Talk:Spam blacklist

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WM:SPAM
SBL

The associated page is used by the MediaWiki Spam Blacklist extension, and lists regular expressions which cannot be used in URLs in any page in Wikimedia Foundation projects (as well as many external wikis). Any Meta administrator can edit the spam blacklist; either manually or with SBHandler. For more information on what the spam blacklist is for, and the processes used here, please see Spam blacklist/About.

Proposed additions: Please provide evidence of spamming on several wikis. Spam that only affects a single project should go to that project's local blacklist. Exceptions include malicious domains and URL redirector/shortener services. Please follow this format. Reports can also be submitted through SBRequest.js. Please check back after submitting your report, there could be questions regarding your request.
Proposed removals: Please check our list of requests which repeatedly get declined. Typically, we do not remove domains from the spam blacklist in response to site-owners' requests. Instead, we de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their value in support of our projects. Please consider whether requesting whitelisting on a specific wiki for a specific use is more appropriate - that is very often the case.

Other discussion: Troubleshooting and problems - If there is an error in the blacklist (i.e. a regex error) which is causing problems, please raise the issue here.; Discussion - Meta-discussion concerning the operation of the blacklist and related pages, and communication among the spam blacklist team.; #wikimedia-external-links^connect - Real-time IRC chat for co-ordination of activities related to maintenance of the blacklist.; Whitelists
There is no global whitelist, so if you are seeking a whitelisting of a url at a wiki then please address such matters via use of the respective Mediawiki talk:Spam-whitelist page at that wiki, and you should consider the use of the template {{edit protected}} or its local equivalent to get attention to your edit.

Please sign your posts with ~~~~ after your comment. This leaves a signature and timestamp so conversations are easier to follow.

Completed requests are marked as {{added}}/{{removed}} or {{declined}}, and are generally archived quickly. Additions and removals are logged · current log 2026/08.

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Projects

Information: List of all projects; Overviews; Reports; Wikimedia Embassy; Project portals; Country portals
Tools: Spam blacklist; Title blacklist; Email blacklist; Rename blacklist; Closure of wikis; Interwiki map
Requests: Permissions; Bot flags; New languages; New projects; Username changes; Translations; Speedy deletions

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snippet for logging: {{sbl-log|30939169#{{subst:anchorencode:SectionNameHere}}}}

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Proposed additions

Latest comment: 6 hours ago14 comments8 people in discussion

This section is for proposing that a website be blacklisted; add new entries at the bottom of the section, using the basic URL so that there is no link (example.com, not http://www.example.com). Provide links demonstrating widespread spamming by multiple users on multiple wikis. Completed requests will be marked as {{added}} or {{declined}} and archived.

lenzproducts.com

lenzproducts.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

Spammed 4 times, on 2 wiki so far, by 3 accounts. lp0 on fire () 14:59, 14 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Lp0 on fire:

Added NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 15:46, 14 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

homemods.info

homemods.info

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

Just found this on enwiki and on checking Spamcheck it also appears on two much smaller projects, albeit both from the same account. Harry Mitchell (talk) 20:14, 14 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@HJ Mitchell: the user who created those has advanced rights on both the wikis where they were supposedly spamming; I'm not sure why they cited that link but it probably (?) isn't spam. lp0 on fire () 20:29, 14 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Lp0 on fire Good catch. I have no idea what's going on there but neither of those pages looks appropriate. Maybe that's me applying a Wikipedia eye to another project? Ah well, not my problem I guess. Harry Mitchell (talk) 18:07, 15 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Declined Per above. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 07:12, 15 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

minderatolyesi.com

minderatolyesi.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

Spammed x-wiki and already added to some local blacklists. NDG (talk) 08:13, 17 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@NDG:

Added to Spam blacklist. NDG (talk) 08:13, 17 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Fontane Pennock content mill

psychology.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

baricboost.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

regenerated.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

fatfire.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

positivepsychology.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

positivepsychologyprogram.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

User:SephFP

(commons: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← SephFP ← logs || search)(Reports: COIBot)
(Tools: GUC | stalktoy | CA | SC | blacklist hits) (Search: Google | → links ← )

(enwiki: userpage | talk (←links) || Edits: +/- | logs ← SephFP ← logs || search)

These all belong to one person, and the sites say so themselves. psychology.com's about page: "Acquired by Seph Fontane Pennock and rebuilt from the ground up". baricboost.com's names him too and adds that he "previously founded PositivePsychology.com and currently operates Regenerated.com". regenerated.com and fatfire.com are recorded as his in Wikidata items he created himself (Q139819645, Q140313886). positivepsychologyprogram.com is the old positivepsychology.com domain and redirects to it, so there's no point doing one without the other.

He adds them here himself. His first two edits ever, in September 2014, put his domain into en:List of positive psychologists (en:Special:Diff/624515891, en:Special:Diff/624548135), and one of those links is still in the article twelve years later. On 9 May 2026 he added eight baricboost.com links across eight medical articles. Three tripped the link spam filter, all eight were reverted, and he put one back afterwards: en:Special:Diff/1353331008, en:Special:Diff/1353331116, en:Special:Diff/1353331216, en:Special:Diff/1353331402, en:Special:Diff/1353331563, en:Special:Diff/1353331738, en:Special:Diff/1353331915, en:Special:Diff/1353335242.

Then he stopped using his own account. He created a Wikidata item for psychology.com on 26 June 2026, and eleven days later the citations began, each from a new temporary account with exactly one edit to its name: en:Alzheimer's disease on 7 July (en:Special:Diff/1363030973, removed the next day as an unreliable blog post), en:Stanford prison experiment on 31 July (en:Special:Diff/1367031282), en:Cognitive dissonance on 17 August (en:Special:Diff/1369848983). The last two are still live.

The numbers across all public wikis: psychology.com 4 links, regenerated.com 3, fatfire.com 2, baricboost.com 0 since everything was reverted. Cheap to stop while it's small. I'll admit regenerated.com and fatfire.com are preemptive, neither has been spammed yet, but both are sitting exactly where psychology.com sat in June. He owns quenza.com as well and I'm not asking for that one, its few links looks like ordinary citations by ordinary editors.

positivepsychology.com is the other extreme: 262 links across 47 projects, plus 53 to the old domain. Most were added by ordinary editors, so this isn't a sockfarm, it's what a content mill looks like once it has been seeded, and he seeded it in 2014. Nine of the accounts that added it have since been blocked or globally locked, among them Thismomentisgone (undisclosed paid editing), AuthenticSources2546 (CheckUser block for socking), and Parryla and Windacie (both locked). And back on 3 February 2019, three IPs from one range put topic-matched deep links to the old domain into three articles within a few hours, which is what hired link building looks like. Kqol (talk) 21:41, 17 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Kqol: The existing usages (about 290 as of writing, false positives included) first need to be removed. Please do so first. If no one disputes that, then we can proceed to blacklist the domains. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 08:31, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

pdffly.com

pdffly.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

Spammed cross-wiki. Same spam pattern as the LtJoe domains, but I'm not certain yet. Will handle the new pages on rowiki in a bit. lp0 on fire () 16:41, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Lp0 on fire:

Added to Spam blacklist. Ternera (talk) 16:42, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

royalcaraccidentlawyers.com

royalcaraccidentlawyers.com

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

Heavily spammed to at least 8 wikis. Ohnoitsjamie (talk) 14:32, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Ohnoitsjamie:

Added to Spam blacklist. Codename Noreste (talk • contribs) 14:36, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Proposed removals

Latest comment: 3 days ago10 comments2 people in discussion

This section is for proposing that a website be unlisted; please add new entries at the bottom of the section. Use a suitable 3rd level heading and display the domain name as per this example {{LinkSummary|targetdomain.com}}. Please do not add the protocol part of domain name, eg. http

Remember to provide the specific domain blacklisted, links to the articles they are used in or useful to, and arguments in favour of unlisting. Completed requests will be marked as {{removed}} or {{declined}} and archived.

See also recurring requests for repeatedly proposed (and refused) removals.

Notes:

The addition or removal of a domain from the blacklist is not a vote; please do not bold the first words in statements.
This page is for the removal of domains from the global blacklist, not for removal of domains from the blacklists of individual wikis. For those requests please take your discussion to the pertinent wiki, where such requests would be made at Mediawiki talk:Spam-blacklist at that wiki. Search spamlists — remember to enter any relevant language code

qiuwen.wiki

qiuwen.wiki

(LinkSearch: meta | en | es | de | fr | ru | zh | simple | c | d | Wikipedias: top 25 · 50 · major wikis · sc · gs)(Search: Google | en (G) | fr (G) | de (G) | meta (G) | backlinks | → links ←)

(continuation of Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2026-05#qiuwen.wiki) There is a local consensus on zhwiki: Qiuwen Baike has nothing to do with the Wikimedia movement, which means it can't be interpreted as a "Wikimedia-related space" in the T&S employee JEissfeldt (WMF)'s statement (https://w.wiki/45Kd) in the context of the WMF Global Ban Policy. Specifically, it does not claim to be part of the movement, nor is there any indication that globally banned individuals use it to participate in the movement.

Although this domain used to point to content made by the WMCUG, it was already hosting Qiuwen Baike by the time it was added to this list in January 2022. Qiuwen Baike still claims it as one of its official domains. Therefore, I believe there is no basis for keeping this domain on the global blacklist any longer. --Srapoj (talk) 02:00, 8 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Srapoj: This was declined just a week ago, and nothing has changed since then, so the original decline reason still stands. I noticed that zhwiki has already whitelisted it locally, so there shouldn't be any issue there. – DreamRimmer ■ 02:36, 8 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have addressed your closing reason in this request. The implied background information on zhwiki is that these domains have been controlled by the same group of people throughout the time, therefore nobody took the ownership question seriously. Qiuwen Baike was under closed beta test from around 2021-10 until 2022-06, during that time it was on the qiuwen.wiki domain. Therefore I disagree with your rationale.

The whitelist you saw is an artifact of an admin's 2022 decision to implement this invented ban with an abuse filter instead. It is not too relevant here. Srapoj (talk) 02:45, 8 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm happy to acknowledge that Qiuwen Baike has nothing to do with the Wikimedia movement or WMCUG, but to remove qiuwen.wiki from the global blacklist, I still need to confirm that Qiuwen Baike actually owns the domain. There's still a possibility that the same people are behind the domain and are just redirecting it to Qiuwen Baike. I'm saying this because I haven't seen anything that makes me believe the old WMC connection is gone. You mentioned that the whole site was previously hosted on this domain, but I haven't found anything that confirms that, and the archive reference you added in the zhwiki discussion doesn't have an archive link I can follow. You also mentioned that Qiuwen Baike still lists qiuwen.wiki as one of its official domains, so could you point me to where it says that? If there's an official source showing this, I think that should be enough to clear up the ownership question. If there's a consensus on zhwiki to remove it from the blacklist, they can do that locally :) – DreamRimmer ■ 11:45, 8 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

You are right that they are the same people. Qiuwen Baike was started by members of the WMCUG, as people with experience managing a Wikipedia-like collaboration website can't appear out of thin air. Editors on zhwiki and I do not deny there are banned individuals on that site. Yet, there is the local consensus on the interpretation that Qiuwen Baike is not a "Wikimedia-related space". Failing that condition, who controls it does not affect the outcome. Note that the basis for the block was just a statement on a talk page. It needs to be interpreted with the foundation policy in mind to be consistent.

To answer your question: Websites hosted in mainland China have to get registered with the authorities (备案). According to beian.miit.gov.cn (in Chinese, but should be accessible outside China), both qiuwenbaike.cn and qiuwen.wiki are currently run by 无锡共笔全书网络有限责任公司 (Wuxi Gongbi Quanshu Network Co., Ltd.), with the entity having registration number 苏ICP备2022013164号. Qiuwen Baike identifies the same company as its operator in the footer. I deduced that they moved from qiuwen.wiki to qiuwenbaike.cn some time in February 2023 by comparing https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://www.qiuwen.wiki/wiki/Qiuwen:%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5 and https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://www.qiuwenbaike.cn/wiki/Qiuwen:%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5. A screenshot of the former link can be seen at the 2025-06 request.

A policy of them (Qiuwen:在维基媒体计划使用“求闻”内容及有关著作权的若干规定第十七条/Article 17, content is behind CAPTCHA, but archive.org has previous snapshots) lists both domains as their official domains. The relevant snippet can also be read at zh:Template:Qiuwen content/doc#背景. Srapoj (talk) 16:10, 8 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Since it seems likely that the same people are still behind this domain, I don't think the justification given here is enough. T&S was pretty clear about what the ban covers, so I think we should ask T&S before removing this from the global blacklist. If they have no issue with the removal, I'd be happy to remove it. If they say it is still covered, then I think it should remain blacklisted. – DreamRimmer ■ 08:00, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

T&S has said nothing about Qiuwen Baike since 2021, including an occasion in December 2022 where JEissfeldt (WMF) was directly asked whether there would be sanctions (see Question 9 there). Note that the original comment cited as the "basis" was an answer to a question about some chatrooms. The community should use its reasonable judgement in this case. --Srapoj (talk) 09:55, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry, but I don't think we're on the same page yet. If the zhwiki community wants to remove the sanction from this domain, they can whitelist it locally. I may reconsider if other projects also want it removed from the global blacklist. If you disagree, feel free to post it at RfH and get other admins' views. I have no issue if another admin wants to remove it. – DreamRimmer ■ 10:56, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I’d like to invite @WhitePhosphorus, Aqurs1, and Shizhao to review this case. Srapoj (talk) 17:43, 10 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Small bump to avoid getting archived before the notice at RfH. --Srapoj (talk) 00:01, 16 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Troubleshooting and problems

This section is for comments related to problems with the blacklist (such as incorrect syntax or entries not being blocked), or problems saving a page because of a blacklisted link. This is not the section to request that an entry be unlisted (see Proposed removals above).

Discussion

This section is for discussion of Spam blacklist issues among other users.