Spam blacklist/About

Purpose

The Spam blacklist exists primarily to control widespread spamming of Wikimedia Foundation projects. It is intended as a last resort for spam which spreads across multiple projects, and which is pursued by multiple individuals or IP addresses. Before requesting blacklisting, please consider the following:

1. Can the problem be controlled by semi-protecting or protecting one or a few articles on one project? If so, please request page protection from an admin on that project.
2. Can the problem be controlled by blocking a single user on one or a few wikis? Can the problem be controlled by blocking one or a few IPs globally?
   • Keep in mind that blacklisting links which will be perpetually spammed is preferable to repeatedly using global blocking to combat spamming.
   • Open proxies should be reported to project sysops and generally blocked outright.
   • Accounts which exist solely to spam can and will be blocked indefinitely & uncontroversially on most projects.
3. Can the problem be controlled by blocking one or a few users, for a short time, to get them to engage in dialogue?
4. Can the problem be controlled by using a single project's MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist?
5. Can the problem be handled by other means? For example, on the English Wikipedia, low level spamming can be controlled by XLinkBot.

URL redirection domains will be added uncontroversially, as they provide an exploit used to bypass the blacklist and serve no useful purpose on our projects. Domains hosting malware are also added uncontroversially. Specific links to material that is hosted in violation of copyright, or complete domains where the majority of hosted material is in violation of copyright, will also be added uncontroversially. Domains hosting other legally problematic content may be blacklisted on a case-by-case basis, provided there is strong justification and consensus to do so exists.

Requests for listing

Requests for listing should include compelling evidence of the problem. Use the {{linksummary}} template at the top of your report to provide useful links & {{usersummary}} and/or {{ipsummary}} to provide useful links for involved users/IPs. Links, reports or diffs from multiple projects and multiple pages should be included. Try to follow this example.

• Proposed additions — request a link to be added to the spam blacklist
• Proposed removals — request a link to be removed from the spam blacklist
• Troubleshooting and problems — having problems editing an article, other problem with the spam blacklist, for example an incorrect regex or system malfunction. This is not for requesting removal, for that see Proposed removals.

Requests for delisting

We de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their value in support of our projects. Typically, we do not remove domains from the spam blacklist in response to site-owners' requests. Requests for whitelisting are almost universally preferred when there has been prior abuse of a domain, unless the domain has legitimate potential for wide use in support of our projects.

Requests for delisting should include compelling evidence that the original problem no longer exists or is no longer a risk. For example, a hijacked or cybersquatted domain may have been returned to its rightful owner, or a site which was being used to link copyright-violating content may have cleaned up its act.

Before requesting delisting, please familiarize yourself with the original reasons for listing the domain. Archived debates can be found by using the domain's log entry. A well-written request which directly addresses the original problems is far more likely to succeed. Vexatious requests may be speedily closed.

Helping out

Main page: Spam blacklist/Help