Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

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Welcome to the edit filter noticeboard

WATCH Recent filter changes (): Filter 1244 — Flags: disabled Last changed at 06:40, 8 May 2023 (UTC) Filter 98 — Pattern modified Last changed at 21:34, 7 May 2023 (UTC) Filter 1204 — Pattern modified Last changed at 20:26, 7 May 2023 (UTC) Filter 384 — Pattern modified Last changed at 20:16, 6 May 2023 (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 284 enabled filters and 39 stale filters with no hits in the past 30 days. Filter condition use is ~796, out of a maximum of 2000. (). See also the profiling data and edit filter graphs. Click here to start a new discussion thread

Edit filter manager for User:0xDeadbeef

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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0xDeadbeef (t · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

Hello everyone, about two months ago I applied for edit filter helper rights and after working with edit filters for some time I think I am ready to help with editing edit filters. Through helping with false positive cases for some time, I have had times where I felt having the right would help process the cases faster. For example here I suggested a valid edit to the edit filter in question that required 18 days to be actually implemented. Another example is at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested#Talk page junk where I helped with creating an edit filter that was eventually set to disallow. I'll admit that my version is quite crude compared to the one Galobtter actually created, but I think that the best way for someone to improve their skill in editing filters is for them to start edit filters. (the same goes to just editing in general) I have 2FA enabled on my account and if I become an EFM I will ensure that each change is sound. (for details on my technical experience see my request for EFH)

Thanks for your consideration. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 10:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

 Administrator note advertised this at WP:AN. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support No doubt as to technical ability or trustworthiness; would have supported EFM back when you requested EFH. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support because user is very trustworthy and has a clear need for the rights. Edit count is a bit low, but it is definitely outweighed by the user’s involvement, experience, and need. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:49, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support I agree that being able to edit filters is definitely the best way to learn how to make them well, and I trust the user will be careful as they learn. It'll be good to have another person to fix false positives. Galobtter (talk) 21:23, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support. To be honest, I had thought 0xDeadbeef was already an admin. I believe that the user is deeply trustworthy and is sufficiently competent to be trusted with the EFM tools, and I am happy that they will help lend their hands towards improving the effectiveness of a tremendously important anti-abuse tool. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:17, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I'm not a regular in filtering areas, but 0xDeadbeef seems remarkably clueful from our brief interactions together, and skimming over his contributions reveals no concerns. The Night Watch (talk) 03:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support As someone who also responds to False positves reports and have seen the edit filter changes he has suggested, I believe he has demonstrated that he has the skills needed for this. 1AmNobody24 (talk) 05:31, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support. They are competent, they have a clear understanding of account security, they are also one of the few editors I would trust (competency wise) with access to the edit filter management interface. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 06:14, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support per edit filter manager Suffusion of Yellow's endorsement. Thank you for helping in this area. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:06, 28 April 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.

Filter 1248

1248 (hist · log) ("Numeric change without summary", public); Originally discussed at WP:VPT#Numerical changes without edit summary should be flagged "r" in watchlist

Set filter 1248 to tag after tripping a rate limit.

Skimming at filter 1248 hits, there seem to be no false positives, so could it be set to tag as possible vandalism after 2 trips in 30 seconds and we can see if it's got any false positives in a few weeks. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 11:33, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

@Zippybonzo: It's not possible to a apply a rate limit to an action; the limit applies to the whole filter. There are two problems with applying a rate limit to the filter. First, this is a really common form of one-off drive-by vandalism. Second, every time there's a football match or whatever, some IP goes and updates all of the players' statistics in rapidfire fashion, with no summary. Not ideal, but hey, the sausage gets made. For example, I haven't checked but I doubt 188.164.221.51 is vandalizing.

That said, we're not even up to 24 hours and the filter already has 1200 hits. No one's going to review them all. We need some way to cut it down. I've done a bit of testing, and just adding !(new_wikitext irlike "Category.*(?:sport|ball)") cuts down hits to about a third. That's a somewhat arbitrary exclusion, but hopefully there are enough obsessive fans of each player or team to spot any vandalism. But I'll take any other suggestions. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:46, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Excluding sportsball pages would make sense to me – not only is there a base of readers knowledgeable enough to catch errors, but the consequences of statistics being wrong on these pages are much lower than in other topic areas. – bradv 01:05, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree with excluding sports pages. Would it also help to exclude matches of filters 391 and 712? Many of the hits for these filters involve numerical changes. Mori Calliope fan talk 01:28, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Disable 1,248

When patrolling the edit filters for vandalism, I have recently seen the filter log flooded by 1248 (hist · log). I also have found that changing numbers without an edit summary is usually not vandalism. This can be updating scores from an athletic event, updating an athletes record, etc. I think we should disable the filter because of too many hits it is flooding the log and because most of the edits aren’t vandalism. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 10:54, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Oppose: The filter works, and it can catch a lot of subtle vandalism, and if they aren’t trying to vandalise, they should just use a summary. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 11:08, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi Zippybonzo! Nice to talk to you again. I have to say that I  Disagree with you here. Some editors may not know what an edit summary is, or what they are for. This doesn’t mean that their edits are vandalism. Looking in the hits, most edits are not vandalism and they are flooding the feed. This is why the filter should be disabled for now. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 11:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

@Illusion Flame, I agree, and it’s just a case of finding the way to perfect it. I’m thinking about exclusion of IPs so that it’s not flooding it but there will be some test data coming in to review. Thanks, Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 11:23, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

@Illusion Flame: in the thread above there is a suggestion to exclude athletic articles from the filter – would that make a difference? – bradv 15:49, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I added the sports page exclusion; let's see how that goes. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks and good idea. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:05, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

39 Disallow

Looking through the recent hits, I can really only see vandalism. I think setting filter 39 to disallow would be helpful in preventing school page vandalism and there would be few false positives. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 21:24, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Not the first time it's been proposed, and I'm not a fan. I think you need to look beyond the hits (where I've definitely seen false positives) and ask whether any of these situations are possible: the title matches but it is not an educational institution; someone was notably sacked or expelled; the word 'drugs' has any place in a school article, some teacher commits abuse or sex crimes, a porn actor is an alumnus, the list goes on. These edits are indeed worthy of review, but they're not all vandalism. If there's going to be a disallow filter, it should be another one, IMO. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:48, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a case where Wikipedia:Deferred changes would be lovely but a disallow isn't possible (I too have looked at the filter and seen false positives also). Galobtter (talk) 21:54, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that all the scenarios you propose are very rare and are outweighed by the amount of vandalism prevented. I think our FP system is capable of handing the small possible number number of false positives this change will cause. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 22:12, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

And it only applies to non-confirmed users too. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 22:14, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Non-confirmed users are editors too - we still need to make sure there's a low enough false positive rate. Galobtter (talk) 00:19, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Agree - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 00:33, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Change name of #247

Filter 247’s name is “adding emails in articles.” It should be changed to “adding emails to pages” because the filter covers more namespaces than just article. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 10:30, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Changed to just "Adding emails". 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 13:01, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

 Thanks - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 14:42, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

EFM Needed

Could an edit filter manager look at the top request of the false positives page and weigh in their opinion. Thanks! - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 18:38, 6 May 2023 (UTC)