MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist

The following instructions were copied from mw:Extension:Title Blacklist.

The disallowed titles list is maintained as a system message MediaWiki:Titleblacklist.

This page consists of regular expressions, each on a separate line. For example:

Foo <autoconfirmed|noedit|errmsg=blacklisted-testpage> 
Bar #No one should create article about it

There is no need to use "^" at the beginning and "$" at the end; these are added automatically.

Each entry may also contain optional attributes, enclosed in <> and divided by |

• autoconfirmed — only non-autoconfirmed users are unable to create/upload/move such pages
• noedit — users are also unable to edit this page
• casesensitive — don't ignore case when checking title for being disallowed
• errmsg — the name of the message that should be displayed instead of standard

When the action is blocked, one of the following messages is displayed together with the filter row (as $1): titleblacklist-forbidden-edit, titleblacklist-forbidden-move, titleblacklist-forbidden-new-account or titleblacklist-forbidden-upload. Generic filenames have their own custom error message, MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-imagename.

There is also MediaWiki:Titlewhitelist and a global title blacklist.

Only administrators, page movers and template editors can override this list on all actions. When they override this list when creating or editing a page, MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-warning is displayed. Account creators can override this list on account creations only.

The disallowed usernames list is handled at meta:Title blacklist by adding entries with the <newaccountonly> parameter.

Blacklist curly quote?

Per MOS:CURLY, we should almost always use straight quotes in titles. There are currently ~20 articles with curly quotes in the title, and for a while I was moving one every few days to use the proper symbol, indicating that the rule is being rampantly ignored. I suggest we enforce it by adding ’ (which seems to be much more common than the other characters) to the title blacklist, with a custom error message and possibly with restrictions on namespace. Thoughts? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:43, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

We already have a similar in spirit rule for blacklisting full-width characters, and have since 2008 (MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-fullwidth). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I've created an error message at MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-curly-quote (not currently used). The exact rule to add would be .*’.* <errmsg=titleblacklist-custom-curly-quote. Does this seem reasonable to anyone else here? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:21, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I intend to add this in a few days if there are no further comments. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:15, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I recognize I'm late to the discussion, but I would like to raise an objection—redirects.

As an example, the page Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (with the curly mark; redirects to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) received about 48 pageviews in the 90 days before 28 June 2024. I'd say that's more than enough people to accomodate. They're finding the page by using the curly apostrophe, and that means that the redirects are useful. If the redirects don't exist, then a user will simply be shown a confusing and unhelpful 404 page.

On the date of 31 May 2024's featured article highlight, where the page Hundred Years' War was linked to (although it was not the featured article itself), there were 209 pageviews of the redirect with the curly mark (Hundred Years’ War), even though the redirect itself was not linked to. I don't know exactly what this means, but the redirect here is also clearly very useful.

Many of the redirects do already exist, but for future articles (and several current articles) they may not. That means that users have to ask someone with permissions to create the page, which, unfortunately, people usually don't take time to do, meaning that the redirect doesn't get created, meaning THE END OF THE WORLD!

The Wikipedia search bar converts curly marks to straight marks (just like how it's case-insensitive) if needed, but if an exact match exists instead (such as a redirect) it will take the user there instead; so some of these pageviews might have been okay even without the redirects. However, links and direct URLs are not converted, resulting in the confusion I was talking about earlier.

I suggest that the protection level for the ’ mark should at least be leveled down to allow autoconfirmed users to create the page, so that redirects with curly apostrophes can be created. — gabldotink [ talk | contribs | global account ] 21:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I've added the curly quote to Template:New page DYM so titles with curly quotes show a "did you mean" box even if no redirect exists like Second Hundred Years’ War. Does that satisfy you? And for the record the search bar in my interface will automatically take you to the version with the straight quote even if no redirect exists. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:21, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Obscure and unusual blacklisted terms

I can't help but notice that some of the blacklisted terms are either quite obscure or pretty much outdated as of 2024. I get why topics like BFDI and [blatantly offensive terms] are blacklisted. However, I don't fully understand how seemingly random and not-so-obvious terms like .*chaos.{0,5}ashington.* and .*,,+.* <moveonly> (and their variations) get blacklisted, especially those lacking any rationale. What are the rationales behind a lot of the "obscure" and unusual blacklisted terms (such as those already mentioned) and whether some of them should remain blacklisted at this moment? AlphaBeta135talk 15:47, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Usually because some specific spammer in the past tried unusually hard to create an article with that title. For the chaos entries the target appears to have been Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jude Enemy. Since that specific SPI has no hits in over a decade it's probably safe to remove, but what's the point?

The punctuation entry you listed is related to Grawp according to the comment a few entries below it, but in any case two commas in a row is never a valid title so there's no reason to remove it.

There are definitely some other removables of the first sort, and some more where the blacklisting has failed, i.e there's still a blacklist entry trying to stop the creation of Ryan Hampton (writer), which was created circa 2019 and survived AfD. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:40, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Other rules that appear to have failed:

.*alisha.*panwar.* (Aalisha Panwar)

.*janhvi.*kapoor.* # Repeated recreation for promotional purposes. Article is salted, but salting tends to inspire work-around articles. (Janhvi Kapoor)

.*alexa.*curtis.* # https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?prefix=Alexa+Curtis&title=Special%3AUndelete&fuzzy=1 (Alexa Curtis (entrepreneur))

.*sahbabi.* (SahBabii) - I think, as I have no idea what the intended target for this blacklisting is.

* Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:51, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

.*kob.*arad.* # Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Kobi Arad, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kobi Arad (2nd nomination) (Kobi Arad) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:00, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

.*amuel.*omerville # Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sebi wj (Samuel Somerville, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#Failed footballer saltings) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:33, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Here are more blacklisted terms that I either find a little outdated or not very straightforward:

• .*BU Rob13.* <casesensitive>
• .*ge orrg.* <moveonly>
• .*'H'.* <moveonly>
• .*mixing.*sailors.*
• .*untold.*news.*
• .*impressions.*business.*professional.*
• *HIGH19\.COM.*
• .*Brian.*Peppers.*
• .*Vandalism is Terrorism.*

AlphaBeta135talk 22:15, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

BU Rob13 is the name of a user who has since courtesy vanished. It's probably not needed years later, but is harmless.

I have no idea what the purpose of "ge orrg" is - it dates back to 2008 and can probably be removed, but is also unlikely to appear in a valid title and hence harmless

'H' is presumably a Grawp remnant of some sort and can probably be removed.

"Mixing Sailors" is exactly what it says on the tin. Whatever this is has apparently been going on for years, i.e Mixing Sailors (created 2010), Mixing.Sailors (created 2015), Mixing×Sailors (created 2017). There have been evasions like Draft:Mïxing/Saïlors as recently as 2023 so I think it still servers a purpose.

Untold News was trying to stop spam on a specific organization, deleted as Untold News, Draft:Untold News, etc. I probably would not have blacklisted this with so few deletions, but it still makes sense.

Impressions Business Professional - see Draft:First Impressions for the Business Professional, Draft:First Impressions for the Business Professional.(BOOK), etc.

HIGH19.com is apparently for Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dsdgfgsa/Archive, which seems to have died, but unless this website becomes notable there's no point to removing it.

Brian Peppers - see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 February 21/Brian Peppers. I think its best this mess not be unearthed.

Vandalism is Terrorism is apparently a title one specific page-move vandal used over a few days in 2008. I doubt it ever did anything useful. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:38, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

BU Rob13 is here for good reasons I would rather not elaborate on. I would not recommend removing it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:25, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Failed rules

The following rules appear to have failed:

1. .*kob.*arad.* # Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Kobi Arad, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kobi Arad (2nd nomination)(added by MER-C in 2017 - the subject it is targeting now exists as Kobi Arad after being accepted by Cullen328 at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive344#Kobi Arad / Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive344#Unlocking page for Kobi Arad.
2. .*alisha.*panwar.* added by MER-C in 2017) - the subject it is targeting now exists as Aalisha Panwar after being accepted by Missvain at AfC.
3. .*janhvi.*kapoor.* # Repeated recreation for promotional purposes. Article is salted, but salting tends to inspire work-around articles. added by Cyphoidbomb in 2018 - the subject it is targeting now exists at Janhvi Kapoor, which was only ever extended-confirmed protected and has been stable as an article since 2019.
4. .*amuel.*omerville # [[Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sebi wj]] added by Ivanvector in 2020 - the subject it is targeting now exists at Samuel Somerville after discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 165#Failed footballer saltings
5. .*((ryan.*?hampton|hampton.*?ryan)).* added by MER-C in 2017) - article subject exists at Ryan Hampton (writer) and survived Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryan Hampton (writer)
6. .*sahbabi.* (added by MER-C in 2017 - article subject exists at SahBabii).
7. .*alexa.*curtis.* # https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?prefix=Alexa+Curtis&title=Special%3AUndelete&fuzzy=1 (added by MER-C in 2020) - subject now exists at Alexa Curtis (entrepreneur) after Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive345#Alexa M. Curtis)

Is there any reason these rules shouldn't be deleted? They make it harder to create talk page archives, deletion discussions, etc. and provide no apparent additional value. The last one also matches many people other than the intended target. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:00, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say "failed", the point isn't to stop the articles ever being created, just to stop the sockpuppets repeatedly recreating unsuitable pages. If they've been created by someone in good faith and also reviewed before being moved over the salted titles, in my view that's what's supposed to happen and so the rules were actually successful. One thing though: I would carefully check the histories of the articles created after salting to ensure there's not a hijacked article in the history, that's a common way of evading salting and history splits/merges may be necessary. Otherwise I say go ahead and remove the entries, they're no longer needed. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:11, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I guess I'm more cynical than you are. And Special:PermaLink/839309087 for SahBabii is an outright failure IMO

Anyway, that's irrelevant now, and none of these seem to have been hijacks. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:50, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

 Removed * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:22, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Request preemptive creation protection of "Aleksandar Saša Trajkovski" variations

At least two variations have been targets of global lock evasion by self-professed promoter or promoters using self-created sourcing: Aleksandar Saša Trajkovski and Aleksandar Sasha Trajkovski (the latter was a WP:GAMENAME and WP:PGAME creation). They are running a scheme going many years back (see AfD for an old article by the same individual/group: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Irena Jordanova; there also may be something at Talk:Irena Jordanova). An incident is described at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1149#Promoter generates online coverage in real time. Recently at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Мкдвики. Plausible targets are "Saša Trajkovski (writer)" and "Aleksandar S. Trajkovski" (see Draft:Saša Trajkovski (writer)), plausibly "Sasha Trajkovski (writer)", etc. Aleksandar Trajkovski is a footballer.

Star Mississippi made a reference to salting in the SPI, but I don't think that anything was ever salted; this gave me an idea to ask for action here. I think that there was significant discussion, with multiple editors expressing concern over this activity. From where I see it, blacklisting should be a net positive. Thanks for considering. —Alalch E. 14:46, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I misread the logs and thought @CactusWriter had SALTed it.

In the deleted history from Doktortrajkovski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) there's reference to Александар Саша Трајковски on Macedonian wiki but it appears deleted. (Not sure whether anyone reads Macedonian) so likely cross wiki spam.

Not helpful on the tech side at all, but I support any action here. Star Mississippi 15:17, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The legitimate Aleksandar Trajkovski article greatly limits what we're able to do here without interfering with its talk page archives and other subpages, and (more hypothetically) nominations for deletion. (Lots of other titles containing "Trajkovski", too.) I suppose we could blacklist everywhere except in the talk and Wikipedia namespaces. Trying to look for disambiguators would be futile.

Initial analysis here. Are the draft pages (deleted) and/or user pages (not deleted) problematic? Anything whose creation should have been prevented that doesn't show up on that list? —Cryptic 15:58, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

There's been a Cyrillic-titled draft at Draft:Александар Саша Трајковски, so perhaps what should also be prevented, that is not in the list, are the following: Mainspace page with titles including Александар Саша Трајковски, Александар С. Трајковски, Саша Трајковски. In general, variations without "Aleksandar", i.e. Saša Trajkovski, Sasha Trajkovski and Саша Трајковски seem plausible to me.

Creation of drafts and user pages is not a real concern in my view. Blacklisting everywhere except in talk and project would be great, and blacklisting only in mainspace seems OK to me as well.

(Side note: the oldest page in the list is from 2010). —Alalch E. 17:24, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The first two non-Aleksandar variations are caught by the sa\w+a\b alternative. Cyrillic titles would have to be blacklisted separately, and since false positives are less harmful here - we can handle edit requests to create redirects, which is all they should ever be - they can be covered with something like (Александар|Саша).*Трајковски. Blacklisting in mainspace only is difficult, since the match is done on the full page title and mainspace titles are defined by not having any of a long list of other namespaces' prefixes; but easy enough to allow Draft: in addition to the Talk: and Wikipedia: and Wikipedia talk: mentioned in the description of my query. —Cryptic 17:57, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you. —Alalch E. 21:21, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Following closure of the SPI and the subsequent G5 deletion, both Aleksandar Sasha Trajkovski and Aleksandar Saša Trajkovski are now salted. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 17:07, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Done. The salting at Aleksandar Sasha Trajkovski isn't entirely redundant (blacklisted titles can also be created by pagemovers and templateeditors); but I see no protection at Aleksandar Saša Trajkovski. —Cryptic 17:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done Resalted. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 22:10, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Request preemptive creation protection of "American Communist Party"

After a unanimous vote for deletion. The same author of the deleted page has started recreating the same content in different titles. Ahri Boy (talk) 01:48, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Also at WP:ANI#User continually recreating salted page at different titles (permalink). Three titles, by a single user (currently blocked from creating pages), over a period of just three and a half days, doesn't usually merit a blacklisting. —Cryptic 02:00, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Edit request 27 July 2024

Description of suggested change: Please add Wikipedia talk:Discord/talk and its subpages (and possibly also Wikipedia talk:Discord/Talk and its subpages) to the title blacklist. I see that Wikipedia talk:Discord/talk (subpage level 1), Wikipedia talk:Discord/talk/talk (subpage level 2), and Wikipedia talk:Discord/talk/talk/talk (subpage level 3) have all been created by sockpuppets. If the pattern continues, then Wikipedia talk:Discord/talk/talk/talk/talk (subpage level 4), Wikipedia talk:Discord/talk/talk/talk/talk/talk (subpage level 5), etc. could then also possibly be created by similar sockpuppets.

Diff:

−

+

Wikipedia talk:Discord\/[Tt]alk.*

GTrang (talk) 03:30, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

That regex won't match any of your redlinks (nor any other pages that have been created, whether existing or deleted). quarry:query/85144 shows hits for Wikipedia talk:discord\/talk.*. No strong position on the merits, but they do look slim to me. —Cryptic 04:01, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I have fixed my regex by removing the mistakenly added colon. GTrang (talk) 04:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

[tT] isn't needed either; the regexes here are case-insensitive.

Having looked at the deleted content, this looks like the sort of abuse that'll just move to a different title. See Wikipedia:Salting is usually a bad idea. That said, still I don't have a strong objection if some other admin wants to do this. —Cryptic 04:16, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Don't think this is that useful, those disrupters will just create a different title - and I'd rather have them create nonsense buried there where it is easy to find, delete, and block them. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit protected}} template. Izno (talk) 21:57, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Edit request 30 September 2024

Description of suggested change: The first two entries in the "excessive punctuation and repetition" section look like they're trying to use lookahead assertions, but they use incorrect syntax; lookahead assertions should use equals signs where these rules use less-than signs. However, it's not really necessary to use lookahead assertions here anyway, so we should just replace these malformed lookahead assertions with strings of exclamation marks.

Diff:

−

.*[!?‽¿]{3}(?<!!!!).* .*[!?‽¿]{2}(?<!!!).* <moveonly>

+

.*[!?‽¿]{3}!!!!.* .*[!?‽¿]{2}!!!.* <moveonly>

TTWIDEE (talk) 19:32, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

No, they don't look like they're trying to use lookahead assertions. They look like - and are - negative lookbehind assertions. [!?‽¿]{3}(?<!!!!) matches any sequence of three !, ?, ‽, or ¿ characters in a row except three of ! - for example, Foo??? and Foo?!! and Foo?!‽ are all matched, but Foo!!! deliberately is not. It's not immediately obvious why that behavior is intended, but it clearly is; and your patterns would for example forbid Foo‽‽!!!!! but not Foo!!!!!‽‽, which is nonsensical. The move-only pattern works the same for sequences of two or more. —Cryptic 20:00, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

There are legitimate articles titled with three exclamation marks in a row like No, Thank You!!!. That's probably why it wants to exclude that specifically. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's the diff deliberately allowing !!!. —Cryptic 20:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

My bad, for some reason I didn't read the first exclamation mark in each bracket as part of the assertion syntax—I read it as part of the assertion text itself. TTWIDEE (talk) 10:02, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 9 October 2024

Combine these two rules: .*on hueels.*
.*onhueels.*
That is, replace them with this: .*on ?hueels.*
TTWIDEE (talk) 18:48, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Error message for accidental creation of WikiProjects in article space

The rule WikiProject:.* doesn't specify a custom error message, so it will just use the default error message. How about we create a more helpful error message with text like 'You cannot create WikiProject:Foo—creation of pages with titles starting with "WikiProject:" is forbidden because WikiProjects are meant to go in the Wikipedia namespace. Please create the new WikiProject at Wikipedia:WikiProject Foo instead.'? TTWIDEE (talk) 20:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)