MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/Archive 2011

Editing Coorg page
I'm trying to edit the iteneriary section and add the below text and it's triggering a spam filter. The roads leading to Talavauvery is pretty bad after the recent rains.--(WT-en) Gowthammano 05:32, 17 January 2011 (EST)
 * Hi Gowthammano! One of the spas triggered our spam list. I cleared it and it should now work. (WT-en) jan 08:23, 17 January 2011 (EST)

thebrightonremovalcompany dot co dot uk
I'm not sure if it's a bot or a real person, but this hauling company has spammed us with advertisement articles twice in the last two hours. It's in no way travel-related, so adding to the blacklist. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 18:15, 18 January 2011 (EST)

palazzogiovanni dot it
See Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Silvio77. User has returned repeatedly over the last two days to push a link to articles ranging from towns to Italy and even to Europe. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 17:23, 20 January 2011 (EST)


 * Also cataniabb dot it and bedandbreakfastmare dot it. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 17:23, 28 January 2011 (EST)

explorenorthkorea dot com
This company is repeatedly re-added to the North Korea article. See Talk:North Korea for the reason why this was originally removed. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 22:50, 24 January 2011 (EST)

(WT-en) Oanvoanc 10:28, 26 January 2011 (EST):as i mentioned in the "discussion paragraph" of northkorea - tours already: i travelled with explore n. korea tour group in march 2010 and had no problems with them. the communication was very good (skype and mail) before and after the trip. i have no idea what happened here exactly with this url (adding and removing) but i wouldnt hesitate to recommend this company for ppl who want to travel nk on small budged.
 * please also dont hesitate to contact me by mail: zzzair [at] gmail dot com


 * Hi Zacharias! nk-tours violated continiously our policies. They have been warned and choosen to ignore our warnings also they did several false comments about competitors. Therefore they will stay pretty long on our blacklist. (WT-en) jan 11:01, 26 January 2011 (EST)

This business is now trying to evade the blacklist by using URL redirectors (e.g. ) rather than cleaning up their act, so I'm expanding the pattern a bit. User has a long and exceedingly annoying history, and has also started using proxies to (thinly) disguise their activities; it's pretty easy to find on almost any edit to the Tours section dating back to roughly October 2009, and you'll find a lot of the early mischief from Special:Contributions/70.118.119.3, before the evasion really started. — (WT-en) D. Guillaime 20:26, 27 January 2011 (EST)

shanghaipathways dot com
Keeps re-adding fairly spammy entries to Shanghai that aren't at all tour-compliant (example: ), even after being pointed at it on their comment on Talk:Shanghai. Hoping this gets their attention instead; shouldn't need to stay in place forever. — (WT-en) D. Guillaime 01:30, 1 February 2011 (EST)

cheapoair dot com
This is a bucket site that will never be appropriate for use here per Project:External links. See Special:Contributions/71.133.211.23 - user replaced numerous valid hotel URLs with this one. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 21:55, 7 February 2011 (EST)

Dharamshala Page
I tried to edit this page originally adding the Dalai Lama's website www dot dalailama dot com I got the spam error. Assuming it was because of the URL I entered I hit the back button and removed this url. Saved again and was still getting the spam error. So went back and took out all URL's (which I didn't enter) noticed some were of businesses so this may have caused the spam notification. Though even after deleting all URLs page would not save. Don't know what else to do about it other than post it here. The specific section was the 'To Do' section Thanks —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) Himalayafunandtours (talk • contribs)


 * I've fixed the problem, so the page is now editable. However, please read Project:External links to verify that the link you are trying to add meets Wikivoyage's guidelines for external links. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 11:49, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

apnabus dot in
This is apparently an Indian ticket broker and thus not appropriate per Project:External links and the Tour policy. User has ignored talk page messages and returned after temporary blocks to spam dozens of pages, so it's time to put this on the blacklist. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 12:02, 26 March 2011 (EDT)

scorpiotech dot info
See the history for both User talk:(WT-en) Scorpiotech00 and User talk:(WT-en) Scorpiotech0. An SEO company is trying to abuse Wikivoyage for marketing/SEO purposes. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 21:45, 29 March 2011 (EDT)

creditcardhelp dot com dot au
Suspected work of a currently active spambot - Articles and images have been listed for deletion per Votes for deletion and  as I do not have sufficient access to deal with them directly. Jan subsequently deleted the forex related content. I think Ryan has his eye on this suspected spambot activity.


 * User:(WT-en) Creditcardscomparison -- Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Creditcardscomparison
 * See also -- Credit Card- How To Build Good Credit Habits and associated image uploads Image:333.jpg and Image:444.jpg


 * User:(WT-en) Forex01 -- Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Forex01
 * See also -- Forex- How To Invest in Forex Mutual Funds and associated image uploads Image:555.jpg and Image:666.jpg

(WT-en) felix 02:01, 30 April 2011 (EDT)

pbali dot com
pbali dot com appears to be a operation purportedly promoting villa rental and sales. Clickable links to their website have been placed into the Bali article and subsequently removed by myself and other editors. Both the User:(WT-en) Marine and User:(WT-en) Crewman appear to be accounts operated on the same campaign. The edit content is identical from both users and they have been placing the covert url link into the Bali article text. The link points to pbali dot com. The website has no contact details provided for the promoters other than a browser page contact form. I am wondering if they have been active elsewhere on WT as well.

The covert link edit is written as follows and inserted into the article copy.:

dot com/ Bali Villas

This is an example of one edit.

It then displays as;  Bali Villas   and becomes clickable if rolled over -- (the bolding is my own emphasis).

The covert link points to pbali dot com when it is supplied with a correctly formatted address.

Registrant: Sergey Gorshkov Krasnaya 21a, 4 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad region 236000 Russian Federation

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com) Domain Name: PBALI.COM Created on: 23-Feb-11 Expires on: 23-Feb-12 Last Updated on: 23-Feb-11

Administrative Contact: Gorshkov, Sergey unix090@gmail.com Krasnaya 21a, 4 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad region 236000 Russian Federation 7-911-452-9608 Fax --

Technical Contact: Gorshkov, Sergey unix090@gmail.com Krasnaya 21a, 4 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad region 236000 Russian Federation 7-911-452-9608 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
 * NS67.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
 * NS68.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
 * NS68.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

Sergey Gorshkov is also associated with balivillaonsale dot com. tel: +62 8138 157 3288 balivillaonsale@gmail.com

A Sergey Gorshkov was also a well known Admiral of the Soviet Union navy during the Cold War and died in 1988.

The Sergey Gorshkov associated with the Bali villa marketing seems to to be in Kaliningrad, Russia.

Related sites as per http://whois.pho.to/pbali dot com


 * property dot baliwww dot com - Bali Property, Real Estate, Villa, Land in Bali for sale, rent and lease


 * bali-information dot com - Bali Property Real Estate Bali Villas Sale BPI, Rent, build, own Property in Bali Indonesia


 * balitopproperty dot com - Bali Property - Bali TOP Property, Bali Real Estate, Bali villa, land, apartment, for sale and rent, latest listing of property in Bali by Bali Property Agent, Indonesia.


 * bali-properties dot com - Bali Vacation Properties - Bali Villa Rental, Sales, Design & Construction


 * balivillarent dot com - Bali villa for rent Seminyak home rentals holiday house for rent Bali luxury beach villa accommodation


 * landsalebali dot com - Villa Bali - Real Estate :: Bali Property Bali Villa Rental Bali. Vacation Villas. Property Sales, leasing & Development


 * rent-bali-villas dot com - Rent Bali Villas : 3 bedroom, 4 bedroom and 5 bedroom bali villa rentals in Seminyak, Canggu and Umalas Bali


 * villa dot com - Villa | Villas | Villa Rentals & Sales - Villa.com


 * villajuno dot com Villa Juno - A bed & breakfast villa for vacation rentals in Canggu, Bali


 * bali-essence-villas dot com - Bali Seminyak Villas for Sale - Rental | Bali Essence Villas


 * PBALI dot COM IP is 97.74.44.1 and is hosted by godaddy dot com --- (WT-en) felix 11:59, 30 April 2011 (EDT)

capezebratours dot com and capeafricantours dot com
Links to this company were copied to numerous articles for South Africa, with at least four separate entries in the Cape Town article. Since then they have returned to add multiple entries to the Cape Town article at least a dozen times, despite pointers provided on user talk pages and in edit summaries to the Project:Don't tout policy. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 16:36, 3 May 2011 (EDT)

mixmatchba
See Special:Contributions/190.195.68.200. This Facebook group has been re-added to the Buenos Aires article five or six times in the past two days despite repeated pointers to the Project:External links policy. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 12:22, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

www dot butterfly-massage dot com
Escort/prostitution services consistently added at User talk:(WT-en) Xiali1208 --(WT-en) Burmesedays 03:24, 11 June 2011 (EDT)

www dot shanghai-in-massge dot com
Escort/prostitution services consistently added at User talk:(WT-en) Xiali1208 --(WT-en) Burmesedays 03:24, 11 June 2011 (EDT)

Talk:Tajpur notes on an edit/s and west bengal scamming activity
Upon tracking a suspect tel number to another article I came across the Tajpur article today. The entire Tajpur article seems a little dubious. It has the appearance of having been established for the purpose of listing either entriely fictitious or baiting accommodation listings attributable to known listing hijackers and listing vandals associated with articles in this region. I have removed the offending number and noted that the edit histories had evidence of another scammer involved with the article. I have now applied some generalised copy editing to the article to clean it up but it is still a bit questionable. I note that on (07:46) 17 May 2009 (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus raised some concerns aboout this article.

Upon examination of the various articles concerned and their edit and content history it appears that the contact numbers used have been those associated with previous misleading or hijack edits in various West Bengal articles.

Today I have made edits to the article and some others today that are displaying similar lineage and number commonalities I have removed +91 33 8100291011 from Hotel Sonarbangla Resorts in the Tajpur article as this tel number has beeen listed the Rojana Beach Resorts listing in Digha and removed in an edit today for that reason. The previous listing for Safarsonhee in this Tajpur article was removed by Peterfitzgerald on 11 oct 2010). The prior Safarsonhee listing used a number 90spamfilter51115228 listed to Safarsongee Tours & Travels, Kolkata, Telephone: (033) 4004spamfilter8685, 90spamfilter51115228, Address: 9B, Esplanade, Kolkata-700069, West Bengal. The Hotel Amorabati-Bakkhali has also frequently been listed to 90spamfilter51115228 on travel websites

As I know the activities of the west bengal idiots are of interest to others I thought this may be of interest here.(WT-en) felix 06:40, 16 June 2011 (EDT)

West Bengal scammer +91 33 8100291011
Maybe it's time for this idiots number to be spam blacklisted-- (WT-en) felix 10:53, 16 June 2011 (EDT)
 * Digha‎+91 33 8100291011 - Rojana Beach Resorts
 * Tajpur +91 33 8100291011 - Hotel Sonarbangla Resorts
 * Shankarpur Call-8100291011 - Hotel Ashoka & Westbengal Tourist Lodges
 * Shankarpur +91 33 8100291011 - Tourist lodge jowar complex
 * Madhupur 'Booking 08100291011 - Group Booking,totaly Bengali Atmosphere.9b,Esplanade East Row,Kolkata-69,Room No -44

Here are some more: -- (WT-en) felix 15:09, 17 June 2011 (EDT)

cbho_info@yahoodotcom and cbhoinfo@gmaildotcom have an established pattern with scammer numbers and multiple listings ie. Shankarpur Hotel Sandy Bay, cbho_info@yahoodotcom, Jhargram Mps Resort, ☎ 033 9433585945 cbho_info@yahoodotcom, Falta Hotel Sea Bird +91 033 9831254202 cbhoinfo@gmaildotcom also +91 33 943358 5945

+91 33 9831254202 has a scammer profile: Falta Hotel Sea Bird +91 033 9831254202 Digha Hotel Sonar Bangla, Barrister colony, ☎ 9831254202

+91 33 2248 0626 has a scammer profile Digha Tourist Lodge Hotel Dolphin Larica Sagar Tourist Lodge Digha Hotel Suman's Digha Mandarmani Samudra Sakshi Resort

Eastern Tourism of 190A, Harish Mukherjee Road, Kolkata - 700 026 has a scammer profile with multiple listing and relisting of +91 33 2455 1491 Other numbers listed to this enterprise include
 * +91 33 6944 3695
 * +91 33 6460spamfilter3695
 * +91 33 2455 1491

Mobile :
 * 92306 53695
 * 98310 31895
 * 93394 24307
 * 9830233754


 * easterntourism@vsnldotnet
 * easterntourism@yahoodotco.in

ukraine vacation guide dot com
Mass spamming of various Ukraine articles. Examination of site reveals no content that could ever be useful at WT --(WT-en) Burmesedays 06:13, 23 June 2011 (EDT).

vietnamairlinestickets dot com
This URL has shown up repeatedly in several Southeast Asia articles over the past week. It's a booking portal - the URL for Vietnam Airlines is http://vietnamairlines.com - and the users in question are ignoring requests to stop re-adding this URL. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 12:26, 5 July 2011 (EDT)

motorbiketours-hoian dot com
After ignoring several specific warnings about writing their details into a competitor listing at Hoi An, did it again.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 08:30, 19 July 2011 (EDT)

Touristdriver.aqaba at gmail.com
This tax driver has been adding lengthy advertisements to various Jordan articles and ignoring pointers to Project:Don't tout. See Special:Contributions/178.77.131.59 and Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Jouli for some examples. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 15:55, 23 July 2011 (EDT)

kuakatatours dot com
There have been several new articles created in the past twelve hours that do not meet the Project:What is an article criteria. The user in question hasn't responded to talk page messages so I'm putting the tour company URL he/she has been using on the blacklist in the hopes of getting his/her attention. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 11:36, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

wadirumdiscovery dot com
This tour company has ignored repated requests not to list itself multiple times (per Project:Don't tout), and has now started removing competitor listings from the Wadi Rum article. See for example Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Momo2010. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 12:05, 31 July 2011 (EDT)

bandarbantours dot com
User has ignored many messages and continues to create spam articles designed to promote this travel agency.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 07:36, 1 August 2011 (EDT)

taxi-makarska dot com
See Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Ijujnovic. There has been a long running edit war going on over Makarska. Initially requests were made to de-tout a listing, and eventually to discuss before re-adding. Adding to the blacklist now to prevent further edit warring. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 01:32, 28 August 2011 (EDT)

easyrider dot vn and easy-riders dot net
See Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Easyridervietnam (amongst others). Talk page messages and edit summary pointers to Project:Don't tout have been ignored repeatedly over the past couple of weeks. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 11:22, 12 September 2011 (EDT)


 * easy-riders dot net has also been added - see Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Fuckingspam. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 23:28, 12 September 2011 (EDT)

tripz dot advisor
A few accounts are spamming this gmail address. Looks more like bored trolling than actual spamming, so this can be removed later. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 11:46, 25 September 2011 (EDT)

internetmarketingdirect dot com dot au
Repeated SEO spam on User talk:(WT-en) IM2011Direct. Ironically, the spam was touting the company's "white hat" strategies, but doing so by spamming a travel wiki. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 23:08, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

praveengupta00004
This travel agency has been spamming Agra and other random pages daily for the past week. Edit summary pointers and talk page messages pointing the user to Tour and Project:Don't tout have been ignored. -- (WT-en) wrh2 10:40, 11 October 2011 (EDT)

comparecarrental dot co
See (for two examples) Special:Contributions/203.30.131.254 and Special:Contributions/203.219.184.21. User has been inserting this car rental portal with misleading edit summaries. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 19:16, 17 October 2011 (EDT)

Rhinocarhire dot com Removal from Local Spam Blacklist Request
We are seeking feedback / support for the removal of rhinocarhire dot com from the Project:Local spam blacklist. We have for some time been in discussion with a moderator who has recommended that we use this platform in an attempt to gain support for our removal from the list by consensus. We found ourselves added to the list in September 2009 where the route cause was traced back to an external editor / SEO specialist who took it upon himself to spam wiki travel with our website. Upon discovering such practices, this person ceased to work for the company and has not done so since. We have explained our situation in detail, however the perception remains that we will try to use Wikivoyage for our own benefit and SEO purposes, which I can assure the Wikivoyage community is not the case. We run an honest business and were awarded Best Car Hire Website at the 2010 Travolution Awards, something that the team worked very hard towards and are very proud of. Our integrity has been questioned on Wikivoyage to the extent where we have been labelled not trustworthy, something we find unjust and unfounded. There have also been references to 'fake blogs' that we know nothing about and have requested further information to fully investigate, however no further information has been supplied. We have no interest in self promotion of our business on Wikivoyage and are not looking for recommendations, however being listed as spam is potentially damaging for our business. We have been punished by wiki travel for 2 years now (listed on the spam blacklist) and feel that continued listing as spam for actions carried out by a 3rd party on our behalf (unknown to us at the time) is not longer justifiable. We would welcome to feedback from the community on this matter as we will continue our pursuit for removal from the list. Many thanks. Rhinocarhire dot com. (86.29.197.231 09:23, 30 August 2011 (EDT))


 * Congratulations on winning the Travolution Award. It wouldn't do for an award winner like yourselves to be on a blacklist so I will remove you.  If you list again you will be re-added.  If you ever feel like apologising for the hours of time myself and others have volunteered to keep the guide clean while your agents have done their best to disrupt it, that would be good too.    --(WT-en) Inas 19:04, 10 November 2011 (EST)


 * Responding to the "fake blog" issue -, , , etc, etc. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 19:12, 10 November 2011 (EST)

Inas, Many thanks for you efforts in this matter. Your time is very much appreciated, as is that of Ryan who we have been dealing with also. Kind regards, Phil. Ryan - Just to note, the 'fake blogs' you mention are press releases issued by our company that are syndicated to various sites. Once published via official means we have no control which websites choose to host the press release.

Can't edit
I can't seem to be able to edit Globe-trotters talk page, since my message is refused by the spam filter. What am I doing wrong? I wanted to post: "Hi, I appreciate your help but since I was still working on the text I've been getting edit conflicts on South Limburg. That is making it quite harder and frustrating, so I'll just stop editing until you're done. Could you give me a heads up when you are? (WT-en) Justme 12:54, 30 July 2011 (EDT) "

As to that last problem, is there a way to indicate that you're working on something and ask others to not edit for a while? These edit conflicts really are frustrating.. (WT-en) Justme 12:54, 30 July 2011 (EDT)


 * I can't edit his page either. G-t has something on his talk page that is activating the spam filter. On edit conflicts, I think if one user is significantly editing a page, it is good practice to let them get on with it and come back later. Otherwise, as you say, edit conflicts will drive you nuts.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 13:02, 30 July 2011 (EDT)--(WT-en) Burmesedays 13:02, 30 July 2011 (EDT)


 * That's my fault - a spambot has been hitting the site over the past several weeks using specific CSS, so I added that CSS pattern to the blacklist. Unfortunately it looks like several user pages are using the same pattern, so I've removed it from the blacklist. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 13:57, 30 July 2011 (EDT)


 * Thanks. I'm done with South Limburg, so you can just continue editing there Justme. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 14:14, 30 July 2011 (EDT)

holidayvacationrental dot com
See Special:Contributions/24.231.230.125 and Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Holidayvacationrental. There have also been several pages created for this company that have been deleted. Pointers to Project:Don't tout and the rental listings policy have been ignored. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 12:49, 21 November 2011 (EST)

taxitopetra
See and Special:Contributions/(WT-en) Jouli. User has had more than enough warning. -- (WT-en) Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 15:26, 14 December 2011 (EST)