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I have recently been finding large numbers of inappropriate links to amazon.com in references, bibliographies, and the like. A good example is at Historiography of the British Empire, you can see what I removed here. Can this be blacklisted, and perhaps a bot made to remove such inappropriate links? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
I completely support this. The problem is huge. This may actually be the biggest link abuse problem on all of Wikipedia. There are well over 50,000 links to Amazon.com alone, most of them in mainspace, linking books to Amazon sales pages instead of using the ISBN magic syntax and Wikipedia:Book sources. I actually don't think we will stop this happening without blacklisting Amazon's domains. Guy (Help!) 23:47, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
People will indeed not like it, 'we have to be able to link to a live copy of the reference'. No, you don't, you have ISBN and sites which are not aiming at selling the book. Support blacklisting this. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:50, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Lots of problematic links, but I don't have a sense of how often an amazon link is used because it's the only practical way to verify some sources (without buying them). If it's a very small number, it could be whitelisted in those cases, but if it's common I can't see blacklisting it. "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" seems a little too generous; maybe "don't throw that halfway decent bar of soap out with the bathwater" is closer. Would also presumably mean removing the asin parameter from the citation templates that use it (presumably there was consensus to include it at some point). If we're talking about 50,000 links, this should really have wider input/notice. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 05:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Maybe a reasonable proposal would be to bar all usage except via asin in citations (which would ensure no affiliate links and cut down on in-text linkspam). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 05:04, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites:We could block down all of amazon, and then have a specific identifier system to allow through whitelisting (block \bamazon\.com\b; open up \bamazon\.com\?asin=<regex allowing identifier pattern>$ (I am a bit opposed to extensive blacklist rules that block all except, they tend to be difficult to read, even for regex-savvy editors). There are anyway going to be things that we (in this case) should preemptively whitelist, like their about-page and other parts that are referenced from their site. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
The answer is: never. There is no time when an Amazon link is the only way to verify a fact. OK, that's a very broad statement, to be clear, I mean that I cannot think of one and have never seen one. I have seen a lot of affiliate codes and a vast number of links that should be to the ISBN. Guy (Help!) 06:42, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, after writing this I was looking into ASIN, and it looks like it can easily be assassinated (pun intended) by converting the majority to ISBNs in the citation templates (and the code that we use to display asin seems to be prepared for that). I do not know how widespread the use of asin is, though (and that could also be mitigated, disable the use of the asin parameter for amazon links and you eradicate most of the amazon links). Nuke it. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:53, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Note that there are likely primary sources to parts of amazon.com on our articles related to the subject Amazon (similar to the link to their official homepage - I'll prepare for that). --Dirk BeetstraTC06:55, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@Cabayi:{{ASIN}} can be removed easily as many of them are just ISBNs, the rest can go into a maintenance category and cleared out. No need for the external link, so it can be easily blacklisted. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:37, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
STRONGEST POSSIBLE OPPOSE to blacklisting. WP:V is to be encouraged, not discouraged. So what if someone posts an amazon link to a book instead of a properly formatted citation. By all means, cleanup such cases, but blacklisting (either the URL or the template) is way too drastic, especially since for rare books there is often no ISBN available. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}11:36, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
was created by putting 'https://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Charles-W-Misner/dp/0716703440' in the ref toolbar. This is completely fine to do, and blacklisting this is hugely detrimental to the encyclopedia. Yes there are other ways to do this, but the point is that this one is EASY and EDITOR-FRIENDLY. And there are citations like
Bozman, E. F. (ed.) (1967). Everyman's Encyclopedia: Anatomy. J. M. Dent & Sons. p. 272. ASINB0066E44EC. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
where no other identifiers are available. Does an OCLC or LCCN exist? Maybe. But in the meantime the ASIN is fine and very helpful.Headbomb {t · c · p · b}11:43, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. First of all, this is entirely the wrong forum for discussing something that will have a large impact on Wikipedia - if amazon.com gets blacklisted due to a local discussion here, the negative blowback toward this Wikiproject will be massive and may jeopardize the goals of this project. Even as someone who is actively involved in removing spam links from Wikipedia, I don't think blacklisting amazon.com is good idea at all. Before even considering blacklisting, there needs to be some kind of consensus determined about how the links should be used (what uses are appropriate, what uses are inappropriate, etc.). There needs to be some objective analysis of how often the link is used appropriately vs. inappropriately, and what the impact of blacklisting it will be, etc. The "people will not like it" comments above are spot on and should be a huge red flag that a decision to blacklist made here will not reflect consensus of Wikipedia editors as a whole. This kind of decision needs to be done as a widely-advertised RFC with input from users sitewide. Deli nk (talk) 11:56, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
It's probably obvious, but use of Amazon links seems reasonable as a source for fair use images of album covers (given that Template:Infobox_album#Cover explicitly mentions it) and so on. Of course, that's buried in the image summary, not used as a reference on main pages. --tronvillain (talk) 14:48, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@Beetstra: Linking to the actual source of a copyrighted image seems completely reasonable and appropriate to me, especially given the "website" field description: "If taken from the web, where?" It's substantially different than listing it in the reference or external links sections of an article. --tronvillain (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Though upon reflection, you're right that the link doesn't actually have to work as in "generate a link" - if someone really wants to check the source, they could just copy and paste it. --tronvillain (talk) 18:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Support for Amazon links to be treated like blogspot links in XLinkBot, weak oppose outright blacklisting. While most Amazon links are "buy it here" pages, I have seem some that link to author profiles and other useful information that doesn't involve purchasing. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:55, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I suppose so, but the same argument can be made for blogspot, and XLinkBot works just fine for that. My opposition to blacklisting is neutral-to-weak, so I changed my comment above. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:49, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Anachronist: also Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are on there. Nonetheless, I remove 60-70% of the twitter links I encounter on sight as failing our inclusion standards. They were very likely not added by newbies but by established editors. People like to ignore the problem. Amazon.com is in many cases easy to replace with something more neutral (i.e. less commercial in nature like our magic ISBN). The problem is somewhat akin examiner.com. Though quite some editors are inserting it in good faith, there is a plethora of editors who try to insert it for monetary gain - many editors use amazon.com as a quick place for books, and use that link (also because it has a high google ranking), and editors who want to promote their own books can, often rather undetected, add an amazon.com link to their book in the hope that s.o. will buy it when clicking on it. I guess that a bot could easily neutralize >90% of the currently available links. --Dirk BeetstraTC 17:23, 14 April 2017 (UTC) (reping @Anachronist:, wrote the answer to the wrong person earlier --Dirk BeetstraTC17:24, 14 April 2017 (UTC)).
Switching to no opinion, based on the representations that 1) it is a problem, and 2) we have mechanisms in place to just mildly discourage use of the site without preventing it. Herostratus (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Opppose, but one question that comes right to mind is "who is spamming us with these links"? If Amazon or its agents are deliberately spamming us... first of all, I haven't seen a pattern of editing that indicates this, so let's see it. Second of all, we ought to be able to get Amazon to stop this -- it's a very large company with a large profile and this is such a silly and trivial thing to do, surely we can convince them that the potential bad publicity is not worth it.
If its not Amazon or its agents, is it someone else? Who, and why? If its not someone else but just the accretion of links from editors acting individually, then its not spam, it's just editors being editors and voting with their feet that Amazon is a convenient source for reffing the existence and vital stats of a book.
Amazon is a good source for showing the existence and vital stats of a book, such as in a section of a bio listing the books the person has written. I use it all the time for that, and if I couldn't I would probably just use Alibris or another commercial site, since it is convenient. Amazon pages are good in that they list the publisher and ISBN and date and author all in one place, just exactly the info we want in {{cite book}}. Also, Amazon is not likely to close soon, so the links are stable.
@Herostratus: In my observation over the past decade or so, it isn't any one particular person or group. I see amazon links being added by anyone with a conflict of interest: a book author, an author's agent, a band member, a representative of a vanity publisher, and so on. As for existence and vital stats (metadata) of a book, Google Books usually works just as well. But book metadata doesn't require a source, it can be obtained easily from the book itself, and anyone can verify by going to a library or bookstore. There is zero requirement on Wikipedia to link to a metadata page, or even for metadata to be available online. Therefore, blacklisting (or XLinkBot-ing) amazon.com won't do any harm in that regard. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:49, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Oh. Well, I'm surprised that existence and vital stats of a book don't need verification. If not, doesn't it make it easier for someone could insert a bogus book into the text? And isn't "go to the library" kind of like reffing "Wichita is the capital of Kansas" to "just go there, you'll see the capitol building big as life"... it's more convenient if you have online proof to link to it. (And sure, a reader can go to Amazon or wherever herself, but then that's true of many of our sources; we provide the sources as a convenient link (when available).)
I ref the existence of books, and records also, I just think it's good hygiene. I use Google Books all the time for content, but unless I'm missing it it doesn't show ISBN and so forth in a convenient easy-to-access form. Herostratus (talk) 16:28, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Herostratus:Wikipedia:Verifiability doesn't require that everything be available online. It requires that things be verifiable by an ordinary person with ordinary access to resources, such as libraries. Many reliable sources aren't online. If you can get an ISBN from Amazon, that's fine, but there's no reason for you to link a Wikipedia article to an amazon page for that purpose. Our citation templates include auto-magic links for ISBN number lookups. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:23, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Those are good points. You're right. With the auto-ISBN lookup, that's enough to establish the propers for a book. (Some, older, books don't have ISBN though.) OK... yeah, I can imagine a world where Amazon refs could be cut back quite a bit then.
Still, I'm not sure Amazon links are an actual big problem. If a person links to their book on Amazon... so? What's the harm? It's not a SEO issue I don't think -- it's just, "you can get some info on the book here, and also buy it if you want". It doesn't excite me as much of a problem. And blacklisting Amazon is a big step... I'm confident there would be non-zero instances of good and reasonable uses of the site being frustrated (and yeah, you can ask for whitelisting, if you know how and can be bothered, but it's still a barrier to any reasonable use). Herostratus (talk) 20:44, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Herostratus: Well, what you just wrote is more or less why, in my !vote above, I supported listing amazon.com on XLinkBot but oppose outright blacklisting. XLinkBot works well for other non-blacklisted places that have mostly-undesirable but possibly-useful links, such as blogspot. It simply removes a link the first time it's added but leaves it alone afterward. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Oh, OK. Sorry, was not aware of that device. Very well, I will redact my Oppose vote in that case, but only to switch to Neutral. I haven't been aware of this as a problem, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem. But I don't know enough about it to have a useful opinion, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Strong Oppose Doing this will have ramifications in many articles across Wikipedia. I also want to point out that some companies use amazon as their official distributers, as in there are no other reliable sources for release dates. When possible though, amazon.com should be used as a last resort. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:02, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Knowledgekid87: No, not really. When we blacklist a domain, it generally doesn't affect articles, even if an edit included the blacklisted domain from a previous revision unchanged. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:23, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose Amazon is used for verifying existence and information that isn't self-pub (Amazon-originated material aside). If it's being banned because it's a retail side, are you going to ban Barnes and Noble or Google Books? Guidance can be given for better use of Amazon citations or its suggested replacements if someone thinks it's a problem. However, there shouldn't be any links to retail stores that would place the book in your shopping cart or assume you are buying it by clicking to it. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 16:22, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree that we shouldn't link to retail stores that would place a book in your shopping cart. There's no policy-based requirement to "verify existence". One can do that independently without sticking a link in a Wikipedia article. We have notability requirements for topics, and a topic meeting those requirements will be verified to exist anyway, and amazon links have zero relevance to that. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:28, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose largely per AngusWOOF above. There are existing rules in place to prevent any misuse of these links (spam/retail advertisements) w/o having to blacklist it entirely. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:22, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Lord Roem: We don't blacklist blogspot, but we do have a bot (XLinkBot) that removes blogspot links the first time they are added, but the links aren't banned, they can still be added. I see no reason why we can't do something similar for amazon links. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:28, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose blacklist While Amazon.com isn't the most desired reference, but in many cases, it is the only reference we have available. I've came across more than a few Japanese publishers who don't maintain their own information pages, but instead link to an Amazon storefront. Or they will remove the publication information from their website after a certain period. And while we may have the Media Arts Database from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, it is not up-to-date nor is it complete—often missing information for may older titles. Secondly, ISBNs are not a substitute for a proper reference, particularly with regard to publication dates. —Farix (t | c) 19:30, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I agree with using primary sources over amazon links but there are times the primary sources disappear and are not archived. If it weren't for amazon's link, I wouldn't have been able reference most of the article Scryed since most earlier sources (back from 2004 more or less) were never archived.Tintor2 (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Support a soft blacklist by way of consensus policy/guideline. Amazon.com is not a reliable source for most cases. The metadata is often crowd sourced, just like IMDB, you can submit changes to the metadata. Search for the words "Report incorrect product information". It's not difficult to punk Amazon. It's unclear why anyone would link to Amazon. To prove the mere existence of a book? Link to the Library of Congress page, or even better WorldCatorOpen Library. The editorial reviews section should link to original source, otherwise how do we know the review exists. There's nothing at Amazon that can't be found at more reliable open source alternatives that are not trying to sell you something. -- GreenC01:45, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
In many, but not all cases, yes. However, Amazon is used for more than just books, and old rare/books often don't have ISBNs. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}11:48, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
It would then not be much of an effort to have the bot collect the ones where the amazon.com link does not provide an ISBN, and those could be whitelisted (maybe after a manual processing to double-check). --Dirk BeetstraTC12:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Or you could use a bot to remove amazon links for which ISBNs do exist, and tag or otherwise process those for which ISBNs do not exist. This would discourage spammers. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:45, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Strong Oppose the ability of our readers to read key passages without having to buy the book or get it through a library is a major advantage for them. They can validate a statement made by a Wiki article and explore further into the topic. As far as purchasing a book new, I think most readers know about Amazon. What they may not know is they can get an excerpt of this particular book here. Note that Amazon links small local used book dealers as well--this is their best access to potential book buyers and I think it's a good idea to support the used book-stores. If readers want to buy buy the book they can get a used copy MUCH cheaper using the Amazon link. Many used books there sell for under $5 (postage included). (Amazon itself only sells new copies of books--and that's how university presses stay alive.) the other major search system for used books is ABE.COM -- which is owned by Amazon.) ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rjensen (talk • contribs)
Oppose blacklisting, but by far the better choice is to change the links to go to WorldCat, if only because it has the official cataloging data and the identity links, and is much better proof that a book actually exists than Amazon, which will list pretty much anything someone is willing to sell, even if it's self-published print-on-demand. I would definitely support a project to change the links, and, when I revise an article, I usually do just that. But , as Rjensen says, Amazon has its purpose also (though there are also a many used book store which do not use it--in addition to those using ABE, some use eBay which amazon has not yet gotten around to swallowing). But I think anyone knows that if you want to buy a book instead of getting it in a library, Amazon is a first place to go, whether or not we link there. There's difference between non-preferred and blacklisted. DGG ( talk ) 04:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Self-published and/or print-on-demand titles may be legitimate sources. It all depends on the individual work and the context. These or similar generalizations are poor recommendations for restricting access. 72.43.99.138 (talk) 15:55, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose blacklisting (really not newbie friendly), but support replacing all links to books on Amazon by more generic links (be it Special:BookSourcesorWorldCat). I would support a systematic effort to search and convert Amazon links. —Kusma (t·c) 11:02, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Comment I don't see blacklisting as gaining consensus given the above discussion. Meanwhile, there are many comments on alternatives that need to be collected for review. XLinkBot is mentioned multiple times, and it doesn't look like anyone opposes its use. I also think a new section in WP:ELPEREN should be created, for common online sales sites, including Amazon and iTunes.
Further Comment XLinkBot-ing this is also a bad idea. The proper solution is for a "de-Amazon" bot, which removes those links only when they can be converted to or when ISBNs are already present. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}16:50, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose blacklist but I would support any experienced editor who removes an obviously inappropriate Amazon link (and IMDB, e-Bay, etc.). Usage of such a link must be dependent on context and usefulness to the reader, so it should come down to plain WP:COMMONSENSE. Jack | talk page18:24, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose the problem is, is that there are very valid reasons to reference Amazon. For example, they produce Television shows. Presumably they are a valid reference (if not the best reference) for the titles of episodes of these shows. Not surprisingly, articles on their shows contain many links back to Amazon - The Grand Tour (TV series) comes to mind. Nfitz (talk) 20:11, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
multiple instances of links to this website being added. It appears to be linked with previous promotion of the guidancemdms website. Drchriswilliams (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
I ran into above report, which COIBot picked up. As I have a script installed that shows me blocked editors, the list of editors seems to consist of three huge groups:
IPs
users without userpage
blocked editors
(and a few 'regulars', but none of the level that they have 'given rights')
Many of the blocked editors are tagged as sockpuppets (though three different ones), many of the editors have spam warnings, many of the editors have copyright violation warnings. Pinging @MER-C: here, some area of MER-C's expertise. I am tempted to pull the trigger. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:16, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
AddedtoMediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:22, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
