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Personal attacks, edit warring and vandalism are surefire ways to expedite blacklisting of the spammer's sites. A couple of months ago, I dealt with a spammer who edit warred to include links to his website. He responded by vandalising my userpage, and so the relevant sites were promptly blacklisted.
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While reading articles and cleaning out the spam contained within haphazardly works, it doesn't address the cause of the problem. I target the spammers themselves, i.e. identifying domains owned by the spammer and systematically removing spammed links to said domains. To do it properly requires heavy
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I target external link additions, so I encounter vanilla external link spam most frequently. The most annoying and widespread spam campaigns, however, involve multiple spam tactics. That said, I've noticed the following recent spam trends -- note the tendency towards avoiding scrutiny from RC
369:, a spam reporting bot. The remaining 2% are to the project's talk page, which serves as a noticeboard for reporting spam campaigns. A good chunk of the edits to the talk page are from a handful of anti-spam specialists. I can't explain the number of watchers though.
882:
You need to open a Bank of WP account first, then post your account details on the talk page, along with scans of three recent utilities bills and your social security number. We'll be in touch. Please read our "Buy
Excellent And Nice Stuff" promotional material at
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Apart from a bad faith delisting request, we haven't heard from them since. This is typical; blacklisting is a very effective way of removing spammers from
Knowledge (XXG). (Unlike blocks, blacklisting requires money to evade—the spammer needs to purchase new
315:. The project received some help in February 2007 when the English Knowledge (XXG) tagged external links as "NOFOLLOW", preventing search engines from indexing external links and limiting the incentive for many spammers to use Knowledge (XXG) as a
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tool. The project maintains outreach strategies, detailed steps for identifying and removing spam, a variety of search tools, several bots for detecting spam, and a big red button to report spam and spammers. The project was started by
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Thank you, I really enjoyed reading this article. It is light and fun reading yet it does serious work for the project. It's nice to know that serious things around here can actually at times be enjoyable. Good work everyone!
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use this channel as their source of link additions. Reports are triggered when a small group of users are responsible for a large fraction of link additions to a particular site or can be requested through IRC or
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307:: advertisements masquerading as articles, external link spam, and references that serve primarily to promote the author or the work being referenced. WikiProject Spam applies policies regarding
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Am I missing something? I read the whole article, but it didn't tell me where I get the Viagra and replica watches from. Surely some external link should be provided? </irony: -->
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I find the time commitment required for anti-spam work to be extremely variable. Monitoring the IRC feed isn't particularly taxing; and it isn't too difficult to clean up a few
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Great title, and it's purely great to see how active MER-C has continued to be (since 2006 to my knowledge) in this essential defense of
Knowledge (XXG)'s validity against
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495:. This typically involves the repeated addition of a certain "reference" by a given person, the spammy nature isn't apparent until you look at the big picture.
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Have you had any heated conversations with spammers after removing spam from an article? What are some strategies you've used to resolve these conflicts?
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do you come across most often? Do you use any special tools to detect spam or do you simply remove spam you notice while reading and editing articles?
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I saw the title at the signpost mainpage and my first thought was: "Oh great, now vandals are hitting project pages." Happy to see I was wrong. :) –
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The spreading of spam edits over multiple IP addresses and user accounts; one spam link per IP address/account isn't uncommon.
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The project awards the Anti-Spam
Barnstar (pictured) and the Spamstar of Glory to editors who fight valiantly against spammers
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These projects could use new members to help improve articles and increase activity on the projects' talk pages:
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Has your experience fighting spam resulted in any humorous stories? Have you heard any amusing excuses and
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maintain a database of link additions to all
Wikimedia projects. New links are reported to the IRC channel
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on
Knowledge (XXG). What accounts for this high activity and interest by the Knowledge (XXG) community?
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is being held concurrently. Join in the deliciously fun competition and earn an award for your efforts.
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It was better. I'd love to use something like this as a DYK hook. (I thought we got hacked for a bit)
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Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the
Signpost's
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I was "rolling on the floor". Funniest article here in a long time (perhaps even April 1s)
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A text editor that has fuzzy find and replace functionality, usually implemented using
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is underway. Join in the fun, meet nice people, and earn a barnstar for your efforts.
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in
September 2005 and has grown to include 371 members. One of the project's
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This is what spammers look like after WikiProject Spam is through with them
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Earn $ $ $ free pharm4cy WORK FROM HOME replica watches ViAgRa!!!
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How much time do you typically devote each week to fighting spam?
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to detect redirects to other domains and protect against the
416:(don't go there yet, it's not currently working) and others.
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WikiProject Spam engaging spammers off the coast of
Wikiland
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It got me too. First I was like: :/, but then I :D'ed.
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I thought it could have been vandalism for a moment. --
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use of tools beyond the usual contribution analysis:
674:If your comment has not appeared here, you can try
365:This is an illusion. 98% of those edits are from
175:Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.
793:The content of the article is also rather good.
303:-fighting brigade" which seeks to eliminate the
299:. The project describes itself as a "voluntary
168:material that is kept because it is considered
499:Replacement of existing links and/or citations
546:for details on the usual routine of spammers.
8:
225:July 2011 Copyedit Backlog Elimination Drive
537:from spammers trying to defend their edits?
993:Knowledge (XXG) Signpost archives 2011-07
745:Me too. I was even going to change it.
558:. Until then, think deep thoughts in the
429:(administrators and trusted users only).
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18:Knowledge (XXG):Knowledge (XXG) Signpost
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712:Excellent headline! Made me laugh. –
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215:at the beginning of March 2012. The
293:This week, we spent some time with
432:Various external tools, including
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659:These comments are automatically
452:databases and a bit of Google-fu.
252:WikiProject World's Oldest People
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670:add the page to your watchlist
493:Spam masquerading as citations
1:
550:Next week, we'll look at the
420:, a spam reversion bot, and
354:most active project by edits
334:, agreed to show us around.
234:WikiProject Australian Music
358:second most watched project
345:possible copyright problems
309:what Knowledge (XXG) is not
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396:its cross-wiki counterpart
317:search engine optimization
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901:14:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
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510:Misleading edit summaries
356:(including bots) and the
467:nature of spammed sites.
401:Cross-wiki contributions
352:WikiProject Spam is the
455:The Firefox extensions
305:three types of Wikispam
240:WikiProject Connecticut
667:. To follow comments,
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580:"WikiProject report" →
556:naming a rose a "rose"
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544:Knowledge (XXG):Grief
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826:vanispamcruftisement
685:Hilarious title. --
663:from this article's
572:"WikiProject report"
208:Bacon Challenge 2012
887:for more bargains.
472:regular expressions
438:reverse DNS lookups
326:most active members
311:and guidelines for
246:WikiProject Geology
166:This page contains
654:Discuss this story
634:Arbitration report
624:WikiProject report
593:
392:Special:Linksearch
291:
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65:WikiProject report
42:← Back to Contents
37:
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828:of all sorts. –
678:purging the cache
639:Technology report
414:wikipedia-en-spam
203:WikiProject Bacon
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47:View Latest Issue
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552:social construct
535:special pleading
526:Internet domains
450:Google Analytics
427:User:COIBot/Poke
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376:type of wikispam
296:WikiProject Spam
262:WikiProject Desk
213:National Pig Day
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193:WikiProject news
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607:all comments
601:18 July 2011
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54:18 July 2011
974:Suggestions
810:Crisco 1492
661:transcluded
619:In the news
482:patrollers:
422:User:COIBot
367:User:COIBot
938:. You can
934:It's your
205:has begun
79:Share this
74:Contribute
22:2011-07-18
968:Subscribe
830:Athaenara
776:By far.
767:W Nowicki
665:talk page
987:Category
963:Newsroom
958:Archives
936:Signpost
889:Brammers
885:WP:BEANS
863:optimist
842:Drilnoth
715:SMasters
570:Previous
457:NoScript
170:humorous
151:Mabeenot
121:LinkedIn
101:Facebook
20: |
940:help us
913:Crohnie
867:on the
560:archive
322:Jdavidb
111:Twitter
795:Nick-D
738:(talk)
249:, and
131:Reddit
91:E-mail
953:About
734:cobra
731:Cyber
434:Whois
374:What
331:MER-C
16:<
948:Home
893:talk
859:—An
814:talk
799:talk
782:talk
771:talk
751:talk
720:talk
705:lute
702:Reso
691:talk
578:Next
542:See
459:and
448:and
408:and
394:and
301:Spam
222:The
141:Digg
918:Gal
870:run
554:of
149:By
76:—
989::
909:--
899:)
852:)
833:✉
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568:←
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