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6 Points to a Meaningful Practice by Dave Salo
What they mean to me
Coach Thomas Topolski
A colleague of mine posted a sheet of paper that had on it: 6 points to a Meaningful Practice by USC Head Coach David Salo. He acquired the list while attending a Michigan Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association Clinic and it looked like this:
1.) Race Pace
2.) Varied Stimuli
3.) Hard
4.) Fun
5.) Faster-Faster More Faster
6.) Relevance
It immediately made sense to me and to make sure that it was saying to me what I thought it was, I looked up some articles about Salo and tried to learn something about his coaching philosophy. The two articles I liked the best are listed below and youll probably enjoy them as much as I did. I look at coach Salo is one of the coaches who are helping change the way swimmers will be trained now and in the future.
The following information isnt from Coach Salo, its from me. Ive simply looked at his list and put into words what I think they mean to me. The first is;
1.) Race Pace
I use the term Race Pace as a baseline from which swimmers and coaches should create their training programs. I believe the most important baseline time is a push-off twenty-five (swim, kick, pull). I dont allow swimmers to use a kickboards or allow them to scull or use any propulsive motions with their hands when they record a kick or pull time. I want to isolate their kick and pull times to gain a true account of their effort.
If you want fast swimmers then your practices must concentrate on lowering their twenty-five yard times. If you cant break fifteen seconds in a twenty-five yard freestyle, you are forever stuck at that multiple forever; A sub five minute five hundred Not!; A sub two minute two-hundred Not!, A sub one-minute one-hundred free Well with a good start a fifty-eight (you get my point).
2.) Varied Stimuli
I use the term Varied Stimuli to describe the concept of measurable stress and adaptation to stress. The ability to effectively manipulate stress during a season is knowledge that both coach and swimmer must understand to become successful. The word Plateau is usually looked at by athletes as a painful thorn in a season but it shouldnt be. A plateau is an important announcement that training stimuli or methods must be altered to break through it.
These methods may include but are not limited to: taking time off to rest, increasing yardage, shortening rest periods, increasing intensity, increasing resistance, restricting breathing patterns, improving the strength / resistance baseline.
Its easy to increase stress but it cant be arbitrary / subjective. If you measure everything you do and establish a baseline for everything you do, effectively varying stimuli to increase stress becomes possible.
Most swimmers judge the success of a practice on how they feel after it. Ive had swimmers praise the workout I gave them because it made them throw-up (its true). If throwing-up is what a great practice is all about; I told them I can make them throw-up all the time. Its ironic to me that swimmers who tell me they had a great practice because of the pain they feel, cant tell me the most important thing that makes a practice great.
The most important measurement of a great practice should be improved baseline times. Pain and nausea are subjective feelings and cant be relied on to measure the effectiveness of a practice. So, if youre a coach and measure your practices on how your swimmers tell you they feel, youre fooling yourself.
Training sets without baseline times are often a waste of a swimmers time. Why introduce a set that doesnt measure something? Varying stimuli for the sake of breaking monotony is almost a guaranteed waste of a swimmers time. If you want to break monotony, have your swimmers listen to music or train with different swimmers.
3.) Hard
To me Hard is all about measured intensity. You can make a set hard but is the intensity measureable and specific? A set of 5 x 500 on a difficult interval is hard but they dont become necessarily intense until the set is repeated with improved times. This is where I think a lot of coaches get confused and make their practices monotonous and unproductive. Sets that dont allow swimmers to measure intensity are simply sets that keep them busy and tired.
This idea of Hard also applies to exercise and strength training. Dry-land programs shouldnt be a list of things to do but a list of goals or things to accomplish. Attaining failure is a goal; a specific number of repetitions and then adding another repetition is a goal; adding resistance and maintaining a set standard or number of repetitions is a goal. A list of exercises needs to mean more than just keeping athletes busy. Dry-land practices that are hard dont mean theyre intense. Get the most out of your dry-land program by setting goals within them.
4.) Fun
To me Fun is all about keeping swimmers in a caring, positive and productive environment.
Athletes perform better when they are surrounded by people who genuinely care about them on many levels. Great coaches are great for many reasons but all of them know how to foster a positive and inclusive training environment. One of the best things an athletic program has to offer is an opportunity for athletes to make friends and friendships. When the coach creates an environment that encourages swimmers to make friends or life-long connections, fun becomes an integral part of fundamentals. A coach creates the Fun in a practice and its a refinable and incredible motivational coaching tool.
The last piece in pursuit of fun is a component that cannot be overlooked and that component is safety. If swimmers dont feel safe, their performance will be compromised. Coaches must do everything in their power to eliminate hazing, bullying, inappropriate rituals rites of passage, and inappropriate behavior in the locker room, on the pool deck and away from the pool deck. Im convinced that attrition rates in swimming programs are primarily due to swimmers feeling unsafe in some way with other members of the team.
When intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are given for individual training, swim meets and personal improvements / achievements, attitudes get better. If you want them to have Fun, establish baseline sets that measure endurance, pain tolerance, pace, speed, technical improvement (DPS), recovery, strength, and find ways to make them Fun.
5.) Faster-Faster- More Faster
To me Faster-Faster-More Faster means that speed is the most elusive component in swimming and all training should revolve around it. If you cant swim a twenty-five fast will you ever swim a hundred fast? Endurance is not elusive but speed is!
To swim any race faster, a swimmer must improve his sprinting capability. Again, its hard to get fast, so dont do things that will impede that goal. The focus on speed doesnt mean you neglect other objectives: Pace / Endurance / Pain Tolerance / Technique Efficiency / Strength / Flexibility. Speed should be viewed as the center of a wheel and the other components are the spokes of that wheel.
6.) Relevance
To me Relevance joins the six points. Relevance relates to yardage and sets that are clearly defined, measurable and have a specific purpose. If your practices are relevant, they revolve around the first five points and they accomplish something to help your swimmers swim faster. If the things you do to train your swimmers can be supported with objective data that in turn supports faster times, your training regimen is relevant.
Case in point; Coaches of other sports are bewildered with morning practices and I too question the relevance of them in a majority of high school swimming programs. There are few high school sports that require their athletes to train in the morning and after school. Two-a-days should be used as a last resort stress-increasing method. Anytime you take away the opportunity for high school students to sleep, you risk compromising their immune systems. Science and common sense should override a coachs rationalization for the need to subject their athletes to this sleep-depriving practice but this is another tired historical practice that will be hard to kill.
New and novice coaches who start coaching teams with a tradition of two-a-days, will find it difficult to wean their high school away from the ritual (getting up in the morning is tough and tough means faster? -Not!). When a majority of your swimmers are improving times, an extra morning practice isnt necessary. Increasing effective technical training should be attempted first and then other plateau breakers. A coach should only add a morning practice (s) to increase stress and it should be used as a last resort.
All swimming coaches write and use workout or training sets. When workouts have goals that can be objectively evaluated, they become relevant. Relevance becomes a driving force in writing workouts and adds focus, motivation and fun.
I really enjoyed Dave Salos 6 Points to a Meaningful Practice and hope you do. You may look at them to gain a different perspective and I think theyll help everyone reflect on how they run their practices. Good luck my friends. Coach Topolski


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The goal of the Apache Tomcat Project is to provide commercial-quality server solutions based on the Java Platform that are developed in an open and cooperative fashion. Tomcat 3.x is an implementation of the Java Servlet 2.2 and JavaServer Pages 1.1 Specifications. Tomcat 4.x is an implementation of the Java Servlet 2.3 and JavaServer Pages 1.2 Specifications, and is a re-implementation of the Tomcat servlet engine from the ground up. The current branch, Tomcat 5.x, is an implementation of the Java Servlet 2.4 and JavaServer Pages 2.0 specifications, with increased attention to scalability, reliability, and management functionality.
Expresso Framework is an open standards-based J2EE architectural framework that allows the developer to concentrate on application logic. It is a library of extensible Java Server application framework components for creating database-driven Web applications based on open standards. Expresso integrates with Apache Jakarta Struts, which emphasizes presentation and application configuration, and bringing a powerful tag library to Expresso. Expresso adds capabilities for security, robust object-relational mapping, background job handling and scheduling, self-tests, logging integration, automated table manipulation, database connection pooling, email connectivity, event notification, error handling, caching, internationalization, XML automation, testing, registration objects, configuration management, workflow, automatic database maintenance, and a JSP tag library.
The Apache/Perl integration project brings together the full power of the Perl programming language and the Apache HTTP server. With mod_perl it is possible to write Apache modules entirely in Perl. In addition, the persistent interpreter embedded in the server avoids the overhead of starting an external interpreter and the penalty of Perl start-up time.
Tapestry is a rich, component-based object model for developing dynamic, robust, highly interactive Web applications. Applications are constructed in terms of Java objects, methods and properties, instead of URLs and query parameters. It builds and interprets all URLs, dispatching directly to application-specific "listener" methods. It includes complete source code, documentation, tutorials and a complete example J2EE application.
4Suite is a Python-based toolkit for XML and RDF application development. It features a library of integrated tools for XML processing, implementing open technologies such as DOM, RDF, XSLT, XInclude, XPointer, XLink, XPath, XUpdate, RELAX NG, and XML/SGML Catalogs. Layered upon this is an XML and RDF data repository and server, which supports multiple methods of data access, query, indexing, transformation, rich linking, and rule processing, and provides the data infrastructure of a full database system, including transactions, concurrency, access control, and management tools. It also supports HTTP, RPC, SOAP, and FTP, plus APIs in Python and XSLT.
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spanish infuenza
1. august 12, 1918
Rating 0/5 Word Count 2082 Review this Chapter
Chicago, August 1918.
"Isabella Swan, I love you more than anything. Will you marry me?" Edward proposed as he knelt down on a single knee with a diamond ring in his hand.
Two weeks ago, Edward had proposed and today, the day before our wedding I was to spend the day with him. We could not be happier. Edward and I are childhood sweethearts, best friends until age fifteen and then we started courtship, now nearly three years later we are about to be married. He knows everything about me, at the same time if someone were to ask me any question on him I would answer in less than three seconds.
Edward's perfect, the most wonderful fiancée anyone could wish for. Without him, I don't think I could manage to exist Edward is everything to me.
As I approach his mansion, I brush off my dress before walking up to the front door. How odd? The front door is unlocked, it is always locked, and that is odd. "Hello? Edward?" I called as I entered. There was no response to my calls. On a hallway table by the calling card dish there laid a note addressed to me.
I'm sorry to tell you that I have been infected by the Spanish Influenza. I am heading towards the hospital. Love, please do one thing for me and do not go near the hospital. I know it is in your nature to try to do what is best for others and me. There is a feeling in my body that tells me if you go near the hospital or follow me in that you will be affected by the influenza. The survival rate is so low, I don't want you to be exposed and even have any chance of dying at all. I love you Bella, my Bella.
Love forever and always,
P.S. I'm always yours, no matter what I swear it.
As I read the horrid letter, I began to hysterically sob while sinking to the floor. Not Edward, it cannot be. He had reassured me multiple times that he would not give in to the illness and would not be affected. His father and mother had already both succumbed to the influenza. The survival rate is part of the reason we are getting married tomorrow. It was my idea, I was terrified when his parents succumbed that we could be next and nearly demanded we get married closer than when we had planned originally.
I must see him. What is the quickest way to the hospital? If I run, I could be there in mere minutes. I have to see him.
Forgetting about ladylike manners, I tore off down the street towards Chicago's only hospital. Arriving in ten minutes, I entered the hospital and walked to the front desk. "What room is Edward Masen in?" I urgently asked the nurse.
"I'm sorry miss; I can only give that sort of information to family members." She replied with an attitude I do not like.
"He is my fiancé; we are supposed to be married tomorrow. What room is he in?" I asked again annoyed.
"Oh, so sorry miss; he is in room 206." She informed me. I took off running towards his room.
Upon entering I saw him lying there looking... fragile and sick, not like my Edward. "Edward," I was unable to say anything else.
Edward turned his head to look at me standing there. "Bella, *cough* why are you here I asked you not to come. If you get sick I'll never forgive myself." He spoke weakly. Why should he blame himself if I was to get sick? It would not be his fault. Then again, he tends to shoulder everything bad that happens.
"If I am to get sick it would not be your fault. Besides I will not get sick and you will beat this." I comforted him. He will beat this illness. He must.
"I love you Isabella Marie Swan Masen." He said taking my hand.
"I love you Edward Anthony Masen." I said and began to cry, he looks scared almost, along with looking fragile. I have never seen my Edward scared before. He has always seems so strong, brave, and fearless, always ready to comfort me. What if he can't fight this and he dies? Edward noticed my tears and pulled me down to lie with him and he wrapped his arms around me in a comforting gesture. I laid my head on his chest.
He began to hum my lullaby. The corner edges of my vision faded as I fell asleep in his arms.
I awoke the next morning in Edward's arms with a headache and I feel uncomfortably warm. "Edward, my head hurts." I felt him tense around me.
"Bella tell me what else is wrong and do not downplay it." He urgently ordered the fear was very evident again in his hoarse voice.
"My throat is dry and I'm warm. Why Edward what's wrong?" I rotated myself around to look at his beautiful face. He started shaking his head as if to say no.
"Bella, I think you have the influenza too. I'm sorry it is my fault, I should have sent you home, you wouldn't be sick now." He wrinkled his face in disgust with himself.
"It is not your fault. No, matter what I would have gotten sick. Getting sick was inevitable." I told him and kissed him.
The nurse came into the room and Edward requested a bed for me explaining that I was now sick too. I was half-sleeping in his arms as the conversation happened. Vaguely I heard someone arguing with him about moving me into my own bed. Edward refused to allow me be moved anywhere. I continued to lie in his arms after the nurse had left and even then. He's my rock, my protector, the one I'm the most happy with him, my best friend, Edward is whatever I need and whenever I need it. For that, I love him.
When I awoke some hours later, the first thought in my mind is Edward. "Edward, how *cough* are you feeling?" I asked him. He tensed as I coughed.
"I'm fine. Are you feeling better, love?" Edward asked. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the time; six' o'clock. I groaned. "What's wrong Bella?" Edward asked tensing at my groan.
"We missed our wedding; we're supposed to be married now." I complained. He chuckled before making a comment "We're *cough* ill and you are complaining about the fact we missed our wedding." I nodded.
I began to trace the shape of his face stopping as I reached his beautiful green eyes I frowned. There are dark circles under his eyes. "When *cough cough* was the last time you slept?"
He shrugged. "I was too worried about you to sleep." I frowned at that. "If you do not sleep than how will you get better?" I do not want him making himself sicker by not sleeping because he is worried about me.
"Next time you are asleep *cough* I will sleep. Is that *cough* what you want me *cough* to do next time you are asleep?" He asked having to stop in between words as he was coughing.
"Yes and now if you would sleep that would be helpful." I suggested. Honestly when was the last time he had slept.
"I *cough* will later, whilst you are sleeping." He spoke the promise evident in his voice. I nodded once before falling back asleep.
I began dreaming of the day Edward and I will get married. It is bright, sunny, and there are flowers everywhere. It is a small wedding but a quaint, quite, little wedding with only our close friends and family there. I walk without tripping, down the aisle to Edward. My father is there, walking with me. He kisses me on the cheek before giving me away to Edward. We proceed through the vows and after I say, "I do," Edward turns into dust. I scream once as everyone is gone and I am suddenly in front of his grave as a widow. I begin sobbing as I see his grave there in front of me. Someone begins walking towards me with a knife pointed towards me. I scream again.
I jolt awake. I am no longer in Edward's arms. Where is he? I sit up straight and my eyes dart around the room for Edward. "Bella, honey what is wrong?"
"I am okay, *cough cough* I had a nightmare." I tell him. "Come here." He gestures over to me. I nodded and crawl in with him. Protectively he wraps his arms back around me.
"Promise *cough* me something." I say a few minutes later. "Anything my Bella *cough*"
"Promise *cough* me that you *cough* will get better *cough* and live." I asked him to promise me.
"I *cough* promise you. *cough* you have to *cough cough* promise me the same thing." He requested of me, barely staying awake.
"Yes I promise. *cough* I *cough* love *cough* you." I told him and promised him.
"Thank you. *Cough* I *cough* love you too." He said before falling asleep. I heard my doctor come in and force me into my bed. Later I heard him come in and something was jabbed into my arm, a shot. I suddenly could not move any part of my body. Someone around me spoke "I am sorry but Isabella is dead, my deepest condolences." WHAT? I am not dead! I can hear my heart beat!
The person continued to push me out of the room. They lifted me up and began to run. Eventually they set me down. I felt their teeth graze my neck before they... bit down. Instantly a burning sensation filled my body. I could not move as the fire burned on and on for what seemed to be an infinite amount of time. When the fire finally began to die down I could move my fingertips first and then slowly I could move other parts of my body and could see out of my eyes as they slowly opened.
Everything was suddenly so... clear. There was a new color, one I have never seen before and it is beautiful. There are absolutely no words to describe it other than beautiful. I stood up, faster than ever before. I quickly turned around and seeing everything in my suddenly perfect vision, I caught a note written on a piece of paper. Hesitantly I opened it and it reads:
I was your doctor. You know are a vampire. There are a few rules; do not tell anyone other than a vampire, and avoid sunlight with humans around. You are invincible, nothing can harm you even the slightest bit. You are never aging, ever. You do not sleep. You may hunt animals or humans, completely your choice.
There was no name written on the letter. I shall never know who turned me into a vampire.
Edward. I can never see him again. He shall think I am repulsive and according the letter, I shall want to eat him. That thought alone sent me down to the ground in sobs, no tears but dry-sobs racking my chest. He is everything to me and I cannot see him anymore. Just thinking about never having the ability to see Edward again makes me want to kill myself, which of course I am unable to do.
What do I do? I made a promise to Edward to attempt to live somehow. Never ever shall I drink a human's blood. The idea is still utterly repulsive to me. Animal blood is not repulsive in my mind, it shall be the same as eating steak or chicken except I am to drink the blood not enjoy the meat of an animal.
I will banish myself from any hint of civilization in attempts to never kill anyone. I will live alone in the wilderness, at least until I am under control enough to never eat a human. My doctor was a vampire so I must be able to somehow master self-control and not kill any human being.
I will spend my existence existing for my one true love, Edward Anthony Masen. I swear on my father's grave that I shall never fall in love with anyone and my heart shall always belong to my Edward, no matter what.
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text:
The global geoscience community was surprised, to say the least, when seven scientists and engineers were each sentenced to six years in jail for their advice several days before a treacherous earthquake struck in L'Aquila in Italy in 2009.
The judge said the seven – who were accused of causing some residents to stay indoors on the night of the quake instead of finding shelter elsewhere – had analysed the risk in a "superficial, approximate and generic" fashion and had participated in a "media operation" to reassure people.
The case has spurred debate as to whether such acts of nature can be accurately forecast.
"Scientists recognise that reliable earthquake prediction is a goal that has not yet been achieved – and may never be achieved to the degree of certainty that the public would like," says Sydney University geoscientist Tom Hubble.
"Making grand statements, even with a covering disclaimer, about the safety or otherwise of an area experiencing increased seismic activity is very brave," he says.
As Charles Richter, of Richter-scale fame, once reportedly remarked: "Bah, no one but fools and charlatans try to predict earthquakes!"
Seismology involves learning about past earthquakes, and most people realise that such events cannot be predicted reliably, says Melbourne University seismologist Gary Gibson. "The earth is complex, and stress levels at earthquake depths are impossible to measure, as are weaknesses in faults that can trigger an initial rupture which develops into an earthquake."
Anticipating earthquakes entails more than just a prediction of where, when and how big a near-future event will be, he adds.
"It includes forecasts that suggest the probability of an event, for example a 10 per cent chance, as well as specifying the area where it will happen, the period during which it will happen and its size or magnitude," Mr Gibson says.
About 90 per cent of such forecasts with 10 per cent probability will not happen.
"Even less precisely, an alert indicates that something unusual has occurred, and there is an unquantified increased possibility that a bigger event may follow," he says.
Cluster effect
Seismologists often study earthquakes to develop hazard estimates, which give the average time between quakes of a certain magnitude in a particular area, but with no indication of when the next may occur.
Shallow clusters of earthquakes are common, with one in Australia every year or two. Fortunately, most of them end without a moderate or large quake.
Depending on the number of earthquakes in the cluster and their magnitude, roughly one in 100 clusters leads to a moderate or large quake in the following week or two, Mr Gibson says.
"Before the main L'Aquila earthquake, it would be reasonable to suggest that there would have been a 1 per cent chance, or possibly a little higher, of a larger event in the following two weeks," he says. "This is not a prediction that the event will happen, nor is it a well quantified forecast that it will happen with a justifiable probability," he stresses. But it could be presented as an alert that cluster activity is unusual and may lead to a moderate or large quake.
"The past rate of activity in the region suggests the average probability of a moderate or larger earthquake over a two-week period may be roughly one in 10,000 – or once in 400 years, on average," Mr Gibson says. "Hence the probability of the moderate-to-large earthquake happening was something like 100 times higher than normal."
In some countries, such as the Philippines, public education relating to natural hazards has advanced to the extent that uncertainties can be discussed in the media, Mr Gibson says.
"In other countries, including Australia, the US and Italy, people tend to expect to be told what will happen and what to do about it," he says. This applies not just to earthquakes but also to floods and bushfires. "A forecast or alert regarding an increased probability of an event, that then does not occur, is generally treated as a failed prediction."
Meantime, failed predictions "tend to diminish the reliability of the scientists' advice in the public mind", Associate Professor Hubble adds: "sometimes to the extent that people may entirely stop trusting advice."
South-eastern Iran was severely shaken last month by an earthquake of 7.8 on the Richter scale. Tremors were reported as far off as New Delhi in India. The huge quake came days after a smaller one, measuring 6.3, which hit Bushehr Province in Iran's south-west.
The quakes occurred on the same section of tectonic plate, albeit more than 1000 kilometres apart. Might the events be related?
Perhaps, Mr Gibson says. But predicting the next quake from its predecessor is anything but easy, he points out.
Magnitude 8 and 9 earthquakes – the really big ones – do not, as a rule, directly trigger other large earthquakes at great distances, Associate Professor Hubble says.
Yet aftershocks, along with smaller localised events, are well documented and accepted. "The same applies to foreshocks which are small events preceding a major earthquake – something like the creaks and snaps we hear before a large branch breaks off a tree trunk during high winds," he says.
"Aftershocks occur as the stress regime in the surrounding plate and rocks readjusts after the first large quake," Associate Professor Hubble adds.
Many plate-boundary earthquakes occur because of stress build-up over time owing to plate movements, he says. "This might be towards each other in places, such as the Himalayan belt, or past each other along the famous San Andreas fault."
The earth's crustal plates deform gradually because of these motions, and when the stress within a plate builds to a level greater than its rocks can bear, the rocks break and grind past each other along fault planes.
This, Associate Professor Hubble explains, generates vibrations which move through the rocks as earthquake waves. We notice these as ground-shake.
Russians and Chinese
Seismic soothsaying is the preserve of Chinese and Russian seismologists, whose forecasts and alerts seem to be improving.
The Chinese have forecast almost half of all earthquakes of seven or more on the Richter scale since 1978. Using the level of water in wells to make their predictions, they realised that levels rise or fall according to whether water is being absorbed by or streaming out of aquifers.
This, in turn, depends on motions within the earth. In keeping with eastern notions of cyclicity and the interplay between opposites, the Chinese have found periodic changes in seismic activity in western China. One area might be active for about 150 years while another is dormant; the dormant area then becomes active for the next 150 years, and so on.
"The approach of the Chinese could work for continental regions," says University of Tasmania earth scientist Jo Whittaker. "But it isn't going to be useful for regions where earthquakes occur offshore and cause tsunamis – such as Indonesia and Japan. In cases like that, a more statistical or modelling approach seems to be the only viable option."
Russian seismologists, meanwhile, have tried to identify seismic patterns that might help predict the time, area and size of a quake. Their computer models, based on statistical analyses, occasionally raise false alarms, while many earthquakes go unpredicted. Yet the Russians' success rate is better than that of chance alone.
Western experts remain largely sceptical of these efforts, although a few, such as Mr Gibson, are open-minded. "There are, undoubtedly, tell-tale patterns but, as yet, we can't be sure how reliably they can be applied in different places. The Russians are probably on the right track, although, frankly, I don't understand the physical mechanisms involved. Perhaps we Westerners are too bogged down in the technicalities and should stand back to appreciate that the whole is more than the sum of its parts".
Plates in action
The geological forces that shape continents are as active today as they were 4.5 billion years ago when our planet was in the throes of being formed.
The earth comprises a series of layers. The outermost layer is called the crust and the innermost the core. In between lies an area known as the mantle, which is the most important in understanding where big earthquakes occur.
Beneath the relatively thin, rigid crust sits a mantle of solid crystalline rock. At a depth of more than 100 kilometres or so, the rock is so hot that it's malleable and squishy and can flow like plasticine.
Over eons, the covering crust has broken into massive brittle sections called plates. There are seven main ones and several smaller chips off the old blocks, all moving and shoving against each other as they slide across the hot mantle – not unlike boats being heaved across a sandy beach.
The plates are continuously colliding and being forced under one another, a process called subduction. Occasionally, they fracture, causing earthquakes and volcanoes. Their effects can be felt soon afterwards from hundreds of kilometres away because the elastic waves produced by an earthquake travel at between four to 10 kilometres a second.
The fastest seismic waves take less than 20 minutes to reach the other side of the earth, a distance of almost 13,000 kilometres.
Regional trends
No part of the earth's surface is free from earthquakes – although some regions experience them more frequently. They are most common at boundaries where different plates meet. The largest events usually happen where two plates are colliding, particularly around the edge of the Pacific Plate in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Japan and the Americas.
Intra-plate earthquakes occur in the relatively stable interior of continents away from plate boundaries. These are less common and generally originate at shallower depths but seldom follow recognisable patterns.
Although Australia is not on the edge of a plate, it experiences earthquakes because the Indo-Australian plate is being pushed north towards the Eurasian, Philippine and Pacific plates. This causes stresses to build in the plate's interior, which are released during earthquakes.
What to do
"The best advice for people living in earthquake-prone areas is to live in earthquake-resistant buildings," Associate Professor Hubble suggests.
Mr Gibson agrees. "Do not place buildings where surface ruptures may occur – namely along known active faults – or in landslide-prone regions, such as in steep valleys. The same goes for tsunami-prone regions along coasts, or liquefaction-prone regions with saturated near-surface sands and silts." Some of these restrictions, he concedes, may be hard to accept.
Earthquake-resistant buildings need not be expensive or of high-quality, Mr Gibson adds. "Lightweight village houses in many Pacific areas do not cause widespread casualties due to collapsing after an earthquake."
Learn about earthquake predictions in Russia at: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013-03-31/Earthquake-predicting-device-launched-in-Russia/
And in China at: http://rense.com/general61/use.htm
Find out more about the controversial Italian trial in the British journal Nature Geoscience at: www.nature.com/news/2009/090910/full/news.2009.899.html
Delve deeper into the nature of plate tectonics and continental drift in the Australian curriculum textbook Oxford Big Ideas, science 9 (Oxford University Press, 2012)
VCAA links
VCE Physics: www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/physics/PhysicsSD-2013.pdf
F-10 Physics (under sub-strand 'physical sciences' in AusVELS): http://ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Science/Curriculum/F-10
Please send bright ideas for new topics to email@example.com


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See also & archives
removing backpackerscarmarket dot co nz
we would like the black list to be removed for our link, we were unaware of the rules about the numbers of links in each section and appologise for this. as for removing competitors i think this subject needs to be looked into further as you will find that our entry was the first to be removed and then degraded with libelous comments edited into information about our company. the information we left was informative and unbiased and at no stage did we degrade our competitors. we did remove the competitors that had written untruths about us, and in retrospect perhaps this was over zealous, however we were not familiar with this section of the website and didn't know how to make our grievances known. there is still a lot of information that is incorrect in this section, and we will continue to optimize this section so that it can be as useful as possible to visitors to New Zealand. We have now created an account as this seems to be the best way to go, and have read and fully understand the rules on these topics, many thanks.
so if anyone actually bothers to check the edit history it is clear to see that i removed an edit from another, at the time, anonymous user which was making liabolous comments about my business whilst promoting another competitors business....mmmm. none of my edits have ever been abusive or liabolous. since that edit was made two or three users including inas have reverted my edits back to this anonymous users entry......a bit unfair and un substantiated dont you think??? i was as i have previously mentioned i was unaware of the login being so important nor of the rules about links or the talk facility etc so all i saw was various users continously removing my edits and replacing with lies made up by a competitor. i have since ceased removing these edits but still left a little confused as to the involvement of some apparently well respected members of this community in purveying malicious rumours. if someone would be so kind as to look into this and resolve the matter that would be great.--Backpackerscarmarket 22:38, 8 February 2010 (EST)
i have read and fully understand the relevant the wiki travel guidelines--Backpackerscarmarket 22:41, 8 February 2010 (EST)
At this point I'm not sure there is a precedent for leaving a site on this list once the author is engaged, unless someone else knows of one. However, there is no guarantee your site will be listed here. --inas 23:44, 8 February 2010 (EST)
my appologies inas i have taken another look back at the history and you are correct it wasn't you that reverted the edit back to the abusive edit that caused me to respond[[17]] , just to clarify we are not used car dealers, we do not sell cars we are a market, and we sell space to travelers to sell their own cars in. i have recently taken over the business and i have had a lot of problems with competitors trying to bad mouth us to bring the reputation of my business into disrepute and perhaps this is why i took the matter so personally, i can however promise that i will not involve my self with such behavior on this site again. --Backpackerscarmarket 15:00, 12 February 2010 (EST)
loverio dot net and rentapartmentrio dot com
See Special:Contributions/Mayimbe. I left a note on User talk:Mayimbe with pointers to the relevant policies, but spamming continued along with edit warring. -- Ryan • (talk) • 11:10, 4 January 2010 (EST)
in-bucharest dot com
See Special:Contributions/184.108.40.206. Site is not in compliance with the apartment rental listing policy and the user is edit warring. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:56, 4 January 2010 (EST)
archsanblas tripod com
Constant spamming of San Blas Islands and ignoring message left in edit summaries and on User talk:22.214.171.124 --Burmesedays 07:52, 5 January 2010 (EST)
editing Zadar page
I can't seem to edit http://wikitravel.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Zadar at all because of the spam filter.
alfamahouse dot com
See Special:Contributions/188.8.131.52 and Special:Contributions/Ortsac. User is ignoring pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout and Apt in edit summaries, on User talk:Ortsac, and engaging in edit warring. -- Ryan • (talk) • 14:17, 6 January 2010 (EST)
Seven Windmills B&B
Keeps double listing his business in several Amsterdam districts, despite numerous requests to stop. Hope this will get some attention. --Stefan (sertmann) talk 05:01, 14 January 2010 (EST)
I am Seven Windmills B&B owner. Firstly, let me say what a wonderful site this is.
This discriminated against the grachtengordel area and other areas of the city like the Jordaan where most of the better, safer accomodation actually is.
Berfore the 'Amsterdam' page was restructured so that the city is clinically divided into administrative regions, we had many enquiries and lots of happy guest (mostly families) staying in our B&B. When the format of the page was changed, and no link to the grachtengordel area existed in the 'Sleep' section our page hit rate went to zero, and enquiries virtually stopped because of the way the main page was written - with a focus on cheap travel for singles.
It took me a while to figure why the enquiries had stopped. When I saw this new format it was clear that this situation might not be considered fair by some inckuding myslef, with my small business.
I also noticed a saw a block of text from the CityMundo booking agency in the 'Sleep' section directing everyone to their booking engine - and also notice they are not blacklisted here like my business ? How can this be so ?
So, in response, may I ask that I be allowed to advertise on Wikitravel under the grachtengordel section, and that my alteration to the 'Sleep section' whith a link to the grachtengrodel be allowed to the remain on the Amsterdam page ?
Many Thanks, Kerk
a2zrooms dot com
Booking agent inserting their email address and url into sleep lisitngs at Liverpool. --Burmesedays 08:03, 12 January 2010 (EST)
MS Salute
Keeps overwriting a competitor's entry in Hanoi, no response to talk page comments (anonymous IP). No URL, so trying the hotel's name instead to catch their attention. - D. Guillaime 23:59, 24 January 2010 (EST)
madagascat dot co za
I have gone out of my way to assist this user at User_talk:Madagascattravel but no response, and continues to spam various Madagascar articles with a booking site link. --Burmesedays 11:20, 30 January 2010 (EST)
iwasinturkey dot com
The site is in the spam list. Is it possible to remove the site from the list or give us the reason why the site is in the spam list? We will do all the necessary actions to clear the site's name. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 126.96.36.199 (talk • contribs)
You can be sure that it will not be added any more.
Is there any news about this?
Any news with this issue? It has been almost 2 months.
too broad marine(dot)ru
Currently the following URL is not allowed, referring to a pattern 'marine(dot)ru' -> 'marine\.ru'
Probably the pattern should still allow anything that has a letter immediately following "(dot)ru". --DenisYurkin 14:05, 2 February 2010 (EST)
Baoshan district of Shanghai
I am trying to link to the official webpage of Baoshan district government in Shanghai but gets this message: "'baoshan dot sh dot cn' -> '\w+\.sh\.cn'", how can this be fixed?, ClausHansen 02:02, 8 February 2010 (EST)
Panama Spammer
I've blacklisted these today, after continued spamming/vandalism on project pages, despite a pretty stern warning on the users talk page.
GTV resort dot com
This spammer (User talk:Bandhavgarh, Special:Contributions/220.127.116.11, special:contributions/18.104.22.168) has been adding listings/links for his hotel across multiple articles, usually 3–4 times per article, and more obnoxiously uploading loads of images of his hotel to both :en and Shared. There is one legitimate place for this listing, but I have now removed that too [18], for as long as the website will remain blacklisted. --Peter Talk 11:59, 15 February 2010 (EST)
Edgewater Investment Group
To avoid spending 4 years on this user as Wikipedia has done, since he is apparently both relentless, persistent and thoroughly unable to work within online communites, I propose a blanket ban (blacklisting) on all Edgewater Investment Group websites.
More details here: Talk:Put-in-Bay. If in doubt, I urge you check out the many links to the users activities on Wikipedia --Stefan (sertmann) talk 13:23, 15 February 2010 (EST)
www dot handy-sparen dot de & www dot handy dot de
Both sites are daily inserted in the Germany article and are a clear violation of our xl policies. Only reactio so far but spammer was that he changed the IP. jan 05:41, 18 February 2010 (EST)
VecheaVama dot ro
An anon user is very persistently reinstating this link, which really doesn't seem to be official in any way, shame or form, despite claims of the opposite. Maybe this will get some attention so we can engage with the user. --Stefan (sertmann) talk 18:23, 21 February 2010 (EST)
deraghotels dot de
Has been reinstating apartments that are only bookable for 14 days or more, contrary to our policies in apt, hope to get some engagement so only hotels or apartment available for ordinary bookings are listed on Wikitravel. --Stefan (sertmann) talk 18:45, 21 February 2010 (EST)
paris-pyla dot fr
Listings that aren't in compliance with Apt keep getting re-added to Paris/5th arrondissement, Paris/6th arrondissement and Paris despite comments on talk pages and revert summaries. See Special:Contributions/22.214.171.124, Special:Contributions/Sunduk, and probably others. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:51, 22 February 2010 (EST)
Don't understand ...
I tried to add a hotel-listing at the "Darjeeling"-page. Reads like this:
Saving is blocked by Spam Filter.
Removed url -> Saving is blocked by Spam Filter.
Removed email -> Saving is blocked by Spam Filter.
Removed both -> Saving is blocked by Spam Filter.
So what? Does somebody know? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Serkhang (talk • contribs)
Works like a charm! Best thanks! I'm sorry for not signing my contribution, before. I only ticked the add-signature checkbox after submission. Newbie! Cheers serkhang 15:01, 27 February 2010 (EST)
extremehotels dot com & swellsurfcamp dot com
The Cabarete article has been the subject of a long-running edit war between this business and another. I removed both from the article with a message on Talk:Cabarete that the owners would need to work out their differences before either could be re-added, but this listing has re-appeared several times since then so I'm adding it to the blacklist. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:41, 1 March 2010 (EST)
Roman Homes
Hello, I am not familiar with editing in Wikitravel, and so I am not sure that this message will be read. If it is, please reply to this problem. I tried to write (in the "sleep" section of Rome) a brief description of our company Roman Homes, offering vacation rentals in Rome, also mentioning our website romanhomes dot com, but it doesn't go through. Seemingly our site is blacklisted. I read here that it could be that someone "removed competitor information". Now a few days ago an employee of mine said that because the policy instructed not to edit the website URL, than he removed all the URLs he found in the "sleep" section, because he believed that other competitors were violating your rule (!). Today I went to see the page he mentioned, and I found that the links of these competitors were there, and it wasn't possible to include a link to our site romanhomes dot com. Now I read that removing competitor information is a breach etc. Again this employee of mine thought that he was doing a good thing (!). Only now I understand that it was bad, and I am also glad that one can publish the URL of a website, to inform visitors about it. Can you kindly remove the "ban" on romanhomes dot com, as now we understand your policy, and we will abide by it? Thanks in anticipation. Mauro Abate - owner of Roman Homes, website romanhomes dot com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Romanhom (talk • contribs)
We read well your policy, which I found in the link you prompted me to, and we agree with them. We honestly don't understand why you could not find the address and details of our agency, which I wrote in the edited text, and which can be also found in our website (please see the entry "Meet your guests" in the "Overview" drop-down menu of our site. The details are as follows. Roman Homes, address: Via Nettunense Nuova 65, 00040 Marino Rome (Marino is a little village in Rome's periphery, it is more ancient than Rome itself). Our phone numbers are: (+39) 069352216 or (+39) 3332420210. Our agency, working usually with exclusive rights agreement with the owners of vacation rental agencies, is one of the oldest and most reputable of Rome, operating since 1997, although it was active since 1990 as a cultural society of Rome University, hosting people coming to Rome for cultural purposes. Throughout the years, we have been pioneers in many aspects of this activity in Rome (first agency to organize in the 90s a network of room rentals for people coming to Rome solely for cultural reasons, first website in Rome to use digital photography and especially panoramic photos, first agency in Italy to organize online a car service etc.). Usually, our website is sadly plagiarized by copycats, for which we had to resort to lawsuits. Among the copycats, some of the other agencies edited in wiki Travel. For ex. the agency Rome Sweet Home began in 2001, editing their website largely by copying/pasting text and photos from our website, which is considered one of the best and most complete presenting Rome (and not only the sheer apartments rented). Should you require additional information, I will be glad to provide it. Thanks, and keep up your good work. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Romanhom (talk • contribs)
Thanks Ryan, and before posting anything I will read well again the apartment listing policy and also the "Don't tout", although it is sometimes hard to understand the borderline between the allowed or correct listing information, and what is touting. I will do my best, hopefully it will work out. Regards, Mauro.
This is a second message, after reading the apartment listing policy and also the "Don't tout" policy. We understood well both, and we'll do our best to follow the guidelines and the policies. Thanks again Ryan. Regards, Mauro Abate
Added in the slim hopes that it might halt some unusually dumb and sadly persistent vandalism. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:20, 15 March 2010 (EDT)
skijapantravel dot com
Travel agent that has consistently spammed Hakuba and other articles.--Burmesedays 09:21, 21 March 2010 (EDT)
mbt2sale dot com
One of the few spammers that consitently create nonsense articles about shoes and varies the text but not the link. jan 05:52, 22 March 2010 (EDT)
sagatravel dot is
Travel agent who spammed multiple Iceland articles. All were deleted and messages left, came back and did the same again.--Burmesedays 10:20, 22 March 2010 (EDT)
A very persistent tour guide from Nigeria who continues to place his ALL-CAPS listings on the top of articles from Africa to Nigeria to Calabar. See here, here, here, and I'm sure several others. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:24, 22 March 2010 (EDT)
holidaysinkeramoti dot com
Persistant spamming sub Rome articles and talk pages. States in summary holidays in greece. jan 16:03, 24 March 2010 (EDT)
bedbugspictures dot net
Creation of spam articles (e.g. Bedbugs) that are always full of new xl violations. jan 10:15, 25 March 2010 (EDT)
vienna-cityapartments dot at
Several users tried to advise this business that their listing is against our Apt policy and started instead with front linkind and reinsertion. jan 04:45, 28 March 2010 (EDT)
Hello Ryan,
what can I do that you remove my site from the blacklist? Please help me.
Greetings from Vienna Guido
I dont understand why I´m on the Blaclist here. Please help me to remove me from the blacklist. I´m not a travel agency. Here are many Privat apartments with their link. Why cant I do this? Please help....Kind regards Guido
who can help me to remove my homepage fron the blacklist. I will put my apartment on the right place here und add my adress. Please help me here. Im sorry about the the mistakes that I did. Thank you forwarding. Kind regards
Hello Ryan,
please give me a second chance for my site dot at here. Thie is my mainside. In the future I will follow the rules here. Thanks forwarding for your help. Kind regards Guido
cretan-nutrition dot gr
Violation of dt and xl plus frontlinking in the Crete food section. jan 04:56, 31 March 2010 (EDT)
baylodging dot com, islandclub dot com, and putinbayresort dot com
See Talk:Put-in-Bay#Edgewater Investment Group. --Peter Talk 22:55, 1 April 2010 (EDT)
begin of the skype highlighting
It seems like a Skype plugin is broken and is adding meta tags when certain users edit articles. Hopefully blacklisting this tag will solve the problem. -- Ryan • (talk) • 10:45, 7 April 2010 (EDT)
Skype highlighting?
swept in from pub:
For the skype uninitiated, could someone explain why edits like this [19] are occurring? Is there anything we can do to stop this from happening? --Peter Talk 10:29, 7 April 2010 (EDT)
villabrasilmotel dot com
At Santa Monica, user pasted his listing over the top of an existing competitor and then inserted his url into six other listings, deleting the correct urls. --Burmesedays 01:45, 11 April 2010 (EDT)
Why is Angelfire on the blacklist? I've got a Buy listing whose web site is on Angelfire. LtPowers 22:56, 23 April 2010 (EDT)
galapagosonline dot com
I've removed this one numerous times from the Galapagos Islands article because the site is a reseller of tours, not an actual operator, but it continues to be re-added. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:36, 28 April 2010 (EDT)
zanys dot com
Rental agency that spams Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese articles with their promotion and ignored warning. Finally started to edit warring, so block and blacklist. jan 05:57, 29 April 2010 (EDT)
mommitaslodge dot jimdo dot com
User_talk:Zaldyangulo or anonymously User_talk:184.108.40.206 continiously enters his business in the Coron and Busuanga Island article in a very touty way and ignored several warning by multiple users. I'm going to blacklist all of his regular entries. jan 07:15, 30 April 2010 (EDT)
sandovallodge dot jimdo dot com
User_talk:Zaldyangulo or anonymously User_talk:126.96.36.199 continiously enters his business in the Coron and Busuanga Island article in a very touty way and ignored several warning by multiple users. I'm going to blacklist all of his regular entries. jan 07:15, 30 April 2010 (EDT)
shirlbaywalkpensionhouse dot webs dot com
User_talk:Zaldyangulo or anonymously User_talk:184.108.40.206 continiously enters his business in the Coron and Busuanga Island article in a very touty way and ignored several warning by multiple users. I'm going to blacklist all of his regular entries. jan 07:15, 30 April 2010 (EDT)
coronvillahermosaguesthouse dot webs dot com
User_talk:Zaldyangulo or anonymously User_talk:188.8.131.52 continiously enters his business in the Coron and Busuanga Island article in a very touty way and ignored several warning by multiple users. I'm going to blacklist all of his regular entries. jan 07:15, 30 April 2010 (EDT)
orientallodginghouse dot webs dot com
User_talk:Zaldyangulo or anonymously User_talk:220.127.116.11 continiously enters his business in the Coron and Busuanga Island article in a very touty way and ignored several warning by multiple users. I'm going to blacklist all of his regular entries. jan 07:15, 30 April 2010 (EDT)
amorpensionhouse dot webs dot com
User_talk:Zaldyangulo or anonymously User_talk:126.96.36.199 continiously enters his business in the Coron and Busuanga Island article in a very touty way and ignored several warning by multiple users. I'm going to blacklist all of his regular entries. jan 07:15, 30 April 2010 (EDT)
coronsunriseinn dot jimdo dot com
User_talk:Zaldyangulo or anonymously User_talk:220.127.116.11 continiously enters his business in the Coron and Busuanga Island article in a very touty way and ignored several warning by multiple users. I'm going to blacklist all of his regular entries. jan 07:27, 30 April 2010 (EDT)
extremeiceland dot is
This address has now been added and reverted three times from Talk:Iceland. To the user who keeps doing this: talk pages are for discussing the corresponding article, not for advertising a business. In a similar vein, please read our policy on listing tour companies. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:42, 1 May 2010 (EDT)
grammy dot com
Anon user 220.127.116.11 has spammed several articles with this link. It violates several policies. jan 04:20, 10 May 2010 (EDT)
lidodivenezia dot it
This hotel booking site keeps adding about a dozen links to the Venice/Lido article, despite pointers to Wikitravel:External links. -- Ryan • (talk) • 10:18, 13 May 2010 (EDT)
Hoianeasyriders dot wordpress dot com blocked
I made an entry a while ago for a local business in vietnam (http://wikitravel.org/en/Hoi_An) and some punk recently removed it.
See: Hoi An Easyriders (Hoi An Easyriders)
I've attempted to add it back in but when I attempt to save it with the url="Hoianeasyriders dot wordpress dot com I get a spam block notification.
I don't know why it is blocked but it is very frustrating. I would like to add the URL back in. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Davidgelman (talk • contribs)
Expanded out the pattern a bit to catch new attempts including overwriting of competitors, cf. [20]. -- D. Guillaime 20:34, 12 February 2011 (EST)
mahindrahomestays dot com
See Special:Contributions/Mahindrahomestays. I'm not sure whether this site is valid for listing here per our accommodation guidelines, but the mass updates of improperly formatted listings are clearly not inline with the SEO policy, and the user hasn't responded to messages left on his/her talk page. -- Ryan • (talk) • 13:27, 17 May 2010 (EDT)
suites-et-compagnie dot com
This listing is not in compliance with the apartment listing policy, but despite pointers to that guideline it has been re-added to Bordeaux at least four times. -- Ryan • (talk) • 14:08, 17 May 2010 (EDT)
I added for the city of Jamshedpur(India), the following:
There is no URL or anything, has someone an advice? —The preceding comment was added by 22.214.171.124 (talk • contribs)
hotelsneardelhi dot com
Several links in the understand section in cities and towns around Delhi in blatant form. jan 06:51, 18 May 2010 (EDT)
peacemission dot info
I am trying to update a link to our church's website from the old one fdipmm dot libertynet dot org to the new www peacemission dot info but its getting spammed. What should I do?
I'm sorry, it is this one: http://wikitravel.org/en/Montgomery_County_(Pennsylvania) on Woodmont Palace Mission Inc. Thank you
Thanks a lot, it worked!
nanuksbungalows dot com
See the history of the Nusa Lembongan article - anonymous user(s) have been replacing numerous URLs on the page with this one and have ignored all warnings (per Wikitravel:Don't tout) to stop. From the article history this looks to be a particularly egregious abuse. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:12, 21 May 2010 (EDT)
loveblogspot dot com
Spambot that create new sites all having a link to the above mention site. jan 11:20, 22 May 2010 (EDT)
nexgenam dot com
Spamming Talk:Main page is not only egregious, it is stupid. User has already been warned in the past. --Peter Talk 10:04, 26 May 2010 (EDT)
hoteldeals dot ae
See Special:Contributions/220.127.116.11. User has been spamming us with hotel aggregator links and isn't responsive to comments left on his/her talk page. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:47, 30 May 2010 (EDT)
travelgrenada dot com
Rather ballsy ongoing spam at Grenada. If user replies and agrees to stop, please remove from blacklist. --Peter Talk 20:20, 1 June 2010 (EDT)
I am having difficulties in editing Coorg http://wikitravel.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Kodagu&action=submit please could you help? It says some spam filter is blocking things. Fredericknoronha 17:21, 3 June 2010 (EDT) Fredericknoronha
noxedge dot com
Spamming the talk page of our main page is stupid and frontlinking makes it only worse... jan 07:22, 4 June 2010 (EDT)
gringorent-a-car dot com
Spamming our Margarita Island unser username Mustsee and with anon IP. Has been warned but kept inserting. jan 11:26, 5 June 2010 (EDT)
I was unaware of the talk feature and thought someone was removing the information out of spite or compitition. I will follow the rules and apologize for not understanding. Please remove from the spam list. Thanks, MustSee
Hi Jan, a competitor has been deleting/changing the Margarita Island board and I need help. Thanks MustSee 13:23, 17 October 2010 (EDT)
Hi Ryan, sorry I am not real sharp with a computer. Since those listings contained incorrect phone numbers, I didn't see the harm. If you look at the history you will see this spammer has been up to this for awhile, just recently posting other companies. The spammer is only out to cause harm. I asked Jan for help in my talk section awhile back, but I must have done something wrong. If I goofed I apologize.
I noticed the http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:External_links#What_not_to_link_to states " Rental cars operators, in cities where they are common (10 or more operating in the city). Typically we don't provide details of national car rental chains in local guides. Providing details at the national level, and mentioning the name and location at local level is sufficient if required."
Since GRC is the only car rental agency in Playa El Yaque, I am requesting that a link be permitted to be placed under the Playa El Yaque portion. If you think it should say something other then what it does I will need help in formatting because computers are not my bag. Thanks MustSee 16:23, 17 October 2010 (EDT)
Maybe this will help? http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:User_ban_nominations#Outstanding_nominations Cheers MustSee 20:27, 17 October 2010 (EDT)
sheraton dot com/senggigi
Sadly a nice hotel in Senggigi has started to spam our article with multiple listings. Several warnings have made and efforts to contact them. The Sheraton still spams the article so we need to blacklist them because otherwise business owners in the region will cry foul. Please revert on spot. jan 03:38, 7 June 2010 (EDT)
travelingtolisbon dot com
Non-compliant Apartment agency that continiously places ther listing in Lisbon and has been reverted by most active admins in the last weeks. jan 05:33, 8 June 2010 (EDT)
barcelonacheckin dot com
One of the bunch of aparment agencies that keep spamming our Barcelona in multiple ways and occasions. jan 07:54, 11 June 2010 (EDT)
Time to trim the blacklist?
There are some disadvantages to having a long blacklist - large regular expressions are slower, it's tougher to manage a long list, and some of our patterns may be overly broad or targeted to specific users who are no longer vandalizing the site (example:
((h|H)(e|E|é|É|/?)(l|L)(p|P)).*((c|C)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(m|M)(b|B)(a|A)).*((h|H)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(m)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(s|S)(e|E|é|É|/?)(x|X)) ((h|H)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(m)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(s|S)(e|E|é|É|/?)(x|X)).*((d|D)(e|E|é|É|/?)(t)(e|é|é|é|/?)).*(((r|R)+)(e|E|é|É|/?)(n|N)(t|T)) ((h|H)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(m)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(s|S)(e|E|é|É|/?)(x|X)).*((w|W)(o|ó|O|Ó|/?)(r|R)(s|S)(e|E|é|É|/?)).*((a|A)(n|N)(i|I)(m|M)) ((s|S)(o|ó|O|Ó)(d|D)(o|ó|O|Ó)(m|M)).*(t|T)(r|R)(a|A)(v|V)(e|E|é|É|/?)((l|L)+)((e|E|é|É|/?)) ((thr..t|d.t.r+.nt)\sto\ss.c.{2}ty.*(s.d.m.st.?|d\S{2}th|c.ns.nt.{3})|=?p.rv.rt\S{,3}[=_-\s\\\/\']*(or|and)?[=_-\s\\\/\']*(l\Ssb\S{,2}ns?pr.v.nc.\.org|\sc.p.t.l|p.{2}pl.|.v.nts?|fr.{2}ndly?|tr.v.l{2}(.rs)?|life|f.st.v{,3}|mardi|t.l.r.nc.?|v.s.t.rs?|r.ghts?|act.v.t\S{,3})|(gay|lesbian)[_-\s\\\/\']*p.rv.rt.{0,2}) 1259135415\.info 22101822 22442047 22442051 22442591 22492591 22845062 24551491 28400811 3319\W?11437 33630631 39012240 322973398779 4564564 55543695 69443695 9339424307 9433483411 9830233754 9830794541 9831031895 98312240 9883508673 © 20\d\d accomodations-ragovij\.cn adgfag Aimersoft
www dot africanbluetours dot com
Continious violation of dt and tours plus places ad in most South African articles. I tried to contact but no reaction. jan 03:43, 15 June 2010 (EDT)
Error in Digha article
When I wanted to revert this mass, unexplained removal, I've been notified about a blacklisted link in the article. As far as I can see, there is only one external link in the article (the one at the intro), and I can't tell whether it really is an official homepage (and thus really deserves to be at the top), but it certainly is not blacklisted (or, at least I couldn't notice it in the list). How to get around this problem? – Vidimian 04:52, 16 June 2010 (EDT)
Hostel Ukraine dot com
Business owner appears to be deleting competitor info and replacing it with his own. That's about as shameful an edit that one can possibly make on Wikitravel, so I'm happy to add this one to the blacklist. --Peter Talk 22:44, 16 June 2010 (EDT)
Can we get this one off the blacklist?
I have no connection with the management or owners of this place, I just wanted to add it as a useful piece of information:
http://www dot sitio-do-alemao dot 20fr dot com/ Mariusm98 12:19, 23 June 2010 (EDT)
A gift shop owner has now re-added this listing to the Bali article four times and ignored requests to stop. Individual businesses go in city articles, not region articles, and given the user's behavior this seems like a toury advertisement and thus isn't something we even want in city articles. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:15, 27 June 2010 (EDT)
manalimedicalaid dot ning dot com
Major spam attack ongoing and one of the regular sites listed. jan 15:37, 1 July 2010 (EDT)
studentdoctor dot net
Major spam attack ongoing and one of the regular sites listed. jan 15:43, 1 July 2010 (EDT)
connect dot cityname dot com
Major spam attack ongoing and one of the regular sites listed. jan 15:54, 1 July 2010 (EDT)
Amethystbangalore DOT Com
Hi, Tried adding some content, ot says something about spam filter.. Not sure what it refers to as the listing was genuine and not spam. Can some one pls help. —The preceding comment was added by 126.96.36.199 (talk • contribs)
wanndo dot com
See Special:Contributions/Happyclick and Special:Contributions/18.104.22.168. The URL that keeps getting re-added to articles isn't even a functional site ("coming soon"), but it appears from the listing text that this is an attempt to market a t-shirt. The same user has previously spammed us with advertisements for a volcano tourism outfitter. -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:01, 14 July 2010 (EDT)
expeditiontrips dot com
This link keeps getting re-added to the Antarctica article on a near-daily basis, despite pointers in edit summaries and on user talk pages to the Tour and Wikitravel:External links policies. It looks like a decent site, but they list tours offered by other companies and thus is not appropriate for listing here according to our guidelines. -- Ryan • (talk) • 13:50, 15 July 2010 (EDT)
skisilverthorne dot com
An anonymous user has been returning every morning to re-add this listing to six or seven different articles despite being provided pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout. See Special:Contributions/18.104.22.168 and Special:Contributions/18.104.22.168. -- Ryan • (talk) • 10:25, 4 August 2010 (EDT)
falafelbus dot com
Repeatedly added and re-added to numerous Middle Eastern articles, from country-level on down (like so and so). User hasn't responded to requests to stop, see User talk:Deanot78. — D. Guillaime 02:40, 11 August 2010 (EDT)
Barcelona Apartments blacklist
Should not be listed at all, as they don't comply with our apartments policy:
Should not be in district articles, as they offer apartments in more than one disrict:
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by DenisYurkin (talk • contribs)
Hello, I am trying to add a guest house I stayed at to the list of budjet accomadation in Bishkek. It wont let me and refers me here. Perhaps I am making some mistake, I am not sure. There are two email addresses and two phone numbers involved but I tried it without them, in otherwords just a sentence and I was still blocked. Could someone please explain this to me. Thank you.
What I want to add is:
Sabyrbek's Guest House, +996 312 300710, +996 312 300710, [email protected] [email protected] The home of the famous Kyrgyz author T. Sydykbekov, is now managed by his son the amiable Sabyrbek. It is very centrally located. 21 Razzakova (just south of Moscovskaya), opposite the German embassy. Guests are welcome to use the kitchen facilities and internet is available.
Thanks, I have never done this before so I am not clear as to how it works. The first few times i tried to post it by editting the budget accomadation section that is when i encountered the problem mentioned above. I then noticed the add listing button for Sleep in general, that is the sucessful edit you have pointed out. However, I can only see that edit if I use the link you placed above. If I just open the Bishkek page it is not there...is there some delay? Also I dont see any way of placing the new listing under the buget heading instead it is alone above that between sleep and the budget subheading. How do I change this? I realize this is not really the place for questions like this but I dont know what is, if you could help I would really appreciate it.
I'm hoping to discourage the neverending attempts to get phone numbers for a certain few hotel booking agencies in the lovely city of Kolkata, for hotels in other towns, among which Mandarmani of course ranks high in importance. --Peter Talk 17:25, 15 August 2010 (EDT)
I've tried repeatedly to post the following today but am getting prevented:
Deputy High Commissions
Zepppep 17:20, 15 April 2011 (EDT)
Gorumara.*[blacklisted expression]
Enough w/ the freaking West Bengali spamming... --Peter Talk 13:12, 19 August 2010 (EDT)
indiandestination dot com
Another indian spammer plasters his ads in a wide range of articles throughout India. Has not stopped after warning and instead increased his spam intensity. jan 09:33, 2 September 2010 (EDT)
This listing has been removed from Marrakech at least ten times now with pointers provided to the Tour policy. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:08, 5 September 2010 (EDT)
www dot free hostel dot pl
In Kraków/Kazimierz#Budget, it appears there is a hostel which actually is named "Free Hostel". The web site is activating the spam filter. It appears in an older version of the record: [24] In fact the address was in both email and website fields of the listing (should be just one). I left the article with {{districtguide}} added but with website and email gone for this listing. The hotel comes up with this name when listing hostels in Krakow on other websites. --Bill in STL 20:43, 8 September 2010 (EDT)
www dot omeida dot com dot cn
I don't know why I can't save the web address above. It's the official website of Omeida Chinese Academy. Please help to remove this site from the blacklist. Thank you very much! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lsz0719 (talk • contribs)
Hello Ryan! I was trying to put the website onto the following pages:
I can only save the website as www.omeida\.com.cn. Whenever I try to save it as www dot omeida dot com doct cn it says "The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter.This is probably caused by a link to an external site." The same thing happens when I try to save the email address [email protected] dot com dot cn on to the page.--Lsz0719 20:35, 13 September 2010 (EDT)[[User:lsz0719] • (talk) • 22:46, 12 September 2010 (EDT)
Thanks for your reply, Ryan. Is there any information we could provide to let you consider remove our website from the blacklist? Our school is the biggest Chinese language school in Yangshuo. I'm sure it is worth being listed on Wikitravel guides.--Lsz0719 03:11, 15 September 2010 (EDT)
moroccantravels dot com
See Special:Contributions/Morocco, Special:Contributions/220.127.116.11, Special:Contributions/220.127.116.11, and probably others. All pointers to Tour and Wikitravel:Don't tout have been ignored, with listings re-added to multiple sections of the Morocco article several times per day for several days. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:42, 22 September 2010 (EDT)
Can't add my listing for Assisi, Umbria
I am trying to add
in Assisi, Umbria but I keep getting an edit error. What am I doing wrong?!? I am following the template provided.
This user has been busily adding the official tourism web site for the country of South Korea to dozens of articles. Since per Wikitravel:External links this link is appropriate for the South Korea article (and only the South Korea article) a permanent blacklisting is inappropriate, but how would people feel about temporarily removing it from the South Korea article and then adding it to the blacklist as a way to try and get this user's attention? It is a waste of time for the user to keep adding it to articles, and a waste of time for patrollers to then revert those additions. Since the user isn't responding to talk page messages I'm not sure what other options are available. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:26, 14 October 2010 (EDT)
A tour operator has added this listing to Kumbakonam at least a dozen times, and been reverted with pointers provided to the Tour and advertising policies each time. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:08, 16 October 2010 (EDT)
See Special:Contributions/Mohd_faidi. User has been giving multiple pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout and continues to spam Jordan and other articles. -- Ryan • (talk) • 10:09, 23 October 2010 (EDT)
See Special:Contributions/Rita_KC. There isn't even any pretense of usefulness for travelers - the user is simply deleting large chunks of articles and adding in spammy advertising. I deleted the user page and am quickly blacklisting this one as I suspect she will hit as many articles as possible. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:26, 26 October 2010 (EDT)
shankarpur dot co dot in
As far as I'm aware Shankarpur is our current most regularly spammed article - touts have been changing phone numbers nightly in that article for months. Lately the above URL has also been appearing in the article. Some pointers were provided to Wikitravel:External links, but as the link continues to regularly be re-added and reverted it's worth adding to the blacklist. -- Ryan • (talk) • 11:54, 3 November 2010 (EDT)
An anonymous user keeps returning to place seven copies of the same listing on the Similan Islands (two examples of several: here and here). Pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout in edit summaries and on talk pages haven't worked, so let's give the blacklist a try. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:22, 29 November 2010 (EST)
I can't edit the 'Get in' list. Here's my change "
By train
Malda is well connected by Railways. There are some direct trains from the local main station, i.e. Malda Town; connecting Bangalore, Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Dibrugarh, New Delhi etc."
What's wrong here?
Thanks @jan
hawaiianpaddlesports dot com
See Special:Contributions/18.104.22.168. User added five or more listings to the Maui article and did not respond to pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout left in the article history and on the user's talk page. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:16, 31 December 2010 (EST)
Editing Coorg page
I'm trying to edit the iteneriary section and add the below text and it's triggering a spam filter. The roads leading to Talavauvery is pretty bad after the recent rains.--Gowthammano 05:32, 17 January 2011 (EST)
thebrightonremovalcompany dot co dot uk
I'm not sure if it's a bot or a real person, but this hauling company has spammed us with advertisement articles twice in the last two hours. It's in no way travel-related, so adding to the blacklist. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:15, 18 January 2011 (EST)
palazzogiovanni dot it
See Special:Contributions/Silvio77. User has returned repeatedly over the last two days to push a link to articles ranging from towns to Italy and even to Europe. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:23, 20 January 2011 (EST)
explorenorthkorea dot com
This company is repeatedly re-added to the North Korea article. See Talk:North Korea#Travel Agencies for the reason why this was originally removed. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:50, 24 January 2011 (EST)
Oanvoanc 10:28, 26 January 2011 (EST):as i mentioned in the "discussion paragraph" of northkorea - tours already: i travelled with explore n. korea tour group in march 2010 and had no problems with them. the communication was very good (skype and mail) before and after the trip. i have no idea what happened here exactly with this url (adding and removing) but i wouldnt hesitate to recommend this company for ppl who want to travel nk on small budged.
This business is now trying to evade the blacklist by using URL redirectors (e.g. [28]) rather than cleaning up their act, so I'm expanding the pattern a bit. User has a long and exceedingly annoying history, and has also started using proxies to (thinly) disguise their activities; it's pretty easy to find on almost any edit to the Tours section dating back to roughly October 2009, and you'll find a lot of the early mischief from Special:Contributions/188.8.131.52, before the evasion really started. — D. Guillaime 20:26, 27 January 2011 (EST)
shanghaipathways dot com
Keeps re-adding fairly spammy entries to Shanghai that aren't at all tour-compliant (example: [29]), even after being pointed at it on their comment on Talk:Shanghai#Deletion. Hoping this gets their attention instead; shouldn't need to stay in place forever. — D. Guillaime 01:30, 1 February 2011 (EST)
cheapoair dot com
This is a bucket site that will never be appropriate for use here per Wikitravel:External links. See Special:Contributions/126.96.36.199 - user replaced numerous valid hotel URLs with this one. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:55, 7 February 2011 (EST)
Dharamshala Page
I tried to edit this page originally adding the Dalai Lama's website www dot dalailama dot com I got the spam error. Assuming it was because of the URL I entered I hit the back button and removed this url. Saved again and was still getting the spam error. So went back and took out all URL's (which I didn't enter) noticed some were of businesses so this may have caused the spam notification. Though even after deleting all URLs page would not save. Don't know what else to do about it other than post it here. The specific section was the 'To Do' section Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Himalayafunandtours (talk • contribs)
apnabus dot in
This is apparently an Indian ticket broker and thus not appropriate per Wikitravel:External links and the Tour policy. User has ignored talk page messages and returned after temporary blocks to spam dozens of pages, so it's time to put this on the blacklist. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:02, 26 March 2011 (EDT)
scorpiotech dot info
See the history for both User talk:Scorpiotech00 and User talk:Scorpiotech0. An SEO company is trying to abuse Wikitravel for marketing/SEO purposes. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:45, 29 March 2011 (EDT)
creditcardhelp dot com dot au
Suspected work of a currently active spambot - Articles and images have been listed for deletion per Votes for deletion and {{vfd}} as I do not have sufficient access to deal with them directly. Jan subsequently deleted the forex related content. I think Ryan has his eye on this suspected spambot activity.
felix 02:01, 30 April 2011 (EDT)
pbali dot com
pbali dot com appears to be a operation purportedly promoting villa rental and sales. Clickable links to their website have been placed into the Bali article and subsequently removed by myself and other editors. Both the User:Marine and User:Crewman appear to be accounts operated on the same campaign. The edit content is identical from both users and they have been placing the covert url link into the Bali article text. The link points to pbali dot com. The website has no contact details provided for the promoters other than a browser page contact form. I am wondering if they have been active elsewhere on WT as well.
The covert link edit is written as follows and inserted into the article copy.:
<span class="plainlinks">[http://www.pbali dot com/ <span style="color:#000000;font-weight:normal; text-decoration:none!important; background:none!important; text-decoration:none;">Bali Villas</span>]
This is an example of one edit.
It then displays as; Bali Villas and becomes clickable if rolled over -- (the bolding is my own emphasis).
The covert link points to pbali dot com when it is supplied with a correctly formatted address.
Registrant: Sergey Gorshkov Krasnaya 21a, 4 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad region 236000 Russian Federation
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com) Domain Name: PBALI.COM Created on: 23-Feb-11 Expires on: 23-Feb-12 Last Updated on: 23-Feb-11
Administrative Contact: Gorshkov, Sergey [email protected] Krasnaya 21a, 4 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad region 236000 Russian Federation 7-911-452-9608 Fax --
Technical Contact: Gorshkov, Sergey [email protected] Krasnaya 21a, 4 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad region 236000 Russian Federation 7-911-452-9608 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
Sergey Gorshkov is also associated with balivillaonsale dot com. tel: +62 8138 157 3288 [email protected]
A Sergey Gorshkov was also a well known Admiral of the Soviet Union navy during the Cold War and died in 1988.
The Sergey Gorshkov associated with the Bali villa marketing seems to to be in Kaliningrad, Russia.
Related sites as per http://whois.pho.to/pbali dot com
capezebratours dot com and capeafricantours dot com
Links to this company were copied to numerous articles for South Africa, with at least four separate entries in the Cape Town article. Since then they have returned to add multiple entries to the Cape Town article at least a dozen times, despite pointers provided on user talk pages and in edit summaries to the Wikitravel:Don't tout policy. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:36, 3 May 2011 (EDT)
See Special:Contributions/220.127.116.11. This Facebook group has been re-added to the Buenos Aires article five or six times in the past two days despite repeated pointers to the Wikitravel:External links policy. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:22, 17 May 2011 (EDT)
www dot butterfly-massage dot com
Escort/prostitution services consistently added at User_talk:Xiali1208 --Burmesedays 03:24, 11 June 2011 (EDT)
www dot shanghai-in-massge dot com
Escort/prostitution services consistently added at User_talk:Xiali1208 --Burmesedays 03:24, 11 June 2011 (EDT)
Talk:Tajpur notes on an edit/s and west bengal scamming activity
Upon tracking a suspect tel number to another article I came across the Tajpur article today. The entire Tajpur article seems a little dubious. It has the appearance of having been established for the purpose of listing either entriely fictitious or baiting accommodation listings attributable to known listing hijackers and listing vandals associated with articles in this region. I have removed the offending number and noted that the edit histories had evidence of another scammer involved with the article. I have now applied some generalised copy editing to the article to clean it up but it is still a bit questionable. I note that on (07:46) 17 May 2009 ChubbyWimbus raised some concerns aboout this article.
Upon examination of the various articles concerned and their edit and content history it appears that the contact numbers used have been those associated with previous misleading or hijack edits in various West Bengal articles.
Today I have made edits to the article and some others today that are displaying similar lineage and number commonalities I have removed +91 33 8100291011 from Hotel Sonarbangla Resorts in the Tajpur article as this tel number has beeen listed the Rojana Beach Resorts listing in Digha and removed in an edit today for that reason. The previous listing for Safarsonhee in this Tajpur article was removed by Peterfitzgerald on 11 oct 2010). The prior Safarsonhee listing used a number 90spamfilter51115228 listed to Safarsongee Tours & Travels, Kolkata, Telephone: (033) 4004spamfilter8685, 90spamfilter51115228, Address: 9B, Esplanade , Kolkata-700069, West Bengal. The Hotel Amorabati-Bakkhali has also frequently been listed to 90spamfilter51115228 on travel websites
As I know the activities of the west bengal idiots are of interest to others I thought this may be of interest here.felix 06:40, 16 June 2011 (EDT)
West Bengal scammer +91 33 8100291011
Maybe it's time for this idiots number to be spam blacklisted-- felix 10:53, 16 June 2011 (EDT)
Here are some more: -- felix 15:09, 17 June 2011 (EDT)
[email protected] and [email protected] have an established pattern with scammer numbers and multiple listings ie. Shankarpur Hotel Sandy Bay, [email protected], Jhargram Mps Resort, ☎ 033 9433585945 [email protected], Falta Hotel Sea Bird +91 033 9831254202 [email protected] also +91 33 943358 5945
+91 33 9831254202 has a scammer profile: Falta Hotel Sea Bird +91 033 9831254202 Digha Hotel Sonar Bangla, Barrister colony, ☎ 9831254202
+91 33 2248 0626 has a scammer profile Digha Tourist Lodge Hotel Dolphin Larica Sagar Tourist Lodge Digha Hotel Suman's Digha Mandarmani Samudra Sakshi Resort
Eastern Tourism of 190A, Harish Mukherjee Road, Kolkata - 700 026 has a scammer profile with multiple listing and relisting of +91 33 2455 1491 Other numbers listed to this enterprise include
Mobile :
ukraine vacation guide dot com
Mass spamming of various Ukraine articles. Examination of site reveals no content that could ever be useful at WT --Burmesedays 06:13, 23 June 2011 (EDT).
vietnamairlinestickets dot com
This URL has shown up repeatedly in several Southeast Asia articles over the past week. It's a booking portal - the URL for Vietnam Airlines is http://vietnamairlines.com - and the users in question are ignoring requests to stop re-adding this URL. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:26, 5 July 2011 (EDT)
motorbiketours-hoian dot com
After ignoring several specific warnings about writing their details into a competitor listing at Hoi An, did it again.--Burmesedays 08:30, 19 July 2011 (EDT)
Touristdriver.aqaba at gmail.com
This tax driver has been adding lengthy advertisements to various Jordan articles and ignoring pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout. See Special:Contributions/188.8.131.52 and Special:Contributions/Jouli for some examples. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:55, 23 July 2011 (EDT)
kuakatatours dot com
There have been several new articles created in the past twelve hours that do not meet the Wikitravel:What is an article criteria. The user in question hasn't responded to talk page messages so I'm putting the tour company URL he/she has been using on the blacklist in the hopes of getting his/her attention. -- Ryan • (talk) • 11:36, 27 July 2011 (EDT)
wadirumdiscovery dot com
This tour company has ignored repated requests not to list itself multiple times (per Wikitravel:Don't tout), and has now started removing competitor listings from the Wadi Rum article. See for example Special:Contributions/Momo2010. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:05, 31 July 2011 (EDT)
bandarbantours dot com
User has ignored many messages and continues to create spam articles designed to promote this travel agency.--Burmesedays 07:36, 1 August 2011 (EDT)
taxi-makarska dot com
See Special:Contributions/Ijujnovic. There has been a long running edit war going on over Makarska. Initially requests were made to de-tout a listing, and eventually to discuss before re-adding. Adding to the blacklist now to prevent further edit warring. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:32, 28 August 2011 (EDT)
easyrider dot vn and easy-riders dot net
See Special:Contributions/Easyridervietnam (amongst others). Talk page messages and edit summary pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout have been ignored repeatedly over the past couple of weeks. -- Ryan • (talk) • 11:22, 12 September 2011 (EDT)
tripz dot advisor
A few accounts are spamming this gmail address. Looks more like bored trolling than actual spamming, so this can be removed later. --Peter Talk 11:46, 25 September 2011 (EDT)
internetmarketingdirect dot com dot au
Repeated SEO spam on User talk:IM2011Direct. Ironically, the spam was touting the company's "white hat" strategies, but doing so by spamming a travel wiki. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:08, 28 September 2011 (EDT)
This travel agency has been spamming Agra and other random pages daily for the past week. Edit summary pointers and talk page messages pointing the user to Tour and Wikitravel:Don't tout have been ignored. -- wrh2 10:40, 11 October 2011 (EDT)
comparecarrental dot co
See (for two examples) Special:Contributions/126.96.36.199 and Special:Contributions/18.104.22.168. User has been inserting this car rental portal with misleading edit summaries. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:16, 17 October 2011 (EDT)
Rhinocarhire dot com Removal from Local Spam Blacklist Request
We are seeking feedback / support for the removal of rhinocarhire dot com from the Wikitravel talk:Local spam blacklist#Various Car Hire Agencies. We have for some time been in discussion with a moderator who has recommended that we use this platform in an attempt to gain support for our removal from the list by consensus. We found ourselves added to the list in September 2009 where the route cause was traced back to an external editor / SEO specialist who took it upon himself to spam wiki travel with our website. Upon discovering such practices, this person ceased to work for the company and has not done so since. We have explained our situation in detail, however the perception remains that we will try to use Wikitravel for our own benefit and SEO purposes, which I can assure the Wikitravel community is not the case. We run an honest business and were awarded Best Car Hire Website at the 2010 Travolution Awards, something that the team worked very hard towards and are very proud of. Our integrity has been questioned on Wikitravel to the extent where we have been labelled not trustworthy, something we find unjust and unfounded. There have also been references to 'fake blogs' that we know nothing about and have requested further information to fully investigate, however no further information has been supplied. We have no interest in self promotion of our business on Wikitravel and are not looking for recommendations, however being listed as spam is potentially damaging for our business. We have been punished by wiki travel for 2 years now (listed on the spam blacklist) and feel that continued listing as spam for actions carried out by a 3rd party on our behalf (unknown to us at the time) is not longer justifiable. We would welcome to feedback from the community on this matter as we will continue our pursuit for removal from the list. Many thanks. Rhinocarhire dot com. (184.108.40.206 09:23, 30 August 2011 (EDT))
Inas, Many thanks for you efforts in this matter. Your time is very much appreciated, as is that of Ryan who we have been dealing with also. Kind regards, Phil. Ryan - Just to note, the 'fake blogs' you mention are press releases issued by our company that are syndicated to various sites. Once published via official means we have no control which websites choose to host the press release.
Can't edit
I can't seem to be able to edit Globe-trotters talk page, since my message is refused by the spam filter. What am I doing wrong? I wanted to post: "Hi, I appreciate your help but since I was still working on the text I've been getting edit conflicts on South Limburg. That is making it quite harder and frustrating, so I'll just stop editing until you're done. Could you give me a heads up when you are? Justme 12:54, 30 July 2011 (EDT) "
As to that last problem, is there a way to indicate that you're working on something and ask others to not edit for a while? These edit conflicts really are frustrating.. Justme 12:54, 30 July 2011 (EDT)
holidayvacationrental dot com
See Special:Contributions/18.104.22.168 and Special:Contributions/Holidayvacationrental. There have also been several pages created for this company that have been deleted. Pointers to Wikitravel:Don't tout and the rental listings policy have been ignored. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:49, 21 November 2011 (EST)
See [33] and Special:Contributions/Jouli. User has had more than enough warning. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:26, 14 December 2011 (EST)
royalindiatrips dot com
See Special:Contributions/Praveengupta, Special:Contributions/220.127.116.11, and several others. User has spammed the Agra page and several Wikitravel policy pages for the past several nights. -- Ryan • (talk) • 10:26, 12 January 2012 (EST)


text:
The Atlanta Hawks need to win Wednesday night to have a chance at the fifth seed when they visit the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Thanks to a home loss Tuesday night to the Toronto Raptors, the Hawks fell into a tie for fifth with the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls hold the tiebreaker advantage over the Hawks, so even if the Hawks beat the Knicks, the Bulls could take fifth with a win over the Washington Wizards in Chicago.
If the Hawks win and Bulls lose, Atlanta is No. 5 and will face the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the playoffs. Whichever team is sixth will take on the Indiana Pacers.
The Hawks certainly didn't seem too concerned about the fifth seed on Tuesday. Head coach Larry Drew rested Al Horford and the other four starters - Jeff Teague, Devin Harris, Josh Smith and Kyle Korver - all played less than 20 minutes.
"I'm going to err on the side of caution," Drew said after the game. "I think it's more important to have healthy bodies, regardless of who our opponent is."
Korver was the leading scorer with 13 points and extended his streak of consecutive games with a made 3-pointer to 73 straight.
The Knicks are locked into the second seed and will host the Boston Celtics, starting this weekend. Their last time out on Monday, the regulars rested and the Knicks fell to the Charlotte Bobcats, 106-95.
Carmelo Anthony has a slight lead over Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder in the race for the scoring title. Anthony sat out the Charlotte game and his availability for Wednesday is unknown.
It's expected that most of the Knicks regulars won't see much time Wednesday if any at all. Big men Tyson Chandler and Kenyon Martin are nursing injuries and both are expected to be ready come playoff time.
Rasheed Wallace played for the first time since December Monday against the Bobcats, but only logged four minutes. Head coach Mike Woodson said after the loss that Wallace asked to come out as he tweaked his bad foot.
"I'm not saying it's a setback," Woodson told the New York Post. "He was a little sore. He asked me to come out and I pulled him. We'll evaluate it a little more and see how he feels."
On Tuesday, the Knicks bolstered their roster when they signed free agent Quentin Richardson. He last played in the NBA during the 2011-12 season with the Orlando Magic.
The Knicks have won both meetings this season and Atlanta has dropped three straight on the road in this series.


text:
To avoid catching a cold this season, ditch the hand sanitizer and lace up your walking shoes instead. This is the advice from investigators whose brand new British Medical Journal study found that regular exercise can reduce your chances of getting sick this winter by almost half.
Researchers from Appalachian State University in North Carolina tracked the lifestyle habits and respiratory health of 1,000 adults for 12 weeks during the fall and winter of 2008 by asking them to fill out extensive questionnaires detailing the factors that affect the workings of the body's immune system as well as how often they felt under the weather.
The study was unique because, unlike most previous work, it included people from all walks of life: Six in10 were women, and 4 out of 10 were between the ages of 18 and 39; 40 percent were middle aged, and one in four were seniors. Participants came from a wide range of backgrounds, marital status and income levels, too.
People who reported working out five days a week or more for at least 20 minutes were sick 43 percent less often than their out-of-shape peers -- and that percentage rose to 46 percent if they also perceived themselves as being fit. Severity of symptoms fell by 41percent among those who felt the fittest and by 31 percent among those who were the most active.
Even after taking into account all of the other influences that might contribute to the sniffles such as diet, sleep and stress, feeling fit and being consistently active had the biggest influence on how often people caught colds. Being older, male and married also jumped out of the data as health boosters, but to a lesser degree.
"Activity is, by far, the most powerful lifestyle habit in terms of your ability to avoid getting sick," said David Nieman, the study's lead author. "Exercise is the one thing you can do that truly seems to boost immunity. In many ways, it's more effective than hand washing and other hygiene habits. No matter how clean you are, coming into contact with viruses and bugs is unavoidable."
Exercise May 'Train' Immune System to Fight Off Colds
Nieman likened the effect aerobic exercise has on the body's immune response to an army that stages regular raids and then returns to the barracks afterwards.
"Each exercise session sparks a temporary rise in immune system cells circulating around the body," he said. "So, although these levels fall back into the normal range within three hours or so, each bout enhances the surveillance of harmful viruses and bacteria. Repeated often enough, this reduces the number and severity of infections like the common cold."
That said, too much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing. Nieman's research on marathon runners found those who log 60 miles or more per week have double the average number of illnesses and the risk of coming down with a cold or upper respiratory infection spikes six times higher the week after a race -- regardless of whether you cross the finish line first or you're a back-of-the-packer. Neiman even speculated that too much high intensity training and racing over a long period of time might lead to cancer.
So where's that fine line between protection and vulnerability?
"The threshold seems to be that the immune system stress response remains pretty good up to around 75 to 90 minutes of high intensity, unrelenting activity," Nieman said. "After that point, the muscles begin running low on fuel, stress hormone levels rise sharply and you begin to see every type of cell in the body mount a stress and dysfunction response."
But since most Americans aren't in danger of going overboard with their workouts, physical activity can be a cheap, easy defense against the common cold. And while it's true you can't stop what germs you encounter, Nieman said it's still a good idea to keep your hands clean.
Do any exercise aficionados out there care to share their experience with exercise to ward off illness? Or do you disagree with the whole connection between fitness and staying cold-free? Post your comments below.