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Product promotion

I have encountered a problem where someone from an IP[1] is continually adding promotional language and POV statements[2] to an article making about a product (Questar telescopes) in what seems to be an atempt to turn the article into an "Advertisements masquerading as article" (and what do you know!!! They keep adding a link to a commercial distributor!!![3]). The guidelines on SPAM seem to cover just linkspamming and not this overall article skewing. Should I just ignore these edits for a wile and then delete all their stuff or should I bring them up for a block of their IP as a spammer? Halfblue 21:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello Halfblue. That was quite a spamming. I gave User:69.255.120.20 a spam3 warning and removed the company7.com and bosendorferimperial.com external links they added that were still left in a couple articles. Did you know that both those domains are owned by "Company Seven Astro-Optics Division?" Pianos and optics seems kind of strange, are they even a real company? Keep your eye on this one because they will probably be back. Even though spam is bad it is always best to be aware of WP:3RR. No need to ever escalate a spam revert war since it is all about endurance. Once you spot the spam it is as good as gone, if not today then tomorrow. About article skewing, the WP:NPOV policy deals with that. I probably should note that this talk page is for discussing the WP:SPAM guideline and not actual spammings. The WT:WPSPAM page is a better place for reporting and asking for help with spam. Thank you for reporting this. (Requestion 22:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC))

OK, can you guys help me with this one.... I need some clarification on an external link. Should the link to the official Holmfirth Folk Festival site that I added in the arts section of the wikipedia:Holmfirth page have been inserted in the external links section of the page instead? The link was deleted as "business advertising spam" by 82.30.78.230, but I don't see the difference between this and the link to the websites of artists Ashley Jackson or Trevor Stubley that are also in the arts section. I was following the example set there by adding the festival link (possibly wrongly - hence this talk post).

The festival is a community event not a business (although it is supported by the Holme Valley Business Association), the website is relevant and on-topic (being about an annual event in Holmfirth and also being the official site), and contains informative detail (like dates and venues). It does contain links to accommodation, but these are for visitor info, rather than advertising. Having read Wikipedia:External_links and Wikipedia:Spam, the link seems to fulfill requirements. Obviously the site is an advertisement in itself (in terms of raising awareness for the festival), but then so are the abovementioned artist websites, and others on Wikipedia such as the Glastonbury official website.

Any advice/ideas? Tyke abroad 04:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Try asking over at WT:WPSPAM. This page if for discussing the WP:SPAM guideline. (Requestion 01:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
I looked at the page history for Holmfirth, and a link was added by User:Tyke abroad to a web-site which ended in ".co.uk". The web-site is owned by an individual (Peter Carr), who lists as an address a cinema in Holmfirth. That link was then deleted under this guideline, a proper use of the guideline based on the publicly available information. This issue should be considered resolved.--Chrisbak 17:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Overusage of term Spam and WP:SPAM at Wikipedia

Hi -- I'd just like to add a voice suggesting that the term WP:SPAM is often overused in discussions and talk pages. I keep seeing this guideline invoked to say why a certain external link shouldn't be included. Usually the removal of the link is correct, but Wikipedia:External Links is the more appropriate guideline for two reasons: (1) most of the time the links do not refer to the types of things we consider Spam in our inboxes (e.g., a link to a manufacturer of clarinet reeds on a clarinet reed page should probably be removed, but is not at all the type of thing my email spam filter is worried about) and (2) invoking this rule is a cross-purposes with Assuming Good Faith and civility unless you are absolutely sure that the editor didn't think that the link was improving the article--calling someone a spammer is not a light accusation and should only be used as a last resort (probably after you've already insulted their mothers :). Best, -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 22:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've not seen many examples of links being falsely labeled as spam. Calling spam spam does not violate Assume Good Faith, as someone who put spam in an article could have good faith that his link is really important and encyclopedic and just be blinded by their own self-interest and lack of understanding of how we do things here. I would guess about half of the spammers think this way (adding maybe 1 - 10 links). Hardcore spammers are way beyond good faith, though. Perhaps the problem comes from people assuming that spam means evil scammer sitting offshore with computer sending out millions of emails to random addresses to try to sell Viagra or something... individual links to one's own website are also spam. The problem is that people want to make a distinction when there isn't, other than scope. If more people were confronted with the idea that what they are doing with spam, and then realize they are doing what those other people they hate are doing, then if they really are acting in good faith they will stop. If they don't then we know that they aren;t acting in good faith. DreamGuy 03:07, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


re: your summary, "meh, probably uderused, if you know what the word means". Ah, well, I guess having a discussion about civility here was too much to ask. sigh. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 03:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

"Spam" has a number of different meanings online. The original meaning (from MUDs, and then Usenet) was more or less "the same message sent many times over." Posting the same link to several articles, or adding lots of links to the same site as "references", is "spamming" in this sense.

A later meaning of "spam" is "unsolicited, bulk messages". This is just like the above, except with the qualification that it's possible for bulk messages to be solicited, which excludes them from being spam. But Wikipedia doesn't solicit multiply-posted links, so this distinction doesn't make a difference.

Yet another meaning is "unwanted advertising". This should be pretty obvious -- Wikipedia is not for advertising.

A latter-day and rather informal meaning of "spam" is "lots of junk I don't like, cluttering up a resource I like." In this sense, people may describe links they perceive as excessive as being "spam", even if they were not the result of a deliberate act of repeated posting.

Know what you mean by "spam"! The greatest commonality among different definitiona is that when something is unwanted, unsolicited, repetitious, valueless, (and usually promotional), it's spam. --FOo 04:11, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll agree with User:Mscuthbert that spammers don't like being accused of spamming. As descriptive as the term is, the spam word is a bit insulting. Since I liken my job as a spam fighter to that of a hostage negotiator I've decided to try a new tact. Instead of spammer I use the term exuberant linker and instead of "== Warnings ==" headers I use "== Courtesy messages ==". Unfortunately, this sugar coating of the spam word doesn't make swallowing the fact that one's external links are not welcome any easier. Spammed if do, spammed if don't. (Requestion 19:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC))
Thanks -- I didn't mean to imply that there are no true spammers working on wikipedia, and I hope that I didn't mean offense at DreamGuy and others' efforts to fight it. I just have seen now the fourth time that (1) someone added an external link that could be considered advertising, or publicity for their favorite blog, or a useful but not reliable or encyclopedic thing that they created, (2) all of which WP has guidelines and policies to remove, (3) someone removes it and says "see WP:SPAM" and (4) all hell breaks loose and a potentially useful editor is lost. Here's the most recent article I was working on where someone took offense at the "SPAM" designation [4], to give some context.
OK, I just took a look at Talk:Elliott_Carter#External_links and that article's history log. I see that someone added a {{cleanup-spam}} tag, someone else promptly removed the tag, and a civil discussion ensued. What's the problem? The whole point of the {{cleanup-spam}} tag is to encourage the article custodians to act. Discussion is good and clean up is better when done by those closer to the article. If the spam word is what's causing problems then try using the {{linkfarm}} or {{external-links}} tags. I find that they are less offensive but they are also less effective. (Requestion 23:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC))

I have to agree with Myke Cuthbert that the term "spam" is overused. Too often, it's used against well-meaning editors, perhaps novices, who don't understand what constitutes an appropriate link. For instance, they may add links similar to inappropriate ones that already exist in the article. So of course they get defensive when accused of spamming. This is how things escalate.

I think "violates WP:EL" would be a better approach unless the editor is adding the same link to multiple articles, and the link is clearly promotional rather than informational. To my mind, the term "spam" seems to suggest that the reverting editor presumes knowledge of what the posting editor's intentions were. Before doing that, reverting editors ought to make sure they have sufficient evidence to support that presumption. ThreeOfCups (talk) 01:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

"A latter-day and rather informal meaning of "spam" is "lots of junk I don't like, cluttering up a resource I like." In this sense, people may describe links they perceive as excessive as being "spam", even if they were not the result of a deliberate act of repeated posting."
Actually, I've heard this definition in use since before email spam became common, so I'd call this an underusage of the definition. However, I mention it now because I was recently forced to explain to someone what "spam" is, and they cited the main article here, which doesn't mention it, as justification to continue happily posting completely irrelevant information into an article. Things like posting about firetrucks when the article is about Ford cars, or posting about the Tunguska event in an article about Meteor Crater, Arizona. (Different types of strikes, different parts of the world, vastly different rocks that caused them, and so on.)
So, my question/request is: could you post something about this in the main article, how adding irrelevant information is just as much spamming as unsolicited email advertisements? Wontonkok (talk) 03:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

New spam method

There's a new breed of spam evolving, that is the "box-it" method to make a link more prominent (possibly a violation of WP:NPOV). See for example this TfD: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 May 26#Template:FreeContentMeta. Matthew 09:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

This regards the topic of interwiki maps (shortcuts to other non-Foundation wikis that bypass the normal "http://" linking system). For some background, see Wikipedia:Interwiki map; additional background can be found at:
--A. B. (talk) 13:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
That's a load of bollocks, Matthew. Please be more truthful in your public statements in future. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Langham Hotel - advertising masquerading as articles

I believe the articles contributed by user Lhinternational (Special:Contributions/Lhinternational) are all spam and look like a COI. → AA (talk • contribs) — 09:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Help?

Yesterday I created my first Wikipedia page for the company I work for. It was quickly deleted. Can someone help me understand how to not be deleted for spam? I've a ton of stuff on Wikipedia, but I just didn't seem to get it right. I even copied the basic format of the page from another company that creates software in the same space as ours. The page was Infusion_Software. I used the Salesforce.com page as a basic template, plugged in our company info, and it was a no go. Any advice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgarns (talk • contribs)

I've left you a comment on your talk page - yours is a conflict of interest issue more than anything. JoeSmack Talk 20:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Domains for spam blacklist?

What level of spam is appropriate for getting domains added to the spam blacklist? I noticed additions of links to www.teomandogan.com from several IP addresses, e.g. Special:Contributions/85.101.243.47. Looking at the affected articles, there seem to be other domains being linked by the same folks (like www.burunestetik.com.tr, www.estetikcerrahi.biz, and www.psclinic.biz - see Special:Contributions/212.156.177.180). I can only presume these folks think they're increasing their Google rating or something. This is mostly just a pain to undo - if we add the domains to the blacklist I assume they'll get the message that adding these links is not OK. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Need help with spam review

I've tried removing the spam EL section on Japa mala, removing sites that sell various religious products or push religious groups, but another editor thinks my deletions were "too harsh" and has restored all of them. Can I get some of you to look at the article and assist with spam removal? Buddhipriya 09:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


Need assistance with Inter-Asterisk eXchange‎ and YATE spammer

A new user is persistent in spamming her software project YATE on WP. (The YATE article has been removed multiple times and is now under a DRV). User has been warned and links removed from many articles under an IP user id 83.166.206.79. She now has created a user id User:Diana cionoiu. She has openly acknowledged that her job is to promote YATE and she has requested help on the YATE project talk page for others to assist her in promoting YATE on WP. Most of the EL's she's added have already been removed but on Inter-Asterisk eXchange‎, she has solicited another WP user User:Apankrat to assist her and we are currently at the 3RR level. The article lists groups and organizations that are related to the topic, none of which have ELs. These two insist upon listing YATE with an EL. This lady is persistent and now has requested this WP user to add links to her project on other articles as well User talk:Apankrat. Any assistance here would be appreciated. Calltech 03:13, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

To clarify - user Diana solicited help on my Talk page AFTER I linked Yate from IAX page. She did NOT solicit initial edit. It was my own decision based on notability and relevance of the link to the content of IAX page. Whoever is reviewing this case, please keep in mind that Calltech and Diana users were engaged in what appears to be a minor war editing and they are both naturally biased on the subject. I posted detailed rationale for my edits on Talk:Inter-Asterisk_eXchange, please consider reviewing them as well. Alex Pankratov 05:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Diana cionoiu openly solicited links on Talk:Inter-Asterisk eXchange‎ to her project's webpage and Alex Pankratov responded (inline comments on article talk page). His edits did not happen independent of Diana's action or request. She then proceeded to specifically solicit Alex Pankratov to add additional links on his talk page.
YATE is NOT notable by WP definition Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/YATE, (which Alex Pankratov is aware) - the YATE article has been deleted 3 times!.
The article IAX has a history of collecting ELs and has been cleaned up since April 2007 by myself and other editors, long before these "edit wars" as described by Alex Pankratov occured. Alex Pankratov now appears to advocate the restoration of all of these external links Talk:Inter-Asterisk_eXchange. However, he made no comment when the article was cleaned up months ago, even though he has made edits since the cleanup. (See edit history). Now he is now selectively adding an EL to a specific website, claiming WP guidelines are secondary to the perceived special value that the YATE link offers, without offering any basis for this decision.
My "bias" is against users who insist upon promoting their projects using WP. Calltech 12:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I have moved this discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam where it belongs. This was my error because this discussion page is about the standard, not individual cases. Calltech 13:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Addition to Advertisements masquerading as articles

I added the suggestion to combine articles about competing products under a common topic. Things should not have their own articles unless they are notable. --216.49.181.128 22:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Request about cancel of banning

I was banned because of a lot of links to my works which are located on my site apocalyptism.ru.

My error was: I repeated the same links (English) in these articles on others languages.

I apologize and shall not to do it more.

All my links were strictly on the subject, and experts can confirm that my works are professional and contain the useful information for readers of Wiki.

I ask English Community of Wiki to pardon me and to cancel my banning.

Lregelson

Howdy, you're best bet is to log in under the account you are blocked and request to be unblocked using {{subst:unblock|reason}} (of course, replacing reason with your reason for wanting to be unblocked). Put this on your talk page (most people are permitted to post on their talk page, even when blocked). An admin will review the case once this is posted. I should not that if your username is Lregelson (talk · contribs), I don't see a block on your log. Perhaps something else is going on. I will crosspost to your IP talk and user talk. --TeaDrinker 06:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Spam / no original research tension

There seems to be a little bit of a tension between the need on the one hand to avoid giving uncited information, which is original research, and on the other hand to avoid seeming like you're spamming by including links. How do you avoid running afoul of this? Case in point was this version of conversation opener. See [5]. How could the source have been cited without seeming like it was spam? Or was that an inappropriate source? I just remember that in academic papers, we always used to say, "According to ..." the first time a source was referenced, rather than just putting a footnote. Captain Zyrain 19:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conversation_opener&oldid=156395614

Example of spam?

Just a question really, a new user has made his first edit in the Beith article and is nothing more than self promotion for his own books, none of which are seemingly used in the creation of the article. Would this constitute as spam? --Dreamer84 15:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Spamming wiki article links onto many other articles

Adding Wiki-links to one article on to many other articles seems to be another method of promotional spam and it seems there should be some sort of statement warning against such abuse. For example, in wandering around pages I was editing, I keep seeing the same things being listed under "See also" sections and/or superfluously embedded in articles ("such as ..."). Some entries were in more than a dozen additional articlea and seem designed to promote the main article, which in some cases is agenda-driven. I would refer to this as "wiki-link spam." Is there a rule or guideline against such a practice? The wiki-links I found to be most excessive spammed were Paleolithic diet, Low-carbohydrate diet and the Weston A. Price Foundation, but there were and still are several others that have some relationship to the WAPF or its agendas (milk issues, saturated fats, coconut oil, etc.). Numerous examplea of the wikilink spam can been seen by reviewing my edits in the last three days. It seems a group of people is using wikipedia to push an agenda through articles and article linking. Any thoughts? OccamzRazor 23:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Spam or not? (user:Nugget680)

Spam or not? Two edits by User:Nugget680 (Talk | contribs)

Both seem potentially helpful, but the sites don't seem to be known sources, have the same template with Google text ads, etc. --Hebisddave (talk) 14:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Both sites reside on the same server (IP 74.208.41.53), not sure if it is spam, or maybe COI. I made User:COIBot monitor both and the IP. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Spam on talk pages? Please advise.

Talk:PDS consists entirely of one long post which is obvious spam. Although this would be deleted if it had been put into the text of an article, I'm unsure what the policy is when spam is posted on a talk page, since in my experience content is never deleted from talk pages. Should this be deleted? Thanks. 152.130.6.130 (talk) 15:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

See WP:TALK. There are many cases where it's recommended that information be removed from talk pages. The page you refer too isn't too bad, but it certainly isn't a discussion with the intent of improving the article. --Ronz (talk) 01:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I see you have now --correctly-- removed it, Anon 152. DGG (talk) 00:38, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Spam or not? (user:SoonerDub)

Spam or not? Links to a py to download site by User:SoonerDub (Talk | contribs)

This user likes to link under http://www.dynamiclink.nl/ . This site appears top offers nothing but pay-to-download windows libraries -DLLs, INF files, etc. If they weren't pay-to-download, and there was some informative content alongside it, then the links could maybe be justified.

Some recent changes

My question is, does the remote site and its content violate linking policy? Here are the destination URLs:

If they are felt to be legit, then I will leave the links alone. If not, then they should be dealt with by the 'bots. SteveLoughran (talk) 17:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Unjustified or unnecessary plugs for people or products

It would be nice to have a short section we could refer to as WP:PLUG for cases of abuse that don't rise to the level of blatant advertising or spam but are unnecessary or unjustified in the context of the article, or that simply repeat names or internal links already included in the article. I don't think there's a need for a new set of templates, but in the case of reverting edits like this, it would be nice to add an official-sounding phrase like "see WP:PLUG" to the edit summary. --CliffC (talk) 20:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

SPAM on the Book sources page

On the page Special: book sources, the link Learn how to bypass this page and go to the same book source every time, listed prominently in the article, goes to amazon.com as the default. I think it is totally wrong to give a reference to amazon as the default, Wikipedia credit or no--that is concealed spam, tho probably done innocently, for a commercial bookstore. The isbn page was designed to prevent this by getting people not to use amazon as a matter of course in doing references to books. A suitable neutral non-profit source should be used as the default, and the best is probably WorldCat. The script is at [6]. I have eft a note on the talk page there. DGG (talk) 00:45, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

In order for my script to be understandable, some url must be specified, even if the user ultimately will choose a different book source. The question then becomes what url?

When I first wrote the script, I chose Amazon, because that is the site that I found most useful. Of the roughly 700 people who are using this script on the English Wikipedia, about 60% agree with me that Amazon is the site they want ISBNs to redirect to. About 40% have followed my detailed instructions, and changed the destination url. Because of these numbers, I am not inclined to change the default url.

However, I would be happy to include a short disclaimer that inclusion of the Amazon url is not a endorsement by Wikipedia, and that the script is the work of an individual. Perhaps you have some language to that effect?

Lunchboxhero (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 15:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's enough. it should at the least be something non-commercial. I think the obvious one to change it to WorldCat., and then use an qualifier--because WorldCat is only really the most useful source in the US. I suppose a next step in sophistication would be a geographic selection, but most other english-speaking countries do not yet have an equivalent catalog that lists all public libraries. (I know for certain that Canada doesnt have one). There's also some possible feeling that whoever it be, it should not be Amazon, because amazon includes self-publishers and is widely misused in WP for all sorts of purposes.
I recognize that when you wrote the script, amazon probably seemed the most logical choice. DGG (talk) 09:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree.
This is a script to make Wikipedia more useful. When I wrote the script, I thought that Amazon was the most useful redirect url. I still do, and the majority of the users of this script agree with me. On the other hand, only about seven people have chosen worldcat as their redirect url, from the over 700 people who are currently using this script.
We may wish that more people used non-commercial book sources as their primary source of books, but that is not the preference that users have expressed. As there is no Wikipedia policy of generically favoring non-profit sources to commercial companies, I think we should take our cue from the users.
I agree with you that it would be nice if the script was more sophisticated and it was even easier to use. However, in my opinion, it is not possible to do that, elegantly, without integrating the script into the Mediawiki software. While I would be thrilled if that happened, and have even suggested it on the bug tracker, I do not have the time to write the software myself.
Lunchboxhero (talk)
The script at User:Lunchboxhero/monobook.js belongs to Lunchboxhero, and is in his user space. I and another person have contributed to it, but it is still in his space. It is not in mainspace, so it is not bound by WP:SPAM. Of course, other users are welcome to use it, modified or unmodified (GFDL); many already have. If someone wants, they can create a WorldCat version, and link that from Wikipedia:Book sources too. Obviously, though, we don't want to manually create a separate script for every Book source. It's already been made trivial to copy a different URL from Wikipedia:Book sources into the script. Superm401 - Talk 00:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Apparently WP:SPAM has been extended to user space. Still, Lunchboxhero's script is not spam, because it wasn't created to promote Amazon. Again, a separate public script can be created to use WorldCat. That is no more or less spam, though, because the spam policy is not limited to commercial websites. Wikipedia is not anti-commercial. Superm401 - Talk 00:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely he can keep that script. But we should not use it as our example in WP space. Promotion of a commercial bookseller , directly or indirect, is spam,anda violation of the basic principles. WorldCat is not selling anything. DGG (talk) 05:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
From the policy page, it seems clear that the general view that a link or article is spam when the primary purpose of adding the link or article was to promote some third party, and when the link or article would not be reasonably included for any other reason besides promotion. It is certainly not policy that every reference to a commercial entity is spam.
In this particular instance, I have asserted that my reason for using Amazon as the default url is because I believe it is the most useful url based upon expressed user preference. You have accepted that my reasons for using Amazon were because I thought it "seemed [to me] the most logical choice."
The Amazon default may still not be acceptable because it violates "basic principles," but it is not spam, at least as spam is described on this policy page, and I would appreciate it if you stopped using such inflammatory language. Now, I have to admit I don't know what "basic principles" the Amazon url is violating. Would you please expand upon that, and please be so kind as to reference policy pages.
Lunchboxhero (talk) 14:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
If we use WorldCat as a default, we're promoting WorldCat. That is no better or worse than promoting Amazon. Wikimedia is not anti-commercial. Superm401 - Talk 15:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
See WP:EL. we avoid such links, we should avoid this one; the entire books sources page was set up to avoid the links to Amazon; it may have seemed a logical choice initially, but we can do better. Whether technically Spam or not, the use of a script with the effect of promoting a commercial organization is a direct violation of the principles of WP, and a violation of the intent of WP:SPAM. DGG (talk) 01:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
If I understand you, the basic contention is that there is a Wikipedia policy for generically preferring to link to non-commercial sites over commercial entities, and this policy overrides arguments over the usefulness over a link or content. I do not think that Wikipedia has any such policy. I quote the style guide at WP:EL, "Adding external links can be helpful to everyone, but they should be restricted to those that are most meritable, accessible and relevant to the article." On the merits of usefulness and expressed preferences, I think the Amazon being the default url in the script passes this test.
As far as early policy, this post by Jimbo may be very illuminating, a diversity of book sources were encouraged "so that we don't appear to be endorsing any specific merchant." The Book_sources page really didn't have anything to do with avoiding commercial links. In fact the earliest version of that page only included four book sources, all commercial.
Lunchboxhero (talk) 15:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
if you want to think of it that way, remove the default to any one specific merchant. We have no business here using a macro which defaults to amazon. DGG (talk) 07:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
IMHO, the best thing would be for the Wikipedia:Book sources page to be a system page, Special:Book sources. Both there and at a special Preferences panel you'd be able to select a default source, and that would be it. Failing this, I love Lunchboxhero's script and, yes, I do use it to access Amazon (what doesn't mean I purchase there, there are cheaper places). WorldCat is a cool site and all, but it lacks a lot, and I mean A LOT, of he information one can get at Amazon, from the reviews onwards. It just isn't a worthwhile replacement. -- alexgieg (talk) 00:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Spam or not? (user:Dogsrock12)

Many edits by User:Dogsrock12 (Talk | contribs) sound like a 12-year-old ("EE Cummings is funny"), or are inappropriate links. Some edits have been undone and the user has been warned (according to the user page). I'm new to Wikipedia and fear retaliation if I undo or mark them as spam. Can someone undo the edits by User:Dogsrock12? On Wikipedia:Help desk I noticed a reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy#Using_multiple_accounts explaining that I can create a second account that I can use, for example, to handle spam that I find. [[[User:Daven brown|Daven brown]] (talk) 15:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)]

I would not recommending using a sockpuppet for this purpose. Wikipedia:Username policy says, "It is recommended that contributors do not use multiple accounts without good reason." and I don't see a good reason here. Superm401 - Talk 09:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Eight video lessons on how to spam Wikipedia

At http://www.mediabistro.com/courses/cache/crs2995.asp "It's only a matter of time before you or your business finds its way onto Wikipedia's pages." Price seems reasonable at $15 each, so I guess we should expect a fresh influx of spammers. Should someone sign up for these just to understand what they recommend?

FWIW, not really related, but Wikipedia now has 326 links to mediabstro.com
--CliffC (talk) 21:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SquelchBot if you have comments. Thank you, Iamunknown 01:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Orcas Island linkspam

I don't know if this is the right venue for this, but anon IPs keep adding http://orcasisland.mobi OrcasIsland.mobi to the Orcas Island article. It looks like spam to me, and other users have removed it as well. But I'm not super familiar with what exactly is gonna constitute linkspam, and how to get a link auto-banned from insertion if it becomes a problem. Murderbike (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There is something that is not completely clear to me (and maybe to others). How does WP:SPAM cover the mass addition of a sentence with an internal link. I mean examples like:

I would consider them spam (the latter two rather innocent), but find it at this part difficult to explain how WP:SPAM covers this type of spam. Could someone please expand on this? Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not clear why the second and third examples would be spam, given that (as best I can tell) an editor wouldn't be adding the same link (to a specific city council or rail commuter council) to dozens or hundreds of articles.
In general, I think that this policy doesn't cover internal wikilinks, and I'm not sure that it needs to. In any case, if in the cookies article (for example), someone adds "Cookies are made by Minor cookie company which has its own Wikipedia article, it's sufficient to just delete the sentence as not adding value. If an editor is adding large numbers of such links (which, again, would seem difficult to me), then posting a note at WP:AN/I asking an admin to rollback them all, and posting a warning on the user's talk page that the editor is not only being disruptive but should read WP:COI, would be appropriate. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I followed the advice about Cookies are made by Cookie Company to report at ANI Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Self-cleaning_glass_spamming, as WP:SPAM is not clear about internal spam, the discussion moved to Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Self-cleaning_glass_spamming which is the result of internal spamming. Now it seems that ANI is not following the suggested advices on this talkpage, maybe its time to add a section about it on the article ? Mion (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
If an editor is only making edits which primarily increase the number of wikilinks to a specific firm, that seems to me to be spamming. It's like search engine optimization for increased Wikipedia attention. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
on the other hand, if an impartial editor is adding links to articles major companies making a project, this is part of the WP organizational network, and should I think be encouraged. For a COI editor to add a company name in an obvious place on one or two appropriate articles is not necessarily spam. DGG (talk) 16:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Image spam

Ilovetechno.be is spamming numerous music articles (over a dozen so far), switching the image to a new one that includes an "I (heart) Techno" logo. I didn't check every one, but none appear to be an improved image, just different. Not sure what the procedure is here. —Hello, Control Hello, Tony 15:00, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Update—Other editors reverted some of this user's (who is now blocked) work, so I reverted other instances where an acceptable image had been replaced. Currently, Goose (band)‎, Adam Beyer, DJ Rush, Tiefschwarz, and Tim Vanhamel still include the logo'd photos. Dunno if they should stay or not. —Hello, Control Hello, Tony 18:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Spam?

Just checking Wikipedia:WikiProject Ski to see what the prescribed format was for a resort now that the article I was interested in has slid further into spam/pr. They did not seem to have a format. Worse, one article they pointed to and seemed to be proud of, Okemo Mountain, was nearly as bad as the one I was hoping to get guidelines on. I don't know what can be done to control this sort of thing. Seems quite our of hand when you have an entire Wikiproject established to do Wikitravel it would seem. I would appreciate ideas. Student7 (talk) 12:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

SPAM and WP:3RR

Over at Jonathan Sacks I have been trying to prevent User:homeofhope from advertising a CD Home of Hope to which Sacks has given his backing. I have now used up my 3 reverts. Is there a clear statement that fighting SPAM does not count towards my 3 reverts if said user strikes again?--Peter cohen (talk) 17:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

If a game is not copyrighted, and an implementation of that game exists, and the site has no advertising, no special plug-ins, no log-in required, is it acceptable to link to such a site, assuming no other violations of WP:EL exist. There is a fairly heated debate over at talk:Spider (solitaire) that needs more input. If it is determined that this is spam, the policies on this and the WP:EL pages need to be updated. But, I think we need a clear consensus, as there are opinions on both sides. Bytebear (talk) 05:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Self-promotion masquerading as a reference

Ariesubg (talk · contribs) works for a music website UrbanBridgez.com (UBG for short)—admittedly—and added a link to the site as a reference (I have brought up its dubious nature at the RS noticeboard) and is using his/her user page to promote the website. —Hello, Control Hello, Tony 21:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Guideline should mention the local spam blacklist

I'd like to suggest that the local spam blacklist page (MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist) be mentioned somewhere in this guideline. I was looking for a way to report a spamlink that one user keeps adding, but the guideline only mentions the Meta blacklist, which (as I found out) is only used against multi-project spammers. I'm not sure where in the guideline it would be most appropriate to mention the blacklist, so I'd like to ask someone else to do it.--Father Goose (talk) 08:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to ask about this diff – is it a spam or not? Both name and website should be removed from image caption at the article page since they are not notable, but the author of photo claims that then it will violate copyrights included in his image. A very sneaky way to self-promotion of his name and blogspam. What do you think? Are there any rules or guidelines on this case? Visor (talk) 18:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Attribution, as far as I understand it (IANAL), means the author name is acknowledged, not where this acknowledgment happens. Thus, Wikipedia being hypertext and all, the proper place for this acknowledgment would be the image page itself, as one interested in it will click it to get more information, not each and every article where it appears. In other words, the encyclopedia as a whole should acknowledge it, but once, not multiples times. So, if he insists on links appearing on the articles themselves, it seem to me his images aren't really free, as there are restrictions on how one can use them. I'm not a Wikipedia policy expert, far from it, but I think this calls for a good talk with him and, if he doesn't agree to re-license his images as (actually) free ones, for deleting them as non-free. -- alexgieg (talk) 18:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
There has been debate about this - he has released the image under an attribution required license, and technically, the attribution is given on the image page itself. - However, many print publications give image credits in the caption (since that is the only way they can do it), and some people have come expect that. I've encountered users who want the full attribution info to actually display in the caption. I think, if we are going to allow other than image page attribution - the ref in the caption is less obtrusive. I do agree with alexgieg though.. specifying how we must provide attribution is putting restrictions on the use of the image --Versageek 19:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think he can license it as CC with attribution and make the demands he makes in his license. It's not that great of a picture; my gut would be to avoid using photos with questionable licenses. OhNoitsJamie Talk 19:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
One alternative would be to allow an "attribution" tag in the [[Image:...]] markup, say, "|attr=John Doe", or maybe some meta tag that should be added to the image page itself and would be parsed along the image, that would cause the author name to be shown over the image itself, in some non-intrusive way, on mouse-over, when JavaScript is enabled, or below the caption, in a small font (let's say, size 5), when JavaScript is disabled. In either case, if this were to be implemented I'd suggest not allowing links there, only plain text. This way, to obtain more information about the image than just its attribution, the user would still have to click the image to see its page. This would prevent the use of such clauses as a spam source, while reasonably fulfilling the request of those requiring a more "in your face" attribution than the one already provided by the image page, as the way to show it would still be ultimately determined by the WikiMedia software and by the skin the user selected/developed, not by the image author. -- alexgieg (talk) 12:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

POV

Can we add something to this that says:

"Additionally, advertising spam can be advertising or "selling" a Point-of-View (POV), either politically, philosophically, religiously, racially, sexually, or otherwise, pushing an decidedly one-sided opinion."

Ideas, comments, opinions? ~ WikiDon (talk) 15:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that's kind of implicit in the guidelines now, so adding it would just make the guideline needlessly long. Rray (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Rray, it is not explicit. See this User_talk:Hu12#Could_you_please_enlight_me.3F. Not everyone has English as the first language, and some that do, still need more guidance. And please, 250'ish bytes is not "needlessly long". An ounce of prevention....~ WikiDon (talk) 05:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I said it was "kind of implicit", not "explicit". There's a difference. You asked for opinions, and my opinion is that we should avoid instruction creep. WP:CREEP Some editors not having English as a first language seems like it could be used to justify almost any addition to the guidelines, but I think the Wikipedia is available in multiple languages. Rray (talk) 12:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Flawed policies

WP:SPAM and WP:COI would appear to be deeply flawed policies if they can be cited cogently to justify the warnings recently directed against James Franklin. Squaring the circle is on my watchlist and I came across this edit. In the edit summary, user:Hu12 called this edit "spam". That didn't make sense at all. It was a link to a lecture by a respected professor on the topic that the article was about! That's a valuable contribution. I restored the link.

Then I looked at Hu12's edits. He was systematically deleting external links to lectures at Gresham College. The edits were put there by James Franklin, who is employed by Gresham College. Apparently this raised two concerns: (1) that the purpose of the links was only to promote Gresham College's web site, and (2) that there was a conflict of interests of the sort treated at WP:COI. Understandable concerns, but there's a difference between valid grounds to suspect a problem, and valid grounds to conclude finally that there is. The latter requires more information than the former. One must look at, among other things, the nature and purpose of the links. They are a valuable contribution to Wikipedia. A neutral person with no such conflict could reasonably add them. Hu12 actually blocked the user, James Franklin. Maybe a dozen or so people stepped in and started saying the links are good and the user should not be blocked. I might have been the fourth or fifth one, and I unblocked the user and at the suggestion of one of the others I posted to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/incidents about it. Two views emerged: (1) That I was making far too much of the matter and I should apologize to Hu12; and (2) That Hu12 was vastly overreacting and should apologize for blocking the user.

Now the thing that really surprised me is that AFTER all this, user:BozMo, who was aware of all of this discussion, still posted a warning on James Franklin's user page telling him not to post links to lectures at Gresham College.

I think that is wrong. But he cited WP:SPAM and WP:COI in support of his position. If those policies can really justify his position, then those policies need to change. If someone who works for Encyclopædia Britannica starts posting large numbers of links to on-topic articles at Encyclopædia Britannica, it may be reasonable to suspect something amiss, but for that to be the bottom-line conclusion even AFTER the nature of the links is examined is wrong. We're here to build an encyclopedia, not to worship rules and regulations. I'm going to post these comments at the COI talk page as well. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I think what you're failing to appreciate is that spamming behavior can occur, and be disruptive, even if many of the links added are appropriate when looked at individually. We simply cannot allow mass additions of external links by persons who have a conflict of interest and are thus ill-suited to objectively determine whether each and every link should be added. — Satori Son 21:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think there is such a conflict of interests? The affiliation of the person with the organization is reason to INITIALLY SUSPECT such a thing. But now, AFTER you know the nature of the person's affiliation and his specific activities, do you STILL think there's a conflict of interests that prevents him from objectively judging THESE links? If so, WHY? Michael Hardy (talk) 22:52, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

...and if the links are appropriate when looked at individually, and you HAVE looked at them individually, would you still delete them? If so, I will argue that that is absurd. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


None of these links was appropriate. We get this all the time: an eager advocate of a magazine, company, organization, or whatever, starts going through Wikipedia "helpfully" adding links to something their boss/employer/alma mater/organization has put out. Part of the reason for the COI policy is the knowledge that nobody can be the best judge when they have a horse in the race. Such links are invariably violations of our guidelines on external links. Anybody who persists in linkspamming is going to get banned; that's as it should be. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they were appropriate.
And in what sense does this user "have a horse in the race"? I can understand why one would SUSPECT that, given that he's an employee of the maintainer of that web site, but give me the whole story. Why are you so sure of this?
And even if he's not the best judge, what's wrong with the links? Don't tell me what's wrong with having this particular person judging them; tell me what's wrong with the links when YOU judge them, independently of who it was that put them there? In particular, what is wrong with the one at squaring the circle? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I looked at quite a few of the links posted by JF and they all seemed germane to each topic. JF had started editing in, I think, July 2007 and only about two or three of his links had been removed by subsequent editors until Hu12 conducted his mass purge. I would generally encourage academic institutions, museums, galleries &c to set up links from Wikipedia. For example, I often link to people's portraits in the National Portrait Gallery (London) (NPG) as it gives people a way of seeing portraits of the page's subjects. No-one would criticise me for doing that but, according to some views, if an employee of the NPG made the same links, that would be COI and spamming. Each link should be considered on its own merits. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 08:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, yes, I would object to you using external links to post a link to a portrait at the NPG. A mere photo (albeit a photo of a painting) is not a reason to place an external link. If you think the portrait is important enough to be included in some way, upload it to Wikimedia and put it into the article itself. Assuming that it's a historical figure (with an old image) the painting is not under any modern copyright.
And, yes, someone at NPG doing that would be a definite violation of COI and spam, and I would recommend undoing all of the edits. Per COI rules, they should suggest the link on the talk page and see if someone else agrees. Mass links are automatically bad on their own merits, period. DreamGuy (talk) 20:20, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Michael, the problem is that JF mass added links in a situation where there is a clear COI; of course he thinks Gresham has the best resources. The COI guidelines allow him to propose such a link and if judged appropriate by independent people the links/references would be added. Hu12 wasn't making a judgment on the quality of the links, he removed them because they were added outside of policy which is an appropriate action. Sometimes legitimate links are added in illegitimate ways. The spam call was on the action, not the content. The call was valid. Apparently the content is too, and therefore if replaced legitimately and the community (who will be qualified to judge) agree the references relevant enough to stay, they will, but JF should not replace any links to Gresham because it is a clear COI. The policy does not prevent Gresham links completely, it just says that if JF feels the link useful he should suggest it so someone who can make a fair judgment without any COI. Caomhin (talk) 10:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
The likely outcome of that is someone like JF would avoid a lot of hassle if he just edited anonymously at home from his IP address rather than editing under his own name at work. We shouldn't give editors perverse incentives. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 10:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
And someone using an IP to try to break rules will also be identified and reverted. I've many times caught IP addresses doing just that and put a step to it. We shouldn't excuse perverseness in any form. DreamGuy (talk) 20:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
(eC)Regaring 'what is wrong with these links': There are some things that need to be considered here. Mass addition of links is generally unwanted, especially with a COI. The question here is if the links are needed (we are not a linkfarm/directory), and if the user (with the COI) is the best user to decide that his link is needed (a link to a car-museum on the page automobile is appropriate, but that goes for (e.g.) every car-museum in the world, so every museum owner is doing appropriate edits if they are adding their links?). For libraries/musea/archives/universities/or whatever non-profit institute: if it is a person involved in the site, then if the contributions of that person is only/mainly adding (external) links (and even, references only on every place where it could be suitable), then that behaviour is spamming (and then 'spam' is defined as 'unwanted links', not 'bad links'; see also Spam (Monty Python), one or two of them may very well have wanted spam, it is just that the spam was virtually pushed down their throat in stead of giving a choice). Also, many institutions have links which are more appropriate as references, or can add content also (as argued often, they are specialists!), so just dumping it as an external links is IMHO inappropriate even if the link is on topic, etc. (see also the header of the external links guideline!). So, in every form, if a user is only/mainly adding links, of whatever kind, then that is spamming, and the user should be cautioned, invited to discuss (e.g. with a wikiproject), and I would suggest that if there are some questionable edits (including adding link number 20 on a page), that all should be reverted and that established editors after that should check if they would have been appropriate. If after discussion it is deemed that the user is careful enough in how his links are added (deciding if there are enough already, if his link can be used as a reference, or indeed makes an appropriate external link, and even, if there is a link to another institution that is even more appropriate, that this user does also consider that), then that is fine. But not before that. COI does not have to be a problem, as long as the editor is engaging in discussion.
Again: bad faith warning (I have followed this reasoning more often)! Link additions of non-profit institutions do not give revenue to the institution, there is not an obvious financial benefit for such organisations to have their links here (and indeed, there is other rubbish to follow, which is more urgent). Still, these organisations need money, either from governments, from other parts of the organisation, etc. And a way to measure a part of that efficiency of that organisation is to look at statistics on how many people visit your site. And a way to get people to go to your site is to link it from other websites. And the high traffic that Wikipedia offers may yield more people visiting your site. Now, we don't have to assume this is true for a specific editor, and it is probably not the aim of the editor (though I have run into cases where using wikipedia as a soapbox by people involved in a non-profit institution), and the effect is minimal, it still is better to warn these users that they are 'spamming', and to try them to get to stop for a moment, and discuss (the links are certainly not needed NOW, next week is also fine, and if you have one hour to add 30 links, you also had one hour to discuss for 15 minutes and add content to/reference 3 other articles). --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
(addition after ec) Re Nunquam Dormio, if the editor was editing anonymously from home, he would just have been reverted as a spammer, also those edits are (easily) detected. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. The mass addition of external links to numerous articles in a short period of time is prohibited behavior. The blatant and obvious COI in this case was just icing. (And Dirk's other observations are spot on as well.) — Satori Son 17:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Well now I've awarded him a barnstar for it. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
A tad WP:POINTy if you ask me. Trying to change this guideline is your right, and I respect your opinion even though I strongly disagree with it. But encouraging others to violate the guideline before you have established a consensus to change it does not seem entirely appropriate. — Satori Son 18:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Caomhin wrote:

The spam call was on the action, not the content.

But I think it should have been on the content, to the extent possible, and Hu12 should have assumed good faith. Caomhin further wrote:

it just says that if JF feels the link useful he should suggest it so someone who can make a fair judgment without any COI.

But Hu12 did not suggest that to JF. Hu12 blocked JF and accused him of bad-faith editing. Why must this policy be cited as justifying such a complete refusal to use any common sense?

I think JF in his editing has done little other than add these links characterized as "spam", and I'm going to award him a barnstar for it. He is certainly entitled to Wikipedia's gratitude for his addition of so much of this "spam". Michael Hardy (talk) 16:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Please do not encourage people to break policies. If you don't understand policies and don't care, that's one thing, but "Wikipedia's gratitude" is not something you can give anyone, especially when so many people here have said you are dead wrong. You the actions are the equivalent of encouraging someone to break the three revert rule or NPOV policy. DreamGuy (talk) 20:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed policy change

Someone wrote above "The spam call was on the action, not the content."

In this case the "spam call" consisted not of cautioning the user against creating an appearance of conflict, but of actually blocking the user in disregard of the content of the links.

I propose that such judgments based on "actions" disregarding content should be considered only grounds for suspicion, and one should be permitted to issue such a "spam call" ONLY after the content has been looked at, remembering that one must assume good faith.

The reason for this is to avoid situations like the one with user:jamesfranklingresham, who is certainly entitled to Wikipedia's gratitude for his mass addition of external links to his employer.

I'm surprised that some of the people above view it differently. They have forgotten that this is Wikipedia, where contributions from unqualified people are welcomed and judged on their content, not on the qualifications of the contributor. They propose to revert the excellent contributions of James Franklin on the grounds that he is seen as unqualified, where the exact same contributions from a qualified editor would have been welcomed. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that adding appropriate content might somehow excuse clearly inappropriate behavior (and I still don't agree that all the content added by jamesfranklingresham was appropriate). No policy change is needed. — Satori Son 18:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I just don't understand why people taking such positions as the one above are not simply embarrassed over this whole thing. I never proposed that appropriate content excuses inappropriate behavior. There's nothing inappropriate in the behavior, because the content added was appropriate. The warnings given to the user are what's inappropriate. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
The warning was for spamming, which the person did do, and which they can be blocked for if they continue. You being too stubborn to acknowledge that doesn't mean that they won't be blocked. DreamGuy (talk) 20:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

A position was wrongly attributed to me:

"I strongly disagree that adding appropriate content might somehow excuse clearly inappropriate behavior"

I never thought appropriate content could or should excuse inappropriate behavior. What makes you think I ever thought or said anything like that? Adding appropriate context is NOT inappropriate behavior. There was no inappropriate behavior. There were only some grounds to SUSPECT inappropriate behavior. The suspicion should have vanished when the content, and therefore the behavior, was found to be appropriate.

Don't misrepresent my position. I did not say appropriate content could excuse clearly inappropriate behavior. Do not attribute that position to me. Do not put words in my mouth. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Mass posting of links to one's employer's web site

=  grounds to SUSPECT inappropriate behavior.

But only grounds to suspect. It's not inappropriate behavior if the CONTENT is then found appropriate.

That is the proposed policy. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The mass addition of external links, whether they are appropriate or not, is the inappropriate behavior. Period. This position has already been articulated by several editors above, so I thought Michael would understand my point. However, I am sincerely sorry for the perceived misrepresentation. That's what I get for trying to be overly-succinct.
Obviously, I still strongly disagree with his proposed change to this guideline. — Satori Son 20:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

And what I'm saying is that it is NOT INAPPROPRIATE behavior if the content is appropriate. It may be grounds to SUSPECT inappropriate behavior and therefore to investigate, but it's not conclusive.

Look: we have a guy who made valuable contributions to Wikipedia, for which we should be grateful, who got rebuked and blocked as if he were a vandal. Shouldn't that embarrass some people? Michael Hardy (talk) 20:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Link canvassing, regardless of the content of said links, should be discouraged most (if not all) of the time. If the link-canvassing user ignores warnings and/or fails to discuss the matter, a block is appropriate. OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

But you can't know that it's "canvassing" until you look at the content. And who ignored warnings? There wasn't a warning; there was only a block. I've given the user a barnstar for the contributions for which he got blocked. He deserved it. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

You gave a barnstar to a user for doing nothing but posting a bunch of links? Ok. OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I vehemently disagree with the other Michael. Mass posting of links to one's employer's site, or one's own, that of one's own political or religious group, etc. is prima facie evidence of intention to advance the cause of the spammed-for entity over that of Wikipedia. If I add one link to a relevant article from somewhere I know about, that can be deemed to be a thoughtful contribution and stand on its own merits; but the wholesale addition of these links is only marginally better (and probably no better thought-out) than the guy whose spamlinks to a liquor store I just rolled back en masse. The poster of mass links is clearly not maintaining a neutral point of view about the excellence of the individual links they add over any of the other links which potentially could be added, aside from the issues raised in WP:EL about the adding of any external link. That's one reason for the COI policies. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"Prima facie" evidence creates a rebutable presumption, but it doesn't terminate the matter until the opportunity to rebut has been used. And that means: look at the content. If the content is then found appropriate, then the the presumption should be considered successfully rebuted. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Oppose. Obviously you feel this guy was done badly to. But his remedy is with the ArbCom. Hard cases make bad law. I would hate to set WP's spam policy on its ear by tying the hands of dedicated editors, who, for the most part, make few mistakes and mostly remedy those when they do.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
    • So instead of tying the hands of its dedicated editors, you want to block them instead, because there's reason to suspect them of something, before you've investigated to see whether it's reason to do more than suspect? Michael Hardy (talk) 20:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose The proposal is based on a single incident with a single editor. If Michael Hardy feels he has not yet taken his pound of flesh from Hu12, then he should go to ArbCom and get satisfaction. If such a policy were ever instituted, WP would be littered with SUSPECT tags all over the place that no one reviews, the way no one reviews 99% of the spam links that sit out there now. If an editor wants to add links en masse, especially links with which they may have a conflict of interest, they should go to the appropriate article talk page to discuss those links. If anyone were to actually take this route, this sort of thing would be far less likely to occur. As it is, editors work with what they have. Mistakes occur, but are rare and, as in this case, are corrected if the links are indeed legitimate. Montco (talk) 01:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Why would it be littered with "suspect" tags? The person who suspects would look at the content and then decide, after looking at the content rather than before. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. What Satori Son said above. MER-C 03:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support: Of course people should look at what's been added and make a considered judgement before taking action, whether that action be a message, a warning, or a block. Hu12 blocked someone indefinitely without any message or warning. None of the individual's edits were wildly inappropriate. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 05:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose, Spamming (I actually prefer the term pushing) is the action, not only what is being linked to. Having a conflict of interest is a real issue, the policy WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY have been agreed upon by many editors, and that is what these guidelines (WP:SPAM/WP:COI, also agreed upon by many users) is based upon. If someone with a coi decides to add their link everywhere, then a) they is not the best (though probably a good) editor to decide where their links are OK, b) we are not a linkfarm (all the thousands of car-musea in the world are appropriate on automobile, am I wrong to revert an addition of the next one?)!, and c) there still is a possibility that this user is not here to improve the encyclopedia, but just to add their links to get more hits on their website/to improve the chance of people visiting the site (and also for non-profit organisations there is a financial gain .. they still need money to run the webserver). We don't forbid the editor to add their links (and yes, there is now a single case where that happened, but that is not a reason to change this guideline), but encourage discussion first (and yes, if discussion is refused then blocks are allowed). Also, if the linking is excessive, reverting and then checking by regular editors makes more sense than letting the linkfarms stand, waiting for the same regular editors to clean up the ones that are not correct (been there, done that, nothing happened). --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
    • You say "If someone with a coi...". Did this person REALLY have a "coi"? How do you know that? You may have grounds to SUSPECT that, but no more.
You wrote that someone is not the best (though probably a good) editor.
So what? When is any Wikipedia editor ever the BEST one to do any edit? Since when does Wikipedia insist on only the BEST people doing edits? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Look, right now you don't have a consensus for what you want. I would say that quoting peoples' stylistic mistakes is going to be seen as mocking them and not help you in your efforts. I'm sure you don't intend it that way, but I think that it's reducing your effectiveness in arguing your point on this page.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've removed the "sic" above. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
All due respect, but perhaps it would be better to paraphrase their remark!--Wehwalt (talk) 21:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
OK, so now I've replaced the first two words of the quote with a paraphrase. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Well done.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Dirk, I'm not sure we should get that hung up on the COI issue. Would you agree that this sort of mass link addition is unwanted whether there is a conflict or not? I believe that is the current consensus. — Satori Son 00:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Why? Are you saying that if I had added the same multiple links to lectures at Gresham College to articles to which particular lectures were relevant, that would have been a problem? What about the many hundreds of external links to MathWorld articles, encouraged and facilitated by that most successful of all WikiProjects, Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics? Is that what you consider "unwanted"? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
This is unwanted. — Satori Son 01:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
You're avoiding the question. You say that sort of addition of mass links to a site is unwanted even if the persons adding the links have no COI. That means
and all the many external links to various other reference sources, are bad and we should get rid of them. So I'm asking why. Can you address that? Michael Hardy (talk) 01:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
PS to that last: You're also saying that if those links to Gresham College lectures had been installed by several dozen different Wikipedians with no affiliation with Gresham College, they would still be undesirable. Why? Michael Hardy (talk) 01:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Michael, NO, we don't have to get rid of all the links to MathWorld, Encyclopedia Bri.. etc., and that is not what anyone here suggests. If they are mass added by an editor, discussion is the way forward, and yes, that may result in all the links added by that editor to be removed (and yes, I think that in some cases some external links sections could need some cleaning, because even links to Encyclopedia Britannica can in some cases have nothing to add (see WP:EL; ".. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable. ..", if the article tells it all, remove it or use it as a reference). But lets analyse this situation:
  • Possibility 1, the user who is only adding links to one domain HAS a COI, in that case, per WP:COI (guideline, agreed upon), caution the editor, and I would strongly consider reverting all additions (per WP:COI and link there to WP:SPAM), letting other, uninvolved editors add the links again where they are wanted (not removing them and asking someone to review generally does not help, I have had discussions with editors and wikiprojects, who then have adapted their guidelines, but the even the rubbish in violation of the guideline(s) did not get removed ..). It is better that the user discusses first, per WP:COI. After discussion (and maybe even some mentoring) the user can add his links, if it is done responsibly (not violating WP:NOT#REPOSITORY/WP:NOT#DIRECTORY etc.), using talkpages when there is doubt and actively discussing when someone is reverting an addition, not reinserting it without discussion.
  • Possibility 2, the user does NOT have a COI, he is not involved with the links, in that case:
    • or the user is just adding this link. I still argue, that these links make in the most of the cases better references, they are to libraries/archives/musea/etc. They are linking to good sources which contain more info than what Wikipedia internally has (generally), if the info on the external site is already in the wiki document, it is a perfect reference here and there, if the info is not there, then after evaluation the link may indeed be a good external link. Again, ALL external links to automobile musea in the world are appropriate external links on Automobile, no question about it (on topic!), but we are not a linkfarm, so in that light, even the first one is a questionable addition (see WP:SPAMHOLE and several discussions in my past, e.g. avoiding this type of remarks (in this case a forum), that alone makes it better to even discuss the first one!)! And no, adding it to the external links as a suggestion for a reference is not the way, that should be done via the talkpage.
    • it is a Joe Job, in which case the user should be blocked immediately (either as an inappropriate username, or for the actions, or both), and the additions reverted.
So all I would suggest, and that is nicely worded in WP:EL, WP:COI, WP:NOT, WP:SPAM etc., that the editor in question is asked to discuss his edits, and to edit accordingly. If there is no discussion after the editor is being poked to do that (or poking does not work because of hopping IPs), then blocks are in my opinion in order. And therefore, there is no need to change these guidelines.
If I analyse the edits by User:Jamesfranklingresham, then I think that edits like diff, diff, diff, diff, diff are not perfectly appropriate (yes, they are on topic, relevant, but so will be many, many lectures about these subjects; see WP:NOT#REPOSITORY (... There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. ...), WP:EL ("... but Wikipedia's purpose is not to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic .."), see these two in the light of WP:SPAMHOLE and 'why their link, and not mine' type of thinking), and therefor I do believe that this editor is in need of some mentoring, and should discuss. And if I review the edits, ALL of these additions are of that type, and there are on many of the topics a plethora of lectures/papers/whatever available. So do the links that have been added/removed/readded here actually add something to the article? The edit-speed does suggest that Jamesfranklingresham does some research, but I see cases where two links are added within 2 minutes (diff, which seems ample time to evaluate if the external link actually adds something to the page (the page is actually quite big).
Concluding, mass additions of one user, without discussion is not wanted, and should be reverted or reviewed.
Re your last question, as long as the policies WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY are not violated, no, there is no problem. I think actually that you are going away from the subject, that one editor is adding links to one specific site en masse or other links, which may or may not have been added by one editor, and may even have been discussed to evaluate their inclusion are two different subjects. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Dirk is correct. We have an expression in legal academia: “Bad cases make bad case law.” Unfortunately for Michael Hardy, he has chosen a poor case to support his proposed change. Thus, he is forced to ask such questions as “What if there had not been a conflict of interest? What if the links had been added by an experienced user like myself? What if the editor had made other useful contributions besides solely adding external links to their organization? What if a Wikiproject had approved the links? What if the links had been added by more than one editor?”
Those hypothetical musings make for a prolonged and convoluted debate, and they are not particularly helpful in evaluating the edits that actually occurred. I have allowed myself to be drawn off-topic, so let me state my position one final time: User:Jamesfranklingresham’s edits were not appropriate, and clearly we should not be changing our guideline to further encourage such behavior. — Satori Son 13:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree. (Actually, if you look above, I used the same adage, though terming it "Hard cases make bad law". It is why organizations seeking to change the law wait for the perfect plaintiff to come along. I don't think there is consensus for a change and Michael Hardy can argue til the cows come home and he may not get it. Perhaps the most effective route for him to take is to seek "better" guidelines, rather than a policy change, for editors in Hu12's position.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
(1) What is the difference between "the perfect plaintiff" and the user who got blocked? He seems like the perfect plaintiff precisely because his content was good and can only entitle him to Wikipedia's gratitude for adding it.
(2) What is the difference between the "better guidelines" that you suggest, on the one hand, and on the other hand, a "policy change". These appear to be synonymous phrases. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Satori Son and Wehwalt, you are talking nonsense. I did not choose a case to support my proposed change. This change would never have occurred to me if not for this case. And you are wrong that this is a poor case to support it because of those questions. Quite the contrary: this case shows why the policy is bad. The questions were raised only by others who did not understand what the situation was or what I was proposing.
And this is not a hard case. It is clear-cut: A good editor, entitled to Wikipedia's gratitude for his edits, was treated like a vandal. I've awarded him a barnstar precisely for those edits. I can see how an inattentive admin could have mistaken his edits for spam, but I don't understand how anyone can sympathize with that position after they've realized the nature of the edits. The remedy is to rebuke that admin for his inattentiveness. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
You may have noticed that some editors do think that both the actions, and the 'content' were inappropriate. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
There are some who say the find the content inappropriate, but they seem to be people who don't appear to care about the content, so they don't deserve attention on that point. I think they're only including that because it will support their case, and they wanted to make that case even before they looked at the content. Their not impartial observers of the content. I got into this because I cared about the content. Heaven forbid that someone editing Wikipedia should care about the content. It seems caring about the content is what I'm getting rebuked for by people who don't, and who invent really really weird motives to attribute to me, such as wanting to change the policy and then picking a case to support that. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, I did look at the contributions, and I evaluated some of the edits, and I don't think that the links add to the content of the page. Thank you for assuming good faith on those editors who concur with me that quite some of the link additions are not appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't Michael Hardy respect the content of said editors' arguments, without regard to the motivation, in the same way he wishes us to respect the content of these links, without regard to the motivation in adding them?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
When did I bring up their motivation? I said they didn't care about content. Their whole case is: "We shouldn't have to care about content." My proposal was that content matters. The opposition to it is the proposition that content doesn't matter. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
And I quote, "There are some who say the find the content inappropriate, but they seem to be people who don't appear to care about the content, so they don't deserve attention on that point. I think they're only including that because it will support their case, and they wanted to make that case even before they looked at the content." In other words, you are saying "Ignore their arguments because they are result-oriented, without regard to whether they are good or bad arguments."--Wehwalt (talk) 21:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
When their whole position is "content doesn't matter", it didn't seem as if it would be controversial to attributed a lack of concern with content to them. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
diff -> citing WP:EL: ".. 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). .." .. I do not think that the contents of this article is telling more about what a solar flare is, it tells about some specific solar flares, and what happened on earth when they occured. They would be more appropriate on wikipages about those specific moments ('the 1958 solar flare', or however the article is named). That was in my opinion not an appropriate addition, and there are more like that. You just go over the fact that maybe, maybe Hu12 did even evaluate some of these edits, and did decide they were not helpful, except for creating linkfarms (10 is starting to go towards being more than 'a few', per policies). --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Satori Son

Satori Son wrote:

Unfortunately for Michael Hardy, he has chosen a poor case to support his proposed change. Thus, he is forced to ask such questions as “What if there had not been a conflict of interest? What if the links had been added by an experienced user like myself? What if the editor had made other useful contributions besides solely adding external links to their organization? What if a Wikiproject had approved the links? What if the links had been added by more than one editor?”

It is hard to exaggerate how irrational these comments are. Quite aside from the nonsensical idea that I "chose" a case to support a proposal (I did not; the proposal arose from the important case), the fact is any case to which the proposal would be relevant would be one for which those questions would have to be asked. If the case did not involve those questions, it would have no relevance to the proposal. The fact is, a poorly chosen case, in the relevant sense, would be one for which the CONTENT WAS BAD. This is in fact an excellent csae for this proposal BECAUSE THE CONTENT WAS GOOD. If it had been a poorly chosen case in the relevant sense, I'd have to ask "What if the content had been good?". But I don't.

This is the perfectly chosen case, if anyone had been looking for one, precisely because the content was good and no one could reasonably object to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Look, OK, you feel strongly about this, but to label people's comments as irrational or nonsense isn't helpful and teeters along WP:CIV. I'm becoming afraid that the style of your responses is what is being seen, not the content.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Michael, some here think that the links were good, some don't. In other words, the links are disputed, and should be removed and discussed on a talkpage. And I suggest you discuss the issue you have with Satori Son's comments on either his or your talkpage, WT:SPAM is not the venue for that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Been there, done that ad nauseam. Dr. Hardy has made himself clear. We are done. — Satori Son 13:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, enough. I have yet another post, reiterating (again) the same thing, from Michael Hardy on my talk page, and I personally am fed up. I am reminding users, and especially Michael Hardy of the following from WP:CIV, an official policy of Wikipedia. These must be avoided:

Judgmental tone in edit summaries ("snipped rambling crap") or talk page posts ("that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen").

In my personal opinion, Michael Hardy is in violation of this policy in referring to two users' contributions as "talking nonsense" and referring to one's as "irrational comments." Cut it out NOW, please, or I will have no choice than to bring this to the attention of WP:WQA. There are strong feelings here, but this is not how to express them. I will leave a copy of this on Michael Hardy's talk page.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Strong support for Michael's proposal on the basis of my experience dealing with many non-commercial spammers, and a few commercial ones--about half of which had truly useful content to add that they were adding appropriately. The only thing inappropriate about most of the instances is that other people with similarly good content had not added theirs'. How are we to get good links to valuable supplementary material if people who know about them best don't add them? We'll just have to go on as we have been doing, not having the content until editors already her happen to notice it, and remember to add it. His proposal is exactly analogous to our policy on COI in general. We do not reject articles about organisations from people connected with them--we instead examine them very critically. Half turn out to be copyvios or otherwise inappropriate, and then we get rid of them' any need improvement. And some are extremely valuable articles. With people too, I'd guess about two-thirds of our articles are contributed by people who are connected with them--that's usually the people who know and care. Sure, then we edit. Most WP articles, fortunately, get edited--it's the strength of Wikipedia over the web in general that we can and do edit such contributions. Indeed, I work in subjects where I would like to actively encourage such contributors to add not just articles but links. (And I have no patience with spam links--I have several hundred spam-prone articles on my watchlist, some of which need removal of links every day. I remove them. I don't waste time warning them unless they repeat it, and I've only twice had reason to block. Some really difficult ones, I've contacted executives I know in the organisation involved.) As is, when I tell people what they have to do to add their good material to Wikipedia, it's tricky to explain the difficulties--I explain it to them by saying we're paranoid about the people who do it wrongly. We should be watchful, not paranoid. DGG (talk) 17:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
WP:COI already handles these situations well. Instead of mass adding to articles, they can individually add to talk pages and wait for people to agree with them and add it. No agreement would mean it obviously shouldn't be in the article in the first place. (And anyone mass adding agreements can be checked for sockpuppets). DreamGuy (talk) 20:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Mass additions always raise the possibility of indiscriminate addition, so people with obvious COI should be careful their additions are objectively justified, and, in case of doubt, would be well advised to go the talk page route. But there is no rule, and there should not be a rule, that they are required to. "anyone can edit" means just what it says. Many of our best contributions to article about companies and other organisations, and many of our most useful links, have been added directly by COI people who were careful and competent. We should actively encourage such links, and be very very slow to assume bad faith in even large scale additions--just as with any edits by anyone. Why should any editor wait for approval who can contribute? that's entire hostile to the spirit of a wiki. If links are irrelevant, they can be challenged and removed--I've removed hundreds of such, and gladly kept the good one. The assumption of good faith extends to someone who has added a half-dozen links to a publisher's works, or even a company's web site. --when it gets to be nearer a hundred, then it starts getting more dubious. DGG (talk) 00:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheetah Motorsports

I would like some help evaluating the contributions of User:Scooterhead73, all of which involve Cheetah Motorsports and it's products. The stuff is well written but appears to be clearly promotional in intent. I gave him a warning and reverted his changes to All-terrain vehicle but I'm not clear whether his additions to Scooter (motorcycle) shouldn't be reverted as well. Any takers? TIA -- Mwanner | Talk 00:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Ski Map Websites

Over the last day or so, links to skimap.org (which apparently "launched" four days ago) have been added to about fifty different ski mountain articles by Crystalmountainskier. The website is certainly interesting, but I'm not sure it'd be critical for the readers of most of these articles, given that we already link to the official websites for the mountains (which almost always have the current official trail map available). I'm also concerned about the potential copyvio issue for the website itself (something they acknowledge on their website: "If you are a ski area and want your maps removed..."). And then there's WP:ADS and WP:NOT#LINKS. I've not asked the editor to remove the links, and I've not removed them myself. My general instinct is that, when it comes to "interesting" links, I think Google and DMOZ are better outlets... I mentioned this on the user's talk page (here), and he responded quickly, calmly, and in good faith, but I'm still concerned the links are problematic. I'll put a link to this discussion on his talk page. Any thoughts would be helpful.   user:j    (aka justen)   22:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support Crystalmountainskier, it was launched just 4 days ago (see Google cache of Skimap.org). While maybe there shouldn't be links on every page, there certainly should be a link somewhere on Wikipedia since it has been recognized as a very useful resource on multiple ski forums (epicski.com for one) over the last few days. Old ski maps are very hard to find, but tell a lot about the history of a ski area. The website certainly deserves some recognition on Wikipedia, as skiers really appreciate the resource. Non-skiers may not be interested, but then why should they be looking at these ski resort pages? The links certainly have significant relevance to skiers.   user:WBSKI   16:57, 4 August 2008 (PST)

The easiest way to "sign" a post is to type four tildes, as such: ~~~~ When you save the page, then your signature will appear. In any event, it concerns me that you stumbled across this discussion months after your last edit on the encyclopedia. It also concerns me that you previously created an article on Wikipedia, which was later deleted, for the same forum that is the "official" forum for skimap.org. Please take a look at WP:COI.   user:j    (aka justen)   00:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the signature information. I learn more about Wikipedia all the time! Actually I have been making small fixes to Wikipedia over the last few months but I haven't been logged into my account when I did them. I agree there is a COI here, but I do believe this website is worth a mention, but perhaps not on every page. I was rather confused when I added that other website because I didn't think it could be deleted for being considered advertising. It seems to me every company page on Wikipedia could be considered advertising. Anyways, that is not the point of this discussion. Skimap.org has similar intentions to Wikipedia, but it is still very small, it is a non-profit website and seeks to inform skiers about the history of many ski areas. It is not certainly "advertising" so to speak for a profit! WBSKI (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I think we're all learning more about Wikipedia all the time! I'm glad you're contributing here often, and I appreciate the goals of skimap.org, but when you say "similar intentions," the problem is that those intentions are, as of right now, incompatible. Mwanner pointed out that skimap.org, unfortunately, violates Wikipedia's policy on external links (see WP:ELNEVER) due to your lack of permission or license to reproduce and distribute the trail maps, which are copyrighted. I've removed the links. Should skimap.org seek and receive permission from each of the mountains to distribute their trail maps, you might want to bring up the issue of reinclusion at the talk page for WP:SKI, the WikiProject that oversees skiing topic articles here on Wikipedia. Take care.   user:j    (aka justen)   01:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I suppose you are right about the copyright issue, but does this thread really deserve to be placed in the Spam section? After all, we came to the conclusion that while the additions were not spam, it does violate Wikipedia policy to a degree. The links would be useful for users if they did not violate policy. WBSKI (talk) 01:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, to the extent that the links were placed primarily to draw interest to the site, yes, I think it belongs here-- that's just what spam is. See WP:spam, especially How not to be a spammer. -- Mwanner | Talk 17:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

*.condertokens.net

Been fighting this commercial sale site for weeks. Really ramping up last few days...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/71.187.17.183

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Loognut I think I remember some others that I could probably dig up if needed. Help please? Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 20:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Spam paranoia

My latest masterpiece, Wikipedia:Spam paranoia. EVCM (talk) 05:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Change policy name?

I've been thinking about this - wouldn't it be more appropriate to call the policy "Wikipedia:Advertising"? That seems to be a more fitting term for the policy, since it seems to better encompass the scope of the policy, since I'm sure many consider spam to have a far narrower connotation than used here. When I think of "spam", I think of those advertisements promising sex, prescription drugs, and larger body parts, while much of what we call spam I would just call unwelcome advertising.

Also worth considering: Currently, Wikipedia:Advertising resolves to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox. This policy seems a better item to place on that title. SchuminWeb (Talk) 16:40, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Spam is more complicated than just advertising, although WP:ADVERT does redirect here. If I had to pick a term other than "spam" to describe the phenomenon, that term would be promotion. Often, but not always "self-promotion" involving a conflict of interest. When it involves external links; sometimes editors - especially new editors, think a site is good & want to share. This falls more towards WP:EL, and draws in elements of Wikipedia is not a directory.. but can also be seen as spam. Summing up, spam is a complex beast.. maybe we could re-acronym the term SPAM to "Self-Promotion-And-Marketing" ;-) --Versageek 19:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Backronyms... I like it! "Self-promotion and marketing" seems to really hit the nail right on the head. SchuminWeb (Talk) 22:00, 21 September 2008 (UTC) present
agreed. People keep getting insulted by the name, and when one says advertising by itself, the non-commercial spammers protest. DGG (talk) 18:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm all for changing the policy name. I like the backronym, it's amusing and clever - but probably doesn't really get us as far away from the spam language as would be ideal. Leaving off the "self" would probably be better in the long run (i.e. just "promotion and marketing". -- SiobhanHansa 20:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Subject Promotion And Marketing ? - Other "S's" come to mind, ranging from "Silly" to "Scurrilous" but in this context, most would be more emotive - rather than less.. --Versageek 21:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I like "Scurrilous" it's a great word. I might even be inclined to add some scurrilous links myself :). I would still prefer to see a move away from the S.P.A.M. letters because if that's how the policy is named I can't see the language we use changing too much. And I do think that the use of the word spam causes problems we could avoid. At the moment I'm still using it a lot in edit summaries because that's what other (non-spamming) editors understand and I get less confused questions from them than if I say something like "inappropriately added external link". And I use it on spammers talk pages when I get to a level 3 or 4 warning because it ties in with the language I'm then pointing them to at our policies. But it does seem to rile the people adding the links - especially ones who are promoting what they believe to be good content from their great publishing company/non-profit/favorite advocacy site. And then I think we get these discussion about how on wikipedia it doesn't have to be a pill for erectile dysfunction to be spam. Which I could do without :-) -- SiobhanHansa 22:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it ok to link to a page that charges money to view it?

I had thought it was not ok to link to an external cite that charged money to view it. I referred them to this section however I am being told that I am misunderstanding what "free" means. If someone wants to pay to find a reference or citation for use in a Wikipedia article they may. Then an editor can link to the pay to view site because it is "freely available" as a verifiable reference. The site in question is News Bank and I am not asking if it is a good source or not, I am asking if sending people there knowing they will have to pay to view full articles is allowed. Soundvisions1 (talk) 21:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can use such articles as sources. Many scholarly journals require a nominal payment to view full text. - MrOllie (talk) 22:30, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
However, given that News Bank is an aggregator, I would very strongly suggest that the editor cite the original article instead, regardless of whether it is available online (free or otherwise).
I am still not 100% convinced. WP at its core tries every way it can to be "free". Yet I have someone telling me "Verifiability policy only requires that verifiable sources exist, not that they can be checked online without paying. This source can be verified online by paying a fee" and it seems to contradict the overall guidelines about spamming. In this case the Editor, in order to prove notability, provided three references/links. Two of them were free to read in full, however, they did nothing to prove the notability of the subject nor did they even relate fully to the part of the story they were supposedly verifying. As a whole, they were both articles on other topics that contained passing mentions of the subject. The third can not be verified by anyone viewing the article unless they are willing to pay. I am not even 100% sure the Editor who cited it even read it all as they are not giving any details as to what it might say, only citing it and then saying it is up to me (or any user) to pay to read it. Aside from that, the Editor is not even linking to the main source of the article, they are linking to a third party source who sells articles. Part of the spam guidelines state that it can never be correct to add a link or reference to References sections if nobody editing the text of the article has actually referred to it. There is also no proof that the Editor who used this source as a citation actually read it. Soundvisions1 (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
the practice for online articles like this is well-established: you must cite both the original publication, and also the often more convenient online source. Almost all of these are available without charge in libraries if the original citation is available, so it must never be omitted. NewsBank is not a publisher, it is an electronic aggregator & by itself takes no editorial responsibility for anything. The responsible source is the original publication. Having cited that, you then add the link-it's called a convenience link, indicating it's NewsBank and a fee-based service. WP does not discriminate for links according to whether or not it costs money, or we would cite almost no printed books! Give the reference to the publisher's version, which is the version of record, and also a link to whatever you actually used or whatever is convenient. This has been discussed exhaustively and repeatedly at the RS Noticeboard. DGG (talk) 23:41, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I agree with the bulk of this. I guess I was not making clear what I was thinking/asking. Using News Bank, or any like source, was not the issue. The concept of saying something is "notable" because it has had "significant" coverage and then, in order to "prove" that, an Editor simply enters a search term into, in this case, News Bank's search engine. If they get hits they cite that source as proof of "published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." Maybe it is, however without paying to view the full text anyone reading has no real proof that the "sources" that come up are really proof of notability. My first thought with being sent to any website that required me to sign up and/or pay was that is is not a verifiable source per the NOR guidelines which state, in part, "For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source". If all I am is sent to a pay site than, to me, I can not easily verify it. However from what I am being told I was wrong in what the NOR means in this case. Again - I am not saying that someone shouldn't be allowed to pay for information, I am saying I had thought it was wrong to give references and citations to a pay site because that meant a reader/user would not "be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source". So - my bad. Soundvisions1 (talk) 01:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Ah, that is another matter. It's accepted that raw Google counts are not evidence of anything--but yet they are used in occasional cases where they can be justified as a relevant measure. (eg a webcomic with a few dozen ghits only is almost certainly not notable). It is almost always possible though to find some sort of quotation--sometimes by searching in GNews,which gives a little context even if the article is restricted. And sometimes there's internal evidence, such as the number of words, or the known fact that an NYTimes obit is always about the person in a substantial way. But otherwise, yes, the relevance can be challenged if the challenge is reasonable. As a clear example, sometimes people add books as references that they have perhaps never seen, and they can be asked for page numbers and quotations. If there is something specific to challenge that way, you can certainly do so. (and all this is about internal references--we all I hope understand one cannot used paid sites as External Links). DGG (talk) 01:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Noticeboard

We have noticeboards like Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard; should we also have a "spam noticeboard"? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not called a "noticeboard" for various reasons, but Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam serves that purpose. It's even linked from the {{editabuselinks}} header. — Satori Son 22:49, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to spam but I think it might look that way

I run a website wihch interviews people. I put a link on one of the pepole who I had interviewed page and it was called spam by a user and removed. I did not mean to spam the page. I just thought that anyone looking at the page may want to read a interview with them. It was at the bottom of the page. I would like to add my interviews in future and add any useful info I pick up on them to the pages but I don't want to seem like a spammer. What would be the best way to do this? Do you want to see the page/website or is it best left unsaid? I don't want to seem like I am promoting the site on here. Thanks a lot to whoever is reading this.--Lotsofinterviews (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The best option is to go to the talk page of the article and make a suggestion to add the link to your website. That way, unbiased and neutral editors can evaluate the site in the context of our external link guidelines, and you also won't run afoul of our conflict of interest rule. Thanks for being upfront about everything; honesty goes a long way here. — Satori Son 22:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for the help, next time I post a interview with someone with a wikipedia page I will be sure to post in the talk before linking it to the interview. I thought I was best to put all my cards on the tabble now rather than just slowly going along untill someone says 'stop, all thease links need to go'. I guess I am ok to add the info then post my site as the refernce as I have done here?--Lotsofinterviews (talk) 22:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I have looked at your site and have a question. I notice that you have an interview here that you say you conducted on the 21st of November. However the same interview, word for word, was posted on the Heroes Wiki here 3 weeks before you say you conducted it. How is that possible? Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 00:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
I use to do interviews for that site but have moved onto my own. If you look closely you will see that the one on my own site has been updated with a couple of new questions. The one of the wiki should be getting deleted soon so there will be no confusion soon.--Lotsofinterviews (talk) 08:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Looks that way. Glad to have you on board; as said previously, posting on the talk page is the best way to decide whether or not to put something in. I don't think that'll be a problem for you though, everything seems in line. – Alex43223 T | C | E 09:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Good :) Hope that my interviews can help out wikipedia.--Lotsofinterviews (talk) 21:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Hey I have got a warning on my user page off a admin. I don't want to seem like a spammer so I may just give up on this now. What do you think would be the best thing to do? I think there is some usful info in my interviews but I don't want to 'spam' up the place.:/--Lotsofinterviews (talk) 21:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Well likely that was in response to your edits here. You edited with a conflict of interest, then almost immediately proceeded to add the link back after being reverted. This will almost always attract warranted attention from experienced editors. Following the suggestions made above should alleviate the problem. Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 21:59, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, so baicly in future I am ok to add info to the pages and use by own interviews a refernce but I should check before actuly linking them or check before doing anything?--Lotsofinterviews (talk) 22:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Please note that unpublished interviews are almost never a Reliable source for biographies of living people. Whether your website is a sufficiently reliable authoritative source to overcome this would have to be decided on the talk page, or the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, but it is very highly unlikely. DGG (talk) 04:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

colnect.com

This site has been discussed before here and here. It now appears that another anonymous user is on a mission to add this link under the guise of "tidying". It seems this user waits until the last octet of his IP changes with his ISP to add another link. See here and here. Also notice the last entry in this section that the link is also slipped in. Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 16:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Can we do something about this editor, he's now deleting references and links en masse, presumably because his are being removed. Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 01:29, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Look like he's here now too. Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 01:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Now pushing here. Also started a new page here with one sentence and linked Numismatics to it. I can sure see where that's going to lead. Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 14:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Now he's created an article for the site. Bobby I'm Here, Are You There? 16:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

No promotion at all??

Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam.

Umm... if we take this very literally, this would mean that we couldn't even have an external link to walmart.com at Wal-Mart. That's silly, don't you think? - furrykef (Talk at me) 11:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Such a link would be for information purposes, not for promotion. You have to look at the situation and the particular link to understand if it is promotional. Jehochman Talk 13:48, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Examples becoming spam magnets

Examples in articles tend to attract spam. A sentence such as, "For example, Chevron Corporation has ..." will attract editors to add more examples unlinked, internally linked, or externally linked, sometimes growing into lists. I've seen other editors refer to such examples as "spam magnets." In general, I think such example sentences should be removed unless referenced with a source independent of the examples where the examples are highly relevant to the article topic. From what I've seen of others doing the same thing, I think there's a great deal of consensus for this.

Also, can anyone think of a better article than WP:SPAM for including such guidelines? --Ronz (talk) 16:51, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I've seen this happen a million times. Someone makes a good faith effort to throw a few significant random corporate examples of a topic into an article and then a few weeks later the list starts to attract spam. I will almost always remove the list unless an independent cite of a list of major players can be provided; which is usually not difficult to find (gartner and others provide easily accessed segment assessments). Concur with your proposal; it's just WP:V really. Kuru talk 17:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Lock picture = ?

I've probably asked this in the past. What is the picture of a padlock next to links for? Is this documented anywhere? --Ronz (talk) 22:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It is when a secure link is posted - Wikiepdia vs Secure site for example. (The secure link is a dummy - goes nowhere) Soundvisions1 (talk) 23:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't The Mojave Experiment spam???

It is a solely a Microsoft advertisment. 140.247.196.77 (talk) 04:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

read the article. Far from an advertisement! It's about an advertisement, and advertisements can be notable. this has reasonably good refs for notbility. DGG (talk) 04:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikia

Wikia is commercial, so any links pointing to it should be removed, no? Notowikia (talk) 00:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Wilf Lunn

There is a difference of opinion as to whether Wilf_Lunn should have a link to the Wilf Lunn Website which it has been suggested should be classified as spam. comments? Thozza (talk) 18:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

  • Comment The website home page directly shows the prices for the purchase of Wilf Lunns products, additionally it shows four picture icons that are direct links to promote the sale of his latest book and prints of Cycles. Additional links to the 'Shop' page are spread throughout the website. The Sales page indicates that it is a commercial website; IE: 'Wilf Ltd'. It is also noted the external link to this website are placed on the article page by an anonymous editor, who may, or may not, have a commercial interest in the website! Information on the website about Wilf Lunn, which as it is his personal website, has obviously been written by himself, which also gives rise to a possible conflict of interest. Richard Harvey (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Link It is not just appropriate but necessary to have an EL to the website of a subject of an article, per WP:EL. This is one of the cases where commercial sites are acceptable as an EL. DGG (talk) 04:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Spam or not spam:

This user is adding links to sell photographs, but the photographs seem relevant to the articles. My reading of WP:SPAM didn't give a clear cut answer - could someone check whether this is spam or not? Thanks. pgr94 (talk) 09:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:LINKSPAM applies:- Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed. The user had inserted links in 18 articles, some repeatedly, all have been removed an an appropriate final warning placed on the user talk page, along with an IP Identification tag. As the IP is based in Nanterre, France and the spamlink is to a UK website then I Assume good faith as it may have been a recent tourist to the UK placing the links. Richard Harvey (talk) 10:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for dealing with that Richard. I wasn't sure because the images were relevant and arguably did contribute to the article. The dilemma I had was whether the phrase "for the purpose of promoting a website or a product" was applicable because it seems to assumes bad faith. Anyway, it's academic now. Cheers. pgr94 (talk) 10:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

LAShTAL.com

User:Acsociety appears to be spamming links to his own (as claimed on user page) social networking and forum site, LAShTAL.com. Since the site claims to be the work of the "Aleister Crowley Society", the account would also appear to be a role account. Will in China (talk) 03:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Advertising should be allowed. Some advertising is currently allowed. Like Mojave Experiment

The current advertisement article Mojave Experiment is a prime example of how well ads can be done on wikipedia. So ads should formally be allowed by other companies.

The Mojave Experiment is not an advert, it is an article about an advertising experiment by Microsoft that was manipulated to give biased results. Richard Harvey (talk) 12:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Question as to what constitutes Spam

Hello everyone, my user name is MSPaintNerd and I'm pretty new to editing in Wikipedia. I'll start out by saying I am the owner of the account on Youtube (MSPaintNerd) that shows the public domain movies in question. I tried to add an external link (Youtube) to some public domain videos (like Humorous Phases of Funny Faces from 1906--unquestionably in public domain) that I have in my possesion but the page was reverted back by the "XLinkBot" and left a message that basically claimed I was a malicious spammer. That was not my intent, and while I don't deny I wanted to garner some extra views for my account, I also wanted to post a relevant link to a public domain film that didn't already have have a video link to it. I've compiled a small list public domain movies I have that don't have any video links yet: Revolt of the Zombies, Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon, Brideless Groom, The Man with the Golden Arm, Bear Shooters, Three Came Home, Daydreams, Rain, The Screaming Skull, They Made Me a Criminal, Hercules vs. the Moon Men, The Inspector General, Topper, and Track of the Moon Beast. My dilemma is whether the fact that I own the account that shows the videos constitues a conflict of interests or not. Would someone with the knowledge of such things either tell me 1) this is a conflict of interest and don't post the links or 2) you can post the links as long as you promise to not abuse it (and tell me how to override the "bot"). If I am granted permission to post the links you have my word that I will 1) only post links to public domain movies (which I have researched) and 2) will only post links that do not already have a video link (like google video or another Youtube). I would appreciate an answer from an administrator or someone with some authority. Thanks alot!!☺ ☻ ☺ ☻ P.S. If external links are considered spam how come so many already exist on Wikipedia, including video links? Thanks again!

XLinkBot does that to YouTube links, because most all of the videos there are not acceptable per our guidelines on external links. On the other hand, yours does and I've reverted the link. Hopefully the bot lets me add the link. And yes, there are a lot of external links that don't belong here. I'm working hard on removing them. ThemFromSpace 21:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the response! Are you basically giving me permission to post such links as long as they are acceptable with the guidelines (and no other links exist yet)? If so thanks a lot!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by MSPaintnerd (talk • contribs) 22:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not a blanket permission as each link would have to meet our external link guidelines and most importantly not be a copyright violation. If you're questioned about this be ready to defend yourself. ThemFromSpace 22:05, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
And, per recent discussion on the External links talk page, it's very, very difficult for a rich media link to ever meet our rules. Beyond just that there's the WP:COI violation, which would seem to point more toward spam than away from it. DreamGuy (talk) 23:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I saw the COI as well but believe his intentions to be on par with those of the encyclopedia. He isn't writing about himself at all, but publishing links that he has access to which help out the encyclopedia. While it may help out his YouTube channel, I think it would be a deficit to the articles if these videos weren't linked to (provided that they aren't copyvios of course). ThemFromSpace 23:07, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, it's pushing it to call a YouTube link spam if he doesn't get money or other benefits from it. But there are other issues to navigate. I hope my suggestions might help sort it out. DreamGuy (talk) 23:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input guys! Of course the golden rule is to never violate the copyright (and I usually check several sites before I'm sastified its PD--including the almost always trustworthy Wikipedia). If several of you think this is a major COI then I will refrain from posting further links. Just thought I could get a win/win here with contributing to Wikipedia and also getting a bit of their traffic. Peace guys ☺ ☻MSPaintnerd (talk) 23:20, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I added more info to your talk page. The WP:EL restrictions are going to be problematic even if you follow the suggestions in WP:COI to not post links yourself and discuss on the talk page to see if someone else agrees and then does it for you. I do certainly commen yo on wanting to get them out for people to see. YouTube is great for what it does but it doesn't mesh with Wikipedia in some ways, as the bot edits show. If you really want to do this so it works, you might see if archive.org allows submissions of public domain videos, as that site ends up being more WP:EL-friendly. Oh, and does anyone know if Wikimedia Commons accepts videos? If they do that'd be the best shot, and then the WP:COI part goes away completely too DreamGuy (talk) 23:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If the Frankenstein link isn't a copyvio I'd support its inclusion. COI doesn't mean "revert on sight", the poster's intention and the quality of the postings have to be judged in respect to it. DreamGuy has a point about YouTube links in general, but most of these bad youtube links are either from material that is unquestionably not in the public domain or from material which wouldn't benefit the article. ThemFromSpace 23:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

So are you guys saying that an external link to archive.org is cool? If so I'll just give a link to there and give up my other quest (it was worth a shot though right?) I would also like to note that on Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, the library of Congress link made you download the media to view where as it was just streamed from mine. Anyway, keep up the fight making Wikipedia awesome (and it is Awesome) ☺ ☻ MSPaintnerd (talk) 23:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you add the media to the Commons - that would be the best approach. Do that and the articles could really benefit - inline media rather than external links. I mean, if it's PD somebody else could do it anyway. /wangi (talk) 23:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikimedia only accepts video media files in the Theora Ogg format. Patent-encumbered file formats like MP3, AAC, WMA, MPEG, AVI and the like are not uploadable. Content has to be freely redistributable to all. Patent-encumbered formats fail to meet this requirement. Richard Harvey (talk) 08:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
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