How to block WMF Zotero Translation Server
Operated by Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation's Zotero Translation Server is a customized metadata extraction tool that powers Citoid (see wikimedia-citoid), retrieving citation data from URLs, DOIs, and ISBNs using Zotero translators, on demand from website visitor requests.
nginx
In the server block, then reload.
# In the server block. 403 rather than 444: a closed connection tells the
# operator nothing, and an agent that gets a status code can log it.
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(ZoteroTranslationServer/WMF|WMF Zotero Translation Server)") {
return 403;
}
Apache
In .htaccess or the vhost.
BrowserMatchNoCase "ZoteroTranslationServer/WMF" bad_bot
BrowserMatchNoCase "WMF Zotero Translation Server" bad_bot
<RequireAll>
Require all granted
Require not env bad_bot
</RequireAll>
Cloudflare
Security → WAF → Custom rules.
# Security → WAF → Custom rules, action: Block (http.user_agent contains "ZoteroTranslationServer/WMF") or (http.user_agent contains "WMF Zotero Translation Server")
WordPress
A child theme's functions.php, or a small plugin.
// functions.php of a child theme, or a small plugin. Runs before WordPress
// builds the page, so a blocked agent costs one PHP process and no queries.
add_action('init', function () {
$agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
foreach (['ZoteroTranslationServer/WMF', 'WMF Zotero Translation Server'] as $needle) {
if (stripos($agent, $needle) !== false) {
status_header(403);
exit('Blocked: WMF Zotero Translation Server');
}
}
});
A rule on the user agent is a rule on a string it chose
The server rules match on a header the requester sets, which stops the agent that says who it is and not the one that copies somebody else's name. Botscope verifies identity against DNS and published address ranges, records which check decided each request, and shows you the ones that lied.