Wikipedia and Link Spammers - A “How-to” Guide
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I recently witnessed someone at Wikipedia.org placing dozens of links to his own website. It’s not all that unusual for someone to place a link to their own website on the Wikipedia site, but generally the links get removed. The unusual facts of this case are the amount of links placed, dozens, and the fact that those links led to pages filled with unorginal content. So, I thought I’d follow the story, and write up an article on how to successfully publish content you’ve copied from other sources and get Wikipedia to link to it.
The first thing I did was place a couple of links to my own site on a handful of those pages, to see what admin would come out of the woodword. I got GraemeL. So, I posted a message to him asking why he removed my link, but not the dozens that the other guy listed. You can find that conversation here. This brief exchange resulted in GraemeL removing the dozens of links the other guy placed. End of story, right? Nope.
Another Wikipedia admin, Joe l, got involved at that point. The link spammer, Bobby, protested for his right to place links to his scraper web site wherever on Wikipedia he thought appropriate. He had a receptive audience in Joe l. Let’s examine the reasoning that Joe l used to justify reinserting the links. He states that it’s the same thing “as say adding los alamos to every chemical element page.” Really? The Los Alamos National Laboratory website is now on the same level as a website that copies word for word content from the best known publication in the industry, which is still in print by the way. GraemeL asked for proof that he has “permission to publish the extracts from the red book, or the book is released under some form of free license.” The response to that was “The grading standards are just that, grading standards, they don’t fall under copyright as they are subjective.” Well, that’s certainly a novel interpretation of copyright law.
But, the greater lessons learned her for future link spammers are. 1. Get yourself a few helpful edits under your belt. It seems that admins there are much more receptive to link spammers who appear to be contributors. 2. Get a “friendly” admin to back you up. It seems that other admins are unlikely to reverse the decision of another admin, even when evidence of stolen content is clearly given. 3. Don’t add the actual content into the Wikipedia, that just defeats the whole reasoning behind getting your link in the first place.
Peter Davis is a web developer, investor, author, entrepreneur, and most importantly a father. 
Just wanted to say that this article is about par for Wikipedia. I had similar instances, but lost the link war.
All in all I am not a big fan of wikipedia because one could spend an eternity writing an article, but have some schmo come along and edit your work. For me it is simply not worth it to spend all of that time writing a page of content to only have someone come and modify it to their taste. Of course, i am new to wikipedia and there might be a way around that, but if they do its not easy to locate that either.
Thanks for the article.
I read through the exchange and looked at the links on the pages and they are not spam. They certainly add quite a bit of information that people could find helpful. I guess I just don’t understand your definition of the word “spam”. I’d have to say you’re completely off base on this one.
Maybe I am off base, but I wasn’t questioning that the information on the site is off-topic. What I’m saying is that the information is not original. Some of it is taken word for word from the Red Book, which is still in print and is the leading authority in the industry.
According to Wikipedia itself, “Linking to copyrighted works is usually not a problem, as long as you have made a reasonable effort to determine that the page in question is not violating someone else’s copyright. If it is, please do not link to the page. Whether such a link is contributory infringement is currently being debated in the courts, but in any case, linking to a site that illegally distributes someone else’s work sheds a bad light on us.”
So, the question is, if the information violates copyright, why is Wikipedia linking to it? If the information doesn’t violate copyright, why isn’t the information put into Wikipedia itself? Seems to violate the spirit of Wikipedia.
The mintage figures, compositions, etc. are plain facts. These facts cannot be copyrighted. I looked extensively at the grading info and they are not from the 2006 Red Book, they are from an earlier edition that is no longer in print. As there are no standardized grading standards, the standards used here are strictly opinion and the opinion in the Red Book has changed from the information sited.
To include all of these tedious facts on Wikipedia would make the site unwieldy and difficult to use. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which by definition gives an overview on topics rather than in-depth information. Any additional relevant information added through links is only to the benefit of the Wikipedia users.
It seems to me that the necessary permissions have been obtained and that this user simply consolidated this information onto his own site. I don’t see a problem with this. It’s not as if he’s linking to posts in his forum which are strictly individual opinions and can vary dramatically.
Overall, the information provided is very constructive and seems to me to have been gathered with the intention of making it easier to obtain knowledge.
Thanks for the comments Derrick. I acknowledge your opinion, but don’t agree. Are you an employee of Wikimedia?
No, I’m not. Just a collector who uses online resources for research.
Pleasure to meet you Derrick. I’m sorry we disagree, but I think what they’ve done is not ethical. That’s my opinion, I’m not a lawyer or a prosecutor. There’s tons of material on the web about Copyright Law. It’s a very misunderstood subject. Here’s a good, easy read http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
According to what I’ve just read, the facts posted on his site are definitely acceptable. They are facts only and cannot be copyrighted.
The only issue would be the grading and those have changed with the new publication. I feel that the use of the grading wording falls under the Fair Use clause as use of this information (especially since it’s from a previous edition that is no longer in print) would not affect sales or revenue for Whitman and is a small portion of the publication.
I’m sorry that we don’t agree, but this is my opinion.
Yes, I understand that you don’t agree with my opinion. It’s a complex issue, and there is far more to it than I’m saying here. but, thanks for the feedback.
This is a clear case of link spam from a commercial site. The site in question is an eBay affiliate, it’s overloaded with eBay, AdSense and other sponsored links. It’s by far not an authority on the subject. Most of the content is borrowed or public domain. The goal of Wikipedia is to have the same info he is linking to
IN the articles. If he wants to provide information, put it IN the article. Wouldn’t it be easier for wiki editors just to link content from Encyclopedia Britannica and be done with it?
This case needs to be brought up to the attention of a senior wiki editor or admin ASAP.
BTW, Derrick Smith = bobby131313 Bobby Thornton
you can add teh link to wikipedia and then put a ‘reference’ link to your site.
It’s sad that every single medium gets spammed by commercial assclowns as soon as it becomes popular. It’s a sick world we live in, and those commercial people make it sick.
Wiki should re-introduce the ‘nofollow tag’ and have in big red letters that there are nogollow tags above every article.
[...] Peter reviews his experience in his blog post; Wikipedia and Link Spammers - A “How-to” Guide, and also lays down these 3 Golden Rules of getting high quality links in Wikipedia (yes, this is a bit tongue and cheek - but ironically is starting to sound a bit more and more like DMOZ link spamming problems and Ivory Tower living editors): 1. Get yourself a few helpful edits under your belt. It seems that admins there are much more receptive to link spammers who appear to be contributors. [...]
I have had links I have added to Wikipedia removed by admins and labeled “linkspam”. To me, that is just a convenient label to avoid discussing the issues. I am currently in a category all my own: “revert on sight”. Humph. I wish that these admins would stop acting so politically and just make a judgement call and err on the side of NOT reverting. Angela Beesley is always trotting out her sexy self and claiming to be very tolerant, but in practice these admins just revert on a whim and Jimbo pats them on the back and keeps Wikipedia on a war footing. BTW: I deeply resent the extreme whack job that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Morgan
got last year when it was stripping of all of its links, the last ones by Tregoweth
05:33, 7 August 2005 Tregoweth (tweaks/cleanup, cutting down external links (WP is not a link repository; links to every article about Morgan not necessary))
By this mob’s logic, someone else might come along and just whack the whole article because then there was no “supporting material” beside a 1992 book on the woman.
I say: as long as the links are at the bottom of the page, the list should be allowed to grow long and the disinterested reader can just skip over them. If the info at the target of the link is good, then who cares what site it is on, just so long as the link will remain valid for a long while (which excludes a lot of major newspapers like the New York Times, who lock up their articles after a few weeks, but so what?).
[...] Here are the 3 Golden Rules of getting high quality links in Wikipedia: 1. Get yourself a few helpful edits under your belt. It seems that admins there are much more receptive to link spammers who appear to be contributors. [...]
I am going to say one other thing about this: Wikipedia wants the content, but it does not have the resources to be anything more than the SUMMARY. The really good SUMMARY and links. It has GOT to link to the good stuff on the Internet for more detail. There is no other option in the foreseeable future because the level of detail will always grow to fill the available storage capacity. As far as I can tell, that will be a fact of life for the remainer of our lifetimes.
First, I’m not an admin, but that’s no biggie. Second, Peter here runs a rival site, and has been vieing in compition with bobby. And third, there is NO SITE on the web with original content on this subject.
Joe I
Andrew, the quality of the content is certainly another issue with Wikipedia. I’ve already read articles about people putting fake information on Wikipedia to slander someone, or as a joke, and politicians changing biographical data for their own benefit. That’s something that has been written about, and will continue to be written about. I do wish Wikipedia good luck with it, I think it’s already a wonderful resource, but certainly changes must be made to protect its integrity.
“And third, there is NO SITE on the web with original content on this subject.”
Wikipedia is getting to be far too web-centric. If there is no ONLINE resource with original content on the subject, then why don’t the Wikimediots go to PRINT resources? Original, reliable sources are far better than web-links to some second-rate site that contains nothing but a summary of the facts.
I agree that this link could be considered “spam”. It doesn’t contribute anything that the more reliable print resource would contribute. The print resource should, therefore, be the reference.
Well, in all fairness Blu Aardvark, it’s more than just a summary, he copied it word for word from the printed source.
Nice Article, I have seen this a couple of times with the wikipedia being full of spam. Funniest one was an SEO company listing themselves and all their clients throughout the wiki and then all getting kicked a few weeks later.
“Wikipedia is getting to be far too web-centric. If there is no ONLINE resource with original content on the subject, then why don’t the Wikimediots go to PRINT resources? Original, reliable sources are far better than web-links to some second-rate site that contains nothing but a summary of the facts.”
Ummm… what part of “external links” doesn’t Blu Aadvark understand? An external link is a hyperlink. You can’t hyperlink a printed source! Sheesh. And I’d like to point out that many articles have a “Further reading” section.
TBSDY
Here’s what I don’t get. If facts are considered outside the copyright rules - and they should be…who has the right to copyright fact? - and facts are what this guy published, what’s the beef? I’m not commenting on whether his sites are spammy or whatever techniques he used to get his links in wiki, I’m only interested in your view of why he is violating copyright law if he is only copying facts? These same facts might possibly be in another, second book. If the second book was published after the first, according to your logic, the author would be guilty of copyright violation if he detailed the exact same facts in his book.
If I write a report about global warming and get all the facts about the degree changes in the arctic, along with melting statistics, which are also facts, from another source and publish them in my report, according to you, I’m guilty of violating copyright law.
It seems you have another agenda here when you make your argument in the fashion you have. Just my opinion…please clarify your position so I can better understand if I am missing something here. Again, I’m not interested in spamming wiki, I’m interested in your explanation for claiming his publishing facts is violating copyright law.
Sincerely,
Ray
Well, Ray Corbett, you have a good question. As I’ve stated, I’m not a copyright lawyer, and I don’t pretend to be an expert on copyright law. It’s my opinion that it violates of the publishers of the Red Book. But, it’s their copyright to defend, not mine.
Secondly, if the content does not violate copyright, it seems more logical to me that Wikipedia include that content directly into their site than link to it somewhere else. That is also my opinion.
Thanks for your comments.
You chose to whack a competitor on your website, using copyright law as the reason for doing so. Yet when you’re questioned about your inaccurate interpretation of how the copyright law is defined with regards to ‘facts’, you beg off citing that you ‘don’t pretend to be an expert on copyright law.’
You certainly did a pretty effective job of pretending to be an expert on copyright law when you misinterpreted the use of ‘facts’ in an attempt to label a competitor as a ‘link spammer’. In my opinion, what you have done is cowardly.
Also, the wikipedia has never had the mission or objective of listing all the available information about a topic in their indices. The whole idea behind wiki is for people to make contributions about a topic, in snippets, if you will, while comprehensive information would be made available in the form of links to full on content off wiki’s site. To make the case that all content that doesn’t violate copyright law should be in the wiki, as opposed to being linked to from the wiki is ludicrous.
Ray
I don’t have any idea who you are Ray Corbett, (or should I say Bobby?) or why you’ve taken an interest in what I’ve written, but thanks for your comments.
I am Ray Corbett.
And the reason I’ve taken an interest in what you have written is because of the way you went about it. You have taken it upon yourself to define what is or what is not copyright infringement, and given it a self-serving interpretation in order to whack a competitor. I don’t know of any honorable marketer who would do that. There is no shortage of dishonorable marketers who would, however. Worse, when folks like Derrick Smith, and myself whom you also think is Bobby, object and ask you for a reasonable explanation, you offer lame excuses. My interest in your writing? It’s dishonest, not to mention hypocritical, and I don’t tolerate injustice very well, but that’s just me.
If you think by saying, “I don’t have any idea who you are Ray Corbett, (or should I say Bobby?)” you can insinuate to your readers that I am a dishonorable person, rather than give me an honest explanation for your behavior, I think you are misjudging the intelligent folks who have commented here on both sides of this issue. Nobody likes spam; that’s a given. You give the impression that you had just been surfing away one day on the Wiki and stumbled on Bobby’s ’spam’, and felt the need to be a good Samaritan and inform your readers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Spamming Wiki: If someone put up 1 page of worthwhile information on Wiki, then linked to their site which provided more detailed information for the reader, that is not considered spamming Wiki; that’s what Wiki’s there for. If that same person contributed 100 articles of solid information to Wiki and linked 100 times to 100 pages of informative content on their sites, that would not be spamming Wiki. Valuable information does not become less valuable just because someone has a lot of it. As far as I know, Wiki doesn’t have a rule that once someone submits 7 good links, that’s it, you’re done, regardless how much other good content one might be able to contribute.
Spamming Wiki is attempting to put up content of questionable value and then attempting to link to more content of questionable value or illegally obtained. In my opinion if someone contributes worthwhile content, they should be encouraged to put up more, not less.
In the case of your competitor, I don’t know if he scraped content or not. You certainly didn’t make a case that he had. He reprinted facts…if he also lifted content other than facts without permission, of course, that is incorrect and he absolutely doesn’t deserve to have a whole bunch of links in the Wiki. However, you have done nothing to demonstrate that this is the case, even when you have been asked and given the opportunity to clear things up. In addition, it doesn’t seem that Red Book is concerned or they would be doing something about it. After all, as you said, it’s their copyright to defend. Yet you insist on defending it for them when it is apparent that there is nothing that needs defending.
Your competitor may market too aggressively for some, but, as in the opinion of the Wiki editor, his content is valuable and his links deserve to be up.
You’re great at insinuating…insinuating that he had a “friendly” admin; insinuating that Derrick is Bobby, insinuating that I am Bobby, etc. What do the quotes around the word ‘friendly’ mean? That he was in cahoots with a Wiki editor?
My comments here have not been made to defend Bobby if he spammed or anyone else who does. My comments are made directly to you. I don’t know what kind of person you are in general, and you may do an awful lot of good things in this world. But what you have done here in this one instance is not good and in my opinion, unethical and mean spirited. You have shown yourself to be a bully. Therefore, my comments are made directly to the dishonesty and hypocrisy evident in your posts on this one particular matter.
Ray
“Derrick Smith” IS Bobby, the IP he used to post those comments is an exact match to the IP he used at Wikipedia, and at CoinTalk. It’s not the first time they’ve logged on under a fake name to post unpleasant things about people. Your IP, on the other hand, seems to be coming from Las Vegas. Perhaps you really are an impartial third party, but I still don’t know who “Ray Corbett” is, or why he would have an interest in this discussion (which seemed to be quieting down before you showed up, by the way). If you really are a third-party, not associated with them in any way, please accept my apology. It’s just happened so often that I’m now suspicious of anyone who appears to be defending them.
Anyway, it is a FACT that they posted here as Derrick Smith. It’s also a fact that they’ve created fake accounts on Coin Talk to attack other members. But, you, if you are really an impartial third party, wouldn’t be aware of that. You are now. It’s also a fact that I’ve received messages from a good number of people about this. Many have been supportive, but wish to stay anonymous to avoid being attacked. The worst ones were the couple of anonymous emails threatening violence against me and my family, I’d like to know who did that.
I will prepare some screenshots, of their website and put them along side of images of pages from the Red Book. When you see those, and that they are word for word, would that make a difference to your opinion?
Oh, and the bit about us being competitors, I don’t think so. I’m a web developer who started a coin forum in 2002 for the fun of it. The Adsense ads on Coin Talk is less than 5% of my total revenue, and the site is barely self-sustaining. I’ve funded improvements on the site by selling off bits of my own personal collection. They’re coin dealers who started their forum in 2005, as an extension of their coin business (nothing at all wrong with that). As far as I know, they’re not competing agaist me in web development, and I know I’m not competing against them as coin dealers.
The reason I noticed the links Bobby had added was because a third party informed me that someone had been removing links to Coin Talk and replacing those with links to Coincommunity.com. I checked it out and found that it was true. Maybe I did over react, it seems to have gotten far more attention than I expected, but I was responding to an attack against my own website at first. There would have been little I could say about it, though, if it weren’t for the massive number of links added and the massive amount of content directly copied from the Red Book. Most people seem to agree on those last two points at the least.
[...] Wikipedia and link spammers - a“how-to” guide “I recently witnessed someone at Wikipedia.org placing dozens of links to his own website. It’s not all that unusual for someone to place a link to their own website on the Wikipedia site, but generally the links get removed.” [...]
Peter…
I’m sorry that you have had so much angst over this ‘feud’ between you and Bobby. If he has done, or been involved in, the issues you address in the second paragraph above, then certainly he is out of line and doesn’t deserve anyone’s support or sympathy. These, of course, are things you know and I don’t. I know next to nothing about numismatics and don’t own coin one, unless my boyhood Lincoln Penny Collection is in the bottom of a box somewhere in my garage. Somehow I don’t think that counts, however.
Your upset over this feud (and it usually takes two parties to make a feud, even though the levels of culpability might be heavily skewed in one direction), has apparently led you to stoop to his level on occasion. That occasion is the one I witnessed in this thread. It’s not okay to disparage Wiki editors/admin types by name out of pique, not is it right to treat your visitors shabbily. Your emotional involvement in this deal has produced a paranoia that isn’t healthy.
Take the high road, Peter, and put yourself (and your reputation) above this kind of stuff. You only make yourself look bad when you choose to play with others who don’t play nice. You’re probably the good guy here, but in my opinion you made yourself look like the bad guy when you used your forum to go after someone who really couldn’t defend himself. Although as Derrick Smith he did a pretty convincing job, if for no other reason than by showing restraint.
I wish only the best for you going forward. I hope you take my words in this post to heart and understand that they are meant to be sincerely helpful and constructive. I do speak directly, however, and some folks find that off putting at times. I believe you have the confidence in yourself to recognize and appreciate that I’m coming from a good place when I speak with you like this.
Ray
Peter, this really needs to stop. For everyone else reading this, I’m the co-administrator of Coin Community and Bobby’s wife. I feel the need to set the record straight. We have not and never would remove links for another forum or informational site. We started our forum and site to be an informational source and we encourage our members to post links to other sites and forums as we feel that the more resources available, the better it is for people. We have never perpetuated any kind of link spam or fraud and certainly never threatened anyone. We run a family-friendly site and moderate it heavily to keep it that way.
We have explained our position on the copyrighted material on our site and the admins and moderators at Wikipedia are in agreement. I therefore feel that the copyright question is closed.
I have communicated with my site staff and have been told that no one sent you any threatening email. I am very concerned with these allegations. If you believe it originated from one of my staff, please forward the email to me so that I can verify it came from one of them and I will take care of it. Regardless of my feelings on your actions of late, no one should have to deal with threats of any kind.
We have never joined any of your forums under anonymous names to attack any of your members or cause you any problems. Quite frankly, that would not be in our best interests and would certainly not be constructive. Why would we waste our time like that? I have personally deleted and edited any derrogatory comments made about your forum on our site as soon as they were posted as we do not believe in attacks on anyone being allowed. This includes any comments made regarding the present situation.
I did post as Derrick Smith on your blog because I knew if I posted under my name, we could not have had a reasonable conversation about this. In that, I was dishonest but with honest intentions as I truly wanted to discuss this matter with you in good faith. It is in both of our best interests to conclude this as quickly and peacefully as possible.
You have done other things besides attack us on Wikipedia and I’m not going to get into a mudslinging contest by mentioning them here. You know this to be true. As you have stated, you have multiple forums. I do not understand why you are focusing on our site this way. You are a very successful webmaster and have some terrific forums and sites. Our single coin site is not going to affect your revenues or memberships. We are very happy with the growth and quality of our membership and yes, we are constantly adding to the content on our site to make more information available to our members. I do not see how the development of our one site can really affect you.
I respectfully request that you peacefully allow us to continue with our site and concentrate on your own projects.
Situations such as this one are harmful to all involved. Nobody benefits from this.
Hi Susan, thank you for taking the time to comment, and to come clean on at least one thing. I’m sorry your comment didn’t appear for a few hours, I was out and your comment was in the moderation queue. I don’t allow comments to post without my prior approval as I get several dozen comment spams on my blog every day. Once you’re approved once, though, any more comments will appear automatically. I don’t censor people for disagreeing with me, just the comment spammers are especially vile (nothing to do with you of course).
Thank you for coming clean regarding your posts as “Derrick Smith”. It’s good that you see that as “dishonest” but I don’t understand how you can expect to have a discussion in “good faith” when you start it off with a lie. And, that’s the basic problem I have with you. You seem to think that it’s ok to be dishonest if it serves the purpose of advancing your own agenda. Your best bet would have been to approach me privately (yes, you know how to contact me) at the outset to find out what was wrong, instead of escalating.
Regarding removing the link, I would believe that it wasn’t you personally who did that. However, the list of people who A: don’t like me/Cointalk, B: do like you/Coincommunity, and C: would understand how to make the change at Wikipedia, must be a very short list. The IP seems to indicate someone in Texas, I can share the IP with you privately if you’re interested. Considering the hostility directed toward me in the past, and the fact that someone replaced a link to Cointalk with a link to Coincommunity, it shouldn’t be a stretch to understand why my first reaction was to think it was you.
I don’t believe that any of your moderators sent me a threatening email. Only one of them identified himself in a message to me, and while that message was angry, I did not feel threatened or insulted in any way by it. I’ve stated in the past that I believe that 99.9% of the people on your forum are great people. It seems to me that it’s the things you have told them about me that have created any hostility that exists. I have not initiated contact with any of them on the topic, perhaps any of them reading this exchange will come to a greater sense of understanding why we’re not getting along.
You’ve never joined Cointalk with another account? Does this one - david45 - ring a bell at all? The worst of the posts were removed, but the only IP address we have on record for that account is an exact match for the one you use at Cointalk, the one you’ve used here under multiple personalities, and the one you’ve used at Wikipedia.
Finally, regarding your request to let the issue drop. Keep it clean and there will be no issue in the first place. I still think that your usage of content copied word for word from the Red Book is unethical. However, I’ve looked at the articles that you’re working on in Wikipedia and that’s very good work. Do more of that, and less of the copying.
Because some spammer will ultimately read this, I’d just like to point out we can:
* Spot you in real time.
* Reverse search for all your spam links.
* Blacklist your domains
So don’t bother wasting our time and yours.
Cheers,
Andrew Lau
Wikipedia Counter Vandalism Unit