Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested
Requested edit filters |
---|
This page can be used to request edit filters, or changes to existing filters. Edit filters are primarily used to address common patterns of harmful editing. Private filters should not be discussed in detail. If you wish to discuss creating an LTA filter, or changing an existing one, please instead email details to wikipedia-en-editfilters Otherwise, please add a new section at the bottom using the following format: == Brief description of filter == *'''Task''': What is the filter supposed to do? To what pages and editors does it apply? *'''Reason''': Why is the filter needed? *'''Diffs''': Diffs of sample edits/cases. If the diffs are revdelled, consider emailing their contents to the mailing list. ~~~~ Please note the following:
|
Index |
This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
Non-autoconfirmed user rapidly reverting edits
Just a note: it probably would be more useful if this filter, once triggered, would block further instances around the same time the bot reports to AIV for triggering the filter 5+ times instead of simply logging while allowing further disruption. It can take 20 minutes and over before derp revert vandals get blocked while a small army of patrollers must remain active to revert each edit, which appears suboptimal (i.e. see the still-ongoing 114.17.235.146). Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 02:52, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
- So disruption persisted for 34 minutes for this IP address alone. —PaleoNeonate – 02:58, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
- 29 minutes before 46.150.88.31 was stopped/blocked. —PaleoNeonate – 04:04, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
- I'd support this for a trial period. Checking the last 500 times this filter fired, just a handful of the Ips that triggered it are not blocked as of now. CrowCaw 19:16, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
- Support setting 249 to disallow! These types of vandals are far too difficult to deal with. I have only on one occasion seen a new editor going on a good reversion spree where they were cleaning up someone's else's vandalism. – Thjarkur (talk) 14:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
- Support as well. Happens way too often, and it's kinda irritating to see a small group of antivandals keep having to revert whilst a report sits at a backlogged AIV. Some of the changes, like the one I reference, are particularly problematic.
- Autoconfirmed is not a particularly limiting requirement for something like this. I would support moving this to block.
- Again, per the edit filter log for 249, most times this is done it is vandalism. On very few occasions (like this) it's an IP editor reverting vandalism, but these are things that would be picked up very quickly by recent changes patrollers anyway. ProcrasinatingReader (talk) 16:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
- Comment Has anything been done on this? This seems a very legitimate concern and rather unproductive to have this sitting here for 3 and a half years without concrete action being taken. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- SoY was working on a different filter to deal with something like this iirc, which could be set to disallow. There’s also User:ProcrastinatingReader/draft. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Looks like this is done by 1102 which is now set to disallow. @Suffusion of Yellow: should we retire 249 now? Seems redundant/inferior in comparison. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:09, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: They filters aren't quite doing the same thing; see the IP mentioned above, 46.150.88.31. I don't know how common that sort of disruption is nowadays. We have multiple recent changes patrollers who simply don't want to create an account, so I would not support setting 249 to disallow in its current form. No problem with retiring this section though. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:22, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Emojis
- Task: Disallow (or at the very least log so we can check if this would have any amount of false positive) all edits by new users in article space which contain emojis - this could plausibly be extended to edit summaries too
- Reason: There is very rarely a legitimate reason to add emojis in article space, and more frequently than not, like here, they are vandalism. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:58, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
- We already have a filter to disallow emojis, filter 680. The filter might need modifying, I'll wait for a EFM come over and have a look. Pahunkat (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
- ...how do you even do that? Also note that
is useful in user-talk space at least. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:27, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
- Emphasis added for clarification. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:42, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
- That edit got by 680 (hist · log) because it touched a line containing the string "nihongo". I don't know why that exception is in there. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
- Emphasis added for clarification. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:42, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
- ...how do you even do that? Also note that
Comment: You are more likely to find the emojis coming from a mobile edit, so that can be one of your filtering components, especially with an associated criteria. I regularly will utilise 👍 and 🤷 in talk nss, so just be wary what you wish for. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:31, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Interesting diff here. Emoji in edit summary... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:13, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
- The filter doesn't check edit summaries. I don't think it'd be a good idea to add them in (since, well, emojis in edit summaries aren't really disruptive, and mobile users especially might use them more often). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Brief or misleading edit summaries can be an indication of vandalism
- Task: Catch some IP vandals using super vague edit summaries in an attempt to make their edit seem legitimate. Examples include
"Added Content" "Added Info" "Facts"
- Reason: Many IP vandals use purposefully vague edit summaries in (what I suppose is) an attempt to discourage Recent change patrollers from clicking on the edits. Many of these are not even flagged at all. Catalyzzt (talk) 13:48, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
- If I remember correctly, there's a filter (633) that flags canned edit summaries like "fixed grammar". There's no point in disallowing these summaries though, because IPs can fix these things. Pahunkat (talk) 13:52, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
- Another telltale sign is "typo fixed" when the page size has changed by more than a few bytes. Certes (talk) 14:29, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
- Agree with Certes, there are plenty of canned summaries which are used by vandals with incoherent edits. Tagging these edits with something more specific than just "canned edit summary" might help better focusing on anti-vandalism (for example, tagging edits with a summary containing "added content" with a large removal of content (negative page size change) would be a better indicator of vandalism than the whole set of "canned edit summary" edits)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
- See 970 (hist · log). I guess it could use a better title since no one realizes what it does. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:45, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
- New registered editors can also produce the classic "Fixed typo": (+107). Certes (talk) 12:03, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
- Agree with Certes, there are plenty of canned summaries which are used by vandals with incoherent edits. Tagging these edits with something more specific than just "canned edit summary" might help better focusing on anti-vandalism (for example, tagging edits with a summary containing "added content" with a large removal of content (negative page size change) would be a better indicator of vandalism than the whole set of "canned edit summary" edits)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
- I'll note on this that some IPs use "fixed typo" to try and hide extreme BLP violations (revel'd, but admins can see). - The Bushranger One ping only 19:35, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
- Not just IPs, this also with the edit summary "Typo", not even a fixed (no, don't worry, I can't see it, but I reverted one of these so I know exactly what it is) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
- Added content (-5,720) is my favourite diff. A few others in the history of that article as well. Pahunkat (talk) 19:59, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
- My favorite is Changed only a little bit (-783). The guy seems to really like orange pulp. Catalyzzt (talk) 19:51, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Catalyzzt, Pahunkat, and RandomCanadian: I renamed 970 (hist · log) to "Possibly inaccurate edit summary". This is what it has been doing all along: Variants of "Added content" with a negative delta, or variants of "fixed typo" with delta < -10 or delta > 10. Might be worth logging "facts", "truth", "yes", "made it better", etc. in a different filter, though. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:55, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- "fixed" and "good" are another variant commonly seen. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:39, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Still continuing, hiding extreme BLP violations: examples - The Bushranger One ping only 01:53, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
- Those all seem to be tagged with "possible BLP issue or vandalism" (so I'm guessing they hit the log filter?). It's not really viable to disallow edits solely on basis of a generic edit summary. Can't see the BLP violations themselves, but that's probably a separate issue to this specific request. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:21, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Sneed to Chuck vandalism (Thanks to The Simpsons...)
- Task: Put a stop to or at least slow down the trolling/vandalism based on a place seen in the The Simpsons episode E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)#Legacy - "Sneed's Feed and Seed Formerly Chuck's". Based on a meme, named accounts and IPs continually change the occurrence of the place-name/surname "Sneed" to "Chuck" wherever it occurs in Wikipedia.
- Reason: Please take a look at the edit histories of all the articles listed at disambiguation page Sneed, especially the WP:BIO and WP:BLP articles...almost every single one of these articles has suffered from this ongoing vandalism/trolling at one time or another, as examples Floyd Sneed, Carly Fiorina, Meg Sneed, etc.. This is happening because a trolling meme, see the Know Your Meme page "Sneed's Feed and Seed Formerly Chuck's"... This editorial behavior is ongoing and persistent, dealing with it piecemeal gives sporadic results plus is so aggravating for editors to deal with... Sometimes the vandalism is missed and the error persists - keeping up with the vandalism becomes a whack-a-mole task, almost impossible to stay on top of since the perpetrators are not from a single IP-range or from singular named accounts. SO many The Simpsons fans, so many meme'ers, so many Sneed articles on Wikipedia... Myself, Robvanvee & MelanieN have become aware of this behavior (see our discussion at User talk:Robvanvee#Re the Sneed -> Chuck vandalism...). MelanieN suggested I file a request here. So here it is. Shearonink (talk) 19:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
- Yes. What I suggested is that an edit filter be created, if possible, that would prohibit changing the word "Sneed" to the word "Chuck". Or would it be possible to prohibit the word "Chuck" being added to any article that has "Sneed" in its title? I suggest that because many of the vandalism edits are not a simple replacement of the name, but the addition of a phrase such as "formerly known as Chuck" or "born as Chuck". This vandalism has affected 20 or so biographical articles and even Sneed, Arkansas. I have semi-protected or PC protected some of the articles, but I wish that a more general prohibition of this edit - which is always vandalism and never legitimate - could be arranged. Thanks. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Again. The following Sneed articles have been hit tonight by meme'ing vandals: William Henry Sneed, Christine Sneed, Sneedville, Tennessee. Is it possible for someone with the abusefilter/edit manager right to maybe do something to stem the tide? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 03:44, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Hmm, seems like a good use for a filter, but I'm not how efficient one would be. Pahunkat (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- It sure would cut down on editors' frustration on us having to deal manually with this vandalism, whack-a-mole'ing away piecemeal at this chronic ongoing trolling vandalism behavior. This is not going away, it will never stop, it is a drip-drip-drip and wears away at Wikipedia's verifiability.
- Hmm, seems like a good use for a filter, but I'm not how efficient one would be. Pahunkat (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Btw, just now discovered an older Sneed/Chuck meme'ing in William Henry Sneed when I was combing through all the Sneed articles I know of. I am tired of having to deal with this crap. I don't care if it catches all of the Sneed/Chuck stupidity I would be thrilled if it just caught some of it. Shearonink (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- An aside to my edit filter request but thanks to Magnolia677 for reverting the vandalism-only Sneed/Chuck edits of this user. Is an edit-filter possible or do we just "have to deal" with this chronic behavior over and over and over again?If a filter is impossible then oh well. If it is possible I am asking again...Please. Shearonink (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: This looks easy at first glance; I'll try to start something today. Suffusion of Yellow (talk)
- Ah Suffusion of Yellow thankyouforever. I hope it continues to be easy in every aspect. Shearonink (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: Logging at 1120 (hist · log). Before disallowing, the filter will need to be refined to prevent false positives; this often takes days. If you see any examples of this that are not caught by 1120, please report here. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- That's simple - it looks like it will work, but no hits so far. I wish I could help out here but I don't know perl - only python and basic HTML/CSS, which clearly isn't going to be helpful here. Pahunkat (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow The filter caught an edit, see Sneedsboro, North Carolina edit history and edit filter log. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:51, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- I see that the filter does not take any action - just flags the edit for someone else to revert. I gather that is because it hasn't yet been tested for false positives? I can understand that. How long/how much testing is usually needed before the filter simply disallows the edit? -- MelanieN (talk) 16:24, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: (also got your email; will reply later today) That really depends on how frequent the disruption is; if it's flooding in like the "Notable people" nonsense; maybe hours? But for something like this, with one (real) hit so far, there's no hurry. I'll give it a few more days at least. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. At this point it doesn't seem to be urgent. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:00, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: (also got your email; will reply later today) That really depends on how frequent the disruption is; if it's flooding in like the "Notable people" nonsense; maybe hours? But for something like this, with one (real) hit so far, there's no hurry. I'll give it a few more days at least. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- I see that the filter does not take any action - just flags the edit for someone else to revert. I gather that is because it hasn't yet been tested for false positives? I can understand that. How long/how much testing is usually needed before the filter simply disallows the edit? -- MelanieN (talk) 16:24, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow The filter caught an edit, see Sneedsboro, North Carolina edit history and edit filter log. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:51, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- That's simple - it looks like it will work, but no hits so far. I wish I could help out here but I don't know perl - only python and basic HTML/CSS, which clearly isn't going to be helpful here. Pahunkat (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: Logging at 1120 (hist · log). Before disallowing, the filter will need to be refined to prevent false positives; this often takes days. If you see any examples of this that are not caught by 1120, please report here. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Ah Suffusion of Yellow thankyouforever. I hope it continues to be easy in every aspect. Shearonink (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: This looks easy at first glance; I'll try to start something today. Suffusion of Yellow (talk)
- An aside to my edit filter request but thanks to Magnolia677 for reverting the vandalism-only Sneed/Chuck edits of this user. Is an edit-filter possible or do we just "have to deal" with this chronic behavior over and over and over again?If a filter is impossible then oh well. If it is possible I am asking again...Please. Shearonink (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Btw, just now discovered an older Sneed/Chuck meme'ing in William Henry Sneed when I was combing through all the Sneed articles I know of. I am tired of having to deal with this crap. I don't care if it catches all of the Sneed/Chuck stupidity I would be thrilled if it just caught some of it. Shearonink (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Cheeky myself has done a one off test, see the log - it seems to be working. (I'm not planning on using that account for anything else, ever: if you really want to you can block it). Support setting to disallow. I don't know about false positives, though. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:31, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- An aside...the thing I've noticed with this trolling/vandalism is that it happens in waves. There won't be anything for ages and then - WHAMMO! - all the Sneeds & Sneed-towns etc get hit with persistent crap-editing for a period of time. And then it dies down... I've been checking the filter quite regularly and things are very very quiet at the moment. Heh, maybe it has something to do with when the episode E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) is seen in syndication, the meme gets some media coverage, or it pops up on one of the "chans" again. Thanks everyone for keeping an eye on this, Shearonink (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- PS - I don't know if this is necessary but wanted to point out that it's not just the particular word [space]Sneed[space] that gets whacked, it's also variants such as "Sneeds(boro)", "Sneed(ville)", "Sneed's pincushion cactus", "Boyce–Sneed feud" and so on that get hit (see Sneed). Shearonink (talk) 22:25, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- Another thing to keep in mind is that the filter should also account for possible mispellings (Chuk..., etc), unless that's already the case. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- An aside...the thing I've noticed with this trolling/vandalism is that it happens in waves. There won't be anything for ages and then - WHAMMO! - all the Sneeds & Sneed-towns etc get hit with persistent crap-editing for a period of time. And then it dies down... I've been checking the filter quite regularly and things are very very quiet at the moment. Heh, maybe it has something to do with when the episode E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) is seen in syndication, the meme gets some media coverage, or it pops up on one of the "chans" again. Thanks everyone for keeping an eye on this, Shearonink (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Suffusion of Yellow The filter just snagged a false positive - it was apparent vandalism on Dog Man, but, nevertheless, it's a false positive, (see this edit which is listed at the edit filter log). Shearonink (talk) 19:28, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: Yep, saw that. Is this kind of vandalism frequent on pages where the title does not contain "Sneed" (or Sneedfoo, etc.)? Right now, I'm looking at the old wikitext but that may be overkill. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
- How about "title contains Sneed OR Chuck replaces Sneed (i.e. removed matches Sneed but inserted does not)"? Certes (talk) 23:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
- Well sometimes they do "Sneed" -> "Sneed (formerly Chuck)", so there's no net removal of a "Sneed". I could check if "Sneed" was (or is) on one of the edited lines, though, instead of anywhere on the page. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:28, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
- I'm actually not quite sure why that last catch happened... Any instance of Sneed on any page stands the chance of this trolling/vandalism. I think I've seen seen "snead"->Chuck a few times but the trolling-memesters mostly go for the literal Sneed->Chuck, or Sneed + formerly Chuck or + formerly Chuck's. If you look this up, like I did at KnowYourMeme, keeping it precisely as written in The Simpsons has specific overtones. Shearonink (talk) 00:52, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- From the report below, it seems that we should prevent the addition of Chuck whenever the title contains Sneed, even if the best action when Sneed is only in the body is less obvious. Certes (talk) 11:25, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- Well sometimes they do "Sneed" -> "Sneed (formerly Chuck)", so there's no net removal of a "Sneed". I could check if "Sneed" was (or is) on one of the edited lines, though, instead of anywhere on the page. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:28, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
- How about "title contains Sneed OR Chuck replaces Sneed (i.e. removed matches Sneed but inserted does not)"? Certes (talk) 23:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: Yep, saw that. Is this kind of vandalism frequent on pages where the title does not contain "Sneed" (or Sneedfoo, etc.)? Right now, I'm looking at the old wikitext but that may be overkill. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
- Comment - These Sneedsters just won't quit, the edit filter caught another one, see Sneedville, Tennessee, this edit: [1]. Shearonink (talk) 07:55, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: Set to warn+tag. Only one FP (the one mentioned above), which was corrected by only looking at the title and changed lines. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:19, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow When does the edit filter start snagging & stopping the meme'ing? I see that it caught a couple today but the edits are still going through... I ask a lot of questions about the process because I want to understand how it all works. This is the first filter I have requested so I am a noob at all of this. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: There's no fixed process; it's a matter of when someone feels confident enough flip the "disallow" bit. I have done so; please report anything that slips past the filter. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:19, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, I see...the filter gets written, the filter-writer lets it run to make sure it doesn't catch extraneous stuff but it's just running in the background and isn't "live" yet, someone has to turn it on. Didn't know that. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 04:15, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: There's no fixed process; it's a matter of when someone feels confident enough flip the "disallow" bit. I have done so; please report anything that slips past the filter. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:19, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow When does the edit filter start snagging & stopping the meme'ing? I see that it caught a couple today but the edits are still going through... I ask a lot of questions about the process because I want to understand how it all works. This is the first filter I have requested so I am a noob at all of this. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
We had a bunch of them on the 22nd and again on the 24th. I see that the ones on the 24 were disallowed, so I guess that is now the action taken by the filter? Thanks, Suffusion of Yellow, this should almost totally solve the problem. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:56, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Suffusion of Yellow - this is a new variant on the Sneeding. Not sure anything could or even should be added to the filter but this is a new one on me and I thought I should bring it up here. The troll did trigger the edit filter six times before he found a variant that would stick... Shearonink (talk) 07:53, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
- Looks like edit filter 1120 is doing its job but the trolls are now implementing workarounds that pay homage to The Simpson's meme without strictly invoking its known parameters by changing occurrences of the phrase "Seed and Feed" to include "formerly Chuck's" or inserting new & completely false statements like "Feed and Seed stores"... Shearonink (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Suffusion of Yellow - Recent spate of Sneed/Chuck vandalism. The edit filter did not catch all of this now-blocked user's attempts, see contributions. ClueBot reverted some and some were manually reverted by JackintheBox (Thanks Jack!). Looks like the filter might need to be further adjusted?... Shearonink (talk) 16:39, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: Thanks, made an adjustment. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:15, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Suffusion of Yellow Such creative memesters... Another update looks like it is necessary, see blocked editor's contributions. Using © as a stand-in for C in various renderings of the word "Chuck" (©huckster, ©huck, Fu©her ©huck). Some of their edit attempts were caught by present filter. Also, see the blocked editor's change that got through of also known as Windy Hill to also known as Sneedside Hill. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
- Beginning to wonder if this is an LTA after all. Most casual vandals give up sooner than this. @Zzuuzz: Do your CU-glasses give you any insights? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:34, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
- Some memes just go on. However it is true that the latest editor ("Sneedside Hill") was an LTA - User:TryToBeFunny, who is very into memes, if always late. I'll keep an eye on that - we have methods available for that one. I'm not seeing any others or much else. As a general observation, there's a couple of very unusual countries in the filter log, so someone might have hopped on to a proxy or two at some point - not unusual for memers. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:09, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
- I was going to report that user here (and the very convenient list of articles in their contributions - seems that anything that had "sneed" in the title is a convenient target for this kind of abuse) after I noticed one of their edits on an article history but if that's already dealt with... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- Some memes just go on. However it is true that the latest editor ("Sneedside Hill") was an LTA - User:TryToBeFunny, who is very into memes, if always late. I'll keep an eye on that - we have methods available for that one. I'm not seeing any others or much else. As a general observation, there's a couple of very unusual countries in the filter log, so someone might have hopped on to a proxy or two at some point - not unusual for memers. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:09, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
- Beginning to wonder if this is an LTA after all. Most casual vandals give up sooner than this. @Zzuuzz: Do your CU-glasses give you any insights? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:34, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Suffusion of Yellow Much thanks for manually catching some of the latest spate of meme'ing trolls actions, the filter continues to get so much of their chaff. Any thought on adjusting the filter to catch some of these new l.e.t.t.e.r.i.n.g -or- s p a c i n g filter-circumventions?... Shearonink (talk) 19:10, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Shearonink: Just did that. If they evade that too, I think I'll mark the filter private. I think a large fraction of this is coming from one person. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:13, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
- Ah...well that is possible. I remain unconvinced but whomever it is or they are, what persistence. If the filter is marked private I am hopeful that I can still "see" it... Thanks for all your work on this issue. Shearonink (talk) 00:59, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
- I am almost of the opinion that the related disambiguation page could possibly be being utilized as a vandalizing resource. Perhaps a filter could be crafted that jumps off of the entries of this disambiguation page?... Shearonink (talk) 01:40, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
- I have put the disambiguation page Sneed under indefinite semi-protection. That won't solve the problem everywhere but it might at least slow down the non-spelling-related vandalism. -- MelanieN (talk) 03:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
- I am almost of the opinion that the related disambiguation page could possibly be being utilized as a vandalizing resource. Perhaps a filter could be crafted that jumps off of the entries of this disambiguation page?... Shearonink (talk) 01:40, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
- Ah...well that is possible. I remain unconvinced but whomever it is or they are, what persistence. If the filter is marked private I am hopeful that I can still "see" it... Thanks for all your work on this issue. Shearonink (talk) 00:59, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Suffusion of Yellow Came across another variant, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chuck&action=history. Not sure this particular page can or should be added to the filter but it does get hit in spurts of related trolling/vandalism. Shearonink (talk) 14:58, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
- And now they've found ways of doing it that no filter could catch: [2] I'll semi-protect that page too, but just for a week. Let me know if it resumes. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- BTW about whether all this is coming from one person: it's possible, but if so they have a good way of spoofing their IPs. I am not a checkuser, but the most recent three IPs geolocate to different countries - even different continents. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:29, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- We could catch that sort of thing: prevent adding "feed and seed" (also "Feed & Seed" etc.) to pages which contain Chuck or Sneed but not "feed" or "seed". Certes (talk) 17:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow Another attempt that got through (& was manually corrected)...looks like a parameter for adding "seed n feed", "seed and feed", "seed & feed", or even just "seed" or "feed" might need to be added to the filter? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- The addition of a "fun fact" should also be a red flag. (If it's a fact, let it in; if it's fun, even better; but don't describe it as such.) Certes (talk) 11:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow FYI... see this. Shearonink (talk) 04:23, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- The addition of a "fun fact" should also be a red flag. (If it's a fact, let it in; if it's fun, even better; but don't describe it as such.) Certes (talk) 11:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow Another attempt that got through (& was manually corrected)...looks like a parameter for adding "seed n feed", "seed and feed", "seed & feed", or even just "seed" or "feed" might need to be added to the filter? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- And now they've found ways of doing it that no filter could catch: [2] I'll semi-protect that page too, but just for a week. Let me know if it resumes. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
No refs in headings
- Task: The filter should apply to all pages in article-space and disallow insertion of
<ref>
tags in headings (any text bordered by multiple==
) - Reason: This is completely against the manual of style, makes it hard to verify what the ref is actually backing up. There is never a good circumstance for this to be used, so preventing its use from unknowing users would be useful. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 07:44, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure the filter should be used to enforce the MOS. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:43, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- I would agree in general, but this is a clear case where the behavior is never desirable, and something people accidentally do. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 16:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- A warning might be better. If someone adds a ref in a heading, having a gnome move it to the following text might be better than discarding the edit. Certes (talk) 16:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure the filter should be used to enforce the MOS. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:43, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- This could apply also on talk pages or anywhere else were inexperienced users might try adding content. A potential variant would be preventing (warn seems appropriate) having an edit request (whichever exact variant) template (or in fact, any template, except maybe some substituted ones, if there are valid examples) in the section header, i.e. == {{edit request}} ==. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:08, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- {{anchor}} is the obvious example of a template validly found in headings. Certes (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Other than that? Would there be too many other exceptions? I don't know how complex the edit filter can get for this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Certes: I just looked at the documentation, and except for some cases where it should be substituted, even anchor is better not directly within the heading markup, but just before. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:42, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- {{anchor}} is the obvious example of a template validly found in headings. Certes (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- I wasn't proposing a full "reject" filter necessarily, I would be fine with a warning too. I just think something should be done. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 00:00, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
- This could apply also on talk pages or anywhere else were inexperienced users might try adding content. A potential variant would be preventing (warn seems appropriate) having an edit request (whichever exact variant) template (or in fact, any template, except maybe some substituted ones, if there are valid examples) in the section header, i.e. == {{edit request}} ==. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:08, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- The thing about the filter is that it runs before save (and hence contributes to the condition limit). Things like this, which are just informational tagging, are best done post-save if at all. I wish we had some kind of recent-changes bot (or the concept of post-edit filters ran as a deferred task) which would match edits and just tag them somewhere. It's probably easy enough to do using a bot, to be honest. Whilst we're below the condition count I guess this doesn't really matter, but this just doesn't feel like something the filter should be doing, to me. Reason being I don't like the idea of the filter being used for 'quality control'. But maybe that's just me. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:28, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
- Slight bone to pick...sometimes it might be easier/more expedient to put a link in a header on article-talk/user-talk/noticeboards when referencing vandalism or some other kind of issue. I get that linkage isn't supposed to happen in article headers but I think user talk/article-talk/noticeboards are a different matter. Shearonink (talk) 16:46, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
- This isn't about putting wikilinks in headers; as far as I understood it. It's about having templates in headers, which are usually best avoided... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:55, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
- Slight bone to pick...sometimes it might be easier/more expedient to put a link in a header on article-talk/user-talk/noticeboards when referencing vandalism or some other kind of issue. I get that linkage isn't supposed to happen in article headers but I think user talk/article-talk/noticeboards are a different matter. Shearonink (talk) 16:46, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Common vandalism : "YEET"
- Task: Tag/warn/disallow edits which include the string "YEET"
- Reason: Another probable indicator of vandalism (are there any valid words containing the string?), ex. [3] RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- @RandomCanadian: 614 (hist · log) already disallows main variants of "yeet", but that doesn't apply to non-mainspace. Perhaps it should be in 260 (hist · log) also... Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:48, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Does it also disallow 'fortnite'? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- 11 (hist · log) warned for a while, but Reaper Eternal removed "fortnite" after too many FPs. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:52, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Does it also disallow 'fortnite'? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, ok. Well, I was just asking. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Suffusion of Yellow: Doesn't appear like it caught this (yet another common vandalism word)... (apparently it caught the earlier attempts) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:00, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
- We have a few uses listed on Yeet, several people called Aryeetey and a Yeeting, but legitimate references to them will be rare. Certes (talk) 00:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Certes and Suffusion of Yellow: Well thanks to Floquenbeam for reporting there are still some examples which evade the filter in main space, ex. [4]... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:56, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
- Don't we have a generic filter for catching repetition, other than 135 which would require more repetitions?
(\w{2,10})(.?\1){3}
is my naive first try but probably rather expensive. Certes (talk) 23:54, 9 March 2021 (UTC) - Probably due to the word boundary on yeet. One easy way is just to encapsulate it in a group and slap a + on the end, ie
\b(?:y+ee+t+(?:e+(?:r+|d+))?)+\b
. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:57, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
- Don't we have a generic filter for catching repetition, other than 135 which would require more repetitions?
- @Certes and Suffusion of Yellow: Well thanks to Floquenbeam for reporting there are still some examples which evade the filter in main space, ex. [4]... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:56, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Common vandalism: Among us??
- Task: Log/tag/warn/disallow (whichever is the most appropriate) this kind of pure vandalism.
- Reason: [5] [6] ... The key text appears to be "Sus" and possibly "Among us" in the edit summary... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
- @RandomCanadian: Stumbled across one of these by chance. Testing in 1014 (hist · log) (combined with 69/420 test). Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:55, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow Seems it caught this, but that may be due to other things in that edit too... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow Caught by 1111, but not by 1014: [7] RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:45, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
- @RandomCanadian: Thanks! Seems I forgot to switch from
rlike
toirlike
when I added a non-numeric test.Facepalm Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:28, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
- @RandomCanadian: Thanks! Seems I forgot to switch from
- Suffusion of Yellow Caught by 1111, but not by 1014: [7] RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:45, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow Seems it caught this, but that may be due to other things in that edit too... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- FP here (that's the 69 filter); and although this was proper vandalism, it probably needs to be investigated further because it's possible there will be actual FPs with phrases like "is suspect[ed]" or things like that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:42, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
- @RandomCanadian, GPinkerton, and Malcolmxl5: See 1124 (hist · log) (warn+tag for a little while at least). I had wanted to put this in 614, but I'm still concerned about FPs getting lost in the log. This has many, many "creative" variants so the filter will never catch everything. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:18, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
- Set to disallow. Will have to remove plain "among us" (with the space) at some point; it's too common. But right now it's mostly vandalism. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 16:53, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- Glad to see this - there seems to have been a spike in this silliness recently. I imagine some TikTokker or YouTuber or other spurred it... ƒirefly ( t · c ) 17:52, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- And it's already caught its first fish. Top work Suffusion of Yellow! ƒirefly ( t · c ) 18:33, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- Good work, Suffusion of Yellow. I periodically search the wiki for 'Sussus’, 'Amongus -Fungus' and ‘Sus imposter' and have seen nothing for days. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 13:37, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- Apparently we're now having AC users doing this kind of BS too... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:13, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- Most (but not all) other edits look good. Maybe they were drunk? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:42, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- It may be worth checking for impost[eo]r, as this case uses the O spelling (caught due to sus). Certes (talk) 22:41, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- Apparently we're now having AC users doing this kind of BS too... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:13, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- Set to disallow. Will have to remove plain "among us" (with the space) at some point; it's too common. But right now it's mostly vandalism. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 16:53, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- @RandomCanadian, GPinkerton, and Malcolmxl5: See 1124 (hist · log) (warn+tag for a little while at least). I had wanted to put this in 614, but I'm still concerned about FPs getting lost in the log. This has many, many "creative" variants so the filter will never catch everything. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:18, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
- Picked up a couple: 'sus' and 'imposter' from the helpfully named User:Amogusimposters. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 08:59, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- [moved from section below --SoY] This character: ඞ should be added to the filter as it looks like an Among Us character. It is used by some IP vandals. NASCARfan0548 ↗ 19:43, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
- The symbol ඞ has been added to various articles with 'Sus' in the title or article; see Special:Contributions/109.42.114.78. Seems to have some relevance in the 'Among us' world. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:23, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
- It looks (if you squint a bit and zoom in / enlarge the character) like one of the Among Us spacemen. I’d say add it to the filter but only when it’s surrounded by word boundaries to limit false positives. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 21:34, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
- @NASCARfan0548 and Malcolmxl5: Doing a quick check in 1014 (hist · log) first; not sure how common legit uses of that character are. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
- Few articles legitimately contain "ඞ", and almost all of them also mention Sinhala or Sinhalese. Certes (talk) 22:06, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
- Added, with word boundaries. Not checking for Sinhala/Sinhalese unless there are FPs; at some point I'd like to merge this into 614 (hist · log). Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:18, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
- Few articles legitimately contain "ඞ", and almost all of them also mention Sinhala or Sinhalese. Certes (talk) 22:06, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
- @NASCARfan0548 and Malcolmxl5: Doing a quick check in 1014 (hist · log) first; not sure how common legit uses of that character are. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
- Could be worth checking page title, per stuff like this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:49, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
- Could the filter be modified to catch the phrase "when the imposter is sus"? [8], [9]. Pahunkat (talk) 15:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
- The phrase does match the filter; I believe those two edits were ignored due to their edit_delta being over 500. @Suffusion of Yellow: is 1000 safe without resulting in many more FPs? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
- There were some FPs when I was first testing, e.g. Special:AbuseLog/29084352. Maybe I'll check edit_delta only for plain "among us", which is the source of most FPs. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:53, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
Facepalm - should have spotted that, thanks ProcrastinatingReader. Pahunkat (talk) 18:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
- And
Done. edit_delta check only applies to "among us" now. Also other nonsense should be stopped on page titles containing "among us". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:54, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
- The phrase does match the filter; I believe those two edits were ignored due to their edit_delta being over 500. @Suffusion of Yellow: is 1000 safe without resulting in many more FPs? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
BLP vandalism or libel
Can the word "nonce" be added to the BLP vandalism filter? It is almost never used legitimately and is often used in BLP-violating vandalism. It means "sex offender". Any time it is added to a biographical article, it is always vandalism, as nonce is a slang term that is never used legitimately. Steve M (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- One legitimate use would be in software engineering. See Cryptographic nonce. (though I'm guessing the BLP vandalism filter is limited to the Living people category) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:02, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader, yeah, but if it is limited to the Living People category, it would neatly filter out vandalism with virtually no false positives. Steve M (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- We do already have this in both filters 39 and 189. Also, archived discussion. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:43, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- That is good to know. Thanks. Steve M (talk) 22:52, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- What about notable cryptographers? A good idea would be to whitelist all cryptographers. (It took me a good 10 seconds to spell cryptopgrapher!) Sungodtemple a tcg fan!!1!11!! (talk)
- Are there many biographical articles on notable cryptographers where a non-autoconfirmed editor is likely to add a previously non-existing discussion of a nonce? I suspect not. But also, due to the way this and many filters are constructed, a whitelist for one word is not a very practical solution. Additionally, these filters are only set to warn and tag, not disallow, so the edit will probably be made anyway. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:27, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
- What about notable cryptographers? A good idea would be to whitelist all cryptographers. (It took me a good 10 seconds to spell cryptopgrapher!) Sungodtemple a tcg fan!!1!11!! (talk)
- That is good to know. Thanks. Steve M (talk) 22:52, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- We do already have this in both filters 39 and 189. Also, archived discussion. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:43, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader, yeah, but if it is limited to the Living People category, it would neatly filter out vandalism with virtually no false positives. Steve M (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
George MacKay hate campaign
Lately, for many months, I have been noticing an LTA hate campaign to attack George MacKay. The edits are all deleted. The range is 176.201.0.0/16 but has been spreading to other ranges. Affected articles include George MacKay (actor), True History of the Kelly Gang (film), Ophelia (2018 film), Captain Fantastic (film). I have screenshots of the edits, which I can share to trusted users, such as edit filter helpers/managers, if they email me. I cannot say anything about possible filter details per Wikipedia:BEANS, but if anyone wants to inquire further about this, please email me. Steve M (talk) 22:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- I count at least 30 ranges used by this person since at least 2017 - they are Italia Telecom ranges, which are two a penny - but, yes, this person has taken against George MacKay (actor) in recent months (and also Jonathan Pryce this month), adding particularly derogatory comments to related pages. Partial rangeblocks are in place on two frequently used ranges but are largely ineffective. Current remedy is to watch and semi-protect affected pages (see also Wolf (upcoming film), Marrowbone (film), Munich (2021 film), 1917 (2019 film)). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 18:40, 10 March 2021 (UTC)Mackay.
- My idea might be unkosher, but here goes: set up filters on the affected pages that'll not only revert edits with specific words or phrases (this vandal has a few) but block them at the same time. They've no interest in changing their ways, so the quicker we drop the hammer the better. I don't have the knowledge or authority to set up any filters myself. What's your idea?Crboyer (talk) 23:59, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
- ammendment: ammend the proposed filter(s) if they get some new insults and modify/deactivate them if, for whatever reason, those words become relevant in a legitimate context. Crboyer (talk) 00:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Steve M: (hope you return), @Malcolmxl5 and Crboyer: doing something about this. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, the miscreant has been particularly active this week. (P.S. do come back Steve M!). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 22:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- P.P.S. Other pages targeted: Where Hands Touch, Been So Long (film), Pride (2014 film) - all films that feature George MacKay (actor). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 22:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- Automatic blocking can be dangerous, but a bot might examine the log regularly and report miscreants to AIV for a block to be considered. Certes (talk) 01:06, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
- AFAIK blocking via the edit filter is currently not enabled on English WP. It's possible for the usual bots to report anyone triggering this to AIV immediately, but other than that... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Steve M: (hope you return), @Malcolmxl5 and Crboyer: doing something about this. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- OK, do whatever you can. This user needs to be reported on sight whenever they act up. Starting off with Level 1 warnings is simply being polite, but I digress. As I said, they're not interested in changing their ways, and now that they've resorted to threatening a family member of the subject, they gotta be dealt with far quicker. Whatever page they mess with should be protected for a long time, too.Crboyer (talk) 05:10, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
- Another film featuring George MacKay targeted just now: Sunshine on Leith (film). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:40, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Halkawt zaher
There is a sockpuppetteer (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ahmaddler) who repeatedly creates and recreates pages titled/about "Halkawt zaher" (in various capitalisations) anywhere they can, despite many problems (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Continued spamming, lack of communication and general NOTHERE behaviour from User:Ahmaddler). It seems to me like an edit filter that prevented non-autoconfirmed editors from creating pages with this title or with that phrase in the content would be helpful in this case.
Pinging those who commented at ANI/SPI @Victor Schmidt, Timtrent, Deepfriedokra, Joseywales1961, Spiderone, and Oshwah: Thryduulf (talk) 14:46, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not very familiar with how edit filters work (have only ever looked at problem editors filter logs). But this one was widespread and a took a lot of work by Timtrent tracking down the socks. To me it seems a filiter would have been helpful here and in the similar cases we all discover on NPP, RC patrol etc. JW 1961 Talk 14:56, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- Thryduulf, not having a huge amount of anything more than assumptions about edit filters I support the concept. They will get around it even if blocked by using user and talk pages, though, as they have been doin all along Fiddle Faddle 15:02, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- Tracking 1125 (hist · log). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- I added this phrase to 53 (hist · log). ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 16:01, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you. Thryduulf (talk) 16:23, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Prevent removing lang-tr templates
- Task: Prevent removal of {{lang-tr}} or {{lang}} with a "tr" argument (see last diff) by anybody who is not WP:XC.
- Reason: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cypriot Chauvinist is moving into WP:LTA territory, with the sock showing no sign of easing up. One of their major areas of abuse is removing Turkish-language names for things. @FDW777: FYI.
- Diffs: [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
-- RoySmith (talk) 17:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- I think
page_namespace == 0 &
!("extendedconfirmed" in user_groups) & (
templates := "{{(lang\|tr|lang-tr)";
removed_lines irlike templates &
!added_lines irlike templates
)
- or similar should do it (at least it works in the test filter, people who are actually good at regex could probably improve on the code here). Not sure how much collateral we'd be generating though, especially with a bar that high. Blablubbs|talk 17:57, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- Blablubbs, If you wanted to start with autoconfirmed instead of XC, that would still be useful, and cut down on the collateral. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- Is it possible to filter on categories? Limiting this to any article in Category:Cyprus would work. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:04, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- Or, if you can't filter on cats, just looking for "cyprus" or "cypriot" anywhere in the text should be close enough. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- I don't know of any way to parse what category (tree) something is in directly, but something like might do the trick. Might be a good idea to set the filter to log only for a while, see how many false positives it catches and then decide whether to narrow the filter. Blablubbs|talk 20:26, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
old_wikitext irlike "Category:.*(cypr(us|iot)" &
- Blablubbs, Unfortunately, that won't do it. Evrychou, for example, is only in Category:Communities in Nicosia District, which rolls up to Category:Cyprus. But, looking for Cyprus anywhere in the text should be fine. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:08, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- I don't know of any way to parse what category (tree) something is in directly, but something like
- Or, if you can't filter on cats, just looking for "cyprus" or "cypriot" anywhere in the text should be close enough. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- Is it possible to filter on categories? Limiting this to any article in Category:Cyprus would work. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:04, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- Blablubbs, If you wanted to start with autoconfirmed instead of XC, that would still be useful, and cut down on the collateral. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- 1125 (hist · log), but if I had to bet it probably won't get many relevant hits because the sock will likely change their editing habits. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:42, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- ProcrastinatingReader, Maybe, but removing Turkish names seems to be this guy's core interest. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:09, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
- And more of the same... Special:Diff/1015952981 -- RoySmith (talk) 17:19, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
- It was logged by the filter. We could move the filter to disallow, but some of the April logs aren't this LTA I think (though they're still bad edits). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Removal of category
Task: log removal of Category:Hijacked journals. Reason: persistent socking; also simply suspicious for it to be removed... Diff: [15] - Simply log or tag if the relevant category is present in an article and is then removed by a sufficiently new account... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:26, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Any SPIs or evidence that this is a continuing issue (eg more diffs)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:30, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: Well there's Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Szniedersneir which has been going on for at least a month... Given what we know about predatory journals, it's not unlikely others would be trying to attempt to hide their reputation. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Well, that's just one report and no archives on the SPI afaics. And Category:Hijacked journals only has a couple dozen pages. Just have the feeling that this isn't a common issue, but possibly (along with the predatory journals cat) it is more frequent? Pinging in Headbomb also for thoughts. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: Well there's Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Szniedersneir which has been going on for at least a month... Given what we know about predatory journals, it's not unlikely others would be trying to attempt to hide their reputation. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
"Books" by Heinz Duthel
- Task: In Mainspace, warn or block edits upon attempted addition of references to works claimed to be by the author "Heinz Duthel".
- Reason: Heinz Duthel is a bad-faith actor known to plagiarise Wikipedia for self promotion, in violation of our licensing policy, and reproducing content as self-published "books" which find their way to Google Books and other repositories. Unknowing good-faith editors citing those bad sources have repeatedly resulted in cases of WP:citogenesis.
- Diffs: Special:Diff/874529558, etc. See my recent contributions for removals. Not all additions are in the form of Google Books links, and their are too many to list, so blacklisting is not suited here.
--Paul_012 (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Paul 012: It looks like most references you have been removing were using citation templates from looking at random few of them. There is also at least one that was outside of <ref/> tags here. Were there a significant number of them that do not use templates or outside <ref/> tags? ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 17:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Hmm. Initial thoughts: Special:Diff/874529558 was added by an established editor. If this were a sock spamming promo of themselves I'd be more open to the filter, but if it's established editors adding these works I'm more wary on whether usage of a filter is appropriate (without consulting the community in a broader venue as to whether they want this)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:16, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Aseleste, a couple used Harvard citations, a couple were listed as stand-alone general references (with cite book templates), one used Template:Google books, but either <ref /> tags or some kind of template were used in all cases, as far as I recall.
- ProcrastinatingReader, I guess it could go through WP:RSN to be marked as a deprecated source, but I didn't think that was necessary, since these uses were quite clearly good-faith mistakes. Maybe a warning would be adequate for purposes of calling attention to the fact that the source should be avoided? --Paul_012 (talk) 17:37, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Generally, the filter should only be used to enforce consensus. Imo this is relatively borderline (blocking citations from a certain author added by established editors before) to the point where community consensus (probably at RSN) that this is okay before implementation would be preferable, but this is by no means a veto if a different EFM thinks this is okay to implement as-is. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps simply logging that the edit matches the filter may already be useful enough to an editor like Paul_012 to undo and explain the rationale behind it while not affecting edits by experienced editors much at all. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 18:12, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think I or other editors will be actively monitoring the tag. Since most additions are by experienced editors stumbling upon them while looking for books sources to back up a claim, it'll probably be more useful as a warning to help them realise they overlooked the reliability issue. I just realised though that there's already filter 894 for self-published sources. The publisher "Books on Demand" should in any case be added there. I'll ask at WP:RSN to see if others think Duthel needs more specific action. --Paul_012 (talk) 05:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- Speaking of which, is there currently a filter or similar mechanism to flag citations to Wikipedia mirrors? --Paul_012 (talk) 05:30, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps simply logging that the edit matches the filter may already be useful enough to an editor like Paul_012 to undo and explain the rationale behind it while not affecting edits by experienced editors much at all. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 18:12, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Generally, the filter should only be used to enforce consensus. Imo this is relatively borderline (blocking citations from a certain author added by established editors before) to the point where community consensus (probably at RSN) that this is okay before implementation would be preferable, but this is by no means a veto if a different EFM thinks this is okay to implement as-is. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Duthel is also cited on dewiki. I'm not fluent in German but have notified its embassy. Certes (talk) 10:43, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Update:Aseleste, ProcrastinatingReader, the RSN post doesn't appear to be attracting discussion, but I think it should be straightforward to go ahead and add "Books on Demand" to filter 894 as mentioned above. This would have covered over half of the cases. "Neobooks" and "ePubli" are also vanity publishers found in some of the cases. More specific action can follow if consensus develops. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:57, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not familiar with that kind of RS-related filter (894, SPS). Perhaps @Suffusion of Yellow and Crow: will be able to help? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
- This seems like an obvious addition. But honestly I've never paid much attention to how it was decided to a add publishers to the "unreliable source" filters. It's been mostly JzG, Headbomb, and Newslinger working on these. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Paul 012: Thanks for looking out for inappropriate citations of self-published material. Edit filter 894 ("Self-Published Sources") attempts to identify these citations by looking at the domain name of the URL. Lulu.com (RSP entry) and several other vanity presses are included in the filter, because editors have been inappropriately citing pages (usually, listings that allow the visitor to buy the books) from their websites. On the other hand, Books on Demand does not appear to have listings for individual books on their website. (Compare the 27 search results for pages on booksondemand.com to the 451,000 search results for pages on lulu.com.) Unfortunately, this means it is not feasible to craft an edit filter for Books on Demand, since there is no way to track citations of their published books by domain name. — Newslinger talk 08:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
- Neobooks (4,000 search results for pages on neobooks.com) and ePubli (60,100 search results for pages on epubli.de) look more promising for inclusion in an edit filter. If you are interested in having the domains of these publishers edit-filtered, please start a discussion on the reliable sources noticeboard to confirm that there are no issues with filtering their domains (with edit filter 894, "Self-Published Sources"). — Newslinger talk 08:45, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Filter for moving drafts to mainspace
- Task: This filter will block page moves from draftspace to mainspace unless if the user has the "new page reviewer"/"autoreviewer" or "sysop" rights. Or a new right could be created called "afcreviewer" for this purpose.
- Reason: There are so many new users moving their drafts to mainspace after creation. Unfortunately, many of these pages are not ready for mainspace.
- Diffs: [16] and more.
The warning could be something like "This is not the right way to submit your draft for review. Please go back and add {{subst:Submit}} to the bottom of the draft. An AfC or new page reviewer will move your article to mainspace if it is ready to be viewed by the public." Aasim (talk) 05:31, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- AfC is not required by any policy (except for non-confirmed editors, for which it is enforced by technical restrictions). Accordingly, this would be an inappropriate use of the filter absent explicit community consensus (likely via a CENT-advertised RfC) to do this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:39, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- Any account which can move a draft into mainspace could create it there by other means, which we wouldn't wish to encourage. Certes (talk) 11:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- Agree. This filter would just encourage other means. So
not getting done? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:16, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
- How about tagging the edit instead? The tag could be "Editor moving draft to mainspace". Then we can review it later. Aasim (talk) 20:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
- Agree. This filter would just encourage other means. So
- Any account which can move a draft into mainspace could create it there by other means, which we wouldn't wish to encourage. Certes (talk) 11:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- We already more or less have a filter similar to this but there's no prohibition on anyone moving a draft into mainspace with very few exceptions. VAXIDICAE💉 20:39, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
"Everything" as an edit summary
Should be added to 970 or Common vandal summaries as nearly all edits with this summary are massive removal of content. BlueCrabRedCrab 22:35, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
- @BlueCrabRedCrab: It would be nice to show some diffs. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 04:45, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
- Found one: Special:Diff/1016678619. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 14:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Large number vandalism
- Task: Disallow extremely large changes to numbers in article space, at least for non-confirmed users.
- Reason: Vandals will sometimes change numbers in articles to absurd values, such as changing a number in the hundreds to one in the millions. Most instances I've seenof changing a number by much more than an order of magnitude are not legitimate.
- Diffs: 1, 2, 3
TornadoLGS (talk) 03:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Death threats filter
- Task: Remove stuff like "I WILL KILL YOU"
- Reason: Commonly used by vandals
- Diffs: None, you know why
Firestar464 (talk) 07:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- I'm hoping this is there already but, if not, we could widen the scope. I've been threatened with being blocked (by an editor who wasn't even autoconfirmed), fined $10,000 and having my Wikipedia account deleted if I remove various spam. Nothing credible or worrying, and somewhat less serious than dying, but it shouldn't be there. No diffs either (though I could find some), but making this effective without FPs would be difficult. ("I will kill you", said Alice, as part of a perfectly accurate plot summary.) Certes (talk) 09:27, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- (removed a message consisting of nonsense and personal attack in caps) ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 11:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- Stuff like [17] (redacted, obviously) really should be stopped by the filter. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:29, 8 April 2021 (UTC)