Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

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WATCH Recent filter changes (): Filter 1201 — Pattern modified Last changed at 01:49, 16 January 2024 (UTC) Filter 614 — Pattern modified Last changed at 22:43, 15 January 2024 (UTC) Filter 1284 — Actions: disallow Last changed at 03:13, 12 January 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. There are currently 313 enabled filters and 34 stale filters with no hits in the past 30 days. Filter condition use is ~945, out of a maximum of 2000. (). See also the profiling data and edit filter graphs. Click here to start a new discussion thread

EFM attention to 3 mailing list threads?

If there's any EFMs who have a spare few minutes, I've proposed multiple filter tweaks here, here, and here. I'm not able to implement these myself, of course, since I'm not an EFM, but I've tested all three of them against the original false positive and they seem to work fine. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 03:51, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, answered all three, and made two changes. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:27, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit filter helper request for Philipnelson99

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Philipnelson99 (t · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

Earliest closure has started. (refresh)

Hi everyone, I'm self-nominating myself for EFH. I realize I do not have many contributions to WP:EFFP, but I have started to work there recently. My main reason for requesting this is that I have a thorough understanding of regular expressions due to my technical background and I believe that makes me a good candidate for EFH. I have done quite a bit of antivandalism work and think that I could aid in honing filters to be more accurate including the private filters. Speaking of the private filters, I don't intend to discuss them outside of the context of the mailing list and other EFHs and EFMs. Thanks for considering me to be an EFH. Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:22, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Support - one of our most active anti-vandalism patrollers, who is active in helping to combat LTAs. I've spoken to them off-wiki and I fully trust them to use this permission wisely. Their experience with regex will also be an asset. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 22:52, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Oppose You have one request for a new edit filter (which isn't a bad thing, it's good you've requested one) that doesn't propose any possible filter regex to include, and you haven't, as far as I can tell, given any potential fixes for false positives on filters, which means I can't, in my opinion, substitute any knowledge you possess of regex for your lack of demonstrated experience. In the absence of filter tweaking proposals or requested edit filters, generally requests here require either being a sysop on another wiki interested in learning from our filters, or around five hundred edits to the false positives page, over the course of multiple months, to give you a perspective of the type of time and experience needed before EFH is considered. You have 25 edits to the false positive page over around a single month. This is a good start, but insufficient. The level of trust for EFH is generally speaking on par with sysop, far higher than almost every other unbundled userright. Unfortunate as I am to say so, you're requesting this far too soon. Having gotten EFH and seen the private filters, there's very good reason we're all quite cautious with this right, so please don't take it as a personal condemnation, just a judgement that you probably aren't quite ready for this yet. Support based on discussion below. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 23:09, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I understand your objections. As far as the lack of edit filters I've requested, I haven't suggested any changes or modifications primarily because I have not seen any that needed a modification reported at WP:EFFP that are not private and not already handled. Additionally, I've privately requested changes directly to EFMs. As far as trustworthiness goes, I've made over 40,000 edits to Wikipedia over a period of around 10 years primarily doing antivandalism work. Philipnelson99 (talk) 00:27, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Looking through the mailing list archives and searching for you, I see one other requested filter modification. I could be missing some since you mention you requested more directly to EFMs. 40,000 edits of antivandalism over 10 years is great work, but anti-vandalism doesn't prove trust with filters. Regardless, I'm willing to support based on a requested one on the mailing list. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 01:14, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

They have over 40k edits, including 883 at AIV, and no blocks. What does a bunch of edits calling out (usually) obvious vandalism at EFFP, a page that's already well-patrolled, have to do with trust? Uhai (talk) 00:30, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Anti-vandalism doesn't generally require the private filters, and edit count isn't really a factor. Experience either at EFFP or EFR shows at least some competency with the public filters before moving onto the private ones. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 01:14, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

EFHs cannot modify filters so the only application of trust in this scenario has to do with the user not leaking the details of private filters, for which edit count can definitely be used as a factor for determining. If you are concerned about their usefulness as an EFH given lack of participation in relevant areas, no demonstrable regex experience, or that they do not have a strong need for the permission, that's fair, but concerns over trust do not apply when the user has such aforementioned qualifications (edit count, significant anti-vandalism experience, and no blocks) and have already indicated in their self-nomination they understand the importance of not leaking private filter details.

And I wholeheartedly disagree with you: users with significant anti-vandalism experience are great assets for working on private filters as they have an understanding of abuse patterns and LTAs. I would be supportive of someone like this for EFH with zero regex experience and near-zero EF participation just for the expertise they could bring to private EF discussions. Uhai (talk) 22:32, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

This was closed as early recently – would an uninvolved admin please grant and close this? Thanks. – 64andtim ^(talk) 22:24, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Support Trusted user, has need. Uhai (talk) 00:38, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Support I haven't seen you acquiring any unnecessary rights or making requests for them. Although you have not handled sufficient requests here, your efforts at AIV are enough for me, and that's why I'm happy to support.– DreamRimmer (talk) 00:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Support as you're a legitimate, trusted user who can beat vandalism in a nutshell, and have great experience with regex to suggest additions to private filters. I do have faith that you can be trusted to view private data. – 64andtim ^(talk) 02:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support – A trusted user with no concerns or issues. Toadette ^{(Merry Christmas, and a happy new year)} 08:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support user can be trusted and is active with anti-vandalism --DannyS712 (talk) 00:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit filter helper for Zippybonzo

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Zippybonzo (t · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

Hi everyone, I know I've not been the most active lately, but I've been active in anti vandalism for nearly 2 years by now, and have been helping out around edit filters for about a year off the top of my head and I'm pretty good with PCRE and I'd like to help out with working on fixes for filters and creating regexes for them and optimising the existing filters. I've got a pretty good understanding of how LTA's work from my experience as a New Page Patroller. I completely understand if you're going to oppose based on my activity because it's not been great but I'm working back into it and I think I would be good with working with filters from experience with regex. Full disclosure: I learnt most of my regex from regex101 and sleepless nights :) -- Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 17:19, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Weak oppose because while I do appreciate your anti-vandalism activities and your good understanding of regex, your work in the EFFP page appears to be very limited which you made almost 100 responses; for the latter, I believe your EFFP work could use a bit more experience with responses reaching anywhere between the 400 to 500 range. Ironically, I did my first nomination, but I had to withdraw after receiving quite a bit of backlash (see my withdrawn nom above a couple of sections). – 64andtim ^(talk) 18:54, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

In my honest opinion making 500 responses turns into a monotonous task given that I know enough about filters and anti-vandalism that making 500 edits to a page is basically irrelevant given I know how to handle such reports. EFFP is far from everything to do with edit filters and whilst I've never requested a filter being that I've never had a need to, I do know how to write the regexes to make a filter work efficiently. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 09:50, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Oppose regretfully, because I think you've got the understanding needed, but I, like others before me, consider each request with a heavy standard of demonstrated need, and I'd put the experience needed at EFFPR around 500 or so edits with no problems, or high-quality contributions to existing/new filters, especially private filters. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 23:20, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Support Zippy really knows his stuff, and honestly, I haven't noticed any issues. His 96 responses at EFFPR give me complete confidence in supporting him. – DreamRimmer (talk) 04:23, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support: I have been following Bonzo since 2022, and I personally like his contributions. I feel that he can be trusted with EFH. Best of luck Bonzo. Maliner (talk) 05:19, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Aside from their last edit to EFFPR being over a month ago, their comment at this report doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that they understand the purpose of edit filters fully. I'm not seeing a lot of demonstrated need for the user right and please come back after you've helped process some non-trivial reports (ideally showing your knowledge of regex and understanding of edit filters better). 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 10:01, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  I understand the purpose of edit filters perfectly fine I just worded it in a particular way rather than repeating exactly what was said above. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 10:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  The demonstrated need is more for helping out with working on private and public filters and false positive reports. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 10:25, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  That report is probably a nit pick, but I think the proxy filter is intentional in catching it for everyone, so your suggestion for only flagging people with <100 edits is a bit misdirected. But that plus the low activity levels and not a lot of record of helping with authoring filters is a concern for me. I really appreciate the intention to help, but I don't think having EFH is necessary for you to continue helping in this area. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 11:07, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Weak opppose per Deadbeef’s comments. Low recent involvement and below the status quo of ~500 EFFP reports handled. My advice would be that if this is a right you feel you need, become more active within the process to show you really do need it. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 12:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Oppose, per Deadbeef. There's simply not enough involvement and it comes off as hat collecting to me. A user of Zippy's experience should be able to recognize the lack of a need in this instance. Also, I believe the NPP experience is overstated in this instance based on my experience. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:04, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Where I said, 'I know I've not been the most active lately' that implied at EF too, as for the need, the need is not fully demonstrated yet, however I always intended for EFH to be a step up towards becoming an EFM rather than jumping in at the deep end so to speak. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 14:13, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

bot triggering filters

Hello. I'm currently on mobile, and my bot is archiving entries of Template:In the news. The template is currently fully/admin-protected for a reason. When I saw the page Wikipedia:In the news/Posted/November 2004, it was (still is) full of profanity, and objectionable images. I will clean-up these pages once I am back on computer, which might be on Monday. I tried to see if the bot is tripping/triggering edit filters, as there is an unexpected delay between bot's edits. But as I am on mobile, I couldn't check it at all. Would someone kindly help me? User:KiranBOT. Thanks a lot in advance. —usernamekiran (talk) 19:18, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Smartse (correctly) blocked the bot for adding older vandalism/profanity, but I would still like to have answer to my questions. —usernamekiran (talk) 19:24, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• I just removed the most egregious stuff from that page. Definitely a "WTF??" Moment for me. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 19:28, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: No edit filter trips. Bots are generally exempt from almost all the edit filters, since they're generally only performing community-approved tasks (meaning they have no need to be constrained by edit filters). The bot, as far as I can tell, is actually working as intended, just without a filter? The bot seems to be trying to archive this edit though, from an "AppleWorks hacker" trying to deface the Main Page. See here. Also see here (warning: extremely NSFW). The reason this got through was that the original edits to the ITN template were from when the template wasn't actually admin-protected, from back in the olden days of 2004. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 08:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Taking Out The Trash and EggRoll97: thanks guys. while I was testing the bot, I tested it thoroughly on the months February, March, and April of 2004, and then on "current month". They had very mild form of vandalism, I was not expecting such level of vandalism. I am currently creating the archives in txt files, I will remove the vandalism, and lint errors that I can, and then I will upload the files as archive pages. courtesy ping to Jonesey95. —usernamekiran (talk) 09:13, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Rule 1286: German company slander

Hi!

I propose to activate Special:AbuseFilter/1286 which I imported from dewiki a few minutes ago. Reason is crosswiki spamming, see (German) discussion at de:WP:Administratoren/Anfragen#Filter?.

Examples for spamming at enwiki:

• Special:Contributions/2001:9E8:600::/42
• Special:Contributions/2a02:3036:262::/42
• Special:Contributions/89.247.160.0/20

Global filter rule:

• m:Special:AbuseFilter/335

If there no objections, I'd activate the rule in ~24h. -- seth (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@Lustiger seth: If you are subscribed to the edit filter mailing list, please see here. If not, please let me know, and I can forward you the email. Not a massive concern, but given it's a private filter that's being jumped straight to disallow, might be best that it be ironed out now. Also, not sure about the global rule, since I don't have global abuse filter helper, but I presume it's the same as (or similar to) the content in 1286? EggRoll97 ^(talk) 06:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

For local EFH/M: yes, the global filter is identical. —*Fehufangą (✉ Talk · ✎ Contribs) 07:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Finally, a new filter to stop some kind of LTA that targets random pages and says this type of German nonsense. Support. – 64andtim ^(talk) 07:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi!

• I'm not yet subscribed to the mailing list. I've sent a request right now.
• The global rule is not fully identical. I imported the dewiki rule de:Special:AbuseFilter/407 which potentially blocks more edits (because of less conditions) than the global rule.

-- seth (talk) 10:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@EggRoll97: Today I got an answer to my request:

'Your request to the wikipedia-en-editfilters@lists.wikimedia.org

mailing list

Subscription request

has been rejected by the list moderator. The moderator gave the

following reason for rejecting your request:

"[No reason given]"'

What shall I do?

-- seth (talk) 18:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Lustiger seth: I had forgotten to respond back on this noticeboard, my apologies. Fehufanga cleared it up on the mailing list that I was misunderstanding part of the filter, though I do have a different question that I sent through on the mailing list. It's not urgent, though, so I don't see any reason not to enable the filter unless there's other objections. As for the mailing list, the two list admins are Samwalton9 and MusikAnimal, so if you drop a message on their talk page they should be able to set you up. Not sure why it was rejected, though, given that you are a sysop. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 18:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Lustiger seth We get a number of no-context subscription requests with no good way to figure out who the filer is, so it looks like we assumed yours was a spam/ineligible request to join. Could you request again and email me to confirm your email address? That way we can confirm you're you and approve your request. Sam Walton (talk) 18:19, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, works! :-)

And i activated the rule today. -- seth (talk) 00:02, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Edit filter manager for DannyS712

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• DannyS712 (t · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

A while back some of us encouraged DannyS712 to request EFM, and he has finally taken up the offer. Danny is a volunteer MediaWiki developer, an admin on multiple other projects, and has made hundreds of edit filter modifications on meta and elsewhere. I have lately been in the habit of copying his suggestions at WP:EFFPR with minimal testing, and fully trust him with this right. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Earliest closure has started. (refresh)

Support as he's a great asset to configure the filters that stop the vandals and LTAs, and is also a trusted user on other projects, such as Wikidata. – 64andtim ^(talk) 22:32, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Support, trusted user, easy support, no concerns from me. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 23:19, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Support – DreamRimmer (talk) 00:58, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Support because they are a trusted and experienced user – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 01:49, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• Umm, @Suffusion of Yellow: I don't really like the idea of trying to foist this upon another user that hasn't requested it. At the very least I'd want to see DannyS712 accept this "nomination". — xaosflux ^Talk 01:24, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  I probably should have mentioned that we discussed this by email. DannyS712, you might want to acknowledge this in a way more explicit than this, though. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux Sorry I didn't note it earlier - I accept the nomination --DannyS712 (talk) 04:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Support They clearly have the knowledge, experience, skills required and are trusted to do good with this right. Nobody (talk) 08:55, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Easy support looked over their wikidata, specious and commons edit. Trusted and competent user ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:33, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Support Easy support. We need more EFMs, and Danny clearly far surpasses what I would consider the requisite experience and trust necessary. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 22:37, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support Philipnelson99 (talk) 02:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Has plenty of experience with edit filters outside of enwiki. Would make a great EFM here.—*Fehufangą (✉ Talk · ✎ Contribs) 03:39, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Adjusting filter 1,248

I've seen Special:AbuseFilter/1248 get triggered by edits like Special:AbuseLog/36791674 (which fixes the table). I was wondering if it might be worth adjusting it to avoid rowspan and colspan changes (or maybe separating it to its own filter). Anyone have any thoughts on that? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:59, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea to me. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 22:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

No objections here. – 64andtim ^(talk) 22:49, 16 January 2024 (UTC)