WikiSpam, often just called spam, includes unwanted advertisements and links to other websites.

How does Wikia fight spam?Edit

Wikia fights spam in many ways:

1. Phalanx, an integrated spam defense mechanism, prevents certain actions against an integrated blacklist. All users can suggest additions to this list through the VSTF Wiki.
   1. Blocking of spammers across all wikis (Global blocks).
   2. Filtering commonly spammed phrases used in article text or edit summaries can be added to the article filter using regex.
   3. Filtering commonly used spammed titles can be added to the same article filter to prevent their recreation.
   4. Filtering commonly used wiki subdomains used by cross-wiki spambots.
   5. Whitelists for local wikis to counteract the above filters.
2. Captchas for external links added by unregistered users and for account creation.
3. Tools (LookupContribs and MultiLookup) which allow Wikia staff, Helpers, the Spam Task Force and certain users to check for edits by a particular user or IP address across all wikis.
4. NoFollow links are added to all external URLs. See the Google blog for details.
5. Old revisions of articles are not indexed by search engines.
6. A tool for searching for spammers using multiple usernames (Help:CheckUser).
7. Bots using algorithms that run against an IRC feed of all recent changes to automatically detect spam.
8. A tool to mass delete page titles created by spammers (Special:Multidelete).
9. Automated deletion of all pages by an IP/User on a specific wiki (Special:Nuke).
10. One-click reverting for admins and users who have been assigned "rollback" status.
11. "Protect Site" for the most severe cases of spam attacks allowing admins to temporarily lock down the wiki against uploads, account creations, or edits by unregistered or all users.

What types of spam exist and how do we deal with it?Edit

Spam articles

Where the aim is to promote a particular company rather than to provide useful content to readers of the wiki, should be rewritten or deleted.

External link spamming

Often carried out by robots that may be spamming many wikis at once. Their aim is to improve their search engine rankings, rather than to directly advertise their product.

If you find such spam, please report it to the VSTF with as many useful links as possible.

Additionally, if you are an admin on the wiki being spammed, you can also block the user or IP doing the spamming.

What is the spam filter message?Edit

The following message will be displayed when you try to save a page which contains a URL in the blacklist:

See also Help:Captcha for an anti-spam feature.

External links to information on WikiSpamEdit

• Wiki Spam
• Anti-spam features of MediaWiki
• Wikipedia
• Wiki
• MeatBall
• CommunityWiki
• chongqed.org, fighting wiki spam
• WikiProject Spam at Wikipedia - contains advice for finding and dealing with link spam.
• Dissuade Interaction
• Vandalism is not a game

See also Edit

• Help:Phalanx
• Help:Spam blacklist (and whitelist)