconvey (talk • contribs) 20:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep, both added links are inappropriate there, per what wikipedia is not (not a linkfarm) and the external links guideline. As a notice, it is not reported as spam, but as an 'unwanted link' (quote ".. attempts to remove unwanted links and spam from Wikipedia..." on your talkpage). In more detail, per the external links guideline, links should be on-topic, directly related to the topic, you are putting in links about a upcoming event on the page of the village/town/city/area the event is taking place, which is not directly linked, it would be appropriate (except for the probable 'Wikipedia is not a crystal ball' violation) on a Wiki-page on the event. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This bot needs to get a bit smarter

This bot seems to be less finely tuned than others. Take a look here at the changes I made to Cataphract, changes this bot deemed to be vandalism. There must be characteristics of that edit which make it clear its not vandalism. For example, it's got an edit summary, it introduces the use of cite.php-based footnotes, it makes use of templates—all of these are decent clues even to a bot that we're not dealing with vandalism.

On the plus side, I can revert its actions without it getting into a revert war, so I guess I can put up with it. But please consider making this bot a bit smarter. Thanks. 72.244.203.164 (talk) 01:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC).

I agree. This is a very annoying - and unhelpful - bot. Does it ever make a change that doesn't get insta-reverted? Gopher65talk 18:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
The bot gave a good faith remark on your talkpage about the inclusion of a Yahoo groups, and suggests to undo the edit if you think it is appropriate (I don't think the link does add, though). There is a lot that does not get reverted by the bot, and as you could notice, it did not revert you twice. Tweaking seems to be just fine. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Ladyfest

Hi - I undid a change made by XLinkBot to the page Ladyfest. (NB the original edit was not me or anything to do with me.) Just thought I'd let you know that in my opinion the link out to a myspace is justified in this instance. Not sure if there's a way to let the bot know that. --mcld (talk) 16:49, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

No, you don't have to, you can just undo bot edits if you think that the link does comply policies and guidelines. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Spelling error in bot warning

In the bot warning about free host sites, "thorougly" should be "thoroughly". I've made a change showing this at User:XLinkBot/Customised warnings, but I wasn't sure if that was a live copy of the warnings, so I've mentioned the spelling error here. Graham87 12:01, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll try and get to that tomorrow in the morning .. that is a very old typo, you're the first to notice, thanks! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 13:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Myspace page

Is London Elektricity's myspace considered an unwanted link, even though it is controlled by Colman himself? If so, let me know. I don't mean to be rude here, just want to ask a question. If myspace is not allowed to be cited, how else would I cite my information on his influences? Should I just delete the section? Can I cite a different source if I can find it? Thanks. DubCrazy (talk) 20:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)DubCrazy

If you think it complies with the cited guidelines and policies, then you can revert the bot. If you are in doubt, the best place to discuss the link is on the talkpage or with a wikiproject. Hope this helps. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 13:47, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Sophie Aldred page reverted?

I dont see how this is classed as spam, I only linked to the facebook group as a source.

Bad Manners

the band Bad Manner's official site is closed and the link is not-working, when i tried to add a link to their official myspace page i got a rejection

RE:Revision history of Love Boat (study tour)

Good work on your part in the effort to eliminate extraneous links. However in this particular case you did not do your research or check in depth. The friendster loveboat2000 site is an alumni site for Taiwan studytour participants like some of the others. If you look and read closely to the message board there are testimonials to the tour's impact and there is absolutely no spam nor is it used for advertising. It is further evidence of the many people who had a significant cultural experience when going to Taiwan on the tour. To delete such a link is to show a cultural insensitivity and an obtuse racial blindness to significance of these networking sites to the Overseas Chinese Community. Please continue your efforts to reduce spam and porn links on Wiki, but please also leave well meaning and appropriate links to sites such as these alone. Thank you.

Cruella De VIlle

Regarding the alteration of this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cruella_de_Ville&diff=205995108&oldid=205995092)

The CDV Wikipedia page is the ONLY up to date information site for the band...!

I included the list for videos availble on YouTube as factual information (as well as showing what few video performances of the band have survived)... and the link to facebook was only added so fans had a chance of contacting each other - again there are not many CDV sites on the internet.

So I don't understand why these have been edited... especially the video list


PLUS you've reverted to a version the contains a link to the CDV "Stage 6" webpage... Stage6 has closed down so the link was removed.

James (a CDV fan in contact with Philomena & Colum Muinzer of CDV)

How to get my entry onto the first page of results

Hello,

I recently entered information for a new entry. How do I ensure that this entry, which was for one of my favourite bands becomes visible when people search for their name on google. Basically I want the wikipedia entry to be one of the first results on a google search like it is for most other bands. Please help!

(IvyriseNumber1Fan (talk) 19:16, 26 July 2008 (UTC)).

I am not sure what you want, but we are not here to get your page high ranked on google. see WP:SPAM. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the message you sent my IP

Hi XLinkBot,

My IP just got a message from you - something about an inappropriate link and a "welcome to Wikipedia." I'm actually not a new user. I forgot to log in. My user name is ask123. I was working on an article I just came across, Powered exoskeleton, that needs a ton of work (to say the least). I just found the article, and it's in awful shape. I'm thinking about just rewriting the whole thing entirely. It's in violation of Wiki policies left and right and just reads terribly. I started placing some tags for original research, weasel words, citations missing, etc., but that's just going to prolong the ultimate prescription for this page's problems: a total rewrite.

In any event, I'm writing you just to let you know that, in the process of figuring out what to do with the page, I cut and pasted some things around as I moved down the article section by section. One of the things I cut from a text section and pasted (temporarily) into the external links section was a crappy link to youtube. For some reason, someone put this random link smack in the middle of the text. I'm ultimately going to delete the link anyway, along with most of the other links in the article, when I have a chance to get to the links section and examine each one individually per Wiki policy. But rest assured, I didn't add that link to the page; It was already there. And I just moved to another place temporarily. If you read the edit history in detail, you will see this to be the case. As I make my way through the article, I'll eventually get to the external links section and will probably end up deleting half of the links anyway per Wiki policy.

So the point is that, while I respect your sentiment and due dilligence, there's really no need to send me this or like messages in the future. I'm well aware of Wiki's external links policy (and other policies). However, simply put, I can't fix the entire article at once. I can only work on one section at a time. So, sometimes, I have to move a sentence (or, in this case, a link) temporarily to another section, with the goal of getting to it later. As I'm sure you know, this is not uncommon in the process of editing an article. It's just the reality.

Thanks for understanding. Cheers, ask123 (talk) 05:59, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it is difficult to see if someone is actually a genuine editor who accidentally forgot to log in. To circumvent that, we could whitelist your IP, but we are generally quite carefull with that (the IP has to be really static, for obvious reasons). For the rest, as it was the first time for the IP, this is just a remark, not even a warning (and XLinkBot forgets after a couple of hours it warned you before, so starting from fresh), and you can just undo the bots edits (it will only revert you once, and does not revert undo (though it does result in an on-IRC warning to the operators, who may check)). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:44, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Bad edit.

Hi. In [9] the bot undos an edit from a anon. The undone edit was one that changed a link with a referrer to one that's without. This seems to me to be counter to the bot stated purpose, so I thought you might want to look at it. Taemyr (talk) 12:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. the bot reverted because in the edit the editor also adds a blogspot link (to [http://how-to-kongregate.blogspot.com/ How to Kongregate]), and that is why the bot reverted. Bit unfortunate, that it there then also hits a good part in the same edit. Thanks for reporting this, though I think there is not much I can do about it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I thought it was something like that. Can the bot catch the edits that introduce ?referrer=<name> into links? Taemyr (talk) 11:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Yep, it can. I can add '\?refferer=' to the revertlist, that should do it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I have added a request for it. Taemyr (talk) 19:35, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I'll try to get to it when I have a secure connection again. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraT C on public computers) 20:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Two Bits

Well, if it is appropriate per our policies and guidelines, just undo the bot's revert. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Sugarshock!

Just wanted to point out this edit and say that you may want to expand your whitelist a little. Looks like you've missed at least one Myspace page that's unlikely to be spam. Maratanos (talk) 00:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The bot is not only for spam, and, as it says in the remark on your talkpage, if it does make a mistake, just revert the bot. On MySpace, in the majority of the cases it does revert correctly. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Okay, that's the second time your bot reverted the Sugarshock article. I'm not going to argue over Wikipedia's deafeningly stupid anti-Myspace bias, but since all past and future publications of Sugarshock are on Myspace, could you just make your bot ignore the article? (edit: I'm not maratanos, just to be clear)--122.109.132.44 (talk) 14:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm on my way to the article .. if the references there are only to myspace (by the way, see WP:FOOT, if you use proper references, the bot should not revert you), then I am starting to fear for the notability of Sugarshock!. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
OK, I had a look. Per the external links guideline, links should be to the topic. The topic is the comic, so ONE link to the mainpage of the comic is more than enough. We are not a webdirectory (see WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, so there is no need to link to every single episode. So the bot is here perfectly correct, reverting superfluous addition of myspace links per policy. I did some tagging, the article is very small, and contains no references at all (though there is a review in the external links section, which might be giving the topic some notability. I hope you can do something about that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Tren from Punchy

Hi, I was wondering if it was possible to have a bot automatically remove "YouTube Celebrity Trent from punchy" from the Punchbowl, New South Wales article. This seems to be a constant problem and some editors who contribute a lot to the Sydney suburban articles are becoming frustrated with trent. Also the same person adds a weblink to his You tube video about Punchbowl, I noticed that your bot removed this. Cheers Adam (talk) 08:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

If a specific link is a problem, you can just consider blacklisting the one complete link. I guess we are talking about www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RjC-vh06_c .. so the blacklist rule simply would be \byoutube\.com\/watch\?v=0RjC-vh06_c\b (so I added that). --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:01, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I know that it is possible to blacklist a certain link but is it possible to blacklist a phrase like trent from punchy and have a bot remove it when it is inserted. Adam (talk) 23:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Nope, unfortunately not (in an easy way .. for really, really bad things devs can do something like that). Maybe USer:Cluebot or User:VoABot II can help here (I think the latter has a function similar to this). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:34, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Okay thanks for you advise, I will follow that lead. CheersAdam (talk) 09:37, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The User page says "one should not link to (likely) copyrighted information". This is surely wrong. It should read something like "one should not link to sites that contain (likely) copyright infringements". --Bduke (talk) 23:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

True, I'll change it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

London City Airport

You have reversed all my edits - this was because the Link to the Fight for Flights campaign is a blog. THEY KEEP A BLOG AS IT IS EASIER TO MAINTAIN THAN A WEB PAGE and buying up domain names.

Can you revert your edits. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.178.90 (talk) 11:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:EL, about blogs. If you still think it is appropriate information, then just undo the bots edits. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute, the way you are linking to that blog is certainly not the way to go. If the blog is notable, it needs an own wikipedia page, and should not be linked in the text. Also, you may want to have a look at WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, that we are not here to promote propaganda. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:02, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Rollback-ish edits

I was wondering why your bot does rollback-ish reverts, and not just undoing the one "bad" edit? Here is one example of what I'm talking about. The ip editor did at least one good edit in that series by adding a category and removing the uncat template.--Rockfang (talk) 21:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Difficult choice, but in most of the cases all edits are inappropriate, not only the one that adds the link (and reverting only that may leave the document damaged). It can be changed in the settings, but both options have their problems. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:55, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Just one tiny thing

When you put the automated message on someone's talk page, one of the sentences is:


It's just that "creators" needs an apostrophe before the "s". Happy editing! :) Green caterpillar (talk) 12:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, true. I'm changing the bot's code as I reply. Will be fixed in a minute. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Please make your bot suck less

Thanks. (See MIM history.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.214.138 (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, some of the links are in this form inappropriate, and others would have been better as references (we are not an internet directory). I have changed the document throughout. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Fine, I was simply tossing info into the article with the hope that some human editor like yourself with a flair for formatting would integrate it properly. Your bot shouldn't revert edits just because they are improperly formatted. I clearly wasn't trying to build a "linkfarm" or "internet directory." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.214.138 (talk) 10:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, I am sorry, but then the bot did something right, I think. It removed links which were added in an inappropriate way. If your goal is to make other people do the job, you could also have suggested on the talkpage. And still, these links are affected by 'Wikipedia is not a soapbox', #1 or #2. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
And, the page is about MIM, not about mimdefense, so the link to mimdefense.wordpress.com is not an appropriate external link at all (per WP:EL, well within the description of the bot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about? How was I soapboxing? I was adding info to an article. There's no rule that says I have to know how to make it pretty. That's for people like you who care about that sort of thing. Your bot did something stupid, don't get all defensive about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.214.138 (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

It is a propaganda site, as are all links reverted. Yes, you were adding info, but it would have been better to use internal links to articles. I think I clearly linked to the parts of the policy which concerned these links. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:23, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

billmon and dailykos.com

The blogger billmon switched back from using his own domain (billmon.org) to using billmon.dailykos.com this summer. While dailykos.com diaries aren't generally a reliable source, doesn't it make sense to link to where the fellow posts his writing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smptq (talk • contribs) 22:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Not sure why you are asking this to a bot .. or do you mean that we should consider to put dailykos.com on the revertlist? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm asking because I think that this particular change by the bot probably should be reverted. Smptq (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with the Eula Beal page. I'll remember that next time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.83.114 (talk) 23:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Bug?

There seems to be a bug with this bot - a minor one, perhaps, but it's caused a user to complain: On [10] and [11], not only does the bot revert the MySpace link, but it also removes a (legitimate) wikilink to Rebel Road. Oddly enough, there were two edits: One to add a link ([12]) and one two add the MySpace link ([13]); and then again ([14]; [15]). Also, could the MySpace be whitelisted for the article? Thanks. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:29, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Nah, that's not a bug but a 'choice of a setting'. The bot either reverts all edits by a user, or just one. Both have their own problems (the former may revert genuine edits as well; the latter may not remove all offensive material, as 'spammer' sometimes make mistakes in their external links, which get repaired in a consequtive edit). The very best would be to filter out the offensive links, but also that is difficult (in external links sections it has to remove the '* ' at the beginning as well, in text it should also be careful with what and how it removes. Commonly, total reversion seems to be the least problematic. If the edits are fine, you can just undo the edit by the bot, it will not revert again. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Can't

If I could, I would, because I can't USE the upload bar anymore. Only Admins can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Bugs Bunny (talk • contribs) 21:35, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

?? You can't use Wikipedia:Upload, strange. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

sehbahdough

myspace.com/sehbahdough is the correct myspace page for Sebadoh. it is NOT myspace.com/sebadoh as was modified by the bot. Arleach (talk) 03:16, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

If the bot is incorrect, and you think that the link is appropriate, then just undo the edit of the bot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Edition in article Martung

--Serajulhaque (talk) 12:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC) Martung is a small town/village of Shangla District. No information about MArtung other than its location, population and area is mentioned anywhere in any encyclopedia. I was born at MArtung and have been living there since my birth. The general information about the people of Martung, their habits, their life style and the crops they grow may not be directly verified from any written source; but these could however be verified by studying the nearby (almost similar) areas like Puran and Chakesar. Area, population etc. have alreday been reffered to the sources. The link which was lastly deleted by the current user was reffering a book written in Urdu by an author Mehmood Fazal, Rokhan. The URL reffered contained the introduction of the book and had image of the title page. This book has little information about Martung, and much about a religious scholar already mentioned in the article. I still think that the reference was not totally irrelevant and may kindly be left undeleted.

I therefor undo the last action and welcome your comments.

I am new user and am not familiar to the general rules how to edit and how to talk to a user. Please ignor my mistake if any.

Thanks a lot.

--Serajulhaque (talk) 12:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Links on geocities are often a concern. You are linking here to an online version of a book, I guess it might be better to find a document identifier (ISBN would be perfect) and link to that. If it is however only available here, then just undo the bots edits, or use it as a proper reference (see the citation and footnotes guidelines). Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Gusli page

Hello, I don't understand why this myspace link is deleted: www.myspace.com/olgashishkina A page is about a great gusli artist so this link certainly CONCERNS the topic, or am I wrong? I undo the bot's revision but it continues deleting the link. Thanks for understanding, --Guslimusic (talk) 14:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

You are talking about this edit. Well, first of all, the page is about gusli, not about Olga Shishkina. Per the external links guideline the links should be directly linked to the subject (this link may be very well on Olga Shishkina), artists who perform are hardly ever suitable on an instrument, as there are (for most instruments) a plethora of artists which would then qualify. Olga may be great, but that is still subject to taste. I have also cleaned out Kantele on similar concerns, wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a repository, nor a directory of artists playing an instrument, I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Jon Lajoie

Your bot reverted my link to Jon Lajoie's OFFICIAL youtube account. I understand why youtube is on your bot's list, to avoid people linking to their own or inappropriate accounts, but since it is official, and appropriate to the article, I am undoing the undoing of it. ZXS9465 (talk) 14:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC) The page is here if you wish to check it. ZXS9465 (talk) 14:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I saw, you did the correct thing (revert the bot). Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:36, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Sacrament (NZ band)

Not sure what happened here. The Bot removed a single space and the {{hangon}} template but left the myspace link in. Jons63 (talk) 06:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. The myspace link got changed, and that is why the bot reverted the editor (the parsers see that as a new link). The user only got a good faith remark, no harm done, I hope. I have removed the sentence altogether, we are not an internet directory. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting inappropriate warnings!

Hi I am adding some links to the periodic table of videos for each element on wikipedia to the relevant video on youtube - please see

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p2cicHXMs1w

as an example

I have full permission from the owner of the video

R —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richnotts (talk • contribs) 22:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

User blocked, and then unblocked after he agreed to propose inclusion of the links, and wait for a consensus to form, instead of justing adding them to articles. PhilKnight (talk) 23:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Revert on Design Build Bluff

There may be a bug with this bot. The edit summary and the user warning done by it for this revert indicate it was just reverting the addition of an ext link to blogspot.com to Design Build Bluff, but it reverted a lot more. I added back the rest of the edits without the blogspot.com link, but thought I should report this. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk)

Nope, is not a bug, it reverts everything by the user, the link is why it reverts. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

revert?

I included a link in a small piece I wrote that was automatically deleted. I think this was because it had typepad in it and that may mean that it links to youtube. The site is not abusing copyrighted material. It is a great sight and very relevant to the short addition. It would not be difficult for a reader to google and find the link without it being in the piece but it might be nice to have it right at hand.(Skaboooch (talk) 01:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC))

If you believe that the external links are fine (in line with the policies and guidelines cited in te remark on your talkpage), then you can just undo the bots edit. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Spelling error

Your userpage reads "conlfict of interest" ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I see Versageek repaired it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Xoomer.alice.it

The http://xoomer.alice.it/www_enigma : This link is the correct link. This is the first electronic enigma machine to the world. The complete project has been published on the magazine FARE ELETTRONICA April 2002 N°202. No one has never published a project equipped with an electronic enigma machine before with a microprocessor. My link the enigma machine subject has the right to be added to Wikipedia as pertaining. This is my e-mail if you want to contact me for clarifications : www_enigma@lycos.it The Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EUYbI1q1y4 is a My Youtube Link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.2.209.34 (talk) 00:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

No one has a right to add a link (and in this case, maybe you should review our conflict of interest guideline). I have reverted again. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Facebook Pages are not allowed but MySpace Pages are?

I updated a musicians Wikipedia page and inserted links to her MySpace and Facebook Page. I also added two paragraphs. The entire entry was removed by this bot because of the Facebook link. Why would the whole thing get removed? And why should MySpace Pages be allowed and not Facebook Pages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickt83 (talk • contribs) 01:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

No, both are on the list because there are often problems with it. The bot reverts on the 'first' rule it matches, there may be other rules which have the same effect.
It is unfortunately virtually impossible to filter out the offending links only, due to the many ways links can be formatted and used. It is therefore less damaging to revert the whole edit, notify the editor to check (and if necessery amend) the edit. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quickbooks Subsequent releases

This was a rather significant update, requuiring substantial time. I did not understand how to revert and appeal the removal of it. However, I also did not need the link to my http://1234567890.typepad.com/ QuickBooks blog, especially as I understood the "no follow" nature of them. I most respectfully submit that the remaining external links, which are not related to me, have needed citations. Therefore, I thoroughly revised the entry, removing personal opinions and references.

MikeBlockQuickBooksCPA (talk) 21:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Please read the external links guideline, and maybe also the conflict of interest guideline. Blogs, typepad and links you are involved in are not suitable, and we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm or a web directory. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Goal of the Year (Australia)

Hi, you have mistakenly reverted all my edits. The entire article includes links to youtube videos to make it more informative and give the reader a visual grasp of how exactly the mark took place. I have reverted your edit, becuase you rollbacked all 7 of my previous edits. --Superflewis (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

You also continue to revert my edits to Mark of the Year as spam, even though I explained before that it is not spam. It even states this here!. Thanks, --Superflewis (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
If you think it is appropriate, just revert the bot as is suggests. But we are not a web-directory. And regarding WP:YT: (emphasis added): "There is no blanket ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by the guidelines on this page (which would happen infrequently). See also Wikipedia:Copyrights for the prohibition on linking to pages that violate copyrights.. (note that the emphasised part extends to MOST of that sentence). I am sorry, they are seldomly appropriate, and here the chances are quite big that local television companies do have a copyright and the movies on youtube are in violation of such copyrights. Moreover, IMHO, the movies are simply not needed, though they need to be referenced properly. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Gary Randall

Gary Randall was born in Mt. Carmel, Il. I, Diana Randall was merely wanting to place a reference to this as a "stated" fact and that he also has written and published a book about growing up in rural Wabash County.. Anything that I wrote pertained to that fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Af4lg (talk • contribs) 06:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, you say you areare related to Gary Randall, which gives you a conflict of interest. You are not notable because you say so yourself, those things are ruled in our notability guideline, and adding such links (yourself) is inappropriate per some of our guidelines and policies, as stated in the remark the bot left on your talkpage. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Vandalismo in great circle.

Please, it does not remove the information that it knows to be correct, this is vandalism. Trigonometrical, simulator Abacus of the great circle—Preceding unsigned comment added by 3sigmain (talk • contribs)

We are not a linkfarm, and this is the English wikipedia. Please read through the information linked in the warning on your talkpage, that should explain. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Removal of Gary Randall

Yes, I am married to Gary Randall. But long before we met I was his editor. I aided in the processess to ready his second book before publication.

Just do something simiple before you make a final decision.

Do a web search for "Gary Randall author, Tales out of Life. You will find enough information to prove that he is a "published author" & that the book is about growing up in Southern Illinois. If you have access to Mt Carmel's school records you will find he did graduate from that same school. I find that your judgement in this cause is HIGHLY judgemental and based on ignorance of the facts. It is quite factual that Gary Randall published "Tales Out of Life" in 2000 and you have failed to add a notable mention on his hometown page via Wikipedia.

If doing a simple web search doesn't work for you, just check the publishers XLibris & Publish America.

Yes, I've not done anything worthy of note other than to marry him and continue to edit upcoming books. I am a college graduate in the educational field. Don't judge me lightly either. Sometimes just being a member of the masses out here doesn't mean I am stupid. Just a member of the masses that doesn't find that your web site is that informative. There are other sources.

I will continue to create web pages for him and make other contacts via the path of the internet information system.

Diana Randall, a mere resident of the masses. 

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Af4lg (talk • contribs) 02:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Dear Diana, I would like you to read our conflict of interest guideline, and to read a bit on how things work here in wikipedia (links in remarks on your talkpage are a good start). We are trying to write an encyclopedia here, based on content and reliable sources. I am sure you have those, and when you can incorporate those into an article, that will show notability of the person you write about. You were pushing that link to an article, were the persons notability is difficult to assess (the actual article that you created got deleted for being not notable). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Cornerstone Group

Hello, please fix your bot. This is currently the official page of the Cornerstone Group faction. - Marching Forward (talk) 08:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Nothing to fix, you can just undo the edit of the bot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

reverted link on Bob Somerby page

I attempted to add a link of Bob Somerby's page, it seems it was reverted because it came from my blogspot blog. I interviewed Bob Somerby in May of 2006 and I think it adds great value to the wikipedia article. http://technoflak.blogspot.com/2006/05/bob-somerby-talks-about-journalism.html

as far as I know, there aren't many interviews with Somerby, so I think Wikipedia readers would be interested. The same goes for my interview with Fred Thomas of MHz Networks in July 2006 http://technoflak.blogspot.com/2006/07/fred-thomas-talks-about-mhz-networks.html

PrestoVivaceBlog PrestoVivaceBlog (talk) 02:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I think you should review our conflict of interest guideline. May I suggest you to either start discussions on the talkpage, or to contact an appropriate wikiproject. In all cases, maybe you can also contribute content to the article, if you have rather unique interviews, then they must be suitable as references for new data. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Very weird revert on Girls (Sugababes song)

This revert by XLinkBot on the Girls (Sugababes song) article is very wrong. It should have undone one edit by 77.162.90.44, instead it reverted "to revision 82", which made the article look like this: [16]
I have no idea where it got that data, but something seems very wrong – if not with the bot then with the API. Can you investigate this?
Cheers, AmaltheaTalk 18:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Similar thing happened here, here, here, here, here, …. All say to have reverted to a *very* old revision number. --AmaltheaTalk 18:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Bot turned off .. strange, I'll look into it tomorrow (no time now). Thanks for the alert! --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
OK great. I'll look through its recent reverts and undo the wrong ones. Cheers, AmaltheaTalk 18:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
As it turns out the ones I listed above seems to be all of them. --AmaltheaTalk 19:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I did a code change this afternoon (resolving another problem), about 16:00 hours (it is here now 20:42). I reverted those changes and restarted the bot. I'll have a look in the logs to see what happened. Thanks for reverting and checking, I hope all is fine now (should be on old code). I'll look into it tomorrow! Thanks again! --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Code again changed so it should now detect the 'previous id' better. The old routine did not do that correctly (resulting in the bot simply not reverting), the new routine was stronger, but not flawless; I now combined the two, if the first method does not get the number, the new one should, and if that one also fails, it should not revert. I hope this resolves the problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
OK, thanks for getting back with this. :) --AmaltheaTalk 17:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It apparently is *not* quite fixed: [17]. --AmaltheaTalk 17:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

This was an api problem (not returning data ..). I build in a catch, but it was not strictly a bug. Hopefully solved. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:23, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Bug?

Odd diff, reverted; originally posted here. [18] x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

See the section above. --AmaltheaTalk 17:39, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
This was a case from an intermediate version that ran on September 26. The bug has already been solved, indeed see the post above. Between 4 and about 9 in the evening (UK time) xlinkbot was buggy, there are some wrong reverts there, they were checked in the post above, but I'll check again when I have time. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Tim Chey

Dear Xlinkbot,

You deleted my edits almost immediately.

Is there a reason?

I looked at Swatchman and agreed with you.

If there is a coi, is this personal? Do you know the director?

Many thanks and God bless,

Noblewoman7 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noblewoman7 (talk • contribs) 06:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The bot reverted because you added an external link to youtube.com in the edit you performed (where you also removed the COI tag). I indeed think that the linking was excessive, so I will not suggest to add the link again (we are not a linkfarm; see WP:NOT#REPOSITORY). But maybe some of the link can be used as a source to add content to the article (see the reliable sources and citation guidelines). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yo!

Holy cow, I got a "new messages" thingie, so I clicked on it, and there were a whole slew of angry wikipedia admin slamming me for things I didn't edit!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.54.22.188 (talk) 22:54, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, you are using a shared IP. Just like some of the notifications said, "if you didn't make any unconstructive edits, consider creating an account for yourself so you can avoid further irrelevant warnings."
Cheers, AmaltheaTalk 14:12, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Bot reverting a notch to agressive?

I noticed this edit when checking CSD templates i placed: Image. Note that i made a screenshot instead of a linking a diff for the simply reason the article is likely to be removed. What i see is that the bot appears to revert an edit because of the [http://www.example.com link title] link, yet does not take into account the rest of the edit. I assume that this is a small bug? :) Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 15:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it is almost impossible to parse out the part which contains the link (if it is in the text, and the user changes 'something' into '[http://www.something.com something]', or adds '(newline)*[http://www.something.com something]' in the el-section, or one of these things with useful content, then it is difficult to see what to revert. The bot can be switched to 'only revert the last edit of the user' or 'revert all', but it will revert the whole edit. On the first time the bot only leaves a message that there was a problem with the edit (not a warning), and the user is asked to evaluate the edit and undo/repair if deemed necessery. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Uche Nwaneri

I edited the page on Uche Nwaneri in order to detail a disciplinary/legal incident that occurred during his time at Purdue, but had to link to blog posts of articles from the Purdue Exponent since the Exponent's search is down. I'm not versed in Wikipedia enough to understand how to better cite these, and was wondering if somebody could clear that up and reinstate my edits with either better sources or generally help me clean things up.

98.220.222.67 (talk) 04:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLP is pretty strict about what you can put into a biography of a living person. And WP:EL clearly says that blogs aren't acceptable as sources. You can't put unsourced disparaging text into a biography. Blogs or forums or personal web site don't count as sources. If you can find more reliable sources, it is unlikely that your edits will be reverted. =Axlq 04:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Is the bot working?

Please see the relavent AN thread. Thanks! NuclearWarfare contact meMy work 15:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure why, except during the time that I was working on the bot, XLinkBot has been fully functional (i.e. except for a couple of small problems lately). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:55, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Reverts to "Paul Oscar"

Hi, your bot recently undid an edit to the article "Paul Oscar" by another editor who had inserted a link to a YouTube video. However, I note that the video appears to be an officially sanctioned one that appears on Paul Oscar's YouTube channel Thisispauloscar. Should an exception be made in this case and, if so, can your bot distinguish between YouTube videos that are official and those that breach copyright? — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 08:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope, but you can just revert the bot if the link follows policy and guideline (and if you think the link does add to the article). It will not revert again. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Right, thanks for the clarification. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 02:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Research 2000

I tried to add the recent Georgia Senate Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll to the appropriate page, United States Senate election in Georgia, 2008 but it was reverted because the URL is from Daily Kos. While I agree that Daily Kos should not be cited for news, they commissioned this non-partisan poll, and therefore they published the results on their website. Research 2000 is considered non-partisan, and has been used by newspapers, such as the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Reno Gazette.

There is partisan talk on the page, but the poll numbers should be included. Research 2000

Muboshgu (talk) 14:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

If you think the link is fine, then you can just undo the edit of the bot (as it suggests). I looked at the edit, and I am not sure if it should be the top in that table though, but for the rest it looks fine. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
It's only at the top as they're sorted by recency. It'll slide down as newer polls take it's place. Thanks. --Muboshgu (talk) 17:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Then I think all is fine. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of User talk:Shayne.soderstrom

A tag has been placed on User talk:Shayne.soderstrom, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article seems to be blatant advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the guidelines on spam as well as Wikipedia:FAQ/Business for more information.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[ Talk:User talk:Shayne.soderstrom|the talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. TallNapoleon (talk) 05:26, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

??? Why do you notify this bot of that? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Linking my blog to my Wikipedia article

My name is Charles Martin Cosgriff. i am trying to link my blog to my Wikipedia entry. The blog is mine, with all material copyrighted by me. Can i do this?

Thanks, Marty cosgriff---- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wickandroll (talk • contribs) 15:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it would be discouraged by some guidelines, especially the external links guideline and the conflict of interest guideline. I suggest you discuss it on the talkpages of pages where you want to edit things, or find interested users, e.g. via an appropriate Wikiproject. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia,

Although I did try to insert a blogspot site link, while not being aware that this might be unacceptable, I honestly do believe I should be considered to be a "reliable source", according to your criteria, for a number of reasons I hope you will research (subject of a book and documentary about my primate work etc.) and would like to discuss why our website link was reverted. Another point I'd like to make that any website connected to the agricultural or biomedical sectors could be considered as belonging to a group that are unlikely to act in the best interests of the baboon and therefore are not immune to offering propaganda, (because baboons are widely used in biomedical research and it is in the interests of this scientific sector to ensure they are seen to be unthreatened. The agricultural sector regards the baboon as a "problem animal", treats this species as vermin, and makes profit a priority at the expense of the environment. Due to these factors, I feel that Wikipedia would gain much relevant information by being open to primatologists who work hands on with this species, whether they are backed by a degree or not. If possible, could you visit the blog site I added to see it for yourself? In no way does it infringe on copyright and is an educational insight into the baboon.

The information I did post about South African legislation can be verified on the D.E.A.T website. Amazingwe (talk) 11:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

If so, then I still want you to review our conflict of interest guideline (also see the spam guideline and the business FAQ. I you think the information is a reliable source, then I suggest you use it to get content from and use it as a citation (see the citation guideline and the footnotes guideline). Otherwise, you can, as the bot suggest, just undo the edit, it will not revert that again. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Butterfly image

"www.pbase.com/plusiotis/image/102517347" Tried to add a link to a photo of my pair of extinct British Large Copper butterflies (Lycaena dispar dispar) .. but to no avail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.174.18 (talk) 19:58, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I formatted it as an external link & added it to the bottom of the page. Please consider contributing a low-res copy of the image under Creative Commons license. --Versageek 21:21, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Henrik Schyffert article

I re-wrote and extended the article on Henrik Schyffert yesterday. When this bot removed a link to a YouTube clip which I had added, the entire article was reverted.

I undid this reversion and removed the YouTube link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.211.18.71 (talk) 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Solved! That is the way to go. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Jetix video petition

I did not appreciate the removal of the video link on the Jetix article. I want Jetix to stay in the US.
~~LDEJRuff~~ (see what I've contributed) 13:32, 16 October 2008 (EDT)

Well, we are not a soapbox. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
I know you're not a soapbox, but you don't understand. Jetix is going to be shut down on February 2009, and I want the video petition to work. If you want Jetix to be saved, would you sign it, please?
~~LDEJRuff~~ (see what I've contributed) 18:45, 27 October 2008 (EDT)
Yes, that's what I say, don't use Wikipedia to promote that petition. If you can write about it in a neutral way, please do. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Can the "Mirror, Mirror" page be recreated after the episode airs on ABC this Sunday?

Can the "Mirror, Mirror" page be recreated after the Desperate Housewives episode airs on ABC this Sunday? AdamDeanHall (talk) 15:05, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, that certainly is not a task of the bot. If the page is deleted, then you need a deletion review. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Rozalla

This edit from earlier this month appears to be completely wrong - [19] - the link added by the IP appears to be the correct one. Exxolon (talk) 21:43, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Just undo the bot, as it suggests in the message it left on the talkpage regarding this reversion. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Spam

those changes are not spams please stop changing them back —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trueshiet (talk • contribs) 15:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

True, but I would like you to have a look at our manual of style. The way you are linking is not in accordance with that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Spam of sexy-lena.com

URLs like http://www.sexy-lena.com/en/?uid=409353 should probably be prohibited here.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 05:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Please write a request on the request page, or report on WT:WPSPAM. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

\bdefenders\.org\b'

The bot reverted a contribution to Northern Spotted Owl because it violated the rule \bdefenders\.org\b. Please consider the source of the blacklist request. I believe as a source, Defenders of Wildlife, is reliable as most web sources. For this reason I will reverted the revision. --DRoll (talk) 22:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but the IP was spamming, we are not a linkfarm or an internet directory. For now IPs and new accounts are reverted, but established editors can use the link. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The edit that I made here with the about.com website link does follow the guidelines for external links.

As the bot suggests, just undo the edit. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

regex rule(s): rule: '\b110mb\.com\b' .

I feel that this rule is very restrictive as it stops people who geneuinely stops the addition of some good content. My understanding is that 110mb.com offers free hosting only, so why penalise just for that? I found a good source in http://mesothelioma-advice.110mb.com, but XLinkBot decided to remove it from Mesothelioma.

WEll, it often gets spammed, and as it is a free hosting site, there are often problems with conflicts of interest, pages there are generally not reliable sources, etc. etc. Though, still there are some cases where it can be of interest and therefore established editors can still use it, and the bot can still be reverted. The bot does not penalise, the first remark is just a remark, and the bot soon 'forgets' that. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Changes to updates and links.

Dear XLinkBot,

I'm Liam Sharp. I'm trying to update my own page on this site - which has, I've noticed, not only lost the photo of myself (which I didn't post) but the inserted Mam Tor publishing logo, (which I also didn't post here, but is - I would have thought - certainly relevant, and not spam or self promotion). Here, though, I'm in a bit of a predicament, as genuine updates regarding what I do and who I am seem to be constantly removed. The ones I'm referring too are this: http://machivariuspoint.weebly.com/ which is a gallery site of illustrations from my new novel 'God Killers'. I accept that may seem like self-promotion, but it's entirely legitimate news, and it's free - as is the link to the Beardist site - http://beardism.weebly.com/index.html - a genuine collection of art works that people interested in my work would want to know about, and not commercial in any way, so neither spam nor sales.

I also wished to remove some old pieces, and add Beardist art to the Beardism page, as it directly relates.

Many thanks for your help.

Kind regards,

Liam.

Liam Sharp (talk) 20:38, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

As you say, you are the subject of the page. I suggest you read our conflict of interest guideline, and mainly suggest changes on the talkpage. Please be aware that we are not here to promote you, or your work. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Cheers Dirk.

Absolutely, I'm completely aware that you're not here to promote me. I was very surprised to find out I even had a page here, though naturally delighted. The problem I'm having is that often people wishing to find out about me for events will cite this Wikipedia page, and that not only fails to show what I'm currently working on (The novel, gallery, Beardist art movement as examples) but also has not updated current forums, etc. Thankfully the old ones have at least come down. It's other people who are requesting me to update the page, and wondering where my photo has gone. I'm just trying to help update that information.

Again, very best,

Liam.

Liam Sharp (talk) 10:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, as long as you keep it neutral, then it should be fine. If you think the changes may be controversial, please discuss them, and if XLinkBot reverts you, undo the edit (if the links are conform our policies and guidelines). Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

[[20] I have replaced the blogspot link and inserted the original US air-force source PDF referenced in that article instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.113.41 (talk) 23:07, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Perfect! --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Leverage (TV series)

Your bot reverted a link I added to this page while logged out, you might want to work on its parameters. --Xero (talk) 19:22, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Difficult, XLinkBot does not have access to the information that links your IP to your account. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Killanny Geraldines

Yeah, sorry!! I didn't sign in:-). I created the page so I was justing adding a link to what we look upon as our homepage(I play for the club). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.41.41.235 (talk) 21:29, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Same here, the bot can't see to who this IP belongs, just undo the edit if you think it is appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Facebook

Ola, Versageek. I notice that XLinkBot currently reverses edits that add and any and all links to facebook.com. While the Manual of Style recommends against linking to sites that require registration, FB "pages" are still visible if one is not logged in, and according to FB policies, they are supposed to be created and maintained only by official representatives of the subject of the page. Facebook's policy states:

Pages can only be created to represent a real public figure, artist, brand or organization, and may only be created by an official representative of that entity.

So ... I believe your regex list could be cleaned up a bit. Here's my suggestion:

  • Remove the first facebook.com regex, which blocks only one group. It's redundant.
  • Remove the blanket facebook.com regex, as it covers too much ground.
  • Add a block for most FB content: \bfacebook\.com/(group|profile|s|photo|apps/application)\.php\?

This will allow pages that match \bfacebook.com/pages/ which are supposed to be legitimate.

What do you think?

-- ◉ ghoti 14:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I have done an analysis on myspace below, I guess a similar analysis could be done here. Being written by an official representative does not mean they have to be added everywhere, they only should be placed on the wikipage of the same subject, and then only when it adds. I'll have a look at the redundant facebook rule anyway. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics

Regarding this edit, could you please whitelist this domain (jeff560.tripod.com). Note that the AOL links that XLinkBot restored don't work. --Zundark (talk) 11:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

If the page is conform the policies and guidelines stated, just revert the bot. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:40, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided section's first statement is an exception: "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject". I examined the last 20 "myspace" related edits of this bot and have these statistics: of the 20 edits 8 were unofficial pages and 12 were official pages. However, when examining bot reverts made to edits specifically placed in sections entitled "External links" then included were all 12 official pages and only 4 unofficial pages. This is a ratio of 3:1 unnecessary reverts. My proposition is to specify a command for the bot to allow edits which include "myspace" to remain when they are under a section "External links". Would this be possible? - Steve3849 talk 11:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I am having a look. But first, WP:EL is not the only reason, still the header of that also applies, as does WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, WP:COI, WP:COPYRIGHT, etc. etc. What I mean is, that a site is the official myspace of the subject does not mean that we have to link to it. Period of these edits: 10:09, 17 November 2008 - 10:32, 16 November 2008, about one day.
  1. diff - not the myspace of the band, but 'Jona's first band'
  2. diff removes two other links, replacing it by the 'Offical Myspace Fansite' - Fansite, not 'an official page of the article's subject', it is the page of the fanclub.
  3. diff - Denver Harbour Myspace (page is about Ilan Rubin) - not official site of subject (there are more that have to go in that page)
  4. diff - 'Vince Rones, random black guy' on page of school
  5. diff - this seems one that is correct
  6. diff - some link to a former band-member, not to the page of the band itself. Inappropriate place anyway, there should be a wikilink to the member, if notable enough
  7. diff - some links to myspaces of former band-members, not to the page of the band itself. Inappropriate place anyway, there should be a wikilink to the member, if notable enough
  8. diff - again bandmember, not band itself
  9. diff - WP:NOT#DIRECTORY - if the band is notable enough for this list, then it should have a wikipage, not an external link
  10. diff - Thalidomide is a drug, here is a link in the text to a band with the same name .. inappropriate way of linking
  11. diff - one appropriate and 2 inappropriate myspace links. I hope the message on the talkpage made the editor adapt the edit
  12. diff - WP:NOT#DIRECTORY - myspace links to all local myspaces of radical, anti-authoritarian queer projects within the United States
  13. diff - 'the blue flower is a central symbol of romanticism' - the myspace is of a cabaret group.
  14. diff - 'the blue flower is a central symbol of romanticism' - the myspace is of a cabaret group.
  15. diff - maybe appropriate (there is quite a linkfarm there)
  16. diff "The Dante Club is a mystery novel by Matthew Pearl and his debut work" - the links should be to the site of the book, not to the writers myspace or the official fan page of the author. 'Indirectly linked'
  17. diff - maybe appropriate, though not 100% sure, this is not about the band, but about their classics.
  18. diff - inappropriate linking, could be good in the external links section though
  19. diff - vandalism edit anyway, I don't think this is the official myspace.
  20. diff - WMPG is a radio station, is this the official myspace, and if so, then it looks that the more official site got removed here?
  21. diff - a town in northeastern Italy, this is not the myspace of the town, but of an inhabitant, should be a wikilink if the inhabitant is notable enough.
  22. diff - the original Purgatory myspace, so maybe not the official anymore?
  23. diff - in template, this is not the official site apparently, but another site of him. Breaks page. May have been appropriate in external links
  24. diff - addition of other band members myspaces, not of the band (is already there)
  25. diff - addition of other band members myspaces, not of the band (is already there)
  26. diff - inappropriate place for myspace, is of member, not of the subject of the page
  27. diff - Romanian hip-hop, myspace of an artist, should be wikilink if notable enough.
  28. diff - Musician in Liverpool, New South Wales, not of subject. Should be wikilink if notable enough
  29. diff - Maybe appropriate, in this edit inappropriate place
  30. diff - replacing another one, could be appropriate
There are some which, without checking what is actually linked to, may be appropriate, but that amounts to 1 for sure, and 3 or 4 which may be appropriate:
  1. diff - is correct
  2. diff - one is the official myspace, but the other two are not
  3. diff - the old one redirects to the new one, seems the real one (though, there are quite some links here, what does this myspace add)
  4. diff - dead link
  5. diff - is a myspace of the band
  6. diff - vandalism edit anyway, - private myspace (no data on page, may be blocked for viewing), adds nothing.
  7. diff - not the myspace of the radio.
  8. diff - not official
  9. diff - should be in external links
  10. diff - hmm, not sure here
  11. diff - nope, "Ricky B. Infinite Memorial"
So there are indeed a couple here which are appropriate myspace pages. About 5-6 out of 30 are at least really linked to the subject (that is 20%). Some of the myspaces, which are almost general blogs, still fail the statement 'Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail; or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.' (they simply don't add anything new). Other edits should be cleaned up, etc. I think the bot does generally a good job, remember that it on the first edit reverts and just gives a friendly message of what the user needs to think about.
However, I'd like to see your interpretation here, I see your statistics differ significantly, I hardly found any official myspaces, and when they were there are still questions to be asked (though that is not up to the bot to judge that; that is why XLinkBot does not have a bot-bit, so it does come up in recent changes and can be reviewed by human editors). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
When I searched through the edits prior to my original post they were the prior 20 from that recorded time. If I had the results you came up with I wouldn't have bothered. Your findings show the bot is doing a fine job. My only concern is that a majority of myspace related reverts were external links to official myspace pages for wikipedia articles mostly about musicans. You've made clear that is not true. - Steve3849 talk 16:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
I must say that I am surprised that there are clearly quite a number which are quite appropriate, and there may be moments when this ratio is different. Difficult to assess. It should also be said that this list does not include the numerous times a myspace link is inserted which is not reverted (as it is not performed by an IP or by a new user, because it detects it is in a reference or template (the latter being difficult to detect for the bot), or because XLinkBot detects another 'error'. I do know that myspace and similar are difficult, there are often appropriate myspaces that can be added, and I do hope that the message that the bot leaves on the user talkpage for a first revert is not scaring the user away... --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:34, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps something could be added to the message such as: a link to an official page of the article's subject is usually acceptable in a section 'External links'. However, I'm not sure how important this is. - Steve3849 talk 00:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

bank.africa.com

bank.africa.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Note that africa.com appears to sell their subdomains, so listing "africa.com" would be bad.

IPs have repeatedly replaced the homepages in the infoboxes of African banks with "bank.africa.com". Coincidentally, the bank.africa.com domain is being sold for an absurd amount of money, (according to bank.africa.com, at least) and has absolutely no connection to any of these banks. The spamming has persisted after three blocks. Sunmist (talk) 09:22, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

IPs

90.174.2.53 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

90.174.2.105 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

81.0.28.164 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

46.6.99.104 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

@Sunmist: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:23, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
@Sunmist: hmm, this was only a tip of the iceberg that you reported. This is nothing for XLinkBot - plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:33, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Snooker fansites/blogs

These sites are respectively a fansite and a blog and are mainly being used as sources to provide statistical information about living people. I have tried removing them in the past but they have proliferated to such an extent it is impossible to tackle it manually. Both websites contravene WP:SPS and an RFC at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Snooker#RfC: Does the use of self-published sources in snooker articles violate BLPSPS and SPS? concurred with this interpretation. It was suggested at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Snooker fansites/blogs that XLinkBot might be an appropriate solution to the problem. Betty Logan (talk) 03:57, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

@Betty Logan: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:25, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

allresultbd.com

Link added to multiple article by IP users only (see contributions of linked IP users), hoping this works rather than blacklisting. Ravensfire (talk) 18:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@Ravensfire: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:53, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

backtothebay.net

This fansite is mainly being used by IPs, new and inexperienced users to source the arrivals and departures of actors from the Australian television show Home and Away. The site itself acknowledges that not all of their arrival/departure information is confirmed. Most of the links are added to List of current Home and Away characters (some recent examples: [21], [22], [23], [24]) and the character's individual articles ([25]), but I've noticed that it's also creeping into the actors' articles too ([26]), which could be a BLP issue. I feel like I'm removing links to the site almost every week now. There are (eventually) more reliable sources available to back up any arrival or departure information. - JuneGloom07 Talk 21:43, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@JuneGloom07: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:19, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

newsbytesapp.com

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/newsbytesapp.com is long and the copyvio/refspam problem persists. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam filing was archived without action, but correctly notes that the site is low-value. Not sure if it's at the level of blacklisting altogether (but no objection to going that route instead of XLinkBot). DMacks (talk) 13:33, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@DMacks: Rigorously cleaned, none left. Also spammed, hence plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:36, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick work (also to User:Jevansen who did a bunch of cleaning). DMacks (talk) 15:44, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Known unreliable sources

I think it would be reasonable to revertlist these, as they are being added all the time. Additions are, no doubt, in good faith, but the sites are not appropriate as sources. Guy (Help!) 11:15, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@JzG: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:27, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
@JzG/help: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Alt-med nonsense

Sites promoting bogus medical ideas, fail WP:MEDRS and WP:RS generally, routinely reverted but still being naively (and occasionally abusively) added. Guy (Help!) 11:15, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@JzG/help: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Guy (Help!) 12:41, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

The first link was started by Special:Contributions/Imran0336. Second and third were added by Special:Contributions/Kamrankhan12 (second one also by many IPs) in 2018 Pakistan Super League. Please note that official website for PSL is http://www.psl-t20.com so the above mentioned links are either mirror or just spam (first, second and fourth). The fifth one may be a YouTuber, who seems to be promoting his work on wikipedia. Also, note these official websites http://multansultans.com/ and http://www.quettagladiators.com/ so other links (third and sixth) with similar name should be considered as spam. Thanks! :) M. Billoo 09:48, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

@M.Billoo2000: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Guy (Help!) 12:40, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Remotely unreliable.The link may be put on override.~ Winged BladesGodric 07:45, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: Any reason why I should then not just blacklist this? By the way, I see only one user who added this, and they have not been warned that they should not do it, let alone that they were blocked for it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:39, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I see I've discussed this before: MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/March_2014#jatland.com. I appear to have added that already to the revertlist, but it is not there .. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:43, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
@Beetstra:--From where you are getting one user? I don't think that's the case.~ Winged BladesGodric 10:23, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: The report only had one user in it, I now see that there are so many that it overloads the report (it has now been refreshed). I will revertlist it for now, but am minded to blacklist if I see any SPA-editing. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:25, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I would even prefer outright blacklisting.Typically used by SPAs to spread all type of BS about different castes and at allied topics.Pinging Sitush who can offer a way-detailed view on the issue.~ Winged BladesGodric 10:37, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric and Sitush: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. I'll start with this, but I don't think I need to see a lot to pull a harsher trigger. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:48, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:49, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
  • For what it is worth, the number of incidences of me having to revert additions of jatland.com has fallen dramatically since 2014 but some do still slip through. I removed a couple last week and perhaps ten or so since the start of the year. They're mostly used as references, occasionally as external links. If used as refs and text is also added, the text is usually copy/pasted. - Sitush (talk) 12:59, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

casinocitytimes.com

As requested by user:GermanJoe on my talkpage (see track). Heavily spammed, though with some use. —Dirk Beetstra T C 18:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

@GermanJoe: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
@GermanJoe: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:02, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

financesonline.com

Unreliable PR platform mostly used by inexperienced and COI editors for promotional editing about borderline-notable products. See also COIBot report for more details. Mostly not outright "spam", but the overwhelming majority of links are inappropriate and/or promotional. GermanJoe (talk) 16:53, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

After checking the background details a bit more (thanks for the advice), it still seems the issue is not serious enough for a blacklist - yet. GermanJoe (talk) 17:19, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
@GermanJoe: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:32, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
@GermanJoe: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Discogs (discogs.com)

discogs.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Please add Discogs (discogs.com) to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. A February RfC shows support for adding Discogs to this list as a frequently misued collection of user-generated content. There was consensus against deprecating the source by implementing an edit filter because most editors considered Discogs to be appropriate for external links, similar to IMDb. — Newslinger talk 00:50, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

@XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 01:37, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Jeffrey Cutler

Cutler has been spamming Wikipedia for years (and recently simple as well) with what amounts to a conspiracy laden rant (see this most recent version). The first couple of sentences change, but after that it's usually the same crap. He's recently increased his activity level to the point it's getting annoying. Several articles are common targets (see the history of Jonathan Luna), but others have little to no pattern. His posts generally have links to a couple of sites, so I'm wondering if XLinkBot is a viable option for an initial approach. An edit filter would also work well, as there are several common phrases (names, court numbers) that could be used, but that seems a fairly heavy hammer that may not be needed. Would someone mind seeing if this is viable, or let me know if the edit filter would be the best approach? Appreciate any time and assistance. Ravensfire (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Any thoughts on this (adding the honorstates page to the revert list) or is an edit filter a better option for managing this? Simple did an edit-filter (link to filter, filter is private) to stop this spam after JC started over there a few months ago and seems to have stopped him, but that's also a lower edit volume. Thanks! Ravensfire (talk) 17:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@Ravensfire: is this about honorstates.org? --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:20, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I do think that an edit filter is more functional here, catch typical phrases and the typical articles and block them. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:21, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I'll get a request over there. Appreciate you looking at this! Ravensfire (talk) 18:34, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I may follow you there. I don't think that catching honorstates.org alone is going to do the trick. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:35, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Done. Agree that removing the link probably wouldn't be enough, I was looking it as a quick start on stopping him. Ravensfire (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Crunchbase (crunchbase.com)

crunchbase.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Please add Crunchbase (crunchbase.com) to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. A March RfC shows consensus for adding Crunchbase to this list as a frequently misued collection of user-generated content. Most editors opposed implementing an edit filter because they considered Crunchbase to be appropriate for external links, similar to IMDb. — Newslinger talk 00:50, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

@XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 01:38, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

IMDb

A recently closed RfC shows consensus to add IMDb to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. I'm requesting the addition of the affected domain. — Newslinger talk 05:54, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

@Newslinger: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --— JJMC89 (T·C) 07:53, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

blogsareforever.com

blogsareforever.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com A newly user running the same name as this site has been spamming it on numerous articles over the last couple of days. See Diffs:

The site has been used as a, non-WP:RS, source in a number of articles and has been reverted each time. Please add to the list. --Blackmane (talk) 03:35, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

​This domain would be better suited for the spam blacklist. Would you like to make a blacklisting request, instead? — Newslinger talk 03:42, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
@Blackmane and Newslinger: plus Added to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks to you both @Newslinger and JJMC89:. Blackmane (talk) 03:21, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

personalfitnesstests.com

Spamming from what appears to by a dynamic ip, since Nov '12. --Ronz (talk) 21:22, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Stale
, too long ago. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

antlerfarms.com

Slow edit-warring from ip's since December 2012. The link being added not only isn't a reliable source, it doesn't verify any of the information. The only editor that's responded to the discussions about this does not dispute this. --Ronz (talk) 22:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Stale
, too long ago. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

kentohio.net

Link constantly re-added by various IP addresses since November 19, 2011. The link itself was discussed during the Kent, Ohio article's FAC process and determined to not fall within the WP:EL guidelines since it is not an official website of the city (it is run by a private individual) and is not a reliable source. It is also commercial in nature. Attempts to contact the IP users directly or via the article talk page have gone unanswered and the article has been semi-protected three times in the past year and a half. No other contributions to the article have been made by the IP users, just re-adding the link to the External links section. --JonRidinger (talk) 19:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Stale
, too long ago. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

pinkangelsmokes.com

Repeated additions of this - apparently, as I can't check it from a work machine - porn site link by at least 5 IP users I have been able to ID (only other reference I could find in a search was at Talk:Smoking fetishism requesting it be removed from the article in May of this year). User(s) using formatting in a - poorly executed - attempt at deception to masquerade it as a link to a government survey. besiegedtalk 00:46, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Stale
, too long ago. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

eljamondejabugo.com

46.27.137.237 was blocked two weeks ago. Now the two other ip's have been adding the link. --Ronz (talk) 15:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

46.27.137.237 is back. I've requested another block. --Ronz (talk) 19:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Stale
, too long ago. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

ekhichdi.com

User exhibits pattern of adding same website – see contribs (edits 13:18, 3 July 2014 & before – afterwards user switched to talk pages & got indef blocked). Also exhibited by 203.201.61.146 and 27.34.253.98. Outside of these edits, I found the website only two other times, added by IPs (59.182.247.79, 122.172.35.71) in 2012. I've gone ahead and removed site since it is not WP:RS. Per Tinaiyer1976 (see Draft:EKhichdi.com) website lets anyone post 'news' and articles. Going to website, it seems to confirm Tinaiyer1976 statement. Thus site should not be allowed as reference or external link on Wikipedia. Thanks, Kirin13 (talk) 01:29, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

27.34.253.98 still active as of 15:23, 20 July 2014. Thanks, Kirin13 (talk) 02:33, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Stale
, too long ago. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

tvtropes.org

WP:LINKVIO. From inception through June 2012, TV Tropes used CC BY-SA, much like Wikipedia and Uncyclopedia. But in July 2012, TV Tropes unilaterally switched to the incompatible CC BY-NC-SA license. I'm no lawyer, but it looks like TV Tropes has been distributing the work of its pre-2012 contributors in violation of copyright for the past two years. --Damian Yerrick (talk) 21:21, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm no lawyer either, nor am I aware of ongoing TV Tropes link abuse. Still, I'd like to concur with the request because TV Tropes appears to qualify as a self-published source. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 00:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Do we routinely add websites to Xlinkbot merely because they are SPS? VQuakr (talk) 01:21, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm not entirely familiar with that. However, I meant "concur" in roughly the sense of concurring opinions in law: I don't object to the reason given in the original request, but I'm not qualified to evaluate it rigorously and so have no strong opinion either way. I also believe the (un)reliability of the source supports this request, but I don't know which reason holds more weight with experienced Wikipedians. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 04:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Even for LINKVIO we do not regularly blacklist (only in extreme cases with reasonable abuse). Also here the question: is there any abuse by editors adding it to Wikipedia? --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Can't tell if abuse, but there's use. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 114#Replace most citations linking to TV Tropes --Damian Yerrick (talk) 20:34, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
I understand that this is a problem, but I don't think it is abuse. If we are knowingly linking to sites that carry a lot of information that is in violation of copyright, blacklisting is generally a better option, otherwise the links will still come and stay anyway (where they simply should NOT be linked).  Not done. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Deprecated sources

There are 8 deprecated sources that have been established as highly unreliable through RfCs, but are currently not edit filtered due to technical limitations/concerns. These discussions provide more context:

The other 6 deprecated sources have already been added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. 5 of these 6 sources are also on User:XLinkBot/RevertList (with Discogs excluded to allow external links per RfC consensus).

I'm requesting the addition of these remaining 8 sources (comprising 13 domains) to User:XLinkBot/RevertList and User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList, which also target highly questionable sources, but do not have the same technicial concerns. — Newslinger talk 22:52, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:13, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
@XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:14, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

williamhill.bz

Repeatedly inserts this domain masquerading as the official William Hill domain then redirects to the official one using an affiliate tag in order to make money. Very persistent.

[27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38]

Stale
, too long ago. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

www.meeja.com.au

This site has at least one editor here who's a fan and who persistently adds ref links to this site, despite the fact that it's an anonymously-run news-mockery site that appears to be either associated with or run by a fan of Fark. Some of the things that come through this site might be true, but would always need to be sourced to the underlying genuine source mentioned in the article, if the genuine source is indeed mentioned at all. Zad68 03:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

billmoyers.com

Newly established editor user:Ellisnyc has added links explicitly from this website since 9 April. Beagel (talk) 15:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

knowyourmeme.com

Already listed on the revert list, but needs to be added to User:XLinkBot/OverrideList as inappropriate edits referencing it are being added. [39][40][41] and many more, just see my recent edits. Most have been added in good faith by IPs and new users.--Otterathome (talk) 12:07, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Done. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:45, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

licensedtotravel.com

Persistent and sneaky citation spamming. [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] Regards, James(talk/contribs) 18:46, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:46, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

techstory.in

Spammed. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:43, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:43, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

EthniCelebs.com

As noted at the Reliable Source Noticeboard here, EthniCelebs.com in its own Terms of Service says:

The information on Ethnicelebs is provided for entertainment purposes only. Although we may vet information to ensure its accuracy, we make no assurances that all information on our Site is accurate. You agree that you will not rely on our Service for any purposes which could result in a loss to you if our Service did not perform as expected and, in any event, you hereby release Ethnicelebs from any liability relating to our Service.

Despite this, Wikipedia has many links to, by its own admission, a non-WP:RS site. There doesn't seem any reason to ever use it, and editors at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist suggested it would be a candidate for XLinkBot. Placing it on the bot would save a lot of editors an enormous amount of time, and more importantly, help keep biographical articles up to WP:BLP standards. --Tenebrae (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

@Tenebrae: plus Added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:12, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Justia.com

Very old, SPI that precipitated this revertlisting has not seen new cases for over 5 years now, and as @MER-C: was originally saying, it is a worthwile source. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:23, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

@Beetstra: minus Removed from User:XLinkBot/RevertList. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:24, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
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