Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard

Welcome to the external links noticeboard
This page is for reporting possible breaches of the external links guideline. Post questions here regarding whether particular external links are appropriate or compliant with Wikipedia's guidelines for external links. Provide links to the relevant article(s), talk page(s), and external links(s) that are being discussed. Questions about prominent websites like YouTube, IMDb, Twitter, or Find a Grave might be addressed with information from this guide. Sections older than 10 days archived by MiszaBot. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) If you mention specific editors, you must notify them. You may use {{subst:ELN-notice}} to do so.
Search this noticeboard & archives Additional notes: Concerns with links used as references should be handled at the reliable sources noticeboard. For cases involving blatant spamming, please file a report at the spam project. Obvious cases of corporate vanity can be tagged with {{db-g11}}. This board is not intended for generalized discussion about the external links guidelines themselves, which should be handled at the guideline talk page. To mark a report resolved, place {{Resolved|Your reason here ~~~~}} at the top of the section.
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wuaze.com

• wuaze.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple • Spamcheck • blacklist hits • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • Wikipedia • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I'm seeking a rough consensus here about whether wuaze.com is something we should ever be linking to.

It's a free webhosting service, with sites located at sitename.wuaze.com and while there are some legitimate fan sites (that we wouldn't be linking to anyway) there, mostly it appears to be scams, spam and phishing. For instance, I'm currently in a slow-motion edit war of sorts with a spammer intent on adding a wuaze.com faked ref to Betsson, an online betting provider. The link is a spam site.

A look at Spamcheck shows that some ~90% of the wuaze.com links have been immediately reverted, the survivors being band fan sites that I have since removed.

If I can get consensus here that this is A Bad Link, I'll ask the good people at WikiProject Spam about blacklisting it (I think at the moment they'd ask me to come here first anyway, because of the ~10% useless-but-not-bad links). • a frantic turtle 🐢 solidarity 14:33, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that you should post this at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed additions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:49, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, but I think at the moment they'd ask me to get a consensus somewhere else first, because of the ~10% useless-but-not-bad links. • a frantic turtle 🐢 solidarity 20:20, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

We've achieved non-objections so far. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

"Mediascope"

Trying to add a link in an article (e.g. to this), brings up a warning for "untrusted security certificates" and possible phishing. -The Gnome (talk) 12:35, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Following a DOI in that article takes me to http://www.mediascope.ru/en, and I don't get an error message. Can you tell me more about what happened? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but... I get the same error issue if I try to go to the address using https, but I don't if I use http. It looks like their https service is offering a certificate that expired in 2020, and that throws browser alerts at me. LizardJr8 (talk) 19:28, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

malicious link found to "cellidfinder.com"

I looked into the GSM cell id article in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_Cell_ID

and found the malicious link https://cellidfinder.com/

it redirects to another website which triggers users to pass a "prove you are human" check, requesting the users to run scripts on their computers which would download a remote control script, letting attackers execute malicious software on the users desktop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-46854-35 (talk) 07:11, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

I removed it. Fences&Windows 18:59, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Streaming services tool (from Toolforge)

I created a tool that is meant to help people find an album or artist on their streaming service specifically. It makes links that look like this:

• Listen on your streaming service (Abbey Road by The Beatles example)
• Listen on all streaming services (Abbey Road by The Beatles example)

I heard some legitimate arguments against this, but I also think the case is a bit more nuanced than what is immediately addressed by the current policy. Main concerns were about the commercial nature and need to register for a service. I wanted to offer the reasons why this is different from a standard streaming service(s) link:

• This isn't the same as providing one link to Spotify. It provides a neutral, broad list of services the user may have already registered for or that they can choose from. Once they set their service, clicking the link will automatically direct them to what they prefer. Users can also set YouTube as their preference if they don't want to register for any service.
• The routing service runs entirely in Toolforge and is built in Toolforge with free and open source code, so it is all hosted within the Wikimedia ecosystem.
• The routing destination is based on Wikidata, so editors can control where the links to each service go at any time. It also prevents spamming of services since they must have a Wikidata property already discussed and approved on Wikidata. New services can also be supported if requested, and no registration is needed to use.
• It demonstrates the subject of the article in a way not possible in the article itself because of copyright.

I'm curious to hear some feedback on it. AaronNealLucas (talk) 19:03, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy ping of @RachelTensions. AaronNealLucas (talk) 19:04, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

In terms of functionality, it's similar to Special:BookSources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Both are intended to be a compact way to put a link in an article to resources only available elsewhere. I didn't think about how it correlated with this tool, but it is similar. AaronNealLucas (talk) 21:40, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily inappropriate (e.g., in an article about an album), but I really don't know whether the community would want it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:16, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Yeah, I'm in the same spot. I can't really think of where to go next after this noticeboard. Could perhaps add it in a few places again slowly and then if there's objection go to RfC or somewhere else? AaronNealLucas (talk) 01:23, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I think adding it in a few places, and then waiting (a month? longer?) to see what the reaction is would be appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

12 ext links to Amazon sales pages

Is this permissible ?

Article - Matthew Lynn URL - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Lynn

Article body contains direct sales links advertising author's books — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-51130-19 (talk) 07:40, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-51130-19 It is excessive, I have removed the inline external links (as per WP:EL. replaced some with ISBN links, but not all readily available. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:14, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

It might be okay to keep an Amazon link in a ==List of works== when ISBNs/other forms of verification aren't readily available. (No affiliate links, though.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

User:~2026-51296-38 and thegreenerroofco.co.uk

• ~2026-51296-38 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · Edit filter search · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · blacklist hits · user page logs · x-wiki · SUL · Google · StopForumSpam)
• thegreenerroofco.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple • Spamcheck • blacklist hits • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • Wikipedia • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Spam/promo with false ESUMs. See diff.

Shield ^{\\ |T| - |C| - Solidarity \\} 15:04, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

This probably needs to be at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed additions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2026 (UTC)