1

I’ve been using the NFD Guardian tool a lot lately and I’m seeing stuff like this on a regular basics: http://www.wikihow.com/Keep-Warm-and-Have-Fun-With-North-Face-Jackets And this is what the authors’ userpage looks like : http://www.wikihow.com/User:Evyangell “north face jackets wholesale&discout.If you like,contact me!” What can we do about this? Maybe blocking them would be a good starter?

2

Some admins speedy delete these advertisement articles, while others NFD for advertisement. If it’s been NFD’d and is properly going through that process then it should be off the site soon enough. If a user joins wikiHow and creates multiple spam articles (with the same links in all) then I usually blacklist the URLs before deleting the articles, but that’s just my own personal preference.

3

You could have a read of our brand name guidelines to get an idea of whether an NFD advert applies to any case you look at. http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Brand-Name

4

And of course, pressing Skip is fine if you’re not sure.

5

Any site that allows open submission of content will deal with spambots and advertisers who think that they can get some free mentions. These spambots and advertisers, the kinds of people that write articles like the one you linked to above, usually get banned relatively quickly if they’ve established a reputation for advertising inappropriately on wikiHow. Some companies and individuals, however, run legitimate and helpful accounts and I think a blanket policy like you seem to be suggesting would stifle some good contributors that we have. http://www.wikihow.com/Publicize-Yourself-the-Right-Way-on-wikiHow -Take a look at that article, especially the “case study” provided. A great example of someone who advertised the right way on wikiHow.