Wikipedia talk:Tags: Difference between revisions

False positives in the abuse filter log may be reported at Wikipedia:Abuse filter/False positives. One should not be overly concerned if they have false positives that are in fact good faith edits.

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Now that MediaWiki has been updated past r52071, Tags are now wrapped in a span which allows us to identify them. There is now an open discussion on whether we should style tags when they appear in RecentChanges, Watchlist, etc. All commens welcome! Happy‑melon 09:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I notice tags appearing and wonder how it works. It is not well explained. For a start, what is "the software"? Is that MediaWiki or something else? thanks Nurg (talk) 04:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and more specifically, the abuse filter module. See WP:Abuse filter. –xeno^talk 00:43, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I second this question. This special page at first appears to be about WP tags in general. Instead, it's about automatically generated tags - did I get that right? What is "the software"? Josef Horáček (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes there are false positives that cause tags to appear where they shouldn't[1], which can make it look like the most recent edit to an article is vandalism that hasn't been reverted. When a tagged edit has been checked by an administrator (or maybe a reviewer if flagged protection is ever implemented), and there is no reason for the tag to stay, can tags such as this be removed or hidden (at least when viewing an article's history) or do they have to stay there permanently? snigbrook (talk) 22:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've come across a few false positives myself [2]. Maybe we should set up a designated page where false positives can be posted by users for tracking purposes. -- œ^™ 03:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:FALSEPOS. –xeno^talk 00:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just archived my talk page, and my archive got tagged for "possible Michael Jackson vandalism". Huh? --Susan118 ^talk 03:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to get a false postive tag removed? I don't want people looking at my archive and thinking it's vandalism! :O --Susan118 ^talk 17:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. Again, don't sweat it - if anyone ever has any question they can examine exactly what was done in the edit to see it was a false positive. I got hit by the MJ filter too...ironically, while fixing up the tag for the MJ filter. [3] –xeno^talk 00:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I don't feel so bad now! Sorry, I wasn't paying enough attention to realize you were working on this, or I wouldn't have re-posted the issue over here. I will go post it on the WP:FALSEPOS page for the record, though. Thanks.--Susan118 ^talk 16:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That filter is completely and inherently broken, I removed the tagging functionality. Cenarium (talk) 17:22, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Tags shouldn't be used for edit filters affecting autoconfirmed users"

Uhm, what makes them so precious? This "us vs. them" mentality is half the problem with the abuse filters. Gurch (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removed that, it makes no sense. Prodego ^talk 14:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why wasn't this edit tagged? - RoyBoy 04:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a recent changes patroller, I feel these tags have been helpful in catching vandalism. Of course, not all tagged edits are vandalism, but I can spot the bad edits more quickly with these. Savie Kumara (and Nini Kastoa) 04:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone create a tag for edits which add a new section to a talk page called "Dubious"? This happens frequently because of use of the 'Discuss' section of the 'Dubious' template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.65.109.10 (talk) 10:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know there's a way to incorporate a link to a specific "talk" section supporting a tag placement but I've been unable to find the "how to" within Wikipedia help. Can anyone assist? Thanks. JakeInJoisey (talk) 19:07, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed some users rapidly undoing their own edits over and over so that they reach the 10 edit minimum. This usually involves an edit, followed by 9 consecutive self-reverts to equal 10 edits. Then they commit vandalism on semi-protected articles.

This filter would occur after the user makes 3 consecutive self-reverts. mechamind90 06:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could there possibly be a tag for edits that may constitute unnecessary genre-fiddling in the infobox for music pages or maybe film pages? I am a regular editor of music pages on wikipedia, and it happens often that there are unnecessary edits to the infobox's genre section done by ill-intended genre warriors. It's a problem that a lot of people on wikipedia have dealt with and can understand its bothersome nature. A tag for such genre-fiddling is something that I would like to see on wikipedia in the future. If not, then I guess that's okay too. Thanks. Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 05:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't the possible test edits tag come back again? Wayne Olajuwon chat 21:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is the "tireless sock" mentioned on filter 129 still active? I haven't seen many "nonsense movie" articles created lately, and the filter generates a lot of false positives. Feezo (Talk) 05:29, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No one has commented on this, so I've dropped the edit count ignore setting from 50 to 10. At this time, the filter matches 0.03% of the last 9,861 actions. I haven't seen any evidence that the "tireless sock" is still active, so it may be time to disable it entirely. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 09:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sock may have finally taken a rest. Turning off the filter for now. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 10:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems as if references removed is only triggered by IP edits. Is this by design? I would prefer if it also alerted on removals by registered editors, since few seem to provide useful WP:Edit summaries. --Lexein (talk) 00:26, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would be handy if, upon inserting a tag, the tag page automatically generates a section for the tag; For example, if I insert a Neutrality tag on X page, in the X page talk, the neutrality dispute (with date) section appeared even before I clicked onto the talk page. As the tag is inserted, this could then also include the effective link, so that these tags move EXACTLY to the discussion on the tag; I can use the tag itself to get to the effective discussion. A. J. REDDSON

Hi everyone! What extension allows to create and manipulate with tags? I quite like them and want to use them in my wikis. Katkov Yury (talk) 06:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since interwiki links are handled by Wikidata now, I guess the "Removal of all interwiki links" tag is no longer needed, and will only cause removals of these redundant links to be wrongly accused of vandalism. —WP:PENGUIN · ^{[ TALK ]} 21:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be under discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Removing Wikidata interwiki links and their reversal regarding this. —WP:PENGUIN · ^{[ TALK ]} 21:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Or is it meant to be that way? smtchahal^(talk) 17:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The_Magnificent_Clean-keeper posted this comment on 7 July 2013 (view all feedback).

I was hoping to find some info/explanation on how some tags are of help and not just unneeded clutter. I.e. "mobile edit" and "visual editor". (repost, will mark previous as resolved or else. I'm new to this, even have a hard time to find my own feedback as it's not listed in my edits...)

Any thoughts?

I've added a brief sentence about the purpose of tags in general. The particular VisualEditor tag is used to detect all edits using the new visual editor, this is a new bit of software which needs a lot of testing (see Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback) and the tag is useful for that. The VisualEditor-needcheck tag is more useful as it shows when the software thinks it might have got it wrong and the edits with that tag often need fixing. Salix (talk): 11:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"To detect potentially... software bugs." Now it makes sense. Thanks for the addition, TMCk (talk) 15:58, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Possible changes needed.

1. According to m:Tech/News/2013/29, "Wikis that use links in tag messages should remove them."
   1. I think this means that someone needs to remove all the wikilinks from the actual Special:Tags' definitions ("Appearance on change lists") for the ones that have any.
      • Currently: "possible libel or vandalism", "visualeditor", "Removal of interwiki link", "gettingstarted edit", "Removal of all interwiki links", "visualeditor-needcheck", "prod removed", "WikiLove" - all have wikilinks
   2. and update the documentation at Wikipedia:Tags
2. Additionally, details at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/72984/ - "a link to Special:Tags and "Tag(s):" text is shown before the list of tags everywhere it's shown."

   suggests that we might need to alter all the definitions that currently/already use the text "Tag:" as a prefix?

I'm not positive though. @Matma Rex and Catrope: possibly you can confirm/clarify? Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 19:07, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you need to remove the "Tag:" part, as it's included in the software now. Instead of "(<tags go here>)", the format now is "(Tag(s): <tags go here>)" (with "Tag" or "Tags" depending on the number). Matma Rex talk 20:10, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why was this edit marked as blanking, when it clearly isnt? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:31, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There may be something fishy going on with tagging in general. Mobile is also experiencing odd tagging errors. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:12, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Steven (WMF): See also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Blanking_filter_misfire. I'm not sure who to poke. –Quiddity (talk) 22:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I posted on Template:Bug about it. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:59, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay it looks like the mobile issue and this error are unrelated. The blanking tag is due to a wrong AbuseFilter. The mobile error was contained to mobile code. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 01:04, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can we separate the inactive tags to a separate table. There are a lot of them now and its getting rather cluttered with both active and inactive tags in one big table. Kumioko (talk) 12:47, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the descriptions seem out of date - for example, it says "possible vandalism" is tagged by filters 23 and 77, but both are deleted; the tag's still used, but by filters 432 and 491 (and possibly others). Peter James (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This got (Tag: Text added at end of page), even though the categories are the last text on the page both before and after the edit. Why? K7L (talk) 04:19, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is still happening - when I made this edit with HotCat, I received a warning and before saving and then the tag appeared in my edit summary. How can this be updated to prevent these false positives? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:31, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I notice this page doesn't get much chatter, so I hope my comment is seen. :) Hello all! Numerical vandalism is rampant. Bots/malicious users increase all the numbers in an article by one or randomly, or whatever (Here's an example). I usually revert these edits with the edit summary "Unsourced, unexplained numerical changes". Was wondering if it made sense to create a tag to that effect, to help other editors quickly spot these edits, and to mark the editor's history for better analysis of the user's behavior. From my personal experience IPs seem to make these edits most often although accounts (socks and SPAs) do as well. If the bot/user learned to add a summary they might be able to game the system, so if there's a way to pre-emptively plan for that, that'd be great. Sometimes only one number is changed, sometimes the edits are vast like in the example above. I think I'll make this same pitch over at the ClueBot page, because I think the bot needs to help out here as well. Thanks for listening! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think visualeditor tag and mobile edit tag are useless.117.79.232.231 (talk) 09:15, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, how can a new tag be introduced? I run a tool on Tool Labs and send the users directly to Wikipedia, where they see the diff view of the changes before they can save them. Can I specify some hidden field to introduce my own tag? I'd like to see how many edits get done this way. --Dnaber (talk) 08:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment, the only way to add a tag from your tool would be for the tool to submit the edit using OAuth, which will automatically tag every edit.

Ability to specify tags for edits when submitting the edit via the API is an interesting idea, but it would probably need to be limited in some manner to avoid spamming via tags and would probably need to come with a method for deleting inappropriate tags from edits. Anomie⚔ 13:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Dnaber and Anomie: FYI, the proposal for bot tagging of edits may be of interest. Of course, any bot would have to be approved for the task. Cenarium (talk) 12:33, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a proposal to allow bots to tag edits at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Bot_tagging_of_edits. Cenarium (talk) 12:31, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We would like to have your input on the following proposal phab:T123636 aiming to simplify the generation of statistics on the volume and quality of edits as well as the user base of individual tools, gadgets or editing interfaces by using revision hashtags in edit summaries. For additional context on revtagging and how it differs from WP:Tags see mw:revtagging (cc Slaporte (talk · contribs)). --DarTar (talk) 17:05, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@DarTar: It's over six months since the last comment on this talk page so I think there should be other notifications. I'm not sure where, but if the proposal is going to change what editors see I would start with WP:VPT and WP:AN—neither of those are quite right but putting a pointer there to this discussion would ensure lots of people see it. I had a quick look at your links and I'm afraid it is not clear to a casual observer what the proposal entails. Would there be an extra visible tag shown for each edit in a history page or a list of user contributions? What would it look like, and would it link anywhere? Perhaps the proposal simply makes metadata available for anyone interested to harvest, and the hashtags would not influence normal editing? That is, a hashtag would be of no immediate use to an editor? What magic would assign a particular hashtag to an edit, for example as "part of a bulk-revert generated by a bot"? Johnuniq (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I'm mistaken, the proposal is to include "#hashtag" text in the edit summary. It's not clear in what way this would be more useful to anyone than the tags described on this page now that it is possible for bots and scripts to tag their edits (and, for bots and admins, to tag and untag revisions after the fact). Anomie⚔ 03:21, 17 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]