4 ms·

on WP, some whole articles are carefully crafted artworks of spam, where vanispamcruftisement movement learned the encylopedia language and you never notice. O

on WP, some whole articles are carefully crafted artworks of spam, where vanispamcruftisement movement learned the encylopedia language and you never notice. One day someone will write "vanispamcruftisement manifesto", why spam is a positive moment of western civilization. Spam techniques of once become mainstream ad types with non-relevance diminished and design improved and cost increased. Many social media are flood of spammy posts about 'self'..

rosser 13y ago
Examples?
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  I don't have them to hand, but I've certainly come across WP articles where it was pretty clear somebody just entered a company's sales-brochure more or less directly... (and if I was marketing director at a company, I'd definitely try to have a presence on Wikipedia of some sort). This isn't a diss against WP though. I've found such questionable articles to be very rare, and despite Wikipedia's flaws, it's an amazing, amazing, site, one of the best things on the web, by far, and maybe even more astonishingly, one of the few major sites that isn't commercial. I find it indispensable in my everyday life (and donate money regularly)...
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    Just one example would be useful.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      It happens. It's usually found and fixed - either deleted or made more neutral. Sometimes the new editors are welcomed to the project and given help with COI. They're told about the licencing problems of just copying content from a corporate website. Sometimes they're bashed by vandal patrolling twinkle users. (Does that still happen? I think WP made efforts to stop it from happening.)
      - Kiro 13y ago
        Example.
        DanBC 13y ago
        Jesus fucking christ learn to google - these are trivially easy to find. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incisive_Media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incisive_Media) -- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton#Professional_Pensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton#Professio...) > This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Professional Pensions, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.incisivemedia.com/corporate/products/professionalpensions http://www.incisivemedia.com/corporate/products/professional.... For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
        Kiro 13y ago
        Did you even read the thread? That's not a good example of what we're talking about at all.
    - kalleboo 13y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services
- diminish 13y ago
  I am a supporter, fan and casual editor of Wikipedia. That's definitely one of the grandiose achievements of Internet. Simple spams and scams are excluded from Wikipedia but smart spams are created daily. I really see a lot of examples. Check articles, pages for many semi to non-famous people, companies or products. What belongs to Wikipedia and what doesn't, has always been a problem. Wikipedia is much less strict than any encyclopedia - and I find it good indeed.
- rwmj 13y ago
  Took me 1 minute to find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_sweeper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_sweeper Essentially, pick a topic which isn't totally mainstream (and hence getting lots of editor attention), but covers something that people buy for themselves / their house and where they might visit "review" sites to help them purchase the item.
  - Kiro 13y ago
    What's spammy about it?
    - andybak 13y ago
      Maybe the 'brands' section that was just removed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&diff=572864113&oldid=558830887 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&diff... Although it mentioned several brands so it seems a bit of a weak case for being a spam article.
    - rwmj 13y ago
      Check out the links in the References and (the second link) in the External Links section. Do those really add to the article or are they content-free "comparison" sites? The fact that you don't think the page looks spammy shows how subtle this game has got. Edit: stable link to the page I was discussing since hopefully someone will remove the spam links soon: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&oldid=558830887 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&oldi... Edit#2: Since I used to work in "whitehat SEO" (thankfully no more) let me explain what's going on here: A long-lasting link from a Wikipedia page is like gold to search engines. It's far more valuable than if you linkspam a comment on someone's blog. It indicates that this page is very relevant to the topic. So when people search for "lawn sweepers", those links appear nearer to the top. The spammers monetize this by filling these essentially content-free pages with affiliate links to Amazon and other sellers. There's no motive here apart from money. This doesn't make Wikipedia, Google, the web or even lawn sweeper sellers any better. It just benefits the spammers.
      - 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

rosser 13y ago

Examples?

snogglethorpe 13y ago
I don't have them to hand, but I've certainly come across WP articles where it was pretty clear somebody just entered a company's sales-brochure more or less directly... (and if I was marketing director at a company, I'd definitely try to have a presence on Wikipedia of some sort). This isn't a diss against WP though. I've found such questionable articles to be very rare, and despite Wikipedia's flaws, it's an amazing, amazing, site, one of the best things on the web, by far, and maybe even more astonishingly, one of the few major sites that isn't commercial. I find it indispensable in my everyday life (and donate money regularly)...
- ghshephard 13y ago
  Just one example would be useful.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    It happens. It's usually found and fixed - either deleted or made more neutral. Sometimes the new editors are welcomed to the project and given help with COI. They're told about the licencing problems of just copying content from a corporate website. Sometimes they're bashed by vandal patrolling twinkle users. (Does that still happen? I think WP made efforts to stop it from happening.)
    - Kiro 13y ago
      Example.
      - DanBC 13y ago
        Jesus fucking christ learn to google - these are trivially easy to find. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incisive_Media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incisive_Media) -- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton#Professional_Pensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jstapleton#Professio...) > This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Professional Pensions, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.incisivemedia.com/corporate/products/professionalpensions http://www.incisivemedia.com/corporate/products/professional.... For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
        Kiro 13y ago
        Did you even read the thread? That's not a good example of what we're talking about at all.
  - kalleboo 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services
diminish 13y ago
I am a supporter, fan and casual editor of Wikipedia. That's definitely one of the grandiose achievements of Internet. Simple spams and scams are excluded from Wikipedia but smart spams are created daily. I really see a lot of examples. Check articles, pages for many semi to non-famous people, companies or products. What belongs to Wikipedia and what doesn't, has always been a problem. Wikipedia is much less strict than any encyclopedia - and I find it good indeed.
rwmj 13y ago
Took me 1 minute to find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_sweeper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_sweeper Essentially, pick a topic which isn't totally mainstream (and hence getting lots of editor attention), but covers something that people buy for themselves / their house and where they might visit "review" sites to help them purchase the item.
- Kiro 13y ago
  What's spammy about it?
  - andybak 13y ago
    Maybe the 'brands' section that was just removed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&diff=572864113&oldid=558830887 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&diff... Although it mentioned several brands so it seems a bit of a weak case for being a spam article.
  - rwmj 13y ago
    Check out the links in the References and (the second link) in the External Links section. Do those really add to the article or are they content-free "comparison" sites? The fact that you don't think the page looks spammy shows how subtle this game has got. Edit: stable link to the page I was discussing since hopefully someone will remove the spam links soon: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&oldid=558830887 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lawn_sweeper&oldi... Edit#2: Since I used to work in "whitehat SEO" (thankfully no more) let me explain what's going on here: A long-lasting link from a Wikipedia page is like gold to search engines. It's far more valuable than if you linkspam a comment on someone's blog. It indicates that this page is very relevant to the topic. So when people search for "lawn sweepers", those links appear nearer to the top. The spammers monetize this by filling these essentially content-free pages with affiliate links to Amazon and other sellers. There's no motive here apart from money. This doesn't make Wikipedia, Google, the web or even lawn sweeper sellers any better. It just benefits the spammers.
    - 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]