MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2013/08

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    The Spam-whitelist page is used in conjunction with the Mediawiki SpamBlacklist extension, and lists strings of text that override Meta's blacklist and the local spam-blacklist. Any administrator can edit the spam whitelist. Please post comments to the appropriate section below: Proposed additions (web pages to unblock), Proposed removals (sites to reblock), or Troubleshooting and problems; read the messageboxes at the top of each section for an explanation. See also MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist.

    Please enter your requests at the bottom of the Proposed additions to Whitelist section and not at the very bottom of the page. Sign your requests with four tildes: ~~~~

    Also in your request, please include the following:

    1. The link that you want whitelisted in the section title, like === example.com/help/index.php === .
    2. The Wikipedia page on which you want to use the link
    3. An explanation why it would be useful to the encyclopedia article proper
    4. If the site you're requesting is listed at /Common requests, please include confirmation that you have read the reason why requests regarding the site are commonly denied and that you still desire to proceed with your request

    Important: You must provide a full link to the specific web page you want to be whitelisted (leave out the http:// from the front; otherwise you will not be able to save your edit to this page). Requests quoting only a domain (i.e. ending in .com or similar with nothing after the / character) are likely to be denied. If you wish to have a site fully unblocked please visit the relevant section of MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist.

    Note: Do not request links to be whitelisted where you can reasonably suspect that the material you want to link to is in violation of copyright (see WP:LINKVIO). Such requests will likely be summarily rejected.

    There is no automated notification system in place for the results of requests, and you will not be notified when your request has a response. You should therefore add this page to your personal watch list, to your notifications through the subscribe feature, or check back here every few days to see if there is any progress on it; in particular, you should check whether administrators have raised any additional queries or expressed any concerns about the request, as failure to reply to these promptly will generally result in the request being denied.

    Completed requests are archived, additions and removal are logged. →snippet for logging: {{/request|1087967620#section_name}}

    Note that requests from new or unregistered users are not usually considered.

    Admins: Use seth's tool to search the spamlists.

    Indicators
    Request completed:
     Done {{Done}}
     Stale {{StaleIP}}
     Request withdrawn {{withdrawn}}
    Request declined:
    no Declined {{Declined}}
     Not done {{Notdone}}
    Information:
     Additional information needed {{MoreInfo}}
    information Note: {{TakeNote}}


    Proposed additions to Whitelist (web pages to unblock)

    Approved requests

    Whitelist the link to Encyclopedia Dramatica on Encyclopedia Dramatica

    I thought we sorted this years ago, but I couldn't just now fix the sidebar link to encyclopediadramatica.se on Encyclopedia Dramatica. Maybe it's just because they moved from being .com ? Anyway, it's just common sense to be able to link to a website from our article about that notable website, no? -- Kendrick7talk 04:50, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

    I think we should find a specific link for the mainpage, likely something like "encyclopediadramatica.se/wiki/Main_page", or the about page. We do have "�encyclopediadramatica\.com\/Encyclopedia_Dramatica:About�" on our whitelist, maybe it should be changed to the se? .. Note, links, also for official sites, are a convenience for the reader, they are not necessary - there are sometimes (generally spam, abuse or malware related) reasons why everything on a site is blacklisted, and such links can not be used, ever. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
    The encyclopediadramatica.com domain name appears to have changed ownership to a domain squatter of some sort, and now redirects to ohinternet.com. The original Encyclopedia Dramatica site is notable enough to warrant its own article on Wikipedia, but is not regarded as a reliable source. I have changed the domain name in the white list so that the "about" page may still be linked in the article.  Done. ~Amatulić (talk) 15:44, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

    Denied requests

    Galatta.com

    Here is a message to wikipedia by the CEO of Galatta regarding the block, which apparently had been ignored the time he wrote it:

    I am writing this email requesting your consideration in revoking the ban for my website Galatta.com from Wikipedia. Galatta.com is a South Indian movie portal which features the latest news on Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and English movies. From the year 2005, one of our web marketing executive without understanding the repercussions of his work went on to repeatedly add links of Galatta.comand other in-house sites to improve its performance in search engines and generate traffic. This resulted in severely damaging our reputation in Wikipedia and resulted in blocking the account and site. You can find the complete history of conversation happened between our team and Wikipedia administrators from the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Chrisdru We stopped all such activities the moment, we were notified about the ban. As a business owner, I understand the nature of abuse and convey my sincere apologize to the Wikipedia team. It’s been 5 years and we or my people have not used Wikipedia for any spamming and I would request you to reconsider your decision. Looking forward to your positive response.

    I obtained this message, when I requested for copyright permission for their pictures as we lack pictures for South Indian actors. Please take a positive decision as soon as possible based on Galatta.com CEO message.-- Dravidian  Hero  12:58, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
    It is a reliable source, coming from an established print magazine, and yes there are many other reliable sources, but Indian editors would like to have this site unblocked as another available major source for our film articles.-- Dravidian  Hero  17:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
    If there are other reliable sources, then use them. That is always preferable to using a blacklisted source. Here's one: http://www.ndtv.com/article/south/read-kamal-haasan-s-emotional-letter-thanking-fans-326308
    Messages from CEOs or anyone else with a conflict of interest will not be considered for general unblock efforts. We'd rather see such requests come from established, trusted, high-volume editors. no Declined. ~Amatulić (talk) 02:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    Could I've missed something to read before I filed this request? I can't see anything about "established, trusted, high-volume" editors. You seem to doing this way too long.-- Dravidian  Hero  03:00, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    You didn't miss anything on this page, no. I wrote that in the context of de-listing the entire site as you suggested, and those requests are handled over at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. On the blacklist page, we have a practice of denying requests for de-listing if they originate from anyone but a trusted, high-volume editor without a conflict of interest (new, recent, low-volume editors who make de-listing requests have insufficient history to be assumed to be without a conflict of interest). See the banner at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed removals, as well as the archives of that section.
    If you see something on galatta.com for which no alternative reliable source exists, feel free to post a new request for whitelisting here. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    This one was a request to unblock a particular site, not the entire domain or IP as one step to get the entire site unblocked. If you had read the link in my request, you would have seen, that I came directly from MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. I'm getting fooled around since over 2 weeks from MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist to MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist to Meta Spam blacklist and back and forth. This is worse than any public office. Excuse my rant, but I can't believe what I'm experiencing right now.-- Dravidian  Hero  05:15, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    If you see something on galatta.com for which no alternative reliable source exists, feel free to post a new request for whitelisting here. I would never write anything in wikipedia, which has only one source. That would be cherrypicking and a clear indicator of unserious reporting.-- Dravidian  Hero  05:25, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    Precisely what is it that you want? One link permitted, or all links to the site unblocked? Stifle (talk) 20:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    This one link I provided in the opening post of me.-- Dravidian  Hero  21:34, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
    OK, I am minded to approve this but will leave open for another short while for any concluding discussion. Stifle (talk) 14:33, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
    I had already declined this request because alternative sources exist. I have no problem unblocking a specific page on galatta.com, but the one requested has alternatives, so there is no need to whitelist that. There is no compelling reason to white-list any page on a blacklisted site if alternative reliable sources exist. If galatta.com is itself a reliable source, and there's something on it that can't be found anywhere else (such as an interview, for example), then we can white-list such a page. But the request for the page that started this section is no Declined. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:36, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

    These reliable sources mention both Galatta the magazine and Galatta.com in high light, and that clearly establishes notability of Galatta overall i think. the sources are listed as follows:

    Courtesy, Kailash29792 (talk) 15:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

    Notability is not the issue here. The coverage is irrelevant to the blacklisting. Notable sites do get blacklisted.
    As stated earlier, the purpose of this page is to request white-listing of a specific page on a blacklisted site, where no non-blacklisted alternatives exist. So far, this has not happened in spite of the length of this discussion. ~Amatulić (talk) 04:49, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
    Is there any way the entire site can be whitelisted? Kailash29792 (talk) 08:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

    This site got blacklisted after serious, massive abuse of a long list (I could say massive list) of related domains by a significant list of socks. The abuser has been banned (not just that the socks and master were all blocked) through a discussion on an administrator's noticeboard. That happens after massive unresponsiveness and massive abuse without change in behaviour (generally, spam is just blacklisted, and the spammers not even necessarily blocked .. blocking accounts is generally useless since the spammer will just, as evident, make another sock). Spammers can see it coming that the sites they spam are getting blacklisted, that is not done lightly. I find it therefore very, very hard to believe that one employee did this on his own account. This must have taken a long time of spamming, a campaign.

    I also note, that this site is globally blacklisted, and none of the almost 800 mediawiki wikis, most significantly the ones from India .., have whitelisted this site. We have TWO links whitelisted on en.wikipedia (and those whitelists have been wholesale copied to three other wikis, resulting in those two links being whitelisted on 4 wikis in total; note that of those 2, only one, a blog post, is used as a general reference here locally (and I wonder if the two other references used in this article would not cover the info from the blogpost already), the other whitelisted link is currently not even used), and that is all that is whitelisted .. on all ~799 wikis. None of the other wikis have any rules regarding 'galatta'. Apparently all other wikis find better sources, and until now also en.wikipedia has found better sources almost exclusively, and in fact the one that is requested here is replaceable in itself.

    Kailash29792: regarding your question, yes, there are ways for the entire site - what I would suggest to show that there are multiple cases where whitelisting is needed for references which are not replaceable (not like apparently the one that started this thread). When there are multiple of such cases, we could consider to replace it with the whole domain, though I would still be weary seen the massiveness of the original campaign. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:57, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

    www.voobly.com/pages/view/about

    I would like to do an article about the Peer to Peer Software Voobly. It is a widely used matchmaking software that supports over 50 classic CD Rom PC Games and even Microsoft Gaming Zone referred their players to use this software for cd rom matchmaking when they retired their service. The software is similar to other software on wikipedia such as Garena, Gameranger and Tunngle, but also offers different features such as an Elo Rating System. Voobly is already mentioned in a couple Wikipedia articles such as Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. I request that www.voobly.com/pages/view/about be white listed for use of reference in the article, Thank You VPIN3 (talk) 15:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

    • Age of Empires I & II Matchmaking Retired on MSN Games[1]
    • Voobly 2.1.60.24[2]
    • Voobly 2.1[3]
    • Voobly caters for many different CD-ROM games[4]
    • Age of Empires II Online dengan Voobly[5]
    • Voobly Software Awards[6]

    Do you have a draft article? Stifle (talk) 21:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

    Yes I have a draft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:VPIN3/Voobly VPIN3 (talk) 04:55, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
    I don't see any of those sources as being significant coverage as required by WP:SIGCOV. What we have here (in the same order as above):
    • trivial mention
    • a download page on Softpedia (see WP:ELNO #4 and #5)
    • primary source (see WP:PRIMARY)
    • a lengthy user review on rtsguru (see WP:ELNO #10 and #11)
    • a blog post with "how-to" instructions (see WP:NOTHOWTO, WP:ELNO #11, and WP:SPS)
    • primary source
    The draft article itself cites other Wikipedia articles, which is something Wikipedia articles shouldn't do.
    I don't see anything that indicates notability as defined by WP:CORP. I am skeptical that this article would be accepted if submitted for review. I understand you're still working on it. It's perfectly OK to include a single link to www.voobly.com/pages/view/about for the purpose of completeness, but citing Voobly in an article about Voobly isn't going to work well. Once the article is submitted for review and accepted, it would be no problem to white-list that link.
    So  Not done for now, to be revisited after the article is accepted. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

    Expired requests (not done due to lack of reply)

    Withdrawn requests, and requests that are malformed, invalid, or otherwise past relevance

    Proposed removals from whitelist (sites to reblock)

    Troubleshooting and problems

    Discussion

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