Let's see if this does anything!
Noticing the Spam blacklist requests were piling up Aphaia & I started working on the backlog and have got quite a bit done.
However we have encountered two issues which we would appreciate other views on.
The use of the blacklist by non foundation wikis
This is probably best looked at/described here - http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ASpam_blacklist&diff=6...
Views welcome?
The use of local blacklists & particularly en wp.
There is quite a bit of (valid) pressure to place some persistently spammed domains into the Meta list. It appears en wp admins are reluctant to use the local blacklist (why?). However - equally - the validity of some of the domains is more than a little questionable. Will brass-fittings-brass-fittings.netfirms.com, suntanning.com or uk-metal-detectors .co.uk be likely to be useful to the foundation?
Before I find myself in a(nother) argument views would be welcome or equally a better place to post? Giving this list a "start" seemed an idea!
Cheers Herby
Herby wrote on Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 7:06:28 AM:
H> The use of the blacklist by non foundation wikis
H> This is probably best looked at/described here - H> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ASpam_blacklist&diff=6...
It's unrealistic to think that Wikimedia would block all of those free hosts.. individual sites on the free hosts are spammed quite a bit, but there are many 'quasi-legit' links to those sites as well (quasi in that they probably fail [[WP:RS]], but were submitted in good faith).
I have occasionally submitted domains that popped up on wikiHow, where I'm an admin, but only because they were URL shortening services which WMF blocks because of *what they are* rather than how they were used.
H> The use of local blacklists & particularly en wp.
Apparently there is a lack of consensus as to how the local spam blacklist on en.wp should be used, in particular.. what are the criteria for addition to the list. This lack of consensus seems to be due to lack of discussion rather than disagreement.
Given that en.wp's IRC based anti-spam mechanisms have been down more than up lately (eg: AntiSpamBot/Shadowbot) - it would be very useful to have the local blacklist on en.wp actively being used.
IMHO, Versageek
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