Wikipedia:Blocked external links

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Blocked external links are links to external websites which cannot (in the strictly technical sense) be added to Wikipedia. Attempts to do so will generate a warning page similar to that on the right.

Requests

Click here to make or view current requests.

Administrators can add and remove sites from the blacklist, and, using the whitelist, can permit the addition of links from blocked sites. (Administrators unfamiliar with the process should read the technical details first.) To place a request, follow the instructions below.

==Request that a site be removed from the blocked list entirely==

If the site is on the meta blocked list, you must make your request at m:talk:Spam blacklist. Requests here will be summarily closed.

If the site is on the local blocked external links list, then add your request here. Please provide the following details:

  1. The web address of the site you would like removed from the list (omit the http and www parts)
  2. The reason(s) why links to the site should be allowed, and would benefit Wikipedia
  3. The article or articles on which the links would be used
  4. If you are connected to the site, then please declare this at this point. Failure to do so will, if discovered, be treated negatively.

Technical details

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To block an external link on Wikipedia, an administrator may add it to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist as a regular expression. Note that the name of this page is set by the software; it should not be assumed that websites listed on the blacklist are responsible for spam, nor that spamming is the only reason a page can be listed there.

Wikipedia also imports the spam blacklist from meta. Additions and removals from that list are handled at meta:talk:Spam blacklist and cannot be processed on Wikipedia.

If a link matches a regular expression on MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist then it can be used even if it also matches one on the blacklist. This is generally done to override a blacklisting on the meta-blacklist, or to forbid most links to a website while permitting one or two.

The toolserver tool http://toolserver.org/~seth/grep_regexp_from_url.cgi can be used to find out what blacklist entry is affecting any given link.