Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

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 WP:Edit filter/Requested. If you would like to report a false positive, please post at WP: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.

Filter 126

I'm concerned that the level of false positives in Special:AbuseFilter/126 is quite high. While the filter has a half decent rate of catching undesirable edits, most appear to have been made in good faith and it doesn't appear to be catching the intended editors, though I could be mistaken. Sam Walton (talk) 22:21, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken XLinkBot will revert these additions anyway. Based on the wording of the warning this doesn't look like a good-faith filter, but I think should be. So if we do keep it we should at least improve the language to be less bite-y. — MusikAnimal ^talk 23:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I've turned off the warning/disallow settings for now; it doesn't seem to be catching the intended target. Sam Walton (talk) 08:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Bot idea

One of the least useful aspects of the edit filter is that we can't monitor changes to filters without going through one by one to see if anything has changed. It could be useful to have a bot which monitors edits to all the filters and posts here weekly with an update on which settings have changed to which filters. I don't think that tracking every condition change would be useful, but an update on which filters have been enabled, disabled, or had particular settings turned on or off could be really helpful. Is this possible or feasible? Sam Walton (talk) 08:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm interested in this. I'll have to look into the feasibility, but I think I could make it happen. This would require an admin bot, i believe, which is ironic because I just had MusikBot's admin bit removed after completing another task. Anyway I'll post back here once I know more — MusikAnimal ^talk 18:33, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: Starting work on this. I should be able to make this happen in a week or two. About the private filters... I assume it's okay to list changes to settings for those, so long as we don't reveal the conditions itself or the description? Also where do we want the bot to write to? How about Wikipedia:Edit filter/Recent changes which can be transcluded here on the noticeboard for everyone to see, or wherever else want — MusikAnimal ^talk 18:22, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: I think so. We don't need to see comments or condition changes, just the settings changes, which I don't think reveals too much. I guess I only thought as far as the bot posting a new section here with the latest changes once a week, but I suppose a dedicated archive would be good too, /Recent changes seems reasonable. Thanks again for making the bot! Sam Walton (talk) 18:36, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I actually like the posting of a new section idea more, as then the changes will be set up for discussion. Let's go with that. Not sure where else we'd really transclude the changes anyway — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:05, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I've put together some code I think will work, but before I file a BFRA I'd like to see a clearer consensus on the idea. Pinging a few EFMs who might be interested: Rich Farmbrough, Smalljim, Od Mishehu, Reaper Eternal, Dragons flight. To be clear, the information that the bot will post is already publicly viewable. Only changes to the actions taken (warn, disallow) or whether the filter was enabled/disabled will be reported. — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:18, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• One side note: If edit filters were standard pages, then this would be a simple watchlist, or related pages task.
• Substantively, how about making the report a weekly mailing to the edit filter mailing list?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:04, 27 September 2015 (UTC).

• I'd rather that this was available viewing for non edit filter managers too. I'm sure there are many who would benefit from knowing when particular filters, which they may have had a hand in requesting, have had their settings changed. Sam Walton (talk) 22:09, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

  As a regular user, I'd endorse having a bot log filter changes somewhere on a wiki page.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:27, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• On a related note, I dont think the settings of a filter (except maybe the throttle limit) should be hidden on private filters. So long as the name doesn't entirely give away what the filter is for I dont think its a massive deal if we showed which hidden filters are set to disallow/tag/etc, but I appreciate thats not something we can change easily. Sam Walton (talk) 22:30, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I personally never use descriptive names for private filters, rather something vague, but not misleading. I was thinking the bot could just include a link to the filter and omit the name anyway, but if we want the name I can certainly make it happen. I also like the idea of a watchable page, so maybe the WP:FILTER/Recent changes idea is something we should still pursue, in addition to posting here on the noticeboard. It is possible to send out an email of the changes as well, but I'd almost prefer that be a subscription apart from the edit filter mailing list — MusikAnimal ^talk 00:06, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Just linking the filter number would make sense actually, yes. Sure, if the bot posted there and here I think that would make it nicely flexible for people. Sam Walton (talk) 00:09, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘In terms of development, I think this bot task is good to go. From the above it looks like we're all okay with it, just unclear what information should be reported. So, I've made this configurable at User:MusikBot/FilterMonitor/config.js. Just use true/false for whatever you want it to show. Here's an example report: Special:PermaLink/683250722, and a post to the noticeboard: Special:Diff/683250717. Let me know if there's any other way to improve the report. Barring objections I'm going to go ahead and file the BFRA — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:51, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I would definitely support such a noticeboard - provided it only works for the publicly viewable filters; any filter we don't want vandals to see the content of, we also don't want them to know we've fixed it to catch their most recent attempt to get around it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:07, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Well since the filter would only be configured to show settings changes I don't think we're giving much away in regards to the hidden filters, especially if the names aren't too obvious. I wouldn't support showing description changes for obvious reasons. This looks great MusikAnimal, though I'm not sure we need the 'last changed by' line; it could confuse people into thinking that that user made all the changes listed above that line. Which brings me onto a question actually - does the bot track each change then list them all out, or does it compare the filter to a week ago and show what's changed? For example if I enabled, disable, then enable a filter - does each action show up or just disabled->enabled? Thanks again, Sam Walton (talk) 08:38, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

We can hide the "last changed by", no problem. If we want to block reporting of all private filters I can make that happen, too, however I think we should at least report when the filter is either created or is set to private, and also when it goes into disallow. Just to be clear, the "name" is internally called the "description", and we won't be reporting that.

Samwalton9 I only programmed it to show the net change from the week before. It is not technically feasible to show a fully accurate progression, as for instance one could enable the filter then quickly disable it, and the bot never had a chance to register the initial enabling. In other words, we're not going off of the "filter history", which I don't think is even accessible via the API. I could however have the bot include a link to the filter history right in the report, for convenience. Additionally I could look into using the replication database to gather the full history of a filter, but I think we should save that for a future update — MusikAnimal ^talk 14:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't personally see a problem with reporting these changes for private filters, and just wanted to clarify with my question. Looks good! Sam Walton (talk) 15:21, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Spectacularly good and bad news, come to find out there's Special:AbuseFilter/history, which I now see as one of the tiny links at the top of Special:AbuseFilter (funny enough I went months without seeing the debugging tools link too). This page is viewable even by anonymous users. Is the bot task still worthwhile? It generates a watchable page, which you obviously can't do with a Special page. Additionally one might argue making posts here on the noticeboard makes the changes more prominent. I'm not going to throw a fit if I did two days worth of work for nothing, as that code can be reused somehow, but I don't have to happy about it =P — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Pah, I don't know how I missed that. I agree though that the bot could still be beneficial for the reasons you mention. Sam Walton (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Alright, so if we're still on board about this (and really, it's okay if you're not), I will modify the bot to include a link to the full history. Additionally if we want I can increase the rate the watchable page is updated to maybe once daily, or even on-the-fly, while still only making weekly posts here on the noticeboard. Going to give some time for more feedback before updating the function details at the BFRA (feel free to comment there as well) — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:57, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

(←) See the bot request if you are interested; We're just going to write to a single page and transclude it here at the top of the noticeboard. I think that makes the most sense. I had another idea though... what about also reporting filters that have not had any hits in say, a month's time? That would help us keep track of ones we might not need anymore. That "1 month" duration I can make configurable on-wiki. — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Long-term pattern abuse filter (58)

Is it possible that we could split up Special:AbuseFilter/58 into more filters so that we can reliably check why edits have been flagged? I've seen a number of false positive reports from this filter and it's essentially impossible to tell exactly what text caused their edit to be caught by the filter, and if it is indeed a false positive or not. I don't think we should encourage such unwieldy filters. Sam Walton (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I was actually thinking along the same lines (although there are other solutions). Could we get some dialogue with the foundation, becasue the main reason for lumping these patterns together is to "save conditions".

And one of the main reasons that it is hard to see what is going on is the non-intuitive implementation of CCNORM.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:08, 27 September 2015 (UTC).

The way I deal with these is very simple: I use the "Examine" link on the hit; use earlier versions of the filter to see if they would catch the hit; and then I see which change actually did it. Then I leave a note with the person responsible for that change. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:29, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Re-enable Edit Filter 678 please

Requesting that Special:AbuseFilter/678 be enabled again. 68.98.155.223 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) was recently blocked again by Jayron32 for continuing the same edits that read to the filter's creation. This user seems persistent and quite long-term. The original request for the filter, evidence showing pattern, and history of the abuse an be found at this archive link. Please ping me if there are questions. Thank you. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:52, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Done though the filter only caught edits from that one IP in the past. Sam Walton (talk) 21:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: Thank you. If it's inactive for a month I'll ask that it be deactivated and simply add that IP to my RSS feed (though they're blocked for a year). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:13, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: Can we please widen the net of this filter? Check out Sloopcaptain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:28, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Done Wasn't aware of their use of accounts. Sam Walton (talk) 09:31, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Me either until I found that. It's a new development. Thank you! EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 14:50, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

External link added to disambiguation page

The tagfilter External link added to disambiguation page is giving erroneous results when the template {{disambiguation cleanup}} is added to DPAGEs, since it contains an external link, and is properly attached to DPAGEs as this external link is attached to a disambiguation page template used only on disambiguation pages. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 04:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; I'd made sure to look out for {{disambiguation-cleanup}} but missed the version without the dash. Fixed. Sam Walton (talk) 10:13, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

IP sock filter?

Can someone take a look at this AN thread with an eye towards a possible filter? BMK (talk) 16:00, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

We could prevent specific edits in the way you suggest, or alternatively we could simply log all edits from those IP ranges, allowing them to be reviewed more easily. Looking at the contribs of the IPs listed, the majority of them did not mention Ricky and made vandalistic edits to mainspace, or at the very least edits that were reverted on the basis of their block evasion.

Therefore the second path seems sounder, if there are people who are prepared to review the log.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:04, 5 October 2015 (UTC).