Wikipedia talk:Identifying blatant advertising

Latest comment: 1 year ago by WhatamIdoing in topic Request to add signs of blatant advertising

Some additions

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Oshwah, feel free to revert if you don't like my additions. I added a bullet point that often gives away commissioned works. Also added a section on copyvio, which is very often present alongside spam. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:59, 2 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Looks good to me :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 10:32, 22 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Request to add signs of blatant advertising

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  • Can we add "years of experience" to the verbiage for identifying blatant advertising? I see that a lot instead of year ranges, although you already have examples of "over 10 years" for other sections so maybe redundant?
  • When the editor uses the two-digit state codes for US states, such as grew up in "San Diego, CA" instead of "San Diego, California", indicating that they more than likely copied it from a website.
  • Excessive use of "Dr." or "Mr." honorifics to show how great their professor is.
  • Mission and values sections with bullet lists that are copied straight out of a website
  • Uploading and posting oversized copyrighted photos
  • Excessive lists of social media external links that immediately need to be trimmed per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL
  • Reception section is full of taglines / quotes not formatted in prose but as a bullet list, and of course is all glowing

I'm sure there are more but these have shown up a lot on ones I tag for G11 AngusWOOF (barksniff) 15:30, 3 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

I added bullet points on name-dropping. I see this happen with a lot of garage bands (WP:GARAGEBAND), actors who have bit roles in films that feature a much more well-known actor/director, and journalists/writers who self-publish to a number of magazines yet don't have external articles written about themselves. AngusWOOF (barksniff) 18:32, 11 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
AngusWOOF - I just now saw your suggestion here, and I believe that they've since been added. Either way, I think this extension of the list are good ones. :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 11:07, 14 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
I don't think that writing "Dr. I.M. Portant" is blatant advertising. The idea that a medical doctor gets written about as "Gregory House, M.D." instead of "Dr. House" feels unnatural to a lot of people. In some cultures, it is considered rude to omit honorifics. We should follow our house style, but writing something like "Dr. House said that it's never lupus" is not any type of actual advertising. If you're running into people who make this mistake, point them at MOS:DOCTOR but don't tell them that their stylistic error is a paid promotion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:15, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply