Wikipedia:Link rot/Usurpations

For other types of usurpation, seeWP:USURP.

Usurpeddomains are used by spammers,squatters,malware, SEO, phishing or other fraudulent activity. Typically they are legitimate domains that expired and were hijacked.

How to usurpify a citation

The following is a decision tree for each citation. It can be followed manually, or implemented algorithmically by bot.

• Does the source URL have an archive available? If yes..
  • Is it in a CS1|2 template (eg.{{cite web}})? If yes..
    • Add|url-status=usurped,|archive-url=and|archive-date=
  • Is it a square-bracketed or bare URL? If yes..
    • Wrap the archive URL (with or without square brackets) in{{usurped}}

• Is no archive available? If yes..
  • Can the citation be verified if the URL was removed (eg. newspaper or journal content off-line)?
    • Remove the URL and keep the citation
  • Is the citation unverifiable without a URL (eg. web-only content)?
    • Remove the entire citation perWP:V:unverifiable

Bots

Bots that can usurpify automatically with the above steps:

• WP:WAYBACKMEDIC- report usurped domains toWP:URLREQ

See also

• WP:JUDI- ongoing mass usurpation of expired domains across all Wikimedia projects