Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

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    Welcome to the edit filter noticeboard
    Filter 1163 — Pattern modified
    Last changed at 21:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

    Filter 1300 — Actions: warn

    Last changed at 19:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

    Filter 1289 — Flags: disabled

    Last changed at 12:27, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

    Filter 1076 — Pattern modified

    Last changed at 04:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

    Filter 1248 — Pattern modified

    Last changed at 03:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

    Filter 614 — Pattern modified

    Last changed at 01:29, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

    Filter 892 — Pattern modified

    Last changed at 21:06, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

    Filter 1013 — Actions: throttle

    Last changed at 00:42, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

    This is the edit filter noticeboard, for coordination and discussion of edit filter use and management.

    If you wish to request an edit filter, please post at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested. If you would like to report a false positive, please post at Wikipedia:Edit filter/False positives.

    Private filters should not be discussed in detail here; please email an edit filter manager if you have specific concerns or questions about the content of hidden filters.



    Set filter 1294 to disallow

    • 1294 (hist · log) ("Test edits and low effort vandalism", public)

    Standard notification. Split out of

    WP:AIV/TB2. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:36, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    Understood. This filter is targeted towards your run-of-the-mill everyday vandal who doesn't use much effort to bypass this filter and/or trigger 1296 and/or 1297 instead.
    Also, this might be different from 664 (hist · log). Codename Noreste 🤔 𝙇𝙖 𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙖 00:50, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    664 is warn-only, though I haven't looked through the log to see if it can be set to disallow. 1296/1297 is an experiment that might go nowhere. 1297 is not going to be easy to maintain and IMO a filter that complicated is only justifiable if keeps out a huge amount of vandalism. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No problems here, seems solid from a glance at the filter. EggRoll97 (talk) 05:02, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Need a change for #867

    After noticing this, I suggest excluding undos and reverts from being logged onto the edit filter log by #867. Toadette (Let's talk together!) 14:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

     Fixed. EggRoll97 (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure if that's a good idea. After an AFD was closed as "redirect", it's common that someone will come back much later and try to undo the result. I see no harm in logging that. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Self-reverted for now, though anti-vandalism isn't exactly the scope of this filter. For example, Special:Diff/1218898491 isn't a large page creation, it's reverting redirect vandalism. EggRoll97 (talk) 20:52, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure but there's no harm in a log-only filter catching a few out-of-scope edits. If I understand this change correctly, around next
    WP:THURSDAY you'll be able to write something like page_last_edit_age >= 86400 to exclude reverts of recent edits. But even that would exclude rapid edit warring to overturn an AFD. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    Prepare for Armageddon: temporary accounts

    (Topic name is a reference to one of my favorite error messages.)

    The 15 April The Tech News weekly summary includes this blurb:

    Volunteer developers are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. Learn more

    Of course, it's not just code that will need to be updated. A good number of edit filters are going to need to be updated. I don't think we necessarily want or need to update anything before it happens, but I'd suggest enumerating the variables and functions most likely to be affected and start building a list of filters expected to require updates.

    (This may have been discussed before, but I didn't immediately find anything in the archive.) Daniel Quinlan (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    If we don't have anything to feed to ip_in_range(), that will be bad, and some filters will have to just be disabled. But otherwise, so long as temp accounts are never autoconfirmed, and have an edit count and age that stays at zero or null, I don't think a huge number of filters will need updating. If user_age and user_editcount start incrementing, then we might want to check user_type in some filters. I'd prefer to see how temp-account users act first. Will the vandals clear cookies after every edit? Or will most of them be too clueless? No way to know right now. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:04, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm hoping that the IP variables are unaffected, but I haven't dug into that. I was most concerned about user_age which is definitely used as an IP test. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 01:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    One thing we might have to consider is this: If people start crying "We're being flooded with vandalism! We need to require registration for everyone!" an alternative might be making the filters much harsher for temp users. As in, you add "gay" to a BLP, in any context, and you're told "you have to register an account to do that". You edit more than three pages in ten minutes: "sorry, either wait ten minutes or register an account". And so on. I hope it doesn't come to that, but disabling all logged out editing would be a greater loss, I think. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:31, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah I agree with you as we have a lot of productive IP users. I think that once this gets implemented, using !("confirmed" in user_groups) (as long as the temp accounts can't become confirmed or get other user permissions but that should happen anyways) would work quite well to prevent new users and the new temp account issues. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 02:39, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks like the new user_type variable will probably work well for most simple filters.
    We also need to understand how this affects filters that use the IP in throttling actions.
    It might also be a good time to consider whether there are any additional variables or functions that could help alleviate any losses in functionality. There are "hacks" such as trying to detect reverts by looking at the edit summary. That example might not be something that wants to be fixed sooner because of temporary accounts, but are there other hacks that might be more important to replace with a better solution due to temporary accounts? Daniel Quinlan (talk) 06:29, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think, I hope, that IP masking causing that level of disruption would convince the WMF to roll it back at least locally. Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 12:45, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The WMF legal department is requiring IP masking. I do not anticipate a rollback. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:12, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Damn, you're right... Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 03:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Set filter 1076 to warn

    ("Draftified article more than 180 days old")

    Has some inevitable false positives due to AfDs, but people closing those know what they're doing. Otherwise there are a lot of draftifications of old articles by people who either don't realize how old the page is, don't know they're not supposed to do that, or both, and it would be nice if they could be warned as they do it, not later if someone happens to notice. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:43, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree, so I support warning. Changed to neutral because of the amount of FPs. Also note that if this passes, we'll have to make a new and specialized warning template but I'm sure you already know that...PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 16:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Also support. EggRoll97 (talk) 17:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm on the leaning side of opposing due to the sheer amount of FPs and possibilities to pause and break scripts. Codename Noreste 🤔 La Suma 03:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Not opposed to this, but both User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js or User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft.js just say something like this when a filter is tripped:

    Could not move page:
    API error: abusefilter-warning
    
    Try again ?
    

    Also MPGuy's version already gives this warning:

    Draftifying isn't appropriate per
    WP:DRAFTIFY
    , since this article is more than 90 days old.

    which is kind of hard to miss. Ideally, these script would be updated to show the parsed warning, though I'm not sure how much of an effect it will have. (Courtesy pings Evad37, MPGuy2824.) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:45, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    There are also, of course, manual draftifications not using the script, which currently get no warning. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:17, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it's probably a fair trade-off even the if the scripts don't display the warning properly. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:39, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not sure about this. I've manually analyzed the last 50 filter hits; and while 17 of those were true positives, there were 27 false positives (along with 6 cases in which it wasn't as clear to me). As far as I can see, the majority of the FPs came from round-robin page moves, draftification following

    WP:REFUND
    , and situations in which the page itself had existed for more than 180 days, but had only recently been moved to mainspace (and were therefore within the time limit for draftification):

    a smart kitten's analysis of recent 1076 (hist · log) filter hits

    True positives

    1. Special:AbuseLog/37520237
    2. Special:AbuseLog/37517861 - the draftification was of a recently-created article on top of a redirect, so would have been within the time limit for draftification had it been a brand new page. however, given that the page was blanked-and-redirected as a result of an AfD, the page should probably have just been blanked-and-redirected again - rather than moving the page to draftspace, and taking the history of the previous article with it.
    3. Special:AbuseLog/37517848 - same as above
    4. Special:AbuseLog/37515983
    5. Special:AbuseLog/37515631
    6. Special:AbuseLog/37507112 - was originally draftified at an AfD, but was then later accepted through AfC. this draftification took place >180 days after the AfC acceptance
    7. Special:AbuseLog/37506617
    8. Special:AbuseLog/37501991
    9. Special:AbuseLog/37501990
    10. Special:AbuseLog/37501989
    11. Special:AbuseLog/37501988
    12. Special:AbuseLog/37474830
    13. Special:AbuseLog/37465973
    14. Special:AbuseLog/37462419
    15. Special:AbuseLog/37460722
    16. Special:AbuseLog/37442207
    17. Special:AbuseLog/37437883

    False positives

    Manual

    round-robin
    page moves

    1. Special:AbuseLog/37526456 - see Special:PageHistory/Mister Peabody
    2. Special:AbuseLog/37526444 - see Special:PageHistory/Una storia importante (song)
    3. Special:AbuseLog/37526437 - see Special:PageHistory/Ucisa
    4. Special:AbuseLog/37510585 - see Special:PageHistory/World egg
    5. Special:AbuseLog/37496701 - see Special:PageHistory/Project 8 (soccer league)
    6. Special:AbuseLog/37475553 - see Special:PageHistory/IT law
    7. Special:AbuseLog/37475530 - see Special:PageHistory/Ballyrory (disambiguation)
    8. Special:AbuseLog/37457511 - see Special:PageHistory/Espresso (Sabrina Carpenter song)
    9. Special:AbuseLog/37452252 - see Special:PageHistory/Conference Finals
    10. Special:AbuseLog/37423355 - see Special:PageHistory/Pentavryso, Kozani

    Draftification from

    WP:REFUND

    1. Special:AbuseLog/37524078
    2. Special:AbuseLog/37494847
    3. Special:AbuseLog/37475645
    4. Special:AbuseLog/37442191
    5. Special:AbuseLog/37423697

    Draftification from

    WP:AFD
    (or similar)

    1. Special:AbuseLog/37500939
    2. Special:AbuseLog/37478431 - was deleted at AfD, & draftified post hoc after a request was made to the closing administrator
    3. Special:AbuseLog/37429525
    4. Special:AbuseLog/37429351
    5. Special:AbuseLog/37419717 - was deleted at AfD in 2017, but draftified at a DRV

    The page itself had existed for >180 days, but had only recently been moved to mainspace

    1. Special:AbuseLog/37517510 - see Special:PageHistory/Draft:Naima G. Sharaf
    2. Special:AbuseLog/37512391 - see Special:PageHistory/Draft:Miriam Grossman
    3. Special:AbuseLog/37439308 - see Special:PageHistory/Draft:Battle of Umbarkhind
    4. Special:AbuseLog/37437754 - see Special:PageHistory/Draft:Radha Krishna Public School, Amroha
    5. Special:AbuseLog/37433258 - see Special:PageHistory/Draft:Jimmy Gardner (labourer)
    6. Special:AbuseLog/37433081 - see Special:PageHistory/Draft:UV Creations
    7. Special:AbuseLog/37423896 - see Special:PageHistory/Draft:St. Rochus Clinic Bad Schönborn

    Less clear/Other potential FPs

    1. G7
    2. Special:AbuseLog/37514053 - was draftified by a checkuser due to being a commissioned article, & therefore needing to go through AFC
    3. Special:AbuseLog/37511738 - draftified a newly-created article that was started on top of an older redirect. there was no prior page history besides the redirect, though, so the mainspace redirect was just able to be recreated after the new article was draftified
    4. round-robin or {{db-move
      }} situation; but at the same time, it doesn't seem like what this filter was designed to catch
    5. )
    6. Special:AbuseLog/37455711 - was draftified partially due to possible COI concerns, but the article had existed since 2011

    Although I think a warning for true positives would be beneficial (for the same reason as Pppery), I'm wondering if there are any ways that the rate of FPs can be decreased before this filter is set as such. As things currently stand, I'm leaning oppose, due to the large proportion of warnings that would be given to editors encountering false positives. (Also, Courtesy ping: Bradv as the filter's author.)

    All the best. ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 16:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe we could reduce FPs from recently moved pages like this: moved_from_age > 15552000 & moved_to_last_edit > 604800
    Note that I'm just using 1 week as a placeholder for when the article was last moved so it can be changed to whatever value is best. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 17:03, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    moved_to_last_edit_age seems to be null if the target page doesn't exist; see testwiki:Special:AbuseLog/102036. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:31, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe then it could be moved_from_age > 15552000 & (moved_to_last_edit > 604800 || moved_to_last_edit == null) but I'm not too sure about this. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ugh, brain fart. Now I get it. You're saying that if the move was recent, the leftover redirect is probably still there in draft space, so we can use its age? Yes, that's a great idea! Though now I'm confused as to why there's a moved_to_last_edit_age variable at all. If the redirect-to-be-overwritten has only one revision, that's just the same as moved_to_age. And if it has more than one revision, the move is just impossible. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:18, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So then what variable would work better? I can't seem to find any suitable alternatives, but again you raise a point about the existence of the draft article preventing someone from moving back the page unless they are an admin or page mover (which isn't the majority of editors). So that wouldn't work because the move would be impossible. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 02:36, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not convincing to me on principle. because the people doing false positives are experienced users that know what they're doing so will just click through the warning. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for all the digging! The first group of FPs all include a summary that contains either "robin", "swap", or "vacate". I don't know if that's a representative sample, but just excluding those summaries would produce few false negatives, unless someone deliberately uses them to avoid being logged by the filter, in which case they should at minimum receive a stern talking-to. The second group seems to come from one script (User:SD0001/RFUD-helper) which could be excluded. The others can, I suppose, just click past the warning. Compare 602 (hist · log), which warns every person leaving a CTOPS notice, appropriate or not. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Paranoia would suggest only excluding edits with the first FP summaries if the requester holds page mover rights, and also creating a separate filter to log any exclusions. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If they don't have pagemover rights, then they've left a redirect behind in mainspace. I don't know what fraction of admins at least do a spot check on R2 deletions, but if anyone frequently gets up to shenanigans like this, they'll be caught eventually. Filters (especially public filters) are never meant to stop every clever person from finding a workaround. With all that said, I still wouldn't object to a second, log-only, no-exceptions filter. The condition limit was doubled last year, and "move" filters are cheap. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:50, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair point regarding the others just being able to click past the warning - I suppose one of the things I'm concerned about is inadvertently building up
    Wikipedia talk:Draft of this proposal - would anyone have any objections if I did? All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 09:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    I'm disinclined to set anything to warn an experienced editor. The only warnings from the edit filter I receive as an experienced editor are "you're about to place a CTOP" warnings, and those are a pain. They are jarring to my workflow, and they break user scripts. Also a 54% false positive rate is very high. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:41, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's the point. Trying to draftily old articles should be jarring. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:51, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    54% false positives, and the potential to break scripts such as
    WP:PAGESWAP, still leaves me with concerns. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    To be fair, the round-robin moves I found in this filter's logs all appear to have been done manually (rather than using a script) - there appears to already be an exception in 1076 for moving to subpages of
    Draft:Move, which - as far as I'm aware - is what the scripts do. Personally speaking, I'd like to see if the false positive rate can be reduced before considering implementing a warning. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 13:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    Is this worth changing the 'Numeric change without summary' filter?

    Until WP:VPT#I don't understand these edit summaries (task: T360164) is fixed, would it be worth it to change the pattern to match these cases too?
    I'm not really sure how to check how often edits like that are happening and not getting logged by the filter, other than manually looking at Special:RecentChanges (I also don't know what other filter this might be affecting), but I figured I'd point it out and ask anyways. – 143.208.239.226 (talk) 02:32, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks, tweaked. Found one example out of the last 1000 mobile app edits. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]