Bahaipedia:Spam

There are three types of wikispam: advertisements masquerading as articles, wide-scale external link spamming, and "bahaipedian-on-bahaipedian" spamming or, "canvassing" (also known as "internal spamming" and "cross-posting"). Articles considered advertisements include those that are solicitations for a business, product or service, or are public relations pieces designed to promote a company or individual. Wikispam articles are usually noted for sales-oriented language and external links to a commercial website. However, a differentiation should be made between spam articles and legitimate articles about commercial entities.

Advertisements masquerading as articles

Blatant examples of advertising masquerading as articles will be deleted quickly. Other advertisements posted on Bahaipedia can be dealt with by proposed deletion. On some occasions, the content can be removed temporarily on the basis of a suspected copyright violation, since the text is often copied from another website and posted anonymously.

When an article on an otherwise encyclopedic topic has the tone of an advertisement, the article can often be salvaged by rewriting it in a Bahá’í point of view.

External link spamming

Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed.

Adding links to online free videos that promote a site or product is not allowed [see exception below]. Often these videos have been uploaded in violation of their copyright which adds an additional reason for not linking to them. A video is a spamming video if:

• It has a banner plastered across the video giving you a website address to go to.
• It has links on the video page—the page that plays the video—that go to a commercial site or to another spamming video, even if it is only one link among many legitimate links. — [see exception below]
• It has text at this video page that would lead readers to a specific commercial site. For example, "book available at xyzBooks dot net" — [see exception below]
• It is a clone of a video that has been deleted. Here is how this typically happens: (1) A spammer post a video in violation of a copyright (2) the copyright holder (or other party) notifies the Video sharing service that the video is not authorized (3) the video sharing service reviews that claim (4) the video sharing service deletes the video (5) the spammer posts the video again. Note: The ID in the address for the video at the video sharing service changes when this happens.

Exception: Generally, a video is not a spamming video if it is posted by the official site associated with the Bahaipedia article. For example, if the Bahaipedia article is on a movie named "xyzMovie" and the official site for the movie is "xyzMovie.com" then links or references to "xyzMovie.com" are legitimate for a video at a video sharing page—however, all other links at that video page still must also be legitimate. Some judgement is needed here. If the posted video just advertises a bunch of products associated with the movie, then it is a spamming video even though it is posted by the official site.

It is also important to avoid giving an opportunity to spammers. Sometimes, the way an article is phrased attracts spammers. For example,

• Social networking has flourished with websites such as Friendster and MySpace, ...
• Examples of detergents include Tide, ...
• The most notable MLM companies are Amway, ...
• Many people feel Dr. Pepper is the best tasting soft drink... (this is also weasel wording)
• Many blogs arose discussing this, see Some blog, ...

because it is far easier to add a link to the end of this sentence than to add encyclopedic content.

Source soliciting

Source solicitations are messages on article talk pages which explicitly solicit editors to use a specific external source to expand an article. The current consensus on Bahaipedia is that templates, categories and other forms of anonymous solicitation are inappropriate. Every article on Bahaipedia can be expanded as a matter of course, but the question is in the details on a per-article basis. It is not possible to simply say "all articles of X type can be expanded using Y source".

There is no hard rule on when this crosses over from being a legitimate attempt to improve the article into being internal spam, but some guidelines and questions to consider:

• Is the solicitation being made anonymously through the use of a template or Category?
• Is the solicitation being duplicated across many articles at the same time, particularly when the articles relate to different topics?
• Has there been no discussion (of a specific and substantive nature) on why the source should be used in each article?
• Is the source controversial, such as being non-peer reviewed, old or polemic?
• Is the source a commercial one?

External link spamming with bots

A few parties now appear to have a spambot capable of spamming wikis from several different wiki engines, analogous to the submitter scripts for guestbooks and blogs. They have a database of a few hundred wikis. Typically they insert external links. Like blog spam, their aim is to improve their search engine rankings, not to directly advertise their product.

If you see a bot inserting external links, please consider removing them or contacting an administrator.

Sysops are authorised to block unauthorised bots on sight. Spam bots should be treated equivalently as vandalbots. Edits by spambots constitute unauthorised defacement of websites, which is against the law in many countries, and may result in complaints to ISPs and (ultimately) prosecution.

Inclusion of one spam link is not a reason to include another

Many times users can be confused by the removal of spam links because other links that could be construed as spam have been added to the article and not yet removed. The inclusion of a spam link should not be construed as an endorsement of the spam link, nor should it be taken as a reason or excuse to include another.

Canvassing

Canvassing (also known as "internal spamming" and "cross-posting") is overtly soliciting the opinions of other Bahaipedia on their talk pages.

Wikiproject advertisement

Do not attempt to solicit other Bahaipedia' help by advertising a wikiproject through edit summaries, mainspace articles, article talk pages, or other wikiprojects not intended to distribute work on wikiprojects.

How not to be a spammer

Sometimes, people come to Bahaipedia with the intention of spamming -- creating articles which are mere advertisements or self-promotion, or spewing external links to a Web site over many articles.

The following guidelines are intended to suggest how not to be a spammer -- that is, how to mention a Web site, product, business, or other resource without appearing to the Bahaipedia community that you are trying to abuse Bahaipedia for self-promotion.

1. Review your intentions. Bahaipedia is not a space for personal promotion or the promotion of products, services, Web sites, fandoms, ideologies, or other memes. If you're here to tell readers how great something is, or to get exposure for an idea or product that nobody's heard of yet, you're in the wrong place. Likewise, if you're here to make sure that the famous Bahaipedia cites you as the authority on something (and possibly pull up your sagging PageRank) you'll probably be disappointed.
2. Contribute cited text, not bare links. Bahaipedia is an encyclopedia, not a link farm. If you have a source to contribute, first contribute some facts that you learned from that source, then cite the source. Don't simply direct readers to another site for the useful facts; add useful facts to the article, then cite the site where you found them. You're here to improve Bahaipedia -- not just to funnel readers off Bahaipedia and onto some other site, right? (If not, see #1 above.)
3. The References section is for references. A reference directs the reader to a work that the writer(s) referred to while writing the article. The References section of a Bahaipedia article isn't just a list of related works; it is specifically the list of works used as sources. Therefore, it can never be correct to add a link or reference to References sections if nobody editing the text of the article has actually referred to it.
4. Don't make a new article for your own product or Web site. Most often, when a person creates a new article describing his or her own work, it's because the work is not yet well-known enough to have attracted anyone else's attention, much less verifiable sources. Articles of this sort are usually deleted. Bahaipedia does indeed have articles about popular products and Web sites, but it is not acceptable to use Bahaipedia to popularize them.
5. Don't gratuitously set off our spam radar. There are certain stylistic behaviors that will say "spam!" loud and clear to anyone who's watching:
   • Adding a link to the top of an unordered list. This is an A-number-1, red-flag, hot-button spam sign. It suggests that you want people to look at your link FIRST FIRST FIRST! You wouldn't butt in at the head of a queue; don't put your link first.
   • Adding a link that's snazzier than any of the others. If there's a list of products that gives just their names, and you add a product with a short blurb about how great it is, we'll all know why you did it. The same applies to adding a list item that is in a larger or otherwise more prominent font than the other items.
   • Adding many links to (or mentions of) the same site or product. Going through an article and adding the name of your product to every paragraph where it seems relevant is just going to attract the revert button.
   • Adding the same link to many articles. The first person who notices you doing this will go through all your recent contributions with an itchy trigger finger on the revert button. And that's not much fun.
6. If your product is truly relevant to an article, others will agree -- try the talk page. We usually recommend that editors be bold in adding directly to articles. But if the above advice makes you concerned that others will regard your contribution as spam, you can find out without taking that risk: Describe your work on the article's talk page, asking other editors if it is relevant.
7. Do not add an external link to your signature.

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