User talk:Beetstra/Archive 8

UPSpace

Hallo Dirk It is nice to meet you, and so far I throroughly enjoy the Wikipedia experience. Thanks for editing my page on your side, and for your recommendations. I'll try to improve.

Kind regards Ina —Preceding unsigned comment added by UPSpace (talk • contribs) 11:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome. If I read the page I get the feeling you are mixing two subjects (UPSpace and digital institutional repository). Maybe the subjects should be split (taking care that the second may already exist). Also, the tone of the article is (in my opinion, but I am not a specialist here) a bit promotional, maybe it should be changed. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ehow

How about learning some good English, keepers of an 'encyclopedia'! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahbasharat (talk • contribs) 17:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you want to (re-)read our policies and guidelines. Probably written in good, understandable English. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Quick Question

Hi Dirk, Welcome back from your recent Wiki break. Thanks for your notes concerning my recent updates, but I have a question. I added Benchmark Capital as an investor to several company pages because this is a verifiable fact – in every case, there have been multiple news articles reporting the funding. I am a little confused as to how my additions do not offer encyclopedic value, particularly for anyone following those market categories or VC funding news. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of examples where investors are listed on their portfolio company Wiki pages. I’m trying to understand how my contributions are different.

As a possible solution, would it be any better if I linked to a news story instead of the Benchmark Wiki page? Many thanks in advance! LeslieBD —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeslieBD (talk • contribs) 19:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your remark. I believe that the information you added is a fact, but, firstly, why is that information notable? If they were the only provider for money, then indeed, then it may be notable. But now you are omitting all the others, and well, I don't see why the information should be there anyway. It may be of interest on the page of Benchmark Capital itself, adding some examples where they have provided much money or significantly helped in starting up a company (though we do not need an extensive list of all, see our 'what wikipedia is not' policy). Secondly, these additions do violate our spam guideline. I would describe this as canvassing. You are adding links to that organisation only (which may also violate our neutral point of view policy; you are only adding links to one site, not to another). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Tony Mobily from Free Software Magazine again...

Hi,

OK, you said "give it a few weeks"... so here I am, a few weeks later :-D I was just wondering if Free Software Magazine (http://www.freesoftwremagazine.com) was off COIBot. I know it doesn't really matter. However, I feel a little weird about our site being considered "spammy" in any way...

Bye!

Tony Mobily 11:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll remove it from the monitor list. As we are watching the linkwatchers, 'spamming' (and I use this word in the wikipedia definition) will show anyway. I will assume good faith here, and hope that the involved accounts will add contents to the wikipedia. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Tony Mobily 13:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The Technology Barnstar

		The Technology Barnstar
		This Barnstar is awarded to COIBot for identifying conflicts of interest on Wikipedia! ----Hu12 12:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC) (on behalf of User:COIBot)

Huh?

My name was on the "Myspace profile spam" thingy. Any idea why? jj137^Talk 23:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wait, nevermind, I know why now. When I reverted an edit, I didn't pay close attention and it went back to a Myspace page. jj137 23:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jj137 (talk • contribs).

AVRS ←→ Ant Wars

Hello. Got 27% for editing Ant Wars article (Report #348 on 2007-08-12). There's no COI on it in my username, because the latter is based on my initials. ;-) --AVRS 21:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

27% is pretty low, but I whitelisted your username against Ant Wars. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Just thought you'd like to know about another false positive, so you might find a partial fix for that somehow. Thanks. --AVRS 08:48, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Bot not linking categories properly

FYI: [1]. Carcharoth 17:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm .. still. I will have a look. It should add a colon before it. Thanks for the notification that it is still wrong. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope that I solved that now. Thanks again! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI - request for help on editor assistance

[2] - note that this is the current revision, not necessarily the current version. Anchoress 23:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Please help. I need this removed ASAP. Chiazwhiz 13:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I replied on the talkpage of the link. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 15:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I've posted a reply. Chiazwhiz 11:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

(Re)Correction of Bromocriptine wikipedia entry

Hi Dirk, I reverted your revision of my revision of Bromocriptine just a few moments ago.

Please note that Bromocriptine does not have ANY lactam rings in it. This is why I revised the content.

Mos43046721

Hi, thanks for the discussion. I disagree, I see two rings with an N-CO connection in it. As far as I know, those are called lactams. But I am willing to hear your opinion on that. Thanks again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi again Dirk, a lactam is more than just a ring containing an amide - bar the N of the amide, the ring must be ALL CARBON. Mos43046721 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mos43046721 (talk • contribs) 09:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, we might have to dig into the IUPAC nomenclature system for that. But now 'two of the rings' is a bit incomplete .. maybe 'the two rings with the amide groups'? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok Dirk, that sounds a lot better. Interesting I was just reviewing IUPAC recommendations 1993 rule R-5.7.5 that states "Compounds that may be considered as derived from a hydroxy carboxylic acid or amino carboxylic acid by loss of water intramolecularly are called generically 'lactones' or 'lactams', respectively. Tautomeric forms of lactams are called 'lactims'. In these recommendations, such compounds are preferably ....". It doesn't mention all-carbon or principle functional groups. Although I know that the Bromocriptine contains no lactam functional groups, I cannot find a IUPAC reference proving it. Mos43046721. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mos43046721 (talk • contribs) 14:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should adopt that solution then. By the way, can I interest you to join Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals or Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

COI notice on state agency page content

I just posted a page and got a COI notice. We simply want to offer an informational page about our state agency. I'm not sure if you consider the content to be biased. It seems pretty straight forward and factual to me. Is it possible to whitelist this article? If not can you let me know ways to get the COI notice removed? --TDHCAuser 14:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It is not COIBot that posts the links, that are other editors. In your case, you certainly have a conflict of interest, and I think it is good that another editor with knowledge in the field has a look at it. If you want a quick response, I suggest you contact an appropriate wikiproject (see here: Wikipedia:WikiProject). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

No, actually that doesn't really help. I don't understand your first sentence. It doesn't make sense. I'm not referring to links either, so I'm not sure why you addressed links. The page is now affiliated with the Texas Project. Is there anything else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.39.89.242 (talk) 12:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant templates. COIBot does not edit in articles, it is in general a human editor who addes the tags (in this case, I was the editor).

I only see that User:TDHCAuser, who edited most of the article, has a obvious conflict of interest. The tag does not say that the article is biased, only that the article was edited by someone with a conflict of interest, and that for the neutrality of the article it may be good that an independent editor has a look. They may very well agree with you. I suggest you post a message on the talkpage of the wikiproject Texas, they will be the best people to see if my concerns are appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, it would be good for the article if there were independent, third-party sources in the article to assert its notability. At the moment it does not contain any references. Also note that links to the website of the organisation alone will not enough to assert that notability. Hope this helps further. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate the time you've spent. TDHCAuser 17:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

minnesota public radio

Members at the WikiProject Minnesota are encouraged to use Minnesota Public Radio as the preferred news source for current events because unlike other news outlets, their links remain active to the appropriate article. Bots using Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/minnesota.publicradio.org are flagging these links in citations as potential spam. Would it be possible to "whitelist" links containing [:http://minnesota.publicradio.org/] to avoid this problem?--Appraiser 12:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the link from the monitorlist, and protected the link against automonitoring. The bot should now only pick up cases where either usernames have a large overlap with the linkname (I will whitelist individual cases), and when IPs close to the IP of the website (192.203.201.237; so for the current bot-settings in the range 192.203.201.0-192.203.201.255) add the link. This should solve most problems. Thanks for the clarification! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Page to watch?

Not sure if you are aware of this bot's work but it creates a page that effectively watches threads, it may be of use (you can of course create your own), regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I have watched your page. Seems handy (nice overview for the first thing in the morning), though it would be nice if the bot would put the item updated in the edit summary, now one still has to reload to see .. though then one also sees the edit in the normal watchlist. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

constitution.org

For about a week I have been paying attention to the editing of the user Jon Roland, with interest in the potential conflict of interest with editing Wikipedia using his personal website constitution.org as a WP:V source. I see this diff [3] which makes two links to his personal website. Then I see [4] which doesn't show the suspected COI activity. Most likely I don't understand how this works. SaltyBoatr 21:53, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

False postives

There are several links that contain my username which can be viewed from "what links here". This page is a definite false positive [5]. Those links lead to vandalism rollbacks when you check them. Thanks.--Sandahl 21:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I have whitelisted you, and deleted the page. Thanks for the clarification. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Spam blacklist

Firstly many thanks indeed for helping out here, it is needed. However could I ask you to look at logging the entry you made on the list. I do realise that this may seem tedious but from experience on the Meta equivalent pages (m:Talk:Spam blacklist & m:Spam blacklist/Log) if any entry is challenged in a year's time it is much harder to deal with if the record cannot be found. I'm happy to help but really the log page should actually be protected in the same way as the blacklist page (per Meta).

If anything is unclear let me know but if you check the snippet at the top of the talk page and what I have done before it should be fine. Many thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I had a look, will do that next time. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

In Remembrance...

--nat ^{Alo! Salut! Sunt eu, un haiduc?!?!} 02:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Whitelist request about site you blacklisted (bestmusic.ro)

Beetstra - thought you might be able to respond to this request. -- SiobhanHansa 17:42, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Replied. Clear COI spam. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Ann Beattie

Re. this: I don't mean to be belligerent or anything, but I don't understand the purpose of your edit. Like I said, it just looks like an incorrectly-entered external link, and if I didn't do so, some other editor will come along and "fix" it. I looked in Wikipedia talk:Spam, and searching for "disabled" didn't return anything relevant. If this link is inappropriate for some reason, then give the reason and remove it. If it isn't, the only difference I can see between making it a non-clickable versus a clickable link is that the latter is less convenient for readers and (once again) looks like an editor's mistake. If there's more to this matter than I'm aware of, I'm happy to be educated. You can respond here. RedSpruce 14:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I second this sentiment regarding your edit to the Doris Lessing article here; I'm utterly confused about this formatting and I believe several other links were unintentionally disabled, but maybe I'm wrong? María (críticame) 14:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned up your edit to the Doris Lessing article. Again, I think you made some grammatical edits in the formatting of the links, so you may want to be aware of this if you're going to be similarly editing another four hundred or so articles. María (críticame) 15:19, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

My edit summary points here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#wiredforbooks.org. I am for the moment disabling the link, until I have cleaned, then I will enable again. I just need to see whether or not there are more accounts adding the link. As I see now (having 460 pages to clean, and there are 490 links in wikipedia) we are close to 'all being spammed'. But I can adapt the template for now to make it easier to follow. Thanks for the notification. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Your explanation is a little too mired in the jargon of this obscure branch of WP policies to be of much use, but I'll assume you have a rational plan and purpose of some sort. RedSpruce 15:19, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry. I see also this way of handling such wp:spam/coi/npov/el/not problems is not without problems. Obscure branch? Thought that WP:NPOV was one of our pillars (which is clearly violated by the 5 accounts mentioned). I will finish this for now, and then evaluate. But maybe I should have just blundly removed the spammed links. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I see there are some errors, I will go through my edits. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:48, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPOV? That's certainly a pillar of WP, but I'm darned if I can see how it applies here. I thought the issue here was spammed external links to a site that carries audio interviews with authors. RedSpruce 20:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Quite easy, not really neutral point of view, if you only add links to your own website. In my view, our conflict of interest guideline is a simple descendant of our neutral point of view policy. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Centrifugal evaporator

Perhaps you can take a look at this article, especially paying attention to User:TheElderOne's contributions. I feel this user has much to contribute but I feel there are COI issues in the way he keeps ext linking to genevac. --Rifleman 82 10:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on it. One of the articles he has written should probably go -> Genevac .. pure spam at the moment. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh wait, you turned it into a stub. Great! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:08, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

RfA & stuff

Firstly thanks. I'll not do the fancy sort of thanks but I'm not someone who would say nothing either. A surprising number of people supported me & I only hope I can come up to expectations. As to IRC I confess I very rarely use it however if & when that changes I assure you the spam channel will be on I will be on. Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

He, yeah, I know, I am the same. IRC is where we operate the bots, and an extra hand may come in handy. Maybe I will see you there some time (I am generally online every weekday during UK daytime, and sometimes odd hours around there. Happy mopping! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

WT:WPSPAM

Thank you for your explanation! I think it would be nice if this information were on top of the talk page, but you may have good reasons for not posting it there.

I am very happy that someone did see my question, after all. I was already frustrated that that page is so cluttered (or should I say "spammed" ;-) by bot edits that it's hard to get a word in edgewise. As someone who really appreciates your hard work in damming the flood of spam links, I would like to have a place for normal human communication regarding this work. Is there such a place? If not, maybe you could consider moving the bot messages to a subpage of WT:WPSPAM or, better, WP:WPSPAM. — Sebastian 17:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The talk page is purely 'human' (except for the archiving). The bots are actually reporting to subpages of WP:WPSPAM. Every section is a seperate spamming case. The 'spamlink' template when used to report to that page results in my bot (User:COIBot) to pick up the link and to start monitoring it. Sometimes it is just a report, sometimes it is a whole discussion going on. And also, sometimes, normal discussions take place there. The explanation is more at WP:WPSPAM, though it has not been updated with the (new) bot-stories. Should be done, actually. Thanks, see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It does feel better to be drowned out by humans than by bots, but it still is hard to get a word in edgewise. Don't you think so? — Sebastian 20:12, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is fine, the page is mainly meant to be for reporting spam-cases, and that are most of the posts. But for outsiders it indeed is a bit .. hostile .. maybe. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:12, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Did you break Template:chembox?

It doesn't work now (see for ex ammonia), and you were the last person to edit it - with a pretty big edit [6]. User:Veesicle 14:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem is .. these pages don't use {{chembox}} .. but {{chembox new}} ... no clue what is happening here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:36, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I just did a whatlinkshere on {{chembox}}... how strange. Never mind! User:Veesicle 14:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I recently had the same problem - see Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2007_November_1#Clear_Search_History. — Sebastian 17:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, this is something different, I think. But thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Oops, that was wrong indeed! Thanks for catching this! Here you go [[7]]. I'll post it on Veesicle's page, too. — Sebastian 19:17, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that is closer, indeed. But in the case with the chemboxes it seems to be something recursive (boxes calling each other), resulting in the 'transclusion limit' to be exceeded, and then templates don't show at all. The only funny thing is, is that we at the moment don't see where one template calls the other. Strange effect, somewhere. A bit unfortunate, since we can't update certain pages for the moment. Guess we will have to dig deep .. very deep.

By the way, these special pages don't update right away all the time, bit depending on server load. But they will update in time. I don't think you have to touch all the pages to update that, that would be silly. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense, thanks! — Sebastian 16:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)    (I may not be watching this page anymore. If you would like to continue the conversation, please do so here and let me know.)

COI

Hi, Beetstra, I hope I'm in the right place, because this certainly wasn't easy to track down. Can you please explain why I'm showing up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/COIReports/2007, Nov 17 (No. 49)? Those aren't my IP, and I found the link I added via a Google news search (it returns in the top five when searching Google news on Chavez shut up). I don't know those IP addresses; did they become associated with my account because I travel a lot? And how do I resolve this? ¿Por qué no te callas? is a new article, at AfD, and I was checking What links here to see if it is orphaned, and came across the COI page. I don't appreciate showing up there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

And, I see I'm also listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/hispanicbusiness.com. Goodness, if searching on news.google to cite an article gets me listed at COI, I Am Not Happy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I got the link here:

Current returns from http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=shut+up+chavez

• Venezuela's Chavez demands Spanish king apologize for telling him ...
• International Herald Tribune, France - 3 hours ago
• AP CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded Friday the king of Spain apologize for telling him to "shut up" during a spat at a recent ...
• 'Hurricane Hugo' Chavez won't shut up on tour Stuff.co.nz
• ‘OH, SHUT UP!’ SAID THE KING Al Día (Filadelfia)
• Viewpoints: Chavez and King row BBC News
• HispanicBusiness.com - Bloomberg
• all 327 news articles »

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Another followup question: if I had not happened to check "What links here" from ¿Por qué no te callas? after I cited it, would I never have known I was reported as a faulty conflict of interest? That is very troubling. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:41, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello SandyGeorgia. Thanks for the questions. I am sorry that you feel this way. But first, these reports are bot-generated, NOTHING is done with it without the interaction of a human editor (and often more than one). Most cases of COI are 'false alarms', as our guidelines (not policies) do allow such edits, except when it becomes bad. So there is no reason to worry at all.

The link you see there is hispanicbusiness.com. If you look at older reports, you see that the link was repeatedly added by the IP 63.149.249.63 (this IP belongs to Qwest Communications Corporation, which is in the IP range 63.144.0.0 - 63.151.255.255). This user added the link hispanicbusiness.com to the page Hispanic Business (quite a couple). The IP associated with the site is 63.149.249.12, in the above range. So the IP user has a conflict of interest (and if one looks at the edits of the IP, it is quite spammy; something definitely has to be done about these edits ..).

The bot picks up such links, and then starts recording how and by whom it gets used. In this case there are (at least) two good additions of the link as well (as the bot ignores whitelisted users). That helps the people who are very active in the COI/SPAM corner of wikipedia to assess the value of the links, and to see what has to be done (just monitor, put it on an autorevert of e.g. User:AntiSpamBot or even blacklist it (here or on meta).

There is therefore no connection between you and the IP addresses (except that you and that IP added the link).

In short, when there is no conflict of interest, most reports do indeed not get followed up upon. In that way, the occurance of your name in the reports is nothing more and less than the occurance of your name in the history of a page, the contibutions of a user, or the databases of this kind which are not available on wiki.

As a post below suggests, there maybe should be more information on the pages itself. I hoped that linking what COIBot means with monitoring would be enough (it link to the explanation of the bot on the bots userpage), but maybe there should be a header on each link-report page telling the same, or something similar.

I hope this takes away the concerns. I have whitelisted you on the bot. I would suggest you do not delete the entries, but use <s> and </s> to strikeout the entries (as gets done automatically from any further reports the bot generates). If you have any more questions I am of course willing to follow up. I will also follow up upon the lower suggestion, I will COIBot put in a template 'disclaimer' on each report. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:40, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

What next?

I have posted messages at four different places, and have been wrongly listed as a conflict of interest for almost six hours now but have gotten no answer as to how to resolve this. Shall I delete the entries myself? This isn't good practice towards Wiki's good editors; this is troubling. There must be a way of letting people know they shouldn't use certain links without listing them unfairly on a COI report. User talk:Beetstra#COI Not Happy, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:54, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The reports are more to see if links do get used fairly as opposed to the coi edits that made the links end up on the list anyway. I have followed up above, and will follow up on the discussion below. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

COI Report naming

Dirk, perhaps a renaming of the reports and an explanatory bit of text at the top of these reports is in order. We get a similar question about it every month or so on the project talk page, and I suspect there are others who find their names and don't know how to follow up. I know you frequently respond to concerns by white listing editors in good standing when asked, but it may be that a bit of text explaining that the report is not a listing of users involved in COI editing, but merely a bot generated record of editors who have added a particular link in any circumstance for later review by human editors (or something similar) would do a lot to relieve misunderstandings. -- SiobhanHansa 14:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Let me second that. I strongly recommend adding the explanatory text suggested, and also an explanation of what to do if you find yourself listed on such a page. I am very concerned by the distress that can easily be caused to Wikipedia's excellent editors by the current format of these reports. Geometry guy 14:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point, I will start with some things soon. I will be generating User:COIBot/Summary/UserReports, User:COIBot/Summary/LinkReports, User:COIBot/Summary/PageReports, and will make COIBot transclude these as templates on top of the reports it generates. These should contain some disclaimers. Doing that with the COIreports is going to be more difficult (but not impossible), I will call that one User:COIBot/Summary/COIReports (but that one will take more time to programm, I actually don't know how .. yet..). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S. please feel free to help me in the texts of the summaries above, might need some help there. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can see that: the language is rather complex and opaque (of course, I appreciate that you are not writing in your native language, and this is not intended as criticism). I tried to fix the first template you mention, but I may have introduced errors, because I did not entirely understand what you were trying to say. Is there another WikiProject Spam member you could ask to clarify these templates? Geometry guy 22:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

These types similar question raised by others is very small in relation to what the COI reports produce. I think an explanatory bit of text at the top of these reports is a good idea, however there is no real urgency.--Hu12 (talk) 22:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

There is indeed no real urgency, though seen that I get remarks every now and then, a bit of explanation is indeed needed, with in short a why the report is there, what can be seen there and what to do if you feel that you are wrongly on the page. I'll have a look every now and then, and tweak. The versions as I wrote them yesterday were done in a bit of a hurry, and some parts are a bit difficult to explain to non-regulars in the spam-field. Thanks for the help! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I've attempted to copyedit and/or clarify the other messages, but I may have introduced errors. Please check. Geometry guy 18:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

not a spam

wiki shows my blog as spam. http://uraj-sharma.blogspot.com/

I do not know why it shows? I shall i do to whitelist it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.23.10.97 (talk) 14:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

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

Well, actually, it did not get spammed (as in, someone only adding external links, see our spam guideline and our external links guideline), still, it is blog (and in this case your blog), which is not permitted by the mentioned external links guideline, and you have in that case a conflict of interest. So I don't think that whitelisting is appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

Obviously, we're working on the same articles at the same time. I hope I'm not causing as many edit conflicts for you as you are for me.  :) Hopefully, you don't mind the merge of beta-alanine ethyl ester with the hydrochloride article. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I was looking at some identifiers. I'll stop now (lunchtime), but you might want to have a look at the CAS number for the compound itself (the HCl-salt is correct). I can't find it .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The CAS number for beta-alanine ethyl ester comes directly from Chem Abstracts (via SciFinder), but I double checked - it seems to be correct. It doesn't show up in eMolecules or PubChem because I don't think it can really exist for long in its pure free base state due to self-condensation. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh .. notable fact. But maybe we should then report the hydrochloride, and make the 'free' compound the redirect? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I generally prefer to locate articles at the parent compound. It's quite possible that this compound is produced/sold as a variety of different salts, not just the HCl. For notable chemicals, it makes sense to have separate articles for different salts (such as sodium acetate, calcium acetate, etc.) but for lesser known compounds, just one article under the title of the parent compound is the best solution, in my opinion. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Makes perfect sense, good point. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

One more thing...do you know if there is a template similar to {{CAS}} that will link to eMolecules, so that both CAS number links in beta-alanine ethyl ester will go to the same place? --Ed (Edgar181) 15:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

There was another one that did .. but I have atm no clue where, I can not find it. But maybe {{CAS}} should be adapted? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to have one. I used the linksearch page to see if I could find a template that links to eMolecules, but I don't think there is one - but maybe I missed it because every single page that transcludes chembox new is there. --Ed (Edgar181) 18:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Aettraffer

You just blocked Aettraffer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for spamming. He/she seems to have just returned as 202.73.56.166 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Can you block the IP too? Thanks. Deli nk (talk) 16:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

That was quick - before I even asked. Deli nk (talk) 16:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Done, I saw the edit immediately (I first blocked, then warn), please keep an eye on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#safety-medications.bemerby.com, the COIBot report (in the link template) will be updated as soon as the edit gets processed by my bots. If it catches more IPs I will blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:24, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

COI whitelist, astronautix.com

I see your bot created this page. Please add astronautix.com to your bot's white list, as it is one of the very best sources of its kind.

"...the NASA history office directed us to your web site.." - National Geographic

--Duk 08:30, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I have removed the link from the monitorlist, whitelisted the user against the link (whitelisted you completely), and have protected the link against automonitoring. It should now only report when usernames (accidentaly) overlap with the domain name, or when someone with an IP close to the IP of the domain uses the link. Hope this helps (it at least helps me and the bot!). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, keep up the good work and Happy Thanksgiving! --Duk 22:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Phil2511

Thanks for reblocking Phil2511. I guess I misjudged him.  :( --Ed (Edgar181) 14:58, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Me too, if you did not unblock him in the first hour after I left him first message after the unblock request, I would have unblocked him (per WP:AGF). He should have guessed that the bots and I (and possibly others) were watching him. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Blocked IP

The attack one you did earlier. Hope you don't mind, I unblocked and re-blocked it as it is an open proxy, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

No probs whatsoever, I already noticed. I recall someone biting newcomers earlier that in the end actually got blocked (but who said he would come back), but I don't recall who anymore. This situation rings a little, little bell.... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi there

I have added to the Neapolitan mastiff Talk page and added as much info as possible and new photos also. I also have made a new page to describe a Mastinaro so that people can learn what it is also and remain within the wikipedia site like you suggested.

Hope you approve also i asked about a link to a video hosted on youtube but i do not know whether to post it or not it has relevance to the dogs being used in the Colosseum so could also go there as well as the Gladiators as they are also featured with the dogs. I believe its from an old Italian movie from the 60's or 70's but not certain.

Thanks

Phil --Phil2511 (talk) 13:37, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks. I have seen it, that is OK. You might still want to have a look into our external links guideline, forums are not the most important links, links to general sites providing reliable information (forums are self-published, though the information may be correct, it is difficult to check; everyone can publish on a forum).

Another point, you created a new article about the Mastinaro. Thank you for that. The article was tagged by an independent editor, that it was unreferenced (it contains external links, but that are not references, references tell where you get the proof for certain statements), and it was tagged for an inappropriate tone. Please, either actually do something about these tags, and discuss removal on the talkpage, or leave them be, but do not remove the tags yourself (as a major contributor) until the issue is resolved. You might want to read our Manual of style for more information). Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello

I'm a fairly new editor. Can you please explain why the article I created for Madame Sin prompted the following to be added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/timeout.com?

16:55:42, Sun Nov 25, 2007 en:user:MovieMadness <-> timeout.com (10.93%/17.71%/1.9% - Added link: www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/72486/madame_sin.html (Monitored rule: \btimeout\.com - reason for monitoring \btimeout\.com: Link is blacklisted on User:AntiSpamBot.) -en:Madame_Sin - diff - COIBot UserReport - en:Special:Contributions/MovieMadness.

Please respond on my talk page. Thank you very much. MovieMadness (talk) 17:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your question. Timeout.com is on the monitorlists because it has already been reported a couple of times in relation to spam/conflict of interest-issues (see e.g. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Nov_1#Dennis_Publishing_Spam-2, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Oct#British_magazine_spam and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2007_Archive_May#Dennis_Publishing_WP:COI_Spam). Therefore we are monitoring the use of this link (which is part of the domains being spammed) closely with the use of bots (and the link is blacklisted on User:AntiSpamBot). For individual and/or established editors nothing to worry about, we see now that the link is used also in a proper way, so e.g. blacklisting on MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist (or even on meta) is probably out of the question. Hope this explains (I have whitelisted you against the link, on the next report your record will have a strikethrough and future additions will not be recorded). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

How to use Popups for reverting vandalism

Greetings, Dirk: It has been months since we last worked together. I have noted that you use Popups to revert vandalism ... and I would like to learn how to do that. Would you be so kind as to explain it to me, step-by-step? Thanks in advance and regards, - mbeychok (talk) 18:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Milton, how are you? Long time no see, indeed. How to use popups, wow, that is a long time ago. Let me try.

• Go to Special:Mypage/monobook.js (this is a special page connected your account, only you and admins can edit that).
• Press edit.
• Add to that page the text: {{subst:navpop}}
• Save the page.
• Now depending on the browser you have to refresh your cache, for most browsers either pressing F5, or the CTRL-key and F5 at the same time (the page should reload when you press the key).
• You can now browse wikipedia as normal, everything works as normal. But if you now 'hover' your mouse above a wikilink (put the pointer above the link, and let the mouse go for a sec) you will see a menu 'popping up', you can now move your mouse onto the items on in that menu, and click them. If you do that with a 'diff' link, you will see a 'rv' (for revert), if you click that, it reverts the edit.

I hope this helps. Drop me a line when you have changed your monobook.js, then I can check if you need it. Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Dirk. I have now installed Navpop and even added a few options. It is working fine. Thanks very much for your help. I think I saw that you are now an administrator ... is that correct? Happy Holidays! - mbeychok (talk) 18:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Milton, yes, that is correct, I am an administrator now. If you ever need help with page deletions or have problems with a persistent vandal, you can contact me. Happy Holidays to you too! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hey thanks for all the help with the starting up. I hope I can make my contributions better in every way here on! Pooja Kaul (talk) 08:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome, hope to see you around. Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Fryske Wikipedy

Hi Beetstra. I linked through from your user page to the Fryske Wikipedy page. It's a very interesting language and is not too hard understand. I speak good high German and can understand a fair amount of Afrikaans and some low German. Frisian seems like an easy '3rd' language for me to comprehend. How well is Frisian coping with the modern world (pressures from Dutch and English) is it taught in schools? Ozdaren (talk) 07:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ozdaren. Frysian is influenced by Dutch and English, just as every language feels the effect of the surrounding languages. It puts some pressure on the smaller languages, but I think that is a kind of 'evolution'. English nowadays would not have been as it is withouth the huge influence of the French (in fact, it would have been quite Frysian then, as Old English and Frysian are quite similar. In fact, Frysian still has words which are the same as in Old English, e.g. we still use 'hwa' (as in Old English) for 'who'.

Yes, Frysian is taught in schools. In the Frysian area (Fryslân) children have a couple of hours class in Frysian (mainly some basic language), and higher up it is a possible choice on some schools (some of the bigger secondary and high schools have it as a possibility. And one can study the language in university (I believe, ironically enough, the University of Groningen has it on its list. Every now and then you hear from people from abroad that have studied the language.

Hope to see you around! Regards, Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Writing an article

Hi Dirk. Just a general question: if I'm writing a new article but can't finish it in one sitting, what's the best way to put it "on the shelf" till I can finish it?

Sardaka 13:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

You can put things into a personal sandbox by making a subpage of your userpage. You could choose e.g. User:Sardaka/Sandbox or User:Sardaka/YourArticleTitleHere. Articles there are generally not affected by tagging etc., but you can still invite others to help/have a look when you think you are almost finished/whatever reason.

When you are finished, you click the move tab on the page, and move it into mainspace. That also retains the edit history, without 'disrupting' mainspace. Hope this helps. Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I wanna give you a prize

I'm Javitomad, a Spanish user of English wikipedia.

I've seen you've improved some articles about Spain.

Because of that, I want to give you a Barnstar, the Spanish Barnstar.

• 
  I, Javitomad, give you this Barnstar for contributing for a better Spanish-English Wikipedia.
  December 2^nd, 2007.

(copy and paste this in your user page.)

Javitomad (...tell me...) 01:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

WAUW, that is nice! Thanks. I will copy the medal to my userpage shortly! Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

not a spam

Google still shows the following information when i search my article. Why does it show that? when my blog is not a spam.

14:38:10, Fri Nov 16, 2007 en:user:Veron27 <-> uraj-sharma.blogspot.com (7.59%/7.36%/0.5% - Monitored link uraj-sharma.blogspot.com - rule: \bblogspot\.com ... wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/uraj-sharma.blogspot.com - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.144.255 (talk) 11:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you please help me for the recovery of my blog: uraj-sharma.blogspot.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.144.255 (talk) 11:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your remark. If you read the message in the template in the top of the report it does say that if your account appears in the reports, that that is not a proof of spam or of a conflict of interest. Quite a number of wikipedia editors (some of them administrators) have serious concerns about any blogspot links, and it is seriously considered to blacklist blogspot.com at all. Many (if not most) of the additions fail our external links guideline, our conflict of interest guideline, our spam guideline and our 'what wikipedia is not guideline (especially the SOAPBOX and REPOSITORY sections), it fails our [[WP:RS|reliable sources guideline (and maybe more documents here).

Is see that the page the link added to was created by two accounts (containing very similar information, see our sockpuppetry policy). For now I see no reason to either recover the link (I now see it is your link, again see our conflict of interest guideline), or the document it was on. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

BCBot

So....even though I ask nicely, I will continue to be annoyed by something I don't want, and have asked not, to post on my talk page? ...and how is that correct? If I ask a user not to post on my talkpage, they don't. But if I ask a bot owner not to have his/her bot post on my talk page, I have to deal with it? Come on! - NeutralHomer ^T:C 21:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

"there is something wrong with the rationale" - When someone tells me what that "something" is, then I can fix it. I am willing to fix it, I just want someone to tell me what the hell I am doing wrong. - NeutralHomer ^T:C 21:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, read the manual! (as now a lot of people have already said to you). You have to state for each single use a rationale, stating in the section title for which page it is valid, with an explanation according to what is told in said manual. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Revert on Cable Access page?

Why did you just do a revert to this page: http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Cable_access

The list of all cable access stations was removed because "Wikipedia is not a directory." I copied the old list to a non-Wikipedia page where others can maintain it, then linked to that external page. Why was this link a bad thing? --Benedett (talk) 15:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It is a forum link, and not a reliable site. This is just an attempt to circumvent wikipedia policy. Also, you say here that you copied the list off wiki, so you are involved in maintaining the external site. You may thus also want to review our conflict of interest guideline. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

MultiIP vandal

Cool., I was just taking a deeper look into that, thanks for taking care of it! Dreadstar † 17:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Welcome! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Spam/scam blacklist

Heya Dirk

Can you take a look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Gaia_Online_.28edit.7Ctalk.7Chistory.7Clinks.7Cwatch.7Clogs.29 and see if we can add the phishing site to the blacklist? Thanks. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 10:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Assuming you wanted h1.ripway.com/kingme listing then it's done - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Heh, quick! Still, make a report on WT:WPSPAM, then COIBot picks it up, it may be a meta-issue if the spammers are doing this on other wikis as well (well, the cross-wiki spamsearch will show that).

• h1.ripway.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Lets see .. (COIBot report is on its way ...). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

If it is phishing (& it looks like it) I thought the sooner the better. If it is a Meta issue do let me know, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:24, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not see the link on the german wiki, it seems to be a regular hosting site, with 'appropriate use' (fails WP:RS, but well, that is not a reason to blacklist .. yet, if you would ask me about the worst of these, blogspot etc...). COIBot has about 5 reports waiting, will be another 10 minutes before it saves this one. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It has been on & off the Meta list (as h1.ripway.com). The whole domain might be extreme but the one here looks like a phishing attempt. Let me know if I can do anything, thanks for the assistance --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey Dirk, I just got back. I've seen your message on my talk. Do you still need any action from me? I'm not familiar with the specifics of this case; I found out about it from the requests for page protection, and I thought it was more appropriate than indefinitely semi-proteecting the page. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 18:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rifleman 82. No, don't think anything further is necessary for the moment. User:COIBot is monitoring the domain, and this specific site has been blacklisted. We'll see what happens further. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Physchim62

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Physchim62/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Physchim62/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Cbrown1023 talk 20:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. I will see what to do. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Error on report

I was added to your bot's list because of spamming. I was reverting an error on the [Antonio López de Santa Anna] article. here is the edit I made. [link]

The page link I was added to was this [[8]]. --Antonio Lopez ^(talk) 02:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I see, a classical case of accidental overlap. I have added you to the whitelist, thanks for reporting this! Happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

diff

I think you're looking for User talk:Hesperian/Archive 13#Peanut Island. Hesperian 12:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the discussion. I don't know if I want to use the discussion as evidence though (I am not going to throw in old evidence, I am keeping myself totally to this discussion, and how I have percieved it. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I have removed this point. As I said, I will try and keep my evidence to this case. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Length

I don't know if you'd noticed the text up top of the main evidence page, but just so you're aware: "Keep your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Evidence longer than this will be refactored or removed entirely." As I'm rather keen to not have mine refactored by a clerk, I'm drafting mine to be short, sweet and to the point. Orderinchaos 14:32, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the remark. I assume I have time to redraft until closure? I am still busy, but I will count soon. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd assume so, yes (I'm not a clerk or anything). Orderinchaos 15:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

It is going to be difficult to cut pieces out of it without losing things, but well. I see the intro of the page is a bit ambiguous: 'Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words' .. is that per evidence section, or per total statement. I also note that both Physchim62 and Hesperian are well above the 1000 words. We will see .. for now, I have said, will do some cleanup where I think it is possible later. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed (having the same problem) - they may be okay with it this time, I don't know. I'd guess it's not a hard and fast limit. Also with their being parties some latitude would probably have to be offered so they can respond to allegations (as fair parts of theirs are responses to each others' or other points) Orderinchaos 16:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

It is my time on an evidence page. I don't even know if I present my data in an appropriate way. Guess I will see (if I am not on holiday by then). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Must admit it's quite funny from an outside perspective that you, me and Hesperian are all on some form of wikibreak at the present and are all trying to get our evidence done around our offline priorities... most arbcoms it's a situation where everyone has way way too much time. Orderinchaos 01:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Heh, true. For me, I am preparing to go on holiday, but am still available, and try to find time to put evidence and explain my view of the situation. I am unfamiliar with ArbComs, I guess indeed that when people have lots of time, there will be more and more discussion. Enjoy the free time! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Really, really bad haiku from a new admin

Setting new lows in thank-you spam:

Click there for my RfA spam haikus! → → →

Janitor's new tools
Spam must stop -- will new mop act?
Ooops, .com blocked

New admin, new tools
Earnest newbie furrows brow
Fare thee well Main Page

New mess all about
Sorcerer's Apprentice mop
Not supporter's fault

A. B. so grateful
Wikipedia trembles
Watch out DRV

A. B. wonders why
Copyright always confused
Fair use, farewell, bye

Dear RfA friend,
I will learn, chaos will fade
Thanks so much ... A. B.

This RfA thank you card is based on a card originally done by Phaedriel

Dirk, thanks so much for your support ("strong" no less!)

I so appreciate all you do around here, especially with your Robot Army keeping spam at bay. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:20, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome, you deserve it. You know, you will always be deleting the useless stuff (like the mainpage), but that is good. It means the more useful material will remain. Good luck, and if you have questions, you know where to find me! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Clarification on being flagged by spam bot

Hi Beetstra, I'm not sure if you are the right channel to go through, but it looks like a link I added has been flagged by the spam bot you help maintain.

A little background:

I haven't really been an active wikipidia contributor (though a big user), but someone contacted me via email and requested that I clean up the Tech Coast article. I am one of a couple editors that runs probably the only news log that tracks startup companies on the Tech Coast, so its understandable that I was requested to get involved. Anyways, specifically they asked me to add citations, add the newslog to the external links, and make some contributions to get the article closer to wikipedia standards (the article had no citations, and their was much talk in the discussion page about how much of it was Original Work). Anyways, I did all of that and I believe the changes were pretty substantial [here's the diff]

Similarly, a company we covered Buzznet had a wikipedia entry that had very few citations and in general appeared like someone from the company probably wrote part of the article. I changed some wording to be more neutral, and add a few citations (to which our newslog was one), and pointed out in the discussion page about sections where I couldn't find any decent reference to cite and mentioned that some of the text should probably reconsidered if no other source could be found.

Anyways those are the only two cases, one has relevant link and the other as a relevant citation, but it was flagged. I'm deffinately not trying to add spam here, I was generally trying to help. I was contacted in the first place because their just wasn't a lot of relevent sources for the subject matter.

I think the spam bot said something about my IP being from a known porn spammer, but I have done both edits from home (on a cable internet connection) and boy my wife would kick me at the drop of a hat, if that was really me. So maybe my IP was a case of mistaken identities? --Tcrguy (talk) 20:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tcrguy. I see, you are talking about the reports like Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/techcoastreview.com. Let me explain first, that no-one is accusing you of spamming, or whatever. The bot is designed to keep an eye on link-additions on wikipedia (more specifically, about 722 of them). That includes keeping an eye on some IPs that belong to servers where 'bad' websites are hosted on. In this case there has been a serious situation with an editor (whether he used an IP or not I don't recall), who added a large number of different domains to porn-sites. All these sites were hosted on one server, with the IP 68.178.232.100. We therefor added this IP to the 'watchlist' of COIBot, which results in reports on addition to wikipedia of all websites hosted on that server. COIBot caught the following ones, summarised here: Special:Linksearch/*.64.233.179.121. I see from the list that there is no (obvious) spam or porn linked to anymore, and apparently the 'rule' picks up genuine websites hosted on the same server as well. I have removed the rule, as it a) picks up too many good links, b) the IP of the website is too volatile (it seems to change) and c) the porn-spammer has either chosen to use another server, or has actually stopped spamming. I hope this has not resulted in too much aggravation, and I hope that it explains. Hope to see you around. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Dirk, I was just worried I did something wrong unknowingly. Looks like its all good. See ya around --Tcrguy (talk) 02:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

MDMA

The reason I added the Multimedia student group was because of the publicity they are getting by using the moniker MDMA - as I mentioned it is part of the 'culture jamming' phenomenon and as such should be recognised. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blellum (talk • contribs) 00:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Subjects don't get recognised because they are on wikipedia, subjects that are deemed notable have wikipedia pages. In your case the subject you want to link to has no page on wikipedia, only an external link. Moreover, MDMA almost exclusively refers to methylenedioxymethamphetamine, so it is better to leave MDMA a redirect page, and if another subject is notable enough, put a link above methylenedioxymethamphetamine, a bit like what we did with Ecstacy. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

My links in my contributions were deemed spam.

Hi,

I made some contributions and my links were deemed as spam. I think because my username is similar to the link url. The bot mustve taken that as spam. It is not spam though, it is legit links.

Can you please take a look at them and un-blacklist them?

Thanks, Ryan Wood planetinverts —Preceding unsigned comment added by Planetinverts (talk • contribs) 00:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

As the big box above the report says, the report is not a proof a link is spam (by the way, spam is the way links are added, it does not imply anything about the contents of the site being linked to). In this case it may not directly have been spam, but the links are under concern since your username shows a large overlap with the page you are linking to ("en:user:Planetinverts <-> planetinverts.com (100%/81.25%/81.2% - calculated overlap Planetinverts <-> planetinverts.com) ") ... your username has a more than considerable overlap with the link being added, which has resulted in my bot picking it up. I suggest you review our conflict of interest guideline, and when you think that the link nonetheless has to be added to the pages, discuss on the respective talkpages first, or find an appropriate wikiproject to discuss if your links are deemed appropriate by a broader audience.

By the way, also our external links guideline may be of interest, and as you were only adding links to external links sections (including "www.planetinverts.com/store", which suggests commercial interest), I would also review our spam guideline ("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."). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Info producten

Hoi Beetstra, Ik vroeg me af hoe het staat met je plugin voor het zoeken naar info/eigenschappen van chemicaliën. Is die (of een andere) plugin reeds actief binnen mediawiki? Dit zou erg handig zijn om een link onderaan de infobox voor chemicaliën op de Nederlandstalige wikipedia te zetten. Geniet nog van je wikibreak en een fantastisch 2008. Groetjes, Annabel (talk) 11:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, niks verder mee gebeurd, er is wat vraag geweest, maar blijkbaar niet voldoende voor de mediawiki mensen om de plugin te activeren. Jammer. Wij hebben er hier voor gekozen om een link naar externe linkfarms te gebruiken (eMolecules). Ook jij een fantastisch 2008, en hoop je binnenkort weer eens te spreken! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(Belated) Happy New Year! spam

Here's hoping the new year brings you nothing but the best ;) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 18:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The design of this almost completely impersonal (yet hopefully uplifting) message was ripped from Riana (talk · contribs)

Thanks, also you a happy 2008, and happy editing! Hope to see you around, and keep up the good work around here! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

chlorine dioxide

Can you please tell me what you think about MMS. It involves drinking chlorine dioxide as an internal cleanse. I got this from a friend and we started taking it. The web address of the company that is selling it is www.mmsmiracle.com

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.110.32.166 (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC) 

Hmm, I see it has an e-number, so it is indeed used as a food-additive. I don't specifically know much about this, it may be a good plan to discuss tis issue on the talkpage of Chlorine dioxide. Hope this helps! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

bot weirdness

Welcome back :) (assuming that when you read this, you are back!) - can you check out what is happening with Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/video.google.com, which consistently creates reports with no new info? I deleted the page once, just in case it was something to do with the page length or count, but it just dumped a new copy of the page with all the same info (because it's writing from the database.. *duh*, should have known). Apart from that, only two local power outages that took down the server and a few run-ins with really bad regex while you were away.. Hope you had a great holiday. Happy New Year! :) --Versageek 21:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Also a happy new year to you. Did you manage to delete the mainpage already?

I have no clue what is wrong with the \bvideo\.google\.com rule .. that should work, but the bot does not pick up the link, it only makes a list from the linkwatcher database, but the rule does not activate ..

I see the bots are running fine, further, what was the bad regex? Did it get picked up automatically, because then I'd like to know and do something against it, where possible. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/davesergeant.com

I have just noticed this in the spam link report. I will explain the background and explain why in my view it is not spam... The link appears on the 60 meters article, which I have done some work on. The link was originally added by Reubenhowes on 31st December at 10:04 as a valid external link of transmitter information for the 60m band. The link happens to be my own site, but I did not add it myself, the addition was I assume purely his own decision, I have no knowledge of or connection with him. The link he added was to the real version of my site - http://www.btinternet.com/~dsergeant/fivemegs/fivemegs.htm. I decided to change this to its domain address at davesergeant.com, exactly the same place after domain redirection. I did this in case I move my domain elsewhere in the future to maintain a valid link. The information linked on my site is of homemade amateur equipment and other information with no commercial interest so cannot be used by spammers for any benefit or for financial benefit by myself. Obviously the bots cannot know that...! Whether there are too many external links on that article or not remains to be seen (many of the edits have been done by relatively new editors) but there is no need to remove it as potential spam. Thanks. Dsergeant (talk) 16:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It is indeed not spam, it was only added once (please note that spam is the way links gets added, not what gets added. The people from Monty Python may very well have like spam (as in the meat-product), it is just that they did not get any choice. But you do seem to have a conflict of interest, and that is why the bot picked up the link-addition. Maybe it is wise to discuss the links on the talkpage? Hope this helps, happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and welcome back after your break. This particular edit probably falls under Wikipedia:COI#Non-controversial_edits, ie I was correcting an incorrect link, so is probably acceptable. I will discuss the link section on the article's talk page. Thanks. Dsergeant (talk) 11:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, COI does absolutely not have to be a problem, though it is best to be dealt with carefully. If you think the link is of particular interest, it is best to search contact and discuss its use with a suitable wikiproject (see Wikipedia:WikiProject for a list), and when it is deemed useful to use the link appropriately. Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:02, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/links.jstor.org

According to User:COIBot#Whitelist I removed the report about my user account in the German Wikipedia referring to these edits: diff1, diff2. Is there anything else I have to do for not being reported again? Thanks in advance, --ThT (talk) 06:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed the report about my user account in the German Wikipedia at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/jstor.org for the same edits as well. --ThT (talk) 07:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed the report about my user account in the German Wikipedia at m:User:COIBot/LinkReports/links.jstor.org for the same edits as well. --ThT (talk) 07:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It was picked up by an accidental overlap, I already removed the link from the rules-list of COIBot. The report contains a full list of its use, but there is no reason to worry about that, it is the same information as one can access via the linksearch and page history, only in a more compact way. I have whitelisted you account (User:ThT) so it should ignore you from now. Thanks for the clarification though, happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Holy Apostles Episcopal Church (Satellite Beach, Florida)

Hi, I am a little confused by being wiitten up in Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/rootsweb.com and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/COIReports/2007, Dec 22 for edits I made to Holy Apostles Episcopal Church (Satellite Beach, Florida). I created the article yesterday and found out today that it is on the AfD list[9]

Apparently, the nominator has some problem with the resources I listed. The rootsweb cite is actually a free page that the St. Lucie County Historical Society has entitled "Churches - St. Andrew's Episcopal Church." The Society has already moved its home page off rootsweb, but apparently hasn't gotten around to moving this page off. Anyway, I added it because it contains much the same info as the Hellier book I referenced and I thought that being able to see the info on the net would help matters.

I didn't know that rootsweb was a suspect source. Anyway on the COI issue, I have no connection whatsoever to any of the institutions or people in the article. I do live in the general area, have worked in Fort Pierce, am an historian by education, am an Episcopalian, and am interested in Carpenter Gothic buildings.

Anyway, I would appreciate your looking into this. Thanks. clariosophic (talk) 02:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC) add missing words clariosophic (talk) 02:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I had a look, it was accidentily picked up by my bot (overlap between username Rootsjockey and domain rootsweb.com). I have removed the rules, whitelisted links appropriately. As far as I could quickly see this site is used widely by many users, I don't see any proof of spam or coi issues. Hope this resolves the issue, happy 2008, and happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Mant thanks. clariosophic (talk) 13:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Public-access_television

Talk:Public-access_television#Discussing_the_removal_of_the_list_of_Public_Access_TV_stations_at_the_bottom_of_this_article Quite a bit of discussion since this edit, however it does appear the offending list is gone, however as before, it most likely will return. welcome back--Hu12 (talk) 15:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I see it is gone for the moment, will keep my eye on it. The list is nothing but a spam-magnet, and it fails many of the policies/guidelines here. If a subject is not notable enough for an own article, then it certainly does not need an external link (and I would argue that is even true for a list-page!). See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The Air Pollution article needs permanent protection

Hello, Dirk:

I had my hip replacement almost 4 weeks ago and am now almost back to normal. Please take a good long look at the history page of the Air Pollution article and see how very, very many edits have had to be reverted in the last few weeks.

The article is in need of being permanently protected so that only registered users may edit it. Please protect it and Happy New Year, - mbeychok (talk) 21:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Milton! Good to hear all is well with you. Hope you are going round again. And a good and healthy 2008 to you too!

I had a look at the history of Air pollution, it indeed has quite some vandalism, but it seems to me that it is all 'normal' vandalism. I have protected it for one month, and put it on my watchlist. I hope that takes the vandalism away for some time. Curious why this is such a welcome vandalism target, popular subject on schools? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

For watching & dealing with it - I ran out of time yesterday --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Welcome. I also had to take a look again how I again did that. Hope it works! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

delete link reports from wikipedia

why all links in http://he.wikipedia.org in linkreport? how reslove this problem and delete the pages?

samples: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:COIBot/LinkReports/nrg.co.il

this is no spam

how i can contact private with Someone that can delete this pages? is very important , please answer me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yossi323 (talk • contribs) 08:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The reports are not proof that something is spam, something is spammed, or someone has a conflict of interest in adding the links. They are just reports because there was a concern (in this cas a total mistaken one, the bot found too much overlap between 'Number 57' and 'nrg.co.il'). The report on en is already deleted, you can request deletion on meta by adding an appropriate deletion tag. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

thanks for fast reply. i don't understand... this bot is report for spam , if i add to wikipedia useful link why the bot is add the site to spam list or blacklist? what is deletion tags? it's possible to delete them totally?

in this page you delete the content and add the site to whitelist: http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/haaretz.co.il

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yossi323 (talk • contribs) 12:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC) 

The bot is not only for reporting spam, it is for trying to recognise which links are added under a (likely) conflict of interest (though in this case clearly mistaken). The reports get then interpreted by a human editor, and as I already have stated, in this case it is was mistaken. It picks it up with the first edit that may be under conflict, as after that sometimes other accounts (of the same user) also add it. It can not always make that difference. Deletion is a bit useless (and I can't do that, you need a meta-administrator for that), as it will recreate the page after the link is inserted again by a user with a possible conflict of interest. If you give me your username on the Hebrew wiki, I can whitelist you, and regenerate the report, the reports will then have a strike-through. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

ok , please whitelist this username in hebrew wiki: greece

thanks. Yossi323 (talk) 08:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

User whitelisted, hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Greg Jbara page added as a redirect, not spam!

Hi.

I created the Greg Jbara page to redirect to Gregory Jbara.

Reasons are:

• While Greg uses "Gregory Jbara" professionally, there have been a few times that a film or tv show he's appeared in have credited him as "Greg Jbara".

• In everyday life, most people, including friends, family, and many fans, call him or refer to him as "Greg Jbara".

• I am Greg's official site webmaster, and I know from the stats at gregoryjbara.com that people sometimes visit his site through "Greg Jbara" searches as well as through "Gregory Jbara" searches.

For these reasons, I believe it's a good guess that someone might search "Greg Jbara" here on wikipedia, and having seen where there are other biographies of people here that have redirects from other names they are known by, I thought it was reasonable to create the Greg Jbara page as a redirect that will bring them to the more "correct" Gregory Jbara page here.

I hope the "Greg Jbara" page will stay, to redirect people to the Gregory Jbara wiki page.

Thank you. - Barb —Preceding unsigned comment added by JbaraFan1 (talk • contribs) 01:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it is for sure not spam, and also not a coi! I have whitelisted you, hope this helps (the bot tries to catch possible conflicts of interest, not only spam; this is a clear case of a wrong catch, sorry for that). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Healthcmi.com

Please whitelist healthcmi dot com and user acuhealth (that's me). I have deleted external links that COIBOT deemed as spam. They were specific references to text for "acupuncture" and "professional development" and probably were valid but have been removed. I suspect that I have added an overlap that the bot deems as a poor contribution. Admittedly, I am not sure entirely why these specific references were kicked out but I am investigating proper usage of external links to avoid future conflict. Please allow for whitelisting to prevent problems. Let me know if additional corrections are needed. I have contributed accurate and valuable content, please consider whitelist. The content I added was accurate, relevant, and actually took me some time to clearly write and contribute. The link to healthcmi dot com clarified details of the content added and acted as a reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Acuhealth (talk • contribs) 08:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

COIBot does not define something as spam, it merely reports if there may be a concern with a link and the person who adds it. The report you are talking about is probably Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/healthcmi.com. A clear case of mistaken overlap, I have whitelisted you and removed the link from the monitorlist. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Using external links in references is NOT frowned upon, it is a very good practice. The problem is that there are many cases where people do use their own links to promote their business/etc, and that is frowned upon (especially the former, the latter does not have to be a problem, as long as it is properly addressed). The bot has been designed to catch those, and except for some accidental overlaps (like this one), it is doing its job quite well. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

UNJUST SPAMMING BOT Identification

Hi, It seems that the website healthcmi (.com) received a COIBOT spamming report. I included links to the site adding information for the "acupuncture", and "professional development" pages. I have removed those links, however, they seemed to be helpful in that they were specific references to the text in the wikipedia page. That said, I am reticent to add links as I need to learn more about what links are deemed inappropriate. I would like the report to be taken down but I do not want the external links restored. Perhaps the bot sees an "overlap" as described in one of the pages. Just the same, the links were claritive to the discussion and provided specific details relating to the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Acuhealth (talk • contribs) 07:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I have responded on my talkpage. Just to clarify, the bot does not define if a link gets spammed, it just reports when there may be a concern with a link. In this case it is mistaken, I have whitelisted you, and have removed the link from the monitor list. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Explanation of PhysicalFitnet Posts, Please Whitelist ??

Hi I am the webmaster of PhysicalFitnet and am requesting whitelisting of our site. Our apologies, but we were not aware of the rules when we provided the links to information on our site. We have very applicable information pertaining to pages and topics discussed on Wikipedia, but we now understand the rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.231.35.26 (talk) 15:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I presume you mean this report: Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/physicalfitnet.com. I see that you (presuming you are Physicalfitnet) and an IP are the only editors who added the link. I am sorry, but I guess that for the moment monitoring of that link is still warranted. When the link gets used in a positive and genuine way, according to our policies and guidelines, I will remove it from the monitorlist. If it does not get used further, the report will become forgotten in due time. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Would appreciate your comment on an Afd

Dirk, I would appreciate it if you took the time to comment on the proposed deletion of the Air pollution dispersion modeling books article. The discussion on the proposed deletion is located at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Air pollution dispersion modeling books. I oppose the deletion. Regards, - mbeychok (talk) 19:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

IRC

Which client are you using, I've used Mirc way back but would rather have a browser pluggin. Running IE--Hu12 (talk) 13:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I am using mIRC, but have used the built-in client from Opera before (but that one is buggy). There are some java-sites which run a web-based IRC, I have used ircatwork sometimes when I do not have any other client available (but it is a bit annoying). On WT:CHEM last week someone suggested java @ freenode. Hope this helps, see you soon? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Forgot, the webbrowser Firefox has a plugin, chatzilla, maybe that is also an option? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks dirk, if I had firefox I'd be all over chatzilla...--Hu12 (talk) 14:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Template:LinkSummary

Good call on the name change. Thanks for doing this.

FYI: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#Template:Spamlink/doc → Template:LinkSummary/doc
--A. B. ^(talk) 16:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, you could have considered to speedy that one, IMHO. I'm fine with it, thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I thought I could speedy it but when I read the CSD and then the RfD rules, I was surprised to learn that it technically had to go to RfD. As a brand new admin, I figured it was a little early for me to ignore all the rules, so I took it to RfD. I certainly wouldn't object to someone else early-closing the RfD. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deleted...--Hu12 (talk) 20:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 21:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

COIBot

Hi Beetstra. I was wondering why sfgate.com is listed on the WikiProject Spam LinkReports by your bot. This is the website for the San Francisco Chronicle, and it is probably used as a reference in most articles. For example, I cited an article from there for the 2007-08 Golden State Warriors season article. Is there any chance you could take sfgate.com off the list? Thanks, Bash Kash (talk) 01:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

sfgate.com was already removed, it was caught by an (probably accidental) overlap between the user sfmom and the link, and I did not see any spamming going on (it is used by many independent and established users). I have protected the link against automonitoring, COIBot should now only report when there is an overlap between username and link, or between IP of the editor and the link. Thanks for reporting this, and I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That's perfect. By the way, I noticed Much2much (talk · contribs) spamming "thedraftreview.com" on numerous articles. Is there any way to get your bot to do something about this? Bash Kash (talk) 15:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Glad you are happy, and again, thanks for clarifying, now I don't have to see what the link is. Yes, you go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, and you add a section there. The templates we use are {{IPSummary}}, {{UserSummary}} and {{LinkSummary}}. The bot reads the edits, and picks up the links mentioned in the LinkSummary template, putting them on the monitorlist. When the link gets added, COIBot will generate a report (the initial redlink 'COIBot' in the LinkSummary template). Hope to see the report there! Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. Thanks again, Bash Kash (talk) 15:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Korean Air

Why did you undo my edit when I added references to it.(202.141.233.30 (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC))

blogspot is not a reliable source, please see our reliable sources guideline. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Gil Student help

Can you help? It is a reliable source in this case since the blogspot is authored by the subject of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwertyqazqaz1 (talk • contribs) 10:42, January 23, 2008

no, it is not a reliable source in that case, you would need another source for that. How do you actually know that he is writing that blog? See also Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. He is a well known personality and it is well known and accepted he writes that blog. In fact there are MANY references on that article already to that very same blog I used as a citation. There is no disagreement or dispute regarding this fact. Thanks again! Qwertyqazqaz1 (talk) 15:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. let me have a look. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your help. Qwertyqazqaz1 (talk) 15:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I see in one case it is tied to another reference, but quite some of the references seem self-published (in the list there are something like 6-8 articles from Gil himself?). I would try and avoid these, and try to find other references to back up the statements. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The consensus has been to accept Gil's own writings to make reference to points the article discusses. Qwertyqazqaz1 (talk) 16:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is also that we need reliable sources and not original research. Those references to self-published sources alone is not enough, such statements can as well be removed, because of that reason. They need other references as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

They aren't self-references. None of them were put there by Gil himself. Qwertyqazqaz1 (talk) 16:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

No, what I mean is that the article withdraws information from an article that was written by the subject on a source that is not checked by a third party. That is what is meant with Original synthesis and Reliable sources. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Many Wikipedia articles references writings by the subject of the article. So I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to convey. Qwertyqazqaz1 (talk) 16:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS .. If you need those references to self-published material, then you also need the same information from reliable sources. Yes, you are right, there is a lot of that on wikipedia, but it certainly is not right. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Vincent Otti external link

Your input at Talk:Vincent Otti#external link would be appreciated. Thanks, BanyanTree 10:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

"directly linked"?

Hi. I don't understand today's edit to Potsdam_(town),_New_York. I looked at the link you provided and both URLs seem pretty specific to the Town of Potsdam. Why did you remove them? RussNelson (talk) 01:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

They are not directly linked, a link about a newspaper is directly linked to a page about the newspaper, the site of the newspaper (besides that it was also spammed yesterday) is broader than only that city, it covers quite an area and cities/villages/etc. See WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided, point 14: "Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked to from an article on a more specific subject. Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject. If a section of a general website is devoted to the subject of the article, and meets the other criteria for linking, then that part of the site could be deep-linked." I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

SquelchBot non-link regexes

I've just had to nuke another round of Indian poetry vanispamcruftisement, which left me wondering if it is possible to squelch non-link regexes. The two I have in mind are \b[Oo]baid\s[Aa]zam\s[Aa]zmi and \b[Ff]iorano\s[Ss]oftware, who are annoying us yet again. Thanks. MER-C 12:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, no, SquelchBot only listens to external links. For other things you would have to contact either one of the VOABots, or ClueBot. Sorry, would be nice if we could help here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is the type of vandalism that our bots are designed for. VoABot reverts only IPs (these spammers tend to use accounts) and ClueBot only reverts once per article per day. I've posted on AN about these spammers. MER-C 11:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

MyWikiBiz "prone to spam"

You wrote that MyWikiBiz is "very prone to spam". What statistics do you have? I'm counting 12 links. Wikia has over 11,400. Wikia is a site where a Wikipedian keeps all the advertising revenue. How is that not "very prone to spam"? I'm fine with you blocking MyWikiBiz, if those are the rules. Just block Wikia, too. I don't see the difference. - Makeacontribution (talk) 19:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

mywikibiz advertises making money for linking to pages on it, so that results in people adding the links for advertising their site. And wikipedia is not an advertising service, it is an encyclopedia. And yes, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

external link removals from periodic table page

Beetstra

On http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=User_talk:Beetstra/Archive_4, under the section titled Article: Periodic_table, external link removal, you mention www.touchspin.com (chem.touchspin.com) 's periodic table in this paragraph:

"The external link from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the flash table link from touchspin.com, as well as the external link from www.ceet.niu.edu do not appear to provide any information beyond what is already available from the webelements link, they merely present it in a different form (using Flash instead of html, for instance)."

Apparently, based on this, your primary objection to chem.touchspin.com flash based periodic table is that it is just a rehash of other periodic tables but in flash instead and so doesn't "provide any information beyond what is already available from ... webelements".

I think this is not the case. Besides providing a *far* more detailed periodic table than what is available from webelements, touchspin's periodic table has these additional features that webelements does not:

. it is contained in a single flash .swf file using an older version of the flash reader that, per adobe, 99.9% of browsers can already use

. it does not re-display ads once the page is opened and does not require the user to constantly open additional pages (and more ads) in order to read its content, as webelements does

. all its content is contained in that initial .swf file, no ajax or additional web communications are performed once it is opened.

. it scales to the size of the window the user displays (some other flash based tables to this too)

. it is right-click zoomable (some other flash based tables do this too)

. it has four different configurations/representations of electron configurations

. it automatically re-colorizes the table elements based on 43 different characteristics or attributes of the individual elements such as: heat of vaporization, melting point, atomic radius, density, electrical conductivity, etc.

. it automatically generates graphs of properties-vs.-AMU dynamically colorized based on the element properties in order to demonstrate the periodicity of the elements in a way that the table itself can not.

. it permits the dynamic embedding or unembedding of the lanthanide/actinide series automatically stretching or shrinking the table to fit into the window provided

. it permits the rotation of the table by any number of groups to center any column/group with or without the Lanthinde/actinide series embedded.

. the vast majority of its features are instantly available in a far simpler user interface without any clicking.

. it dynamically recolorizes the table based on temperature to show the current phase state of the elements: solid, liquid, gas

. plus several other features it is NOT the case that these features are just a re-hash of what is available in any other periodic table on the internet, especially webelements.

as important as what it does contain is what it idoes not:

. it does not rely on bandwidth-wasteful or arbitrary images to represent elements as does Visual Elements chemsoc.org's flash table which weighs in at about 2.5 times the size yet still requires links to secondary web pages to view any information about the individual elements and even then doesn't supply a fraction of the same chemical technical information as does chem.touchspin.com

. it does not offer potential advertisers opportunities to buy exclusive ad rights to pages displaying primary element data as do some of those currently listed in wikipedia, most notably webelements.

. it does not include flash for the purpose of being flashy: showing off animation or demonstrating prowess in drawing pictures. everything about it is simple, unadulterated, and for the purpose of visualizing the data.

though the chem.touchspin.com PERIODIC TABLE contains far more information than the webelements table does, it does not contain more than webelements site has on its myriad secondary pages. however, far MORE information is available from chem.touchspin.com's periodic table by clicking on any element because it directly links to the specific element pages of wikipedia. But even if, as you wrote, its flash periodic table did "not provide any information beyond what is already available from the webelements link" [false] it provides it in a far more accessible and easy to understand manner.

It is also not a flash site but contains dozens of chemistry related html pages with several flash applets, most notably that for the interactive periodic table. chem.touchspin.com's flash periodic table is just one of several chemistry, biology, and science based web applets that are available from the site. Also, its chemistry pages provide discussions of interesting educational aspects of the periodic table and elements (chemysteries) that can be readily seen and discovered on the chem.touchspin.com representation of the periodic table but not on others, such as the empty bohr model rings, the Carbon v. Nitrongen stubbornness issue, thermal v. electrical conductivity collusion, anomolies in lewis dot diagrams, and unexpected patterns in the way in which electrons fill the orbitals (http://www.touchspin.com/chem/asppages/periodictablemysteries.asp).

It is not self-promotional. The wikipedia link to chem.touchspin.com's periodic table was not submitted by it author or any of his cohorts. Nor were its links on the spanish, russion, korean, or japanese wikipedia pages.

It does not provide friviolous or information that offers dubious or no educational content such as mp3 songs about the elements, someone's clever ajax code to produce a table that contains the first image from google searches of element names, a wooden table that contains pieces of individual elements, or "periodic tables" of non-chemical subjects such as music composers. These are not relevant content for someone wishing to learn about the periodic table.

I HAVE read wikipedia policies and I have yet to see that any were violated by including the link to chem.touchspin.com. I do know that wikipedia is a not a linkfarm and that there are literally thousands of web based periodic tables on the net, but the four different individuals that posted chem.touchspin.com to the periodic table page clearly put it there because it was of value, provided additional content and representation not found elsewhere, and obviously found it more valuable than those that had already been included.

It is always nice when unknown visitors from around the world think so highly of my work that they want to tell others about it, either on their own site or on a wiki page specifically dedicated to the topic of my site, but it is far more frustrating when people remove those links because they choose to arbitrarily choose which links they will apply standards to or which standards that they choose to apply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.192.210 (talk) 00:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the question, but the problem is not with that, the problem lies with a) 'what wikipedia is not', not a linkfarm section, we do not extensively link to every periodic table out there, a few is OK. Apparently a choice was made for webelements, but that can be discussed on the talkpage. Secondly, and that seems to go for your periodic table, the 'links normally to be avoided' in the external links guideline points 8 and 9. Re point 8, Flash needs to be installed on a computer, and I am not sure if it is available for everybody (linux, mac, windows), but I expect it to be availabel for all. Re point 9, that names Flash. So even if such a site would provide more information, it may still be discouraged from that point. But you can try to open a discussion on the talkpage and see if you can find consensus on 3-5 external links to periodic tables, maybe the general consensus there will suggest to include a flash-link. For now, web-elements seems to be the first, it does not use flash, and seems to be maintained by a university (not commercial, that is), which gives it some big advantages over most others. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Spambot please revert

Dear Beetstra, Your anti-spam bot has nailed my link! In new article on Mark Hambourg I refer to his appearance in a British movie. I suspect the problem is that my username, Eebahgum, is nearly an anagram of Hambourg. (!) However this is a legitimate link. See [10] for listing. Can you revert your bot please? (ie please whitelist this link) Thanks, Eebahgum (talk) 12:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the report. My bot is not an anti-spam bot, it is a bot which tries to catch possible cases of spam and/or conflict of interest. In this case it caught an account with the name 'britmovie' add this link (a probable case of a conflict of interest. I have removed the rule, and protected it against automonitoring, as it seems to be used by many accounts. It will now only report possible cases of COI, ignore all other additions. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou, Beetstra. I don't quite understand the technicalities, but I'm sure all will be well! Best wishes, Eebahgum (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

VAwebteam

Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images/2008_January_30#Image:Copper_snuffbox.jpg FYI Tyrenius (talk) 03:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I responded there. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Civertan

Dear Beetstra!

We have an agreement with wikipedia :engedély [szerkesztés]

Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution iconCreative Commons Share Alike icon A lap tetején látható kép a http://www.civertan.hu oldalról származik. A kép tulajdonosa hozzájárult a Creative Commons Forrásjelölés-HasonlóTerjesztés licenc v2.5 (Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5), rövid nevén „cc-by-sa-2.5” licenc alatti közzétételéhez.

For visitors from other countries: This image originates from http://www.civertan.hu. Its author has released it under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 (cc-by-sa-2.5)

I hope there will be no problems anymore.

Civertan (talk) 09:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

That is about the uploaded images, I was talking about the added external links. I hope you can elaborate on that as well. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

SquelchBot

Moved comment SquelchBot requests. Forgot there was a page for that.--Hu12 (talk) 11:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Was wondering if {{subst:User:SquelchBot/request|link=example.com|spammer=Beetstra}} can handle multiple input for "spammer=". Typicaly, I've found that the small-time spammers use their IP in the begining, then create an account. Not a big deal, and not trying to create more work for you :) --Hu12 (talk) 12:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, no, it can't. Is worth to put there, though. Feel free to adapt the template. If there is a COIBot link, then it is not really necessery, I am inclined to have a look at that anyway. It is really time for you to find that IRC client .. :-) .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

COIBot

Can the bot not just ignore instances where external links were added by trusted users, rather than adding them and crossing them out? It makes the pages bigger and harder to go through, and has no real benefit – Gurch 12:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It does ignore it when the trusted users add the link, it does not create a new report then, and does not store a new record in the 'COI'-database. The list of external links added (second half of the page) is pulled from the linkwatcher databases, which contains every single addition. It does enable us to see how a link gets used in general. If the link does get used by many trusted users, then blacklisting would be out of the question, for example. Hope this explains a bit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The da Vinci Barnstar

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		The da Vinci Barnstar may be awarded to anyone who has enhanced Wikipedia through their technical work. Awarded to Dirk Beetstra for the resurrection and enhancement of such a good bot, XLinkBot. --Hu12 (talk) 12:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If the bot gets a new name, Please feel free to change that above...--Hu12 (talk) 13:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Canada Basketball

Thanks for your help with that deletion. Sorry I messed up the speedy tag, I didn't realise the source URL needed to be included, so that's why I put it in the edit summary. Hope that didn't end up as too much of a pain for you Travellingcari (talk) 20:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not check, I believed it, the page looked already like a copy, and needed too much work in rewriting to become something decent. A start from fresh is better, I think. Might be a good page, though. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep I hope someone with a passion rather than a commercial interest decides to re-write it at some point. Travellingcari (talk) 22:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Deleting page history

I concur with the history deletion on User:Wfgh66. However, one thing to note (which I didn't know either), is that somehow deleting the history caused the talk page to lose it's protection and he started posting to it again. Easily dealt with and not a big deal, but useful to know for the future. Cheers. Ronnotel (talk) 22:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Heh, that is strange. Though, it does make some sense, if the protection-revision gets deleted from the history, then you would not know anymore who did it .. though that would only be interesting for admins, and they would be able to see the deleted history anyway. But I'll think about that next time. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Requesting whitelisting by COIBot

COIBot included my name in a link report on digital.library.unt.edu because of this diff, but I was simply reverting an IP vandal who deleted several sections of the article, and my revert was obviously not intended as an endorsement of any external links. I am an editor in good standing; please would you whitelist my username for COIBot. Perhaps you could reply here to keep the thread of conversation in one please? Thanks, - Neparis (talk) 03:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I have whitelisted you. Thanks for the notification! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! - Neparis (talk) 17:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Whitelist for DumZiBoT please

DumZiBoT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)

I don't think he's spamming, or is he ? :þ

Thanks !

NicDumZ ~ 08:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, bots don't have a coi.  Done! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

DigitalSports COIBot Report

Hi Dirk,

I recently found that a link I added to the Mount Saint Joseph College page (http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Mount_Saint_Joseph_College) was picked up by your COIBot program.

Allow me to explain what I did, and then hopefully you can help me move forward, so that this does not become an ongoing issue.

I work for an online media company - www.digitalsports.com - that covers local sports (high school and youth sports), across the United States. We work closey with the schools we serve - providing coaches with tools to maintain schedules and keep track of players, scores, and statistics. We also have a media team in each community that covers games - writing articles, taking pictures, and recording video. We place all of this information on our site - wwww.digitalsports.com - which is broken out by geography, then school, then team, etc.

If you go to our site, you will see a box with a number of links to specific states/territories/communities in it. This navigation tool allows users to access every state/conference/school/team/player in our network. We have an extensive and growing supply of content/detail for every community/school/organization that we serve.

I created the wikipedia username of Digitalsports in December, with the thought of linking school pages in wikipedia to our media pages on our site, by school. The Digitalsports username was named as such, so that it could be shared by multiple users in the office, easily. All of our URLs have the digitalsports.com domain.

If I understand your report correctly, we are being tracked by COIBot because the link I added (http://www.digitalsports.com/School.aspx?id=18501) contains the same domain as my username, and hence, there was a "calculated overlap". From that point forward, it appears that either my username or that specific link has been tracked by COIBot. Obviously, that's not good for us.

I only came across this, because I was looking at "digitalsports" in Alexa, and The COIBot Wikipedia page was the second listing, after our homepage. So I have a couple of questions for you...

1) Moving forward, I plan to continue to link our pages to the schools we service in wikipedia. This makes obvious sense. So, how do i do this in a way that doesn't get flagged as spam or get flagged in your COIBot program? Obviously, I am not spamming and the link I am posting is not only relevent, but timely and full of content.

2) In your report, i noticed two additional LinkWatcher Records. Both had to do with my link, but neither were actions taken by me, rather one user named "Werdan7" and "ClueBot". Both of these appear to be bots to me, wondering what were they trying to accomplish and what were the results? How does this impact me and my link(s).

3) Can we simply be whitelisted?

Hoping you can help me understand what I need to do, in order to accomplish goals without impacting the wikipedia environemt negatively. Thanks for your help.

Digitalsports (talk)

You are right in the point that the link may be useful, and I have therefore removed it from watchlists, and protected against automonitoring. But I am sorry, I will not whitelist your account, it is clear that you have a conflict of interest (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest), and I will ask you to not add the links yourself, but to discuss them on talkpages first (you can also try contacting a suitable wikiproject (see Wikipedia:WikiProject for a list). Though a conflict of interest does not need to be a problem, I'd like first to see some community consensus on that (for this case), and to see that you intend to provide content, not links only (as you are working for the site, you must have much content that you can supply!). Though that the link you are adding is full of content, wikipedia is foremost an encyclopedia, not a repository of links.

Werdan7 is a user who reverted some vandalism, ClueBot is indeed a bot account (antivandalismbot). Since I don't see any further additions, it seems to me that the link is mostly unknown by wikipedians, which makes it for me more difficult to assess if these links are really wanted. Again, a suitable wikiproject may be of help here.

I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. You are correct, I have a significant amount of content. I will work on pushing that out to wikipedia, to increase the amount of available information/data available for the schools we serve. That seems like a strategy we can all agree on.

Is there a way that this page can be removed? http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/community.digitalsports.com

Thanks for your help.Digitalsports (talk) 01:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Please contact an appropriate WikiProject, for a list see Wikipedia:WikiProject. You can find people there who can help you in helping with articles with your interest. I would like you to read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and WP:BFAQ thoroughly, and follow the suggestions given there. Content is always welcome, of course.

Yes, such reports can be deleted, though the information is still available in the database of wikipedia, and the page would be recreated when the bot finds (other) cases of a conflict of interest. I only resort to whitelisting user with an acknowledged conflict of interest when their edits show that they take sufficient care with their conflict of interest.

I will leave the page there for now, I generally only delete these pages when established editors ask for that, not only the site owner, when the page is mistaken, or when the user is whitelisted. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks for the links. I want to make sure I am doing this the right way.

Just want to make sure we are on the same page. While that link was ok'd by you, should I get the ok from users post content on school pages moving forward, will I still get flagged by the COIBot, since my username is "Digitalsports" and the source for my content refers back to digitalsports.com? if so, will more COI reports be generated and will i have to go through this process over and over? if so, do you have a recommendation for solution?

I am going to contact the WikiProject group for shools, and start there. Do you have any other suggestions, as far as direction? Do you have a feel for the type of content that would be wanted? Scores, statistics, current rosters, etc?

Thanks again.Digitalsports (talk) 00:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I have no clue about the content part that they would be interested in. There may be some points which we would not need (per WP:NOT e.g. no guesses about future events, etc.), for the rest, I guess that certain clubs you might cover might need some expansion, where your link could be of interest.

When you add the link a new report will be generated, until you are specifically whitelisted. The same would go for users with a similar username (e.g. a username like 'DigSpo' would also generate an alert). I am keeping an eye on the report, a conflict of interest does not have to be a problem, as long as it gets handled appropriate.

Another project may be something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports. Thanks for this discussion. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I've contacted both WikiProjects, and have made some traction with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools and have reached out to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Maryland project, with the hope of contributing to articles listed as "Maryland-school-stub". I'm hoping the combination of adding content, adding citations, and providing external links to specific school/team pages will add value. Thoughts? Digitalsports (talk) 15:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts? Hmm, I am not connected to any of those wikiprojects, but I am sure I will see you around there. I am waiting to hear more on what comes back from the projects. Regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:56, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Very good. Thanks for your help. Digitalsports (talk) 16:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Civertan

Dear Dirk, I will add just my licenced links, nothing else. Please let us do this. Thank You, Civertan (talk) 10:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Please follow our policies and guidelines, talk to a wikiproject or discuss external link-additions first on talkpages. They MAY be wanted, but for now it looks like you are only pushing an agenda, trying to traffic people to your site. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Finviz

Dear Dirk,

Since the finviz.com site is 100% free to all users, offers no ads, and is fully related to the articles I was adding external links to (see the similiar "yahoo screener" in external links) I would like to ask you to delist us. After my ban, there remained 1 link on our site, and that's why i believed just the number of links was the problem, not the content. The last link I added was 31.1 and do not know what exactly the 'still spamming' 4.2. from A.B. meant, and the following blacklist. If you could please delist us, I will be grateful.

Thank You, Ivan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.216.227.34 (talk) 18:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The site-owner received (and ignored) 3 warnings + a block through 29 January. On 30 January I listed the problem on the WikiProject Spam talk page. Several days later, I noted that the user had spammed yet again since the WikiProject Spam listing and recommended blacklisting. This is the first time the user has even responded to our comments and requests.

It appears this user only responds to blacklisting. I'd leave his domain on the list. This is too bad, since it looks like a nice site; if our regular editors ask, we can always revisit the blacklisting.

Thanks for helping me today, Dirk. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Dirk and A.B,

As for the first warnings, I was in a hurry and really didn't notice them, the links I edited were posted so I couldn't have thought of any problem. When the ban came, I realized there is an issue with those 20+ external links, not the actual link, since one remained. After the ban expired, I added an external link to one article, and got blacklisted without any particular warnings or explanations of what is and is not allowed. I'm sorry for the first spam. The only reason I'm asking for delisting is SEO.

Thanks Ivan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.216.227.34 (talk) 22:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand that you were in a hurry, you've revieced a couple of warnings, and ignored them. You've had your chance to react to the warnings and to a block, something you did not do. I also expect that when you added your link as an IP, you got the warning "Your edit includes new external links. These may be much welcomed links to references. Please note that the nofollow HTML attribute is applied to external links in Wikipedia, instructing search engines to ignore these links when computing page ranks. For information on our standards for adding links, please see our External links Guideline."; which you also ignored. Please understand that we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm. You can request whitelisting at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, but you will need support of established wikipedia editors who endorse your request (you might first want to contact an appropriate Wikiproject to see if the links are really wanted, see the list here: Wikipedia:WikiProject). Hope this explains! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Two questions re: COIBot

I added a new article Tommy Thomas (sheriff), and I used a cited reference from the houstontx.gov domain, not thinking there was anything wrong with that. Within 24 hours, COIBot linked that article from Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/houstontx.gov and Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/COIReports/2008, Jan 25, with my user name mentioned in those listings. I revised the article to remove the offending links to houstontx.gov, but the COIBot links still exist.

1. Does COIBot ever clean up its links (by removing obsolete ones), or must human do it manually (and if so, who will do it)?

2. Why is the domain houstontx.gov even on the COIBot offender's list in the first place? That domain is used by the City of Houston for information to the citizenry. If that domain is being used for spamming purposes, then I as a Houston taxpayer should take up the issue with City Council. Please provide me with evidence of such spamming. Thanks.

-- Art Smart (talk) 15:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I see, this is a case of 'mistaken overlap'. It is on the list because it 'caught' someone with a username with great similarity to the domain-name ("en:user:HoustonRocks <-> houstontx.gov (63.8%/63.8%/40.7% - calculated overlap HoustonRocks <-> houstontx.gov)", and therefore started monitoring. Though technically correct, completely unnecessery. I have whitelisted you, user:HoustonRocks and User:Houstonazn against the link, and have removed from the monitor list. I don't see any proof of spamming, editing with a conflict of interest or other inappropriate use concerning this link. It gets used by a variety of users, so I don't think there is anything to worry about here.

There is no 'mechanism' for cleaning up these records, they are just a on-wiki record of something that is available anyway (in the edit-histories of the pages edited). I do however sometimes delete obsolete pages, depending on the information kept on them. A re-insertion of the link by someone with a (possible) conflict of interest would also result in recreation of the records.

Thanks for clarifying the use of the link, I am protecting the link against automonitoring, there is no need to track spamming, only possible cases of a conflict of interest will now result in a new report. Hope this helps! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the quick but very detailed response, as well as for fixing the issue. I very greatly appreciate it, as well as all your terrific efforts to keep WP spam-free. Much obliged. -- Art Smart (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks again! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

XLinkBot

Did a few things for XLinkBot. Made {{/request|0#section_name}} for logging (modified the instructions^[11]] and created archives w/instruct^[12]. Ive posted as such in the discussion section^[13]. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 15:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I saw, thanks! I hope these new functions of the bot (the on-wiki revertlist) will help to keep Wikipedia clean. Feel free to add to the revertlist! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

More "finding aid" linkspam?

Greetings. I haven't looked at the rest of this user's contribs, just reverted the two on my watchlist, but looks like another librarian? Paige Roberts (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) Katr67 (talk) 20:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I left another message for the user. Let's see if the user responds. I will add the link to the monitorlist of COIBot, just to see its use. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

COIBot Report for User Alexander Gamauf

Greetings! I am user on German Wikipedia, German Wiktionary and on Wikimedia Commons. I'm often listed as a possible spammer in

• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/diepresse.com,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/gutenberg.spiegel.de,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/uni-duesseldorf.de and
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/spiegel.de.

The reason for these linkages on the German wiktionary is citing example sentences how to use a specific word. So it does'nt make sense to put those things on the watchlists. On the other hand i understand the meaning of this COIBot. Can you put me on the global Whitelist only for the Wiki projects listed above? If not please insert my user name generally. Many greetings from Vienna (Austria). - 88.117.77.253 (talk) 18:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the clarification. I have globally whitelisted you, removed the links from the monitoring lists and protected against monitoring again. These are fine links which should be used (though for those users who do have a conflict of interest the bots will still report). Regeneration of these four reports is on the way (the bot has been commanded to do that, could take a bit of time until it finishes the queue), on these reports your name should have a strike-through (if I programmed everything correct ..).

Again, thanks for this note, relieves us of some work and makes the bots work faster in the end! Vriendelijke groet uit Cardiff. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

help please...

Hello Beetstra.

I started a user account as a fan of a company and named myself f an cycles as the company is called motor cycles. As a result I descovered that I have made the page going into a link spam context as my name is close to the company name and I put a website link to their company website, so I changed my name to use my real name to maybe help the problem?

But I see the blacklisting of the link is present still. What shall I do to help or can you help? I did mean no harm. I also uploaded an image which is incorrect logo for them and I don't know how to take it away now.

Thank you very much if you could help.

JzoJames—Preceding unsigned comment added by JzoJames (talk • contribs)

I have removed the link from the monitor list and deleted the report. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Beestra now this has helped. Much appreciated JzoJames —Preceding comment was added at 16:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

hi

Can a cool admin help a guy out? I want to add one sentence to the world of Wikipedia. But I can't. The sentence is factual, provable, reliable (I chose the New York Times version.)

Fact: Circumcision is believed to decrease a man's risk of getting HIV Fact: Circmcision is believed to INCREASE a man's risk of getting herpes and chlamydia, and some think even other STD's.

The article on "circumcision" mentions the term HIV probably 100 times (I'm not joking) and mentions "herpes" or "chlamydia" not Once.

Can a cool admin stop two guys named Avraham and Jakew (the site's dictators) from deleting my ONE sentence I want to add? Thanks here's the New York Times article... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C07E4D91F3AF931A35757C0A961958260&fta=y

I used to love Wikipedia until I wanted to add a sentence, you know? Well, thanks. 70.114.38.167 (talk) 06:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess this is typically something that you have to discuss on the talkpage of the page Talk:Circumcision. If consensus is reached there, then that sentence can be added. Though I think that this should be backed-up by an academic source. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Please, help...

Hello Beetstra,

we exchanged letters in October last year, after you (and one other editor) removed a number of external links we had put in from some artists' sites pointing to www.terminartors.com . Although we disagreed your opinion about the link being spam we instantly discontinued to put in external links. Unfortunately, if you type "www.terminartors.com" to Google the "Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/terminartors.com..." article still appears on the first page as a hit. We would really appreciate if you helped us in this respect by deleting that article. I guess, we have now a clearer understanding about the policies on the English, lesson learned. Thank you in advance, Abenhakan. Abenhakan (talk) 21:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree that the link is not spam, it was the way you and your wife were adding the links. I think the reports do provide wikipedians who try to write an encyclopedia here with some on-hands information on how this link was used (which is available from the database anyway, and there also is an, now archived, item on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam. Earlier discussions on deletion of such reports generally result in that the records are kept, and I am inclined to follow that ruling. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Whitelisting

Please whitelist my user name of Historian 1000 for articles containing history or historic in the title. I was put on your spam list for a redirect of Prehistoric diet because of the name overlap. This, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with spam. Here is the link # 06:38:26, Fri Feb 01, 2008 - user:Historian 1000 (contribs; 1/1) scores 53.84% (U->P) & 46.66% (P->U) (ratio: 25.1%) on calculated overlap Historian 1000 <-> Prehistoric diet (Prehistoric diet - diff - COIBot UserReport) Also, would you remove the entry from the spam report. I remember reading that these were reviewed manually but this has seemingly not occurred in this case. --Historian 1000 (talk) 23:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The bot is not only for spam, it attempts to catch edits which may be in conflict with policies or guidelines. But indeed, in your case there is nothing of that, pure accidental overlap. I have whitelisted you completely, as your username will create alerts for everything relating to history. Thanks for the remark! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

whitelisting

Please provide whitelisting on www.micro-dots.org. Appears user name conflict error occured. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.199.184 (talk) 22:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, not so sure. There seems to be one editor who only adds this link, and judging the few edits, this may very well be promotional in nature (it links to a company homepage, not to a third-party document giving the explanation, the homepage does not state give any information, there may be documents on the server which does give more appropriate information). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Marylandartsource.com

I noticed, in the page listing links to the Hans Schuler article, that your bot recently labeled links to marylandartsource.com as "spam". That is preposterous. Marylandartsource could not be a more legitimate, noncommercial, nonprofit, public information resource. Marylandartsource.com (also .org) is a website offering public information on Maryland artists. It is maintained by and therefore carries the authority of the following institutions: the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Enoch Pratt Free Library; Johns Hopkins University; the Maryland Institute College of Art; the Maryland Historical Society; the Maryland State Department of Education; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and the Walters Art Museum [14]. If your bot is labeling links to such sources as spam, maybe the code needs to be rewritten. Or maybe you could dispense with your nifty "bots" and try actually reading articles instead. MdArtLover (talk) 21:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

No, links are not defined as spam, the bot is not defining links as spam, spam is the way links are added to wikipedia, and the bot is designed to pick up links where there are or may be concerns with the way they are added. That is also explained in the template at the top of the reports.

In this case it is a case of mistaken overlap, I have whitelisted accordingly. And please, before attacking the work that actually is performed by the people monitoring spam and similar, try keeping up with all the edits (>100 edits per minute) and external links that get added (>50 per minute), then please understand that all bots here make mistakes, and the operators do their best to minimize the damage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Sending out your bot to make nonsensical edits wasted lots of my time, and now some of yours. If the bot is this dumb, it's just a gimmick. So you "save" a dozens of minutes by plugging your bot in and let it rip - but then dozens of people have to waste 10 or 15 or 20 minutes minutes each trying to figure out the nonsense that's been done and where to leave an explanation/protest, and then composing replies with lots of links and prolix explanations. Why should I pretend to respect this absurd and irresponsible obstructionism? MdArtLover (talk) 20:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I invite you to our IRC channel to see how much true rubbish this bot catches. It is indeed unfortunate that I have to spend so much time on cleaning up true rubbish that gets added (time that I otherwise could have spent better!), and I take a couple of mistakes by my bot for granted if that results in a better encyclopedia. That is why I am actually quite happy when people tell me that it made a mistake, so I don't have to waste more time on that. The reports now contain a header which leads them quickly to the operator of the bot, and it should only take a couple of seconds to post a remark that the bot makes a mistake. I saw 2 yesterday, but days go by without mistakes. Thanks for the cooperation. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Just as a side remark, that a site contains good information, is a reliable source by a respected organisation does by no means mean that it can not be added in an inappropriate way! Companies, governments and other organisations do sometimes have a way of using wikipedia to improve the traffic to their site, even while other users are using it appropriate. One of such sites just got blacklisted because the owner just pushed it over the edge. And yes, it is unfortunate that we need hands full of tools to catch that! Again, I invite you to help us by doing it all on sight. Thanks again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Eubulides whitelist

SandyGeorgia just mentioned that I've been put on the Spam/COI list, and said it had happened to her a while back and she got whitelisted. Like SandyGeorgia, I'm editing medical pages, and apparently got put on the list because I added the following citation to two autism-related articles:

• Klin A (2006). "Autism and Asperger syndrome: an overview". Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 28 (Suppl 1): S3–11. PMID 16791390.

This article is a high-quality scientific review paper, and is referenced by Wikipedia because (unlike similar papers) it is freely readable. User:COIBot#Whitelist said that in cases like these I should strike out my name and notify you, so I struck out my name and am now asking: Can you please whitelist me? I imagine that if I got put on a Spam/COI list once by that robot, it'll happen to me again. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 22:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Confirming same; Eubulides has three featured articles, and that is a high-quality link. Can he be whitelisted? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I have whitelisted you, removed the link from monitoring (it was caught mistakenly), protected the link against automonitoring and deleted the report. Thanks for the explanation about the link, whitelisting such links makes the bot more efficient. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Beetstra! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Need Some Help, Thanks.

Hi Beestra,

I've apparently made it on the blacklist for Spamming. My intentions were not to SPAM wikipedia, but only to offer related and helpful information. I'm new to the Wikipedia game, so I think I'm more aware of the code of conduct now than I did before. I just hate being blacklisted for my ignorance, if there is anyway I can get those removed, I would definitely appreciate it. Thanks.

-Revisitingnixon—Preceding unsigned comment added by Revisitingnixon (talk • contribs)

I am not sure what link(s) you are talking about. Could you tell me exactly what links you tried to add (if they are blocked by the spam-filter, then leave out the 'http://' so they don't result in a working link)? More general, there are many places where external links are discussed, see the whole, or specific sections in: Wikipedia:External links, Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, Wikipedia:Copyright, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. If you believe the links are of interest, try discussing on the talkpage of the page you want to add the link to, or contact a wikiproject (see Wikipedia:WikiProject. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply. The report is on this URL... http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/ehow.com Can you explain if the my account has been blacklisted and how do I clear the slate in the report, because I would prefer the username to not appear on google searches. Sorry for the inconvenience as I said I'm new to the wikipedia game, so I'll be careful next time. Thanks.- Revisitingnixon

Not sure if you got my last comment

Thanks for the prompt reply. The report is on this URL... http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/ehow.com Can you explain if the my account has been blacklisted and how do I clear the slate in the report, because I would prefer the username to not appear on google searches. Sorry for the inconvenience as I said I'm new to the wikipedia game, so I'll be careful next time. Thanks.- Revisitingnixon

Retrieved from "http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=User_talk:Beetstra" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revisitingnixon (talk • contribs) 07:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I see, I thought it was that site. Well, I see that your main contributions are adding external links (to different sections), and you seem to be involved in the ehow.com sites (see diff). You do seem to have a conflict of interest here, and since we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm.

Links to ehow.com are often in violation of one or more of our policies and or guidelines, per the list I linked above (again: Wikipedia:External links, Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, Wikipedia:Copyright, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not). That is why we are monitoring all additions of that site, and many of them get either blacklisted on on automatic revert lists (note: it does not mean that the site is spam, but that there are often concerns with who and with the way it gets added).

If you however believe that the links do add to the pages, then I suggest that you discuss the addition on the talkpages (per all of the linked policies and guidelines), and let uninvolved, established editors add the site if consensus says it should be linked. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Beetstra/Chemicals

Hi. I have recently been granted a bot account for User:Comics-awb. I have stumbled across your page and notice the script you have there for chemistry article clean up. I hadn't realised it was possible to create such scripts for awb, but am now interested in doing something similar for comics articles. I'm not asking you to write a script for me, but just looking for pointers on how to start and where to begin. Is there a primer or an annotated guide somewhere? Apologies if I am missing something obvious. Appreciate any pointers you can provide. Hiding T 14:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I have written everything myself with some extensive knowledge of regex. AWB can do a lot, it is just a matter of finding the right sequence to do things, and to find proper ways of excluding certain things. Some small changes need a couple of find-and-replace actions.

I am not sure what you want to try, are you planning to replacing boxes with new boxes? Then this is about the sequence to use for that:

• First get rid of 'rubbish'.
• Replace error-prone stuff with something to protect it.
• Then try to find the fields with regexes, and place them inbetween tags which are all similar in structure (using e.g. hidden tags: <!-- start tag in level 1 --> and <!-- end tag in level 1-->).
• Then you can 'sort' the levels by finding structures as <!-- start tag in level 2-->(data part 1)<!-- end tag in level 2 --><!-- start tag in level 1 -->(data part 2)<!-- end tag in level 1 --> and replace that with <!-- start tag in level 1-->(data part 2)<!-- end tag in level 1 --><!-- start tag in level 2 -->(data part 1)<!-- end tag in level 2 -->. If you repeat that action often enough it results in the data being sorted appropriately.
• Then you can again remove the tag-parts .. <!-- end tag in level 1 --><!-- start tag in level 2 --> is the end of block 1 and beginning of block 2; <!-- end tag in level 3 --><!-- start tag in level 3 --> is just a separator in datablock 3.
• Replace the protected stuff back.

Remember that this is all far from fool-proof. It has to be run in either by hand, edit by edit, carefully checking. Or you need a team (that was the way this script was run in the end) that checks behind every bot-edit. Many go without error, but every now and then there is another thing that makes things fail (you can't imagine what formatting some editors add to some fields).

Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, we're looking at getting stuff tagged for work groups within wiki-project comics, and I'm trying to work out a way of catching new ones once the first run has been done. Thanks for the tips, though, it's given me a place to start. Hiding T 17:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Link History Page

Is there a way to get my history removed from this page? My username is showing up on the site, and it's a username I use on other sites. I was wondering if I can get a clean slate. The URL in question is here... http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/ehow.com Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revisitingnixon (talk • contribs) 20:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Your edits are still here in the history of the server, there is no way to remove those, and they can just as easily be retrieved (see e.g. this link and this link). Seen your history with the ehow.com links, I am reluctant to whitelist you there, there were/are concerns with those edits. You were notified on the 31st of October, just after your first 2 edits that there were concerns with your edits, and still you continued and recieved more warnings. If you manage to remove your edits from wikipedia, then indeed it is fair to also remove them from the database, but I think that oversight will not do that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

It was thoughtful of you to revert the 666 reference in Mr. Deeds, but someone has already undone your good deed (pun), citing it as being "nonsense." That's where the YouTube link was important; it's not nonsense, it's really there.

Have you ever seen anyone mention this symbol in any discussion of Mr. Deeds? I haven't, either, and this may be a good example why. Wikipedia users always delete things they don't like, but in this case the proof of its validity was given, that being the YouTube clip. Have you watched it? I have, the symbol 666 can be seen at exactly 2:20. I think the YouTube link and the reference should be put back into the Mr. Deeds article and then it should be page protected. Can you do that?

What to do?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.146.249 (talk • contribs)

Youtube is inappropriate there, it is not reliable (is the movie original, is it a proper interpretation of what can be seen, and I hope the movie on Youtube is not copyvio). Please refer to the original movie, and give a reference from a reliable source to back up the claim. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. The location symbol is found on VHS and DVD copies of the original movie; is that acceptable? The location can be referenced on those. And, are movie goers reliable sources here? You'll notice that the person who reverted your revert on Mr. Deeds states that he is a reliable source. I don't think that term applies to him anymore.

This is obviously an important discovery, in light of the McCarthyism and use of subliminal suggestion that came from the era that Mr. Deeds was made. How are you going to end this censorship of Mr. Deeds? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.146.249 (talk) 14:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess it is time to start a discussion on the talkpage. The edit does not go without controversy apparently, so it is time to discuss it first. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like there was mention already made on the "Discussion" page. No one's responded, it's discussion in name only. And that's the thing about Wikipedia admin, they just perfunctorily delete anything that displeases them whether it's truthful or not. That type of censorship is true vandalism at times, the crime not the input from your Wikipedia users. I think the chopping block of the other involved admin speaks this rather well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.146.249 (talk) 15:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, if it is unreferenced, and you can't find appropriate sources to back it up, then yes, then waiting for a positive response on the talkpage is maybe appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I could call the studio and ask someone there, that'd be a reference. But I've watched the YouTube video, and have seen the same symbol in the movies I've rented. So, I know I'm a reference, but not an important one. But now Bzuk has place a block threat on my anon user page warning me off any more "vandalism." So, see how censorship works? And if I do contact the studio, they could also cut out the scene from future DVD releases. They'll have gotten away with something again.

Alright, I'll call the studio and get the person's name who answers the phone. And I'll post it here. Will that be a reference? But my guess is this is how a Pulitzer fight starts. How many Pulitzer Prizes have been lost and deleted by censors like Bzuk? Have you ever seen anyone talk anywhere at all about the 666 symbol in Mr. Deeds? Could that have been used one way or another in all of the Hollywood blacklisting wars? Well, not now!--76.212.146.249 (talk) 16:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Bee, this is the image: thumb|screenshot This is the contentious frame that the editor has claimed is a satanic image with "666". If you believe that – first of all, it is upside down doodles that look more like "999" and what about the "333" symbol in the hair? FWIW, I didn't think the "666" claim warranted anything other than a removal as it was nonsensical. However, the wholly inappropriate comments left on the talk pages was my real concern. Bzuk (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC).

And I'd like to ask the obvious question that seems to be missed a lot: Yes, that's 999 as the picture sits. But is the doodle a face? Then the mouth is English writing that is upside down. If you spin the doodle around, it's in English, the last word "Hall" with more strings of numbers after it. And then, what do you find? The 999 symbol is now 666! Why hasn't anyone else mentioned this, I'd like to ask? And what is nonsensical about this? It's an easy observation. And it's right there for anyone to see. I didn't make the movie, I don't think any of these Wikipedia admins made it, so what's the beef? There it is in the image Bzuk posted here, plain as day. This has turned into a argument worse than the one they had on the Criticism of Mormonism page, where they talked about the thing in 3 Nephi 11:11. All that got deleted, too, even though the typo was there for all to see. Some things can't be denied, for all of admin's efforts.

--76.248.229.104 (talk) 02:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear anonymous. As far as I see this now, you are the only one claiming this, do you have any sources (outside wikipedia) to back up your interpretations (from reliable sources, of course)?? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear Dirk Beetstra: Yes, it seems that I am the only one here who sees that 999 is 666 upside down. I thought any grade schooler could see that, as when you knock your homework off of your desk and bend down to pick it up, you notice that 9's are simply 6's upside down. But what an effort made by Wikipedia to discredit this! 6's aren't 9's here! Sideways lower case m's aren't 3's! And you were the only admin that was lenient towards this, but now by your dear john post, I see that you have had an about face.

So, since no Wikipedian will credit their own eyes as reliable sources, and since they say that mine are not reliable sources (hence eliciting the remark that no Wikipedia admin would ever be my attorney or representative in any matter, life or death or traffic ticket, which is not a rude or untoward statement at all), I will find your admins a reliable source. I'll get right on it, and I'll get back to you later. Then we will replace the 666 reference on the movie's Wiki page.

And in the meantime, please post your interpretation of what the handwriting is where the doodle's mouth would be. The last word is "Hall," the numbers "67440" or something. And please verify the writing's appearance. Is it upside down in your perception, is it upside down as the picture appears to the movie goer, or is it right side up? Don't you agree that this is very important? Does this blast Bzuk's 999 contention right off of your monitor?

When I get my Pulitzer I'll post it here. Let's see if Bzuk can figure out if it's right side up or not.--76.244.162.118 (talk) 15:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Image removed as it is prohibited from use outside of mainspace. Discussion continues on the "talk page" of the article. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 17:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC).

Dear D. Beetstra: Bzuk himself acknowledges that he has made an error on Wikipedia by posting the 666 image on your talk page. He says in the above post that he was prohibited from posting it here as it's "outside of mainspace." If it was outside of mainspace, then why did he do that? He wasn't supposed to, or the image would still be here. Or does Bzuk continuously make mistakes on Wikipedia? Does Bzuk make up his own rules as he goes along? I think this whole matters deserves your attention, as Bzuk appears to be concealing evidence of a great discovery. And Bzuk continues his allegations of talk page abuse on the movie site. There are no posts on Bzuk's talk page, as he deletes everything he finds objectionable. You are gracious enough to allow intelligent discussion on your page, I ask you not to submit to Bzuk's frivolous accusations any longer. His above posting and removal prove his inconsistency with Truth, Justice, and The American Way.--76.244.162.118 (talk) 18:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Add to spam/COI list

Beetstra, can you have a look at Gnif global (talk · contribs)'s contribs, GNIF Brain Blogger, Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation and add these two links to the spam list? http://www.brainblogger.com and http://www.nutritionj.com/content/7/1/2 (both published by GNIF, see http://brainblogger.com/about/) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks a bit spammy, indeed. I have inserted them into COIBot, lets monitor. It looks like a real journal, but seems to be quite COI. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm concerned that the authors of the Nutrition journal article are GNIF, and I'm not sure if it's a peer-reviewed journal; checking with others. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure either, it's articles do have a doi, which suggests it is official. Still, only adding links to their own site would also be a WP:SPAM/WP:COI-violation. It feels indeed like the account is either Shaheen Lakhan or Ray McIntyre. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep, seems likely. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Did I put the right tag at Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation‎? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine! I removed some external links from the body, those should be internal links. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:25, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

gtj.org.uk links

Hi Dirk

Thanks for the message regarding the addition of external links to Wikipedia. Please accept my apologies - I believed that the links in question would be beneficial to Wikipedia as well as the Gathering the Jewels project in that they improve the overall user experience. Gathering the Jewels is public-funded and it aims to bring together digital images of items of historical and cultural interest from museums, libraries and archives across Wales. It is not commercial, its targets are not based on stats and the website's google ratings are satisfactory. Of course, we are always looking to bring new users to our site, but the primary aims are merely to raise awareness and promote the heritage and culture of Wales and to be a valuable learning resource to internet users. Unfortunately, the copyright agreement does not allow the use of images on other sites. As the pages linked were directly relevant to the articles on Wikipedia and that the images are not to be found elsewhere on Wikipedia, I didn't believe that there would be any objection to their inclusion.

Kind regards Dafydd (Culturenut), 17:10 22 February 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Culturenut (talk • contribs) 17:10, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Dafydd. Thanks for the remarks. The problem is that you seem to have a conflict of interest, which discourages adding those links yourself. Too bad you can't upload the images, but that happens more often. I guess you could find yourself a suitable wikiproject, and see what they suggest. If they endorse your link-additions, and you make sure that you make that clear (e.g. on your userpage), and do that responsibly (also help where possible with content, take care that there are not too many links on a page (see WP:NOT#REPOSITORY), then I think this issue is resolved. Give me a shout when there are some positive sounds from an appropriate wikiproject, then I can remove the links from watchlists, and whitelist you, our bots now will alert us on every addition. Hope to see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

(P.S. to sign, end your remark (on talkpages only!) with four tildes (like ~~~~), when you save the page, it will automatically convert to your signature, with a date, and Sinebot will leave you alone. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC))

Thanks for your help, Dirk.Culturenut (talk) 18:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there anyway to redeem myself?

Hi,

Sorry, if it seemed like I was intentionally trying to break the code of conduct, but like I said I'm new to the whole Wikipedia thing. I wasn't sure I got notifications or warnings about my activity. If I had known, then I would've stopped immediately. If there is anyway I can redeem myself, it would be nice to know because I would like to avoid being blacklisted for something I wasn't aware of. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revisitingnixon (talk • contribs) 00:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Ehow.com will remain on the appropriate lists, as its use is very often inappropriate (though it can be used appropriate, so it will probably not go onto Mediawiki:Spam-blacklist. I am sorry, but ehow is a type of site which gets very often used inappropriate, so monitoring of this link and careful inspection of each addition will be necessery. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Please could you whitelist ... academic at work!

Dear Beestra

I wonder if you would consider whitelisting my domain, alastairmcintosh.com . I am a campaigning academic (registered with Wikipedia as Alastair McIntosh) and a donor to the cause ... the links I placed recently are to rare 3rd party material I've posted to my site, but which now come up tops on Google when I search for them as your system has flagged them up as potentially spam. See http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/alastairmcintosh.com . As you will be able to see, these are not spam, and I'll be adding more so it would be great if in future they don't Google up as being dodgy.

Many thanks, Alastair McIntosh —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alastair McIntosh (talk • contribs) 15:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Still, you have a conflict of interest, see conflict of interest. It is not the site that is spam, and that is not what the bot is programmed to catch, the bot is programmed to catch edits and link-additions which are or may be in conflict with one or more of our policies of guidelines. I have looked through your contributions for now, and they all seem to be involving yourself (for link-additions, see 'What wikipedia is not' policy, not a repository section, external links guideline and spam guideline, all of which have parts pertaining to such edits). I suggest you read the cited conflict of interest guideline, and some other policies and guidelines. When you want to perform edits which may be questionable with regard to these policies and guidelines, please discuss on talkpages and let established, uninvolved editors perform the edits. Another place to start discussing is on one or more appropriate wikiprojects, see Wikipedia:WikiProject. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

trying to identify 66.96.132.105

I have a website being hosted by iPowerWeb at the present time, but was originally with a different company. I have been unable to identify who has the registration for my domain name, but iPower has the url 66.96.132.105 associated with whomever it is. I do not know why the url is listed on your COI, nor do I really care. I just want to know who they are so that I can transfer my registration.

I would appreciate hearing from you.

Joseph Porter jpp@jpporter.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.233.71.41 (talk) 08:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you would have to contact iPowerWeb for that, I don't know anything about those things. I know we have only one report on an url hosted by that site (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/centurionsafes.com and Special:Linksearch/66.96.132.105), the IP is not on our monitorlisting or whatever. Maybe some searches can be of interest: domaintools, aboutus, domainsdb and/or alexa. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Image issue

Thanks Dirk, I left it on an admin's page for a short while but he made no response so I "hedged my bet" to leave it up. Thanks for clearing up the issue. FWIW, the consensus from admins is WP:DNFT. Bzuk (talk) 13:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC).

Sounds good, I will keep an eye open. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Image:Colonel Green.jpg

It has always been clear since 2005 that the image [[15]]can be used for fair use under the Fair Use Doctrine Laws., and U.S. Laws, fair use is especially important to protect uses a copyright holder may not even approve of, such as criticism or parodies. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 US 569 (1994) on these pages in particular at Wikipeada: Colonel Phillip Green in the classic Star Trek episode The Savage Curtain. User:Cathytreks 07:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but the image has to state that, see WP:NFCC #10 .. the rationale as it is there now is ambiguous, and it also contains a display on a talkpage, which is in violation of WP:NFCC #9 .. I am sorry, you can continue to ignore those points, but it may be easier to just repair it. Provide a link to the page where it is allowed to display the image on, and remove any displaying from talkpages. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, and please take into account all of the evidences and information I provided to Wiki to back up the continued fair use of this image, it is most important, It was not in violation of WP:NFCC #9 previously, there must have been some unintentional error, I will correct this, right away. User:Cathytreks

No, I think that happened when you added the link to your talkpage, without a trailing ':'. NFCC is quite strict, and at the moment quite strictly enforced. It has to be very clear where and how it can be displayed, otherwise the bot will react (and as an uninvolved human, I could only guess where you meant it to be displayed (guess right, though), but that is not good enough. Hope this explains, see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! best wishes. User_Talk:Cathytreks —Preceding comment was added at 13:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Chemical Database

Hi Beetstra,

Do you know of The Chemical Thesaurus Reaction chemistry database?

ChemThes

I am looking to take this project to the next stage.

One obvious possibility would be to donate the database to (and merge with) Wikipedia.

This would not be a huge amount of work, and it would dramatically increase the functionality of the Wikipedia chemistry project.

To me, it seems like an obvious thing to do.

What do you think?

If you think it is a good idea, how would I/we go about it?

Mark Leach

mark@meta-synthesis.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.60.50 (talk) 16:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I would advise you to first contact the wikiproject on chemistry or chemicals, here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry or Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals. We are there discussing merging/linking/working with other databases, I guess your input there could also be of interest there. I will respond further when I am back from holiday. Thanks. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 18:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Judit25

Hi. I noticed you had questioned whether User:212.137.62.186 was an IP sock of User:Judit25, presumably based on the tendency to add external links to STV articles. I thought you might be interested to know that User:Walliver, whom I caught adding a MySpace band to various articles, also has a similar tendency. --Sturm 14:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks similar. Did I (or someone else) already report this to WT:WPSPAM? Otherwise I will have a look next week when I am back. Thanks! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 19:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Not that I know. I just reverted and warned. Cheers. --Sturm 19:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I will now. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 19:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Note to self

See Meta! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 13:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Spam link report - blacklist removal assistance

Hi,

Please could you help. I have recently joined the Wikipedia community and after adding some, what I thought were relevent, links to articles, it seems as though the domain of these links has been added to your spam black list

I had absolutely no intention of spamming Wikipedia. I just felt that the articles, images and videos shown on the linked pages might be relevent to the projects they were added to to help readers gain a better understanding of their technical nature.

The site contains genuine technical information and resouces for some of the articles featured in wikipedia. I note that another user attempted to add one of the links to another article and subsequently he has added it to the spam whitelist.

There is also the odd link to pages featured on www.bennettmg.co.uk which other users have added to articles which are now out of date. As the domain is blocked, I am unable to update these links to point to the correct place.

Please could you advise on how the domain www.bennettmg.co.uk can be removed from your spam blacklist?

I have re-read your policy on external links and I am now fully clear in terms of what is and isn't accepted on Wikipedia.

Respectfully,

L —Preceding unsigned comment added by LisaInig (talk • contribs) 12:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I see that you are one of the accounts mentioned there. As the reports are genuine reports about the use of this link, and the info is available from the mediawiki servers anyway. There seems indeed to be a request for whitelisting, but there is not much response, and there it has not actually been whitelisted (it would be more correct to request removal from the blacklist, though)

My advice, contact an appropriate wikiproject, explain the situation, and ask if they can assist in removal from the blacklist. As an involved editor the chances are very low that it gets removed on your request (in general these requests are only granted when established editors perform them).

The report COIBot generates only shows the use, and by whom it gets used. When appropriate it will be removed from monitorlisting there so that no new reports will be generated. Also before that happens I would like to see appropriate use by uninvolved editors, and the involved editors to perform appropriate edits. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your reply. I appreciate you taking the time to clarify this for me. LisaInig (talk) 13:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Whitelisting

Hello Beetstra can you assist me with obtaining a whitelisting or explain how to go about taking care of that. Felix the Hurricane (talk) 21:24, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I got it dirk. All done--Hu12 (talk) 23:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Marylandartsource.com

Request whitelisting for marylandartsource.com. Also request termination of this bot. If it makes errors like this, it's worse than useless. Stop wasting people's time, forcing them to undo idiotic edits like this. MdArtLover (talk) 21:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As I already answered earlier to this, it may now have 'wasted' some of your time .. it certainly does save a lot of time with all the good edits it does. Termination not considered. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Bear Creek High article

Page protection? I'm wondering the same thing! My edits ARE VERY relevant to what is being discussed and it keeps getting deleted! Even if a rule is inadvertantly being violated, I am still completely within my rights due to the "Ignore all rules" rule. You CAN'T discuss "Historical problems" at Bear Creek High without discussing the atrocities that Chris went through and the action that is being taken in the status quo because of it. What nefarious motivation do YOU have for wanting this swept under the rug?

-- RD

Page protection is not to keep info out of a page, but to force people to discuss. We are not a soapbox. You are using a questionable style (see WP:MOS) with questionable sources (see WP:RS), and shift IP to run around WP:3RR. Page protection seems fine, it gives you the possibility to discuss and to come to a version that is not only endorsed by you, but by a wider community. We are writing an encyclopedia here. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of entire collection of external links re: "Shawn Carpenter"

I was disappointed to see that you decided to delete the entire collection of external links for the "Shawn Carpenter" entry. I completely agree with your comment that Wikipedia was never intended to be a repository for collections of links. Because of all of the recent (last couple of years) attention devoted to alleged state-sponsored cyber warfare (i.e. Estonia, PRC), I believe some of the users have gotten a bit carried away with the external links. Many of the links that you deleted, however, refer to reliable media reporting, government sources, and other references completely relevant to the entry. I believe that if used correctly, they can enhance the experience for Wikipedia users. In this particular case, it obviously got out of hand (external links) due to the regular contributors adding links willy nilly without discussion. At your convenience, would it be possible for you to review the deleted links at restore those that you deem reliable and appropriate for the entry? BTW, thanks for the gift of time and hard work that you and other Wikipedia admins contribute.Packethead1 (talk) 17:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I have moved the links to the talkpage. You say here that "Many of the links that you deleted, however, refer to reliable media reporting, government sources, and other references completely relevant to the entry". I that case, please review the citation guideline and the footnotes guideline, use the once that actually attribute a certain entry as a reference. That there are documents out there that are suitable does not mean that we have to link to all of them. As I said, we are not a repository or directory. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Valentines Mansion

Dear Beetstra: Not sure I understand this at all. However, I placed a link on wikipedia to the Valentines Mansion website. This seems to have triggered your bot. But I'm completeley in the dark as to what this might mean. What have I done wrong? Please advise. Kind regards Quartic (talk) 19:19, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I am not sure what you refer to. I see that you are on two COIBot reports in the bottom list (all use of a link), in one case it refers to a link with the word 'valen' in it, which got picked up wrongly by the bot due to an completely unrelated edit (I have deleted the report), and in the other report has been generated since there has been some spamming of 'default.asp' (as domain), and we are monitoring that part (I actually should manually alter that monitoring reason). I leave that report as I see quickly there are some users who use that link quite often, it may be that it is a very useful link, but I'd have to look into that further.

The appearance of a name in those lists does not mean anything .. it is just an overview of the use of a link as there is or appears to be a reason to collect that information. It does not mean that you have done anything wrong, it is only that you are a user that uses that link. If there are serious issues with that link, your appearance there may just tell us that there is serious use of the link as well (as goes for both of the two linkreports your name is on). All in all, nothing to worry about. Happy editing, hope to see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of User:Werdnabot page

Would you mind if I redirected this to User:Shadowbot3, since this is now running the tasks? Tim Vickers (talk) 04:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Or is supposed to be, reading that bot's page. Hmm. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Heh, no, I would not. I deleted the page on Werdna's request, the User:Shadow1's bots are also down now, Shadow has resigned. The only reasonable redirect would be to Misza's bot .. Also that would be fine with me. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding editing on "Cantonese cuisine" page?

Before you make any edit on the page "Cantonese cuisine", could you please first discuss with subject expert and other major contributors, such as User:Benjwong? Also, please specify the reason/summary as a courtesy as for why you are making such changes? This will be very helpful to other fellow wp users. 63.166.226.83 (talk) 22:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The reason I have reverted your edits is the inclusion of the link to a wiki on chinatravelguide.com (on which you are an active editor), in combination with e.g. this edit, in which you introduce two 'facts' (which don't have a reference to a reliable source), and the link, where the link is to a page on which you personally add data. Please review the conflict of interest guideline, the external link guideline, the spam guideline, the what wikipedia is not policy, the original research guidelines, the reliable sources guideline, and maybe other policies and guidelines as well. Another edit by you that I reverted is this edit. I am sorry, but the sentence "The best time to visit is summer. Remember to watch the spectacular views of the sunset on the desert. When visiting, you should bring the glasses and a first-aid kits for sand storms." is far from encyclopedic, and again, it includes the link (the wikipage on the link contains the same sentences, but it does not attribute it .. at all).

We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm to chinatravelguide. For your information, chinatravelguide.com has now been placed on a revertlist, it is clear from the reports, that it is only used by IP editors, and most of the edits are reverted by experienced editors. That leads to the conclusion that it should not be used as a source or an external link. It feels strongly like spamming. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I see you already met the bot that operates on the revertlist. You may also be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/chinatravelguide.com. Note that there are only IP editors, and one account which has a clear confict of interest. Also, on Cantonese cuisine you have now been reverted by 3 different editors. Though you are discussing on the talkpage, I do not see consensus for the use of this link (as an external link, nor as a reference), and I don't see references for the statement, e.g. to the proceedings of a language institute, or something similar. The link to Discovery Channel may be useful, though a bit more research should be performed, it is still unclear where the saying actually comes from, originally. It still may be a western slur. Hope to hear more. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm very confused, and don't quite know what you were referring to for all the pages. Maybe I should log in, but this IP is shared by over 50,000 users. But in any case, it's better to specify the reason (spam, non-encyclopedia, or whatever). 63.166.226.83 (talk) 22:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should indeed log-in, that might things clearer. In this case there were several concerns after reviewing your latest edits, which prompted me to use the administrators rollback tool. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I just spent some time on your earlier posts, trying to understand what you were talking about.

Disclosure: I'm a relatively new avid reader of both wp and ChinaTravelGuide (I think it's a commercial-free, non-profit wiki like wp), but I rarely write (wrote only in several occassions on either sites, and I am new to wiki).

Honestly I appreicate your time to wp, but your sword-wielding at the wp gate is quite intimidating, and let me feel I was trying to get into your private residence :)

I'm curious about how many spam links ChinaTravelGuide has on wp. Do other travel wiki sites have links on wp, and how many? Can you let me know how I can find it (I'm a newbie on wiki), or can you use your tool to find it? For the one I edited Cantonese cuisine, I truely believe the external link [16] is appropriate (please verify the two articles). I consider myself as a semi subject expert on this topic, and I used this particular external link as the reference for the editing on wp. I'm not clear about what you (your bot?) did. And don't understand why you need a bot (wp is for human, and policed by human, right?) And I feel I'm very sorry if you (your bot) has caused damage to the ChinaTravelGuide community because of my one link.

As a newbie's observation (pls pardon my ignorance), wouldn't it be easy for a malicious user to use you to remove all the specific links? 63.166.226.83 (talk) 17:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, you edit on both, which gives you an air of having a conflict of interest. Then there is the problem that the wiki you link to is not a reliable source, it can be a resource for more info. Thirdly, some of your edits include information which is certainly not encyclopedic (as I quoted earlier, "The best time to visit is summer. Remember to watch the spectacular views of the sunset on the desert. When visiting, you should bring the glasses and a first-aid kits for sand storms.", that is an opinion and an advert, not suitable for this wikipedia). Wikis, especially relatively new ones, are also discouraged by Wikipedia:External links (guideline). All in all, I advice you to discuss on the appropriate talkpages, or find an appropriate wikiproject (china, chinese cuisine .. see Wikipedia:WikiProjects). That is also what I adviced the maintainer of the site (who also has an account here) to do. Don't revert when established editors have concerns, then discuss until clear consensus.

I don't have direct access to statistics, you can have a look at Special:Linksearch and see what other sites are linked (though be careful, those statistics don't say everything).

This wiki is so huge, that humans only can't check it all, it needs the help of bots (which are still controlled by humans) to help.

For the record, I did not write the one you quoted ("The best time to visit ..."). As I said, I consider myself as semi subject expert, and I verified and believe the particular external link on Cantonese cuisine is reliable (again you can ask other subject expert, and be the judge). Thx for the explanation of the bot, which I now think makse sense, but maybe we should also humanly verify after the bot results. In this case, I'm not sure if we've accidentally punished the good guys. 63.166.226.83 (talk) 18:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

No, not on that wiki, but one this end it gets added. It may very well be OK on chinatravelguide.com (I don't know the policies and guidelines there), I am only concerned with this side, where these edits, and probably the links to that wiki, are not suitable. For that part of the statistics, for as far as I have monitored (for this link my first record is on December 28, 2007), all except one edit were by IP accounts (none of which I think are 'established editors' I believe), and one account (User:ChinaTravelGuide), see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/chinatravelguide.com. I guess all these should be pointed to our policies and guidelines, and that is exactly what User:XLinkBot is doing. Once established editors start using the site, or it gets acknowledged as a good site by an appropriate wikiproject we can rediscuss this (and consider removing it from an autorevert list). Hope this explains! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This side? You mean wikipedia? That's what I meant. I did not edit the one you quoted ("The best time to visit ...") on wp, and also other ones, like "Discovery channel" (?)... Out of curiosity, I used Special:Linksearch (thx for letting me know), and tried *.chinatravelguide.com, which returned 11 links; *.wikihow.com looks like returned over 300 links, and also *.wikitravel.org, which returned over 1000 links. I don't think these links are spam, but they do not appears to be more relevant (or encyclopediac) than the one I added (Cantonese cuisine). I suddenly have a 2nd thought about your bot's fairness and impartialness. I appreciate your time. 63.166.226.83 (talk) 19:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

this edit is performed by your IP on this wikipedia in the same time as you were performing your edits to other pages where the same link was added. Wikihow and wikitravel both are of concern, though at the moment these links are not only added by IP's whose only edits (or who have bursts of edits) concerning the same link. That is the difference, and I already said that what other links do is not a reason to insert this one. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Again thanks for the time. I respect you, and did not think your bot intentionally show the bias. I think I will quit after this one, as this will be endless. Here are my last points: it's not my IP. I think this IP and many others are shared by over 50,000 users (used to be 60k). As I said, I'm a semi Chinese cuisine expert, and I edited several Cuisine pages, and I believe they are all relevant references. But I did not edit the one Crescent_Lake as you quoted. You may want to double check [17] if they were done at the same time as my cuisine edits. Also pls understand that many people don't have the luxury of posting under an account during work time. 209.159.64.4 (talk) 22:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Hi

Two One Six Five Five ^τ _ʃ has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Am I really? Hmmmmm...that's WP:HUG for you, I suppose! =D Two One Six Five Five ^τ _ʃ 14:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of the Image of Colonel Green

Hi Beestra, after all the back and forth between us a bot went ahead and deleted the image online here since 2005, and resolved again of late, even you gave it a stamp of aproval after all the issues on it were resolved as imciably, what the heck happened????? (talk) 12:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

It looks like another admin was not satisfied with the rationale as it was on the image description. I guess you will have to ask him. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Beestra, I will be putting it back up and use the same valid and legal rational as before, sorry im not signed in, rather in a hurry to-day!...God speed, and best regards!, Cathytreks (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.41.9 (talk) 04:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the rationale got it deleted, please have a look at the non fair use rationale guideline, I guess you have to do it a bit more official way. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi BEESTRA, i DO NOT KNOW what to do, how can i put the nessisary photo screen-grab back up so that it is pleasing to you administrators, yet it is so crucial to that page. Thanks Cathy ((cathytreks)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cathytreks (talk • contribs) 18:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Gamma Phi

ok any suggestion on Gamma phi ? RealOldSchool (talk) 10:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I tossed some stuff into references (you can have a look how I did that), for the rest, I am not a specialist, I am only warning that without proper references and a proper explanation why it is notable, the article runs a good chance to be deleted in the end (I have no clue if it is notable enough, that would need another editor). Are there any newspaper items that tell something about the subject that you can use? Or are there any members of gamma phi that now have a wikipage (that would it make it almost automatically notable I think). Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for whitelisting

I'm in the report Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/everything2.com because of this diff. I see that I'm in many others because of my reverts of blanking. I'd like to be withelisted. Thanks, Cenarium (talk) 22:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Condider  Done (wow, 3800 edits in 3 months .. you have been quite active!). Thanks for the friendly notice, what do you think about everything2.com, what kind of site is this, should we be monitoring it? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Your edit count is much more impressive, more than 4000 contribs in February 2007 ! For the site, I see that it has an article on Wikipedia, Everything2 and a positive media coverage. But it's probably not a reliable source though it's in many references. I don't know, what do you mean with monitoring it ? Cenarium (talk) 16:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Monitoring means that we need to follow how and by who it gets used (due to conflict of interest, spam, or just 'it is generally rubbish' reasons). I see now that it was caught due to a 'mistake' by my bot (accidental overlap), and it is used widely (seen the number of link-additons). I am removing it from the lists. Thanks, happy editing, see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Erased again

Dear Beetstra: you erased my mention as an ufologist for chile and also someone erased "south america". In wikipedia we find so many people erasing content without reading and corroborating first. Why do you eliminate the help of others, including me as a UFO researcher? I can not understand how do you expect we could be of help for wikipedia? Best regards, Miguel Jordan (Michel), wikipedia user esiomajb1 (english) and esiomajb (spanish) Note that Iam logged in in the spanish wikipedia version but when you swicht to the english version I appear only with my IP number and not with my "Alias". It is not made intentionally! See my wikilink http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=User:Esiomajb1 and http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Esiomajb 134.2.102.192 (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, your entries are inappropriate on this wikipedia, and maybe also on other wikipedia. To point you to some of our policies and guidelines: conflict of interest, external links guideline, we are not a linkfarm nor directory. You are linking to your own blogspot, and are not providing references to reliable sources (see also the citation guideline and the footnotes guideline. Consider to discuss, and get consensus on talkpages or on an appropriate wikiproject first. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Beetstra

what is wrong with our links? they directly relate to our purpose & function. Engineer4life (talk) 22:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

They do not tell more about the subject, they only show a bot driving around. We are writing an encyclopedia here, build on reliable sources (I hope), and information. We are not writing a linkfarm, an internet directory, whatever. Moreover, the article is about the team, not about these robots, if the robot was notable, then it should have an own article, and there it could serve a purpose.

As an addition, you just persist in adding the links, while you have been warned a couple of times. WP:CONSENSUS then suggest that it is better to discuss. Apparently there are concerns, maybe it is time that established editors who are familiar with the subject have a look. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, it appears that you are connected to the subject, if that is true, could you then also review our conflict of interest guideline. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know I was warned. The bot user info said I could revert the changes if felt they were in error. I didn't know you were a real person and was making necessary corrections to errors. The videos demonstrate what we do; we are not a large organization with a multitude of responsibilities. We make robots, and if we didn't, there would be no organization. How is it against the "rules" to not show the robots that a robot team makes? And an autonomous one at that? No one is trying to throw a bunch of links on the page. They are sources for people who might want to know 1) more about the school we (presently) attend, and 2) more about the (main) competitions we compete in as these are very close connections to the organization. You then proceed to vandalize our school's wikipedia page with your "rules". You also mark our article as unreferenced though we have two very reliable references. Why are you so offended? Engineer4life (talk) 00:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not offended, those rules are based on consensus by a large number of wikipedia editors. I am not vandalising, these rules are there to write an encyclopedia, and I am making those pages follow those rules. I am sorry you are offended by that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

What is the problem? You say no external link so I made the wiki page & linked to it, but then you mark that for deletion?? I don't get it, what am I doing wrong? Engineer4life (talk) 17:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have not marked anything for deletion. That is apparently done by someone else. The tag will probably explain why it gets marked for deletion. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

And that is indeed what happened, I did not tag it. You might want to find some primary sources (that is, information on a reliable source, like a newspaper e.g.) that tells about this event, and use that as a reference. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I did that; our page even has the same news article. why is ours still labeled unreferenced? Engineer4life (talk) 17:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, oh, that was for the old one, that one can now get a different tag, as it is not unreferenced anymore. I'll change something on both. In the meantime, can you have a look at WP:FOOT, that tells you how you can tie references to statements in the text, that makes it more consistent. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

okay, I am trying. how are the references in the Jerry Sanders Creative Design Competition article now? Engineer4life (talk) 18:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC) Also, is listing sponsors of our organization against the rules...since we do have a couple of notable sponsors wouldn't it add to the organization's notability? they were previously added but then reverted by hu12 (not you) Engineer4life (talk) 18:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think the information about sponsors is notable, except maybe if you have one major one. But if you are not sure, then try discussing on the talkpage, or try to contact an appropriate wikiproject (you can find a list here: Wikipedia:WikiProject, Maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Robots exists, or something similar, and the people there are capable of helping you). Happy editing! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 11:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/candyfavorites.com ...

Hi!

I am the owner of candyFavorites,com and new to Wikipedia but it appears as if if someone is deliberately spamming wikipedia so as to get us on the Spam Blacklist.

We have been added to a few listings appropriately, ironically not be us which made the inclusion even more flaterring, but it seems as if someone has taken a similar username bcandyfavorites and is abusing the system

Please advise as to how we can correct this and also I would suggest that the user bcandyfavorites be removed as they are not, in any way, affiliated with our company

In advance, and as a loyal user and believer in wikipedia, would appreciate any help that can be provided

Regards, jon H.Prince —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonhprince (talk • contribs) 12:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the report and whitelisted the link, pending further investigation. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have reinserted a rule for this now, with a remark that this has been used for a Joe job. If the report gets recreated I will file a checkuser to see what IPs the accounts are using. Please keep me posted. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

commonpurpose.org

I've added two more domains that were cross wiki'd as well. Also turned down a whitelist request--Hu12 (talk) 15:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I endorse the refusal to remove from the blacklist. If the other two also end up being spammed again, blacklist on sight. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:16, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Actualy the way they added commonpurpose.org (org\b) also BL's commonpurpose.org.uk (I won't tell if you dont..LOL). the other does not seem to be an issue on en.--Hu12 (talk) 15:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. technically that is a glitch .. how to circumvent that, because it is wrong .. they can belong to two different companies/organisations .. so the rule should be "\bcommonpurpose\.org^\." .. interesting. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

U got mail..--Hu12 (talk) 19:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

:-) .. Answering! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

NY Times query ext links

I just stumbled across Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/query.nytimes.com, by following WhatLinksHere on a page I created. It's not real clear to me what is going on here, but my use of these links is definitely not spam, nor, I suspect, are any of the other 2500+ instances listed. The New York Times is "the newspaper of record", a fundamental news/history resource. I have no connection to the paper, but I am glad that they make their archives available. Why is this being tracked?

TIA, (and apologies for the cranky tone!) -- Mwanner | Talk 14:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

REmoved reports on nytimes.com and query.nytimes.com, bot 'blocked' for reporting or even trying to report this links. Waste of bot resources. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

We need to redo the table again ;)

Alright, I've done some testing, we can actually scan for crosswiki spam as one mysql query provided we add a few more fields.

We need to add a 'language' and a 'wiki_type' field. The former has things like 'en' etc, the latter has things like 'wikipedia', 'wikibooks', etc. Both of these should be added to the same index. ie, CREATE INDEX wikitypes ON linkwatcher_linklog (language,wiki_type). This lets us do speedy checks that the wikis are different on a link without having to do stuff with the diff.

In addition, but not required, is to make two more fields, called 'diffid' and 'oldid' where the respective numbers go.

Just so you can see something cool I did... this is the top 25 links added since we started logging to the new table, though we will have to clear it again:

+----------------------------+-------------+
| domain                     | total_links |
+----------------------------+-------------+
| uk.co.bbc.news.            |          89 | 
| org.wikipedia.en.          |          73 | 
| com.youtube.www.           |          57 | 
| de.hamburg.fhh.            |          48 | 
| de.statistik-nord.www.     |          48 | 
| il.org.inss.www.           |          44 | 
| com.google.books.          |          41 | 
| com.thepaleodiet.www.      |          40 | 
| com.allmusic.www.          |          38 | 
| com.go.espn.sports.        |          38 | 
| com.lineage2.www.          |          38 | 
| com.myspace.www.           |          30 | 
| org.scot-region-arras.www. |          30 | 
| ru.mus-info.               |          29 | 
| uk.co.guardian.www.        |          29 | 
| com.rockdetector.www.      |          28 | 
| com.4t.daleucampeon.www.   |          26 | 
| com.rsssf.www.             |          26 | 
| com.imdb.www.              |          25 | 
| com.sega.www.              |          25 | 
| org.foodsec.www.           |          25 | 
| com.devant-soi.www.        |          24 | 
| com.cnn.www.               |          23 | 
| com.msn.msnbc.www.         |          23 | 
| com.nytimes.www.           |          22 | 
+----------------------------+-------------+
25 rows in set (0.15 sec)

Especially notice the selection speed. :) —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 16:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Also ...

We need to set the table to use utf8. Especially the user column. see for example:

select user,diff, count(*) as total_links from linkwatcher_linklog GROUP BY domain,user ORDER BY total_links DESC limit 5;
+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| user           | diff                                                                                                                                                                                                                            | total_links |
+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| Orbrax         | http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=YouTube&diff=199624284&oldid=199485183                                                                                                                                                |        5761 | 
| Zyxw           | http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aviador_Carlos_Campos_Airport&diff=199597284&oldid=199394568                                                                                                                          |          55 | 
| Torsten B��tge | http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wahlkreis_S%C3%BCderelbe&diff=43932783&oldid=42679533                                                                                                                                 |          48 | 
| Torsten B��tge | http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wahlkreis_S%C3%BCderelbe&diff=43932783&oldid=42679533                                                                                                                                 |          48 | 
| Itzhak kameli  | http://he.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%96_%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%94_%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%90%D7%A1%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%98%D7%92%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D&diff=4763663&oldid=4725162&rcid=4963248 |          44 | 
+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+

—— Eagle101^{Need help?} 18:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

domain tagged by COIBot unfairly

hello. i noticed that the domain nastigraphics.com was flagged by COIBot on november 23, 2007 after it was posted to http://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Buy_Nothing_Day. the link was not spam, however, and was actually relevant to the wiki page, especially during that time period as it related to an event in late november. i edited the COIBot report for that day by adding s-tags to the entry. could you remove the entry and whitelist the URL? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stewdio (talk • contribs) 05:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the report. It was not caught directly, but we have had some problems with quite a number of sites from Jupitermedia, which all ended in graphics.com. This is unrelated, and indeed appropriate. Thanks for telling me! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)