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Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jdavidb (talk | contribs) at 23:11, 24 October 2005 (Brand-new single-purpose account holders are not members of the Wikipedia community). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

As Wikipedia grows in popularity the temptation to misuse its editability to bring attention to other websites becomes nearly unbearable. At one end of the spectrum are professional spammers seeking to drive traffic to commercial sites. At the other end are webmasters of simple community sites who just want to get more attention for their site. This potential for self-promotion on Wikipedia has got to be managed. Wikipedia is not a link repository. Wikipedia exists for the purpose of creating a collaboratively edited encyclopedia, not for any individual to promote a site that they have an interest in.

This problem is only going to get worse. Though it is a field skating on the edge of ethics, search engine optimization is well-developed and becoming more sophisticated. In order to combat link spam on Wikipedia, the process needs to become more streamlined.

Currently link spammers enjoy a lot of advantages from the lack of cohesion to the spam fighting process. It is possible to successfully sneak links into relatively unwatched articles. Such links may lie unexamined for months, gaining the appearance of legitimacy from having remained in the articles so long. When spam links are reverted, there is not much communication. Spammers can return and add links when different editors are watching who do not know their history of editing with an agenda. And spammers love to take advantage of the fact that Wikipedians Wikipedia:Assume good faith, luring us into discussing their links with them "on the merits" as if they had nothing but the good of Wikipedia at heart.

I propose the creation of a voluntary link spam fighting brigade. Our purpose will be to develop standards and processes for recognizing, hunting down, and eliminating link spam, to streamline communication between those who want to watch over articles to prevent it, and to send a message by our actions and effectiveness that link spammers are fighting a war they cannot win.

If you would like to participate, I encourage you to sign in at the bottom of this page. I encourage you to join in editing this page so we can grow toward consensus about the best way to fight link spam. And I encourage you to relate any of your own current ongoing efforts to fight link spam on the talk page so that in the immediate future we can be aware of users that are acting with an agenda to promote an external site.

More to come soon!

Standards

I propose the number one rule for link spam fighters be this code of honor: "I will never insert links to my own sites into Wikipedia's article space." While it may not be completely against Wikipedia policy to link to your own site in a relevant article, many of us who run websites are too committed to their success (however we define it) to adequately judge whether or not they belong in an article. Moreover, we are going to be reverting self-promotion links from other people, many of whom view the addition of their links as sincere attempts to service various communities. It will be easier to gain the respect of these people if we can say we have held ourselves to the highest standard possible on the subject.

Suspicious edits

Here are some criteria I have used for suspicious edits. The following characteristics do not automatically mean that an inserted link is self-promotion, but they point to the possibility:

  • User is anonymous (an IP address).
  • No edit summary (other than, perhaps /* External links */)
  • User has made only one edit, which consisted of inserting a link.
  • User replaces an existing link (this may indicate somebody who is trying to get their site to be more popular than another).
  • Link is mangled. Confusion about braces is probably not an issue. The fact that the user was so excitedly salivating over his chance to increase the popularity of his site that he typed wwww/myysite.com\gohere.now.html probably is.

Edits which should be reverted

Here are some criteria that cause me to assume than an edit is link spam:

  • User has made multiple edits, all or most of which consisted of inserting a link.
  • User adds links to the top of a section, above far more relevant sites. (If you're going to link to your own site, it would behoove you to be a little more humble and put it at the bottom.)
  • User adds sites to the list of external links without following the same formatting syntax used in the rest of the list.
  • User adds links to inappropriate sections of articles.
  • User adds links that have been previously removed, without discussing on the talk page. (This ought to be grounds for instant reversion.)
  • User is not active in Wikipedia in general, but only on one specific topic or on a specific field pertaining to the website they want to link to.
  • Link is unrelated, or only marginally related. For example, link on a biography to a specific page on a genealogy site describing the person's genealogy, but not the person.
  • Link is trying to sell something unrelated.
  • User provides many links to separate pages on the same site in one article. While it is sometimes appropriate to link to specific subpages of another site, it's a good indication that somebody is trying to practice SEO.
  • After linking to a relevant article to a site, user provides a statement, "hosted on example.com" with a separate link to example.com. It is never necessary to provide such a second link. Sometimes this occurs with links to legitimate articles. The link to the main site should always be removed. It may also indicate a linkspammer, so it is often appropriate to remove the link to the specific page as well.

I wish to point out that assuming good faith is an important guideline of Wikipedia, but it is not an ironclad policy. Link spamming behavior fits a definite profile. When editors meet this profile, they are engaging in activity which is detrimental to Wikipedia, no matter how sincere they may have been in their edits. We should develop responses to those who engage in this behavior which encourage them to reform into productive Wikipedians, but we should waste no time in protecting Wikipedia from the damaging behavior through reverts and blocks where necessary.

New users and community membership

According to WP:SOCK, "Neither a sockpuppet nor a brand-new, single-purpose account holder is a member of the Wikipedia community." According to the categories, on the page, this is official policy. Thus, we should recognize that the decision to incorporate a link proposed by a brand new account rests with real members of the community, not those who have no purpose here other than to add their link.

Templates

I checked, and three templates already exist for addressing link spam, but I do not know how often they are used, and I don't know if there are any standards, conventions, or recommendations for their use. Also, the second and third templates currently imply all link spam is commercial. We need to talk about how to modify these to be as effective in their message as possible (if we can encourage someone to become a real Wikipedian, we want to), to reflect the fact that promoting a non-commercial site is still link spam, and to develop standard procedures for their use.

The templates are: {{Spam}} (also named {{Spam1}}, which is a redirect) {{Spam2}} and {{Spam3}}

I have recently modified these templates to further emphasize the fact that promoting a site, whether commercial or not, is spam. Noone seems to have complained.

Participants

Disputes

Perhaps I could be a good case model to argue over, as I am against link-spamming, but do not consider what I did to fall so neatly into that category.

After deleting/reverting my entry to some sections, Jdavidb wrote: "Please do not add commercial links or links to your own private websites to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. See the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks." What to do when someone is trying to insert links that represent a news and analysis service, such as what I did for Thinking-East? Is it still spam when it's links to articles and arguments that might actually enrich the reader's knowledge of the entry?

Most of my edits I tried to insert at the bottom or in separate sections (usually "Articles") so as not to disturb the continuity, and also to start up a new section in the entry. As to the syntax/format of such links, I've never noticed any uniformity. -Mahmoud September 21, 2005

I just want to add that Thinking-East gets all its coverage from Kygyz, Uzbek and Tajik students actually in Central Asia. It's very important for us that this service exists, even if it was started by two Westerners. I'm a fan, so they don't know about my posting all over Wikipedia. If what I did is link-spamming, please don't it let reflect badly on who I did it for.

Well, it's great if you have links that can actually "enrich the reader's knowledge of the entry." But here are some considerations:

  • It is certain that you do not have a site that needs to be linked to from that many articles. You added links to over a dozen.
  • If it's your site, or a site you just love very much and wish to promote, then you should not be the one to add the links. If the site is really all that informative, then someone who does not run the site will add it. I don't add links to my own sites, and neither should you. You and I are not unbiased enough to decide that our sites are relevant enough to be linked to from a Wikipedia article. (Even though mine certainly are. :) )
  • The fact that something is "a news and analysis service" doesn't give it a gold pass to be inserted into Wikipedia articles willy nilly. Anybody and their dialup account can set up a "news and analysis service." Unless the "news and analysis service" is The New York Times or Time magazine or something everybody on the planet already accepts as "news" (and even those are not infallible) it does not gain any magic claims to relevance or credibility by calling itself that. Many such "services" are nothing more than POV-pushing.
  • If you have ONE (1) link that is relevant to ONE (1) article, you can discuss it with that articles editors on the article's talk page. Be aware that such discussions are slow. Mentioning it on the talk page and seeing no response for six hours does not mean you have consensus.
  • Get an account and do something to contribute to Wikipedia more than just inserting links to websites. People who show that they are committed to building a good encyclopedia have standing to argue that a link will enhance an article. People who are instead committed to other websites do not.
  • This discussion should have happened on the talk page, not this page itself. It will be moved there, and future discussion should occur there. Jdavidb 16:42, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist

I have noticed that link spammers often do a run of link insertions and then vanish, only to come back a few weeks later and spam the same links again. To attempt to combat this, I've been maintaining my own informal linkspam watchlist. Any user interested in combating linkspam is welcome to add to this list.

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