Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 17:59, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DatBot (t · th · 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 · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

DatGuy (t · th · 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 · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

Ends at: 14:25, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

(I believe this is how a request was meant to be. PS to do the 'ends at' thing use {{subst:#time: H:i, j F Y "(UTC)"|+7 days}}

I'd like to get this flag for my bot so it could use the API to report users. Currently, the bot has to use the database, which frequently lags, thus producing stale reports.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by DatGuy (talk • contribs)

@DatGuy: This access group doesn't give any access to "report users" - do you mean to "report on" users? Can you provide a link to your existing BRFA? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:55, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: Sure, here it is. This is the part of the code that isn't very effective: "SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE afl_id, afl_action, afl_namespace, afl_title, afl_user_text, afl_timestamp, afl_filter FROM abuse_filter_log". It basically tries to get into about the attempted edit. If the bot had access to the API, I wouldn't have to force it to use the SQL database, which has replication lag. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 22:00, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with the bot access from a technical level. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:08, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note from a practical level, DatGuy does not have this access today so this request should focus on if he qualifies himself. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:08, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have zero problem with both DatGuy and DatBot getting EFH. Would actually help some aspects of the bot's performance significantly. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 22:11, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Gets my support, as essential to get over this rather problematic technical limitation. No issues with DatGuy either. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 05:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Do you want the flag for yourself as well (e.g. would that help with debugging?) or just for your bot? I have no issue with either but it's best to be clear. Thryduulf (talk) 09:26, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• @Thryduulf: I originally wanted only my bot to have it, but I believe xaosflux is saying that I should be an EFH for my bot to be one? Unless I misinterpreted it. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 09:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• That is completely up to you, my point is that as you have control of the bot credential you will effectively have the access anyway and as bots are extensions of their operators the general review of meeting criteria should be of the operator (for operators that don't already have access). — xaosflux ^Talk 11:28, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support both EFH for DatGuy and DatBot as I believe bot operators of EFH-bots should themselves have the flag, if only to demonstrate trustworthiness of the operator, as opposed to the implied trustworthiness of the bot -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 11:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done for now. A request for edit filter helper (not manager) should be made separately — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish (t · th · 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 · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}
Ends at: 17:41, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Professional coder and sysadmin, been here 10 years, 100K+ edits. TemplateEditor (I'm one of the more active non-admins who answers {{edit template-protected}} requests, and often go out of my way to implement and sandbox what's requested if the requester doesn't have the skills to do the testing personally). I do not presently run any bots.

Would like to create some informational/tracking edit filters (frequently misused templates, Web sources that are questionably reliable, and a few other cases), for editors to use as cleanup/verification tools. I have no interest in making filters that trigger actions like preventing the edit or delivering a warning (that seems more like an admin-level role to me).
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:22, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Just a comment, EFH cannot create filters, only view the logs of hidden ones. Crow^Caw 17:33, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you'll want to be asking for the edit filter manager bit instead. If that's the case could you first of all mention any experience with edit filters and perhaps regex. I've got to also say one thing we're constantly battling against is an explosion in the number of filters and associated runtime, so an application expressing an interest in creating lots of tracking filters, which in my experience not many people consistently look at, may not seem an obvious way to go. But could you give an example of such a filter, including perhaps its expression? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:35, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see, yes I mean the bit for editing them, then (I don't actually care about hidden ones. :-). Changed the heading. Don't want to create lots, and I'd be perfectly happy adding to some rather than adding new ones. As a sysadmin, I work with regex in multiple flavors all the time. Am versed in sandboxing, and of course read WP:Edit filter#Recommended uses and its material on not implementing a filter that actually does anything without first observing that it triggers exactly as expected. I've not directly worked on the edit filters here, lacking the bit to do so. Just think I can be of use; I'm one of the more tech-oriented sorts who's active most of the time. PS: I have a long reputation as an outright nay-sayer when it comes to poorly-thought-out changes to important templates, WP:P&G material, interface pages, processes, and other things that could have wide-ranging side effects; I think that's a plus in this context.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:41, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for answering most of the question. You know people here can be quite fussy so I'm just trying to elicit the relevant things. We can't expect anyone to know everything, but I'm sensing an element of unfamiliarity with the topic. You're welcome to persuade me otherwise. Personally I don't particularly doubt your technical abilities - what you consider a plus I consider a lack of negatives - but what I'd really like to hear about is what you intend to do. Have you considered having a go at WP:EFR or EFFP? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:05, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I had not looked into EFR or EFFP; can do so. I'm more volunteering to assist than coming in with an agenda.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:45, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What I intend to do is draft and test some low-key edit filters mostly related to questionable sourcing, and to help fulfill requests for new EFs that are requested and not rejected (i.e. perform TemplateEditor-like work, just also with regard to EFs).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:30, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Q: Can you give an example of a filter you might create and how you would code it? Crow^Caw 18:03, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Two examples that come to mind are citations to QuickAndDirtyTips.com/grammar-girl and MessyBeast.com. Both of these are personal blogs by people with some credentials in a tangentially related field, but not expertise in the one central to what they're writing about (the author of the "Grammar Girl" material at the first is not a linguist but a journalism professor (i.e., steeped in one very particular form of writing, which has numerous norms that conflict sharply with other writing styles and registers of English), and the author of the latter is not a zoologist (or veterinarian, ethologist, etc., much less a felinologist). The sites have huge followings, and are frequently cited on the web as "authorities", but do not make their own sourcing clear, and are mostly advice columns (primary source material) and collections of factoids from other places (tertiary material). They can be legitimately cited here as primary sources for certain things when this is done properly, but more often people try to cite them as secondary. We have very few watchers on the sorts of pages where citations to these websites are most likely to appear. Haven't had coffee yet (it's 5:40-something a.m. where I am), but I can produce a sample filter later. I'll look first into the EFR and EFFP recommendation above. I'm not here to collect some headwear but to be of use.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:45, 24 September 2017 (UTC) PS: Looking at the QuickAndDirtyTips.com site again for the first time in ages, I note that it's ballooned to way more than the Grammar Girl material and how has multiple columnists writing on fitness, business, psychology, etc., making it more likely to be used as an probably-bad source on more pages, like the old About.com.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:30, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sample filter at User:SMcCandlish/Editfilters. Demo of a potential filter for various questionable but not verboten sites, and some notes on possible efficiency improvements I can't really test directly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:30, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Looks good for a tag-only, though as you implied there's some tuning to streamline it (such as one keyword that will catch all case variations). You may want to read [4], there's some serious power in this tool. :-) Crow^Caw 17:12, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Just on the technicalities of the filter - and I won't particularly hold this against SMcCandlish as he doesn't have proper access to the filter testing tools - it seems to be confusing plain text searches (contains | contains_any), with regex (which uses the pipe (|) character). Compare the use of irlike in 657 which is referenced with perhaps 31. It also seems to be lacking enough parentheses, and is testing for (Namespace == 0 AND link1 OR link2). Compare 869 and see the archive. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:35, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Additionally you didn't escape the . in the URL, which is needed since it is a valid regex character. I'll note this involves an understanding of regex in general, not a familiarity of the extension, though you might have discovered your mistake using the debugging tools — MusikAnimal ^talk 14:50, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Lack of testing tools (and more detailed documentation – though I'll go check out that mediawiki.org page) is a bit of a hamper. Deets:
  I was avoiding irlike on purpose, because the docs say regexes are expensive for edit filters; the implication appeared to be that contains will match literal strings not regexes. That keyword is essentially undocumented, but the contains_any says it works with strings. I noted that filter 126 didn't escape the . in youtube.com. It wasn't clear that the pipe wouldn't work without irlike or rlike. The pipe is used as an OR more generally in the syntax in other ways, so it didn't seem confined to regex parsing. I had my doubts about "foo|bar", and suspected "foo"|"bar" might be required.
  Anyway, I'm not sure if it's better to just use irlike, or try to catch case variations another way. That's a "what we've learned about filter efficiency" question for you all. :-)
  On parens, yes, the intent was (Namespace == 0 AND (link1 OR link2)); methinks this is the fix.
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:18, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Q: I know it's been a while (7 years), but your last RfA had a lot of opposition. Do you think you have overcome the issues that led to that opposition, if so how? — xaosflux ^Talk 23:12, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh, geeze that's from an embarrassing time. At my first RFA I was an enthusiastic noob, and at the second I'd been taking excessively bureaucratic and argumentative stances that were more about trying to make WP operate the way I thought it should rather than vice versa. I've done a 180 on that stuff. These days I'm a huge fan of the WP:POLICY / WP:LAWYER principle that WP's rules and processes are to be interpreted in the spirit in which they're intended not their exact letter, and that they're here to serve our needs and to codify our best practices, not change them. At any rate, I have no interest in an RfA no. 3; the "enforcement" aspects of adminship are of zero interest to me; instead, I've been highly supportive of tech-work unbundlings like template editor and page mover (and would have commented favorably in the unbundling RfC atop this page if I'd not been busy off-site at the time). Happy to address any more specific concerns, but this may all be moot if I need to be shunted into EFR and EFFP for a long while before being considered for EFM.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:45, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for the reply, like I led with it has been a long time. I don't know about "a long while" but I would like to see activity at EFR/EFFP for this access. Creating any deny filter is in effect "enforcement" of something as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:23, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure. I didn't have any interest in deny filters, just logging ones.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:18, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose at this time, however I encourage EFR/EFFP engagement as a way to enter this arena. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:38, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose also at this time. I'd like to see more familiarity with the edit filter before granting the bit. I'd encourage more reading of the existing filters, the documentation, and have some input to practise (and demonstrate) putting it all together. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:21, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Request change: EFH rather than EFM might be helpful; it provides a lot more access to pre-existing filter code, which honestly seems like better documentation. :-) A large number of the filters I attempted to examine were not available to me. E.g., I can't look at 31, which zzuuzz suggested looking at.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:18, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting EFH bit to view hidden logs. I do a lot of work at COIN leading discussions about conflicts of interest. I expect this right would help me discover relevant COI/UPE cases as well as general vandalism etc. I understand the BEANS need for discretion. If it matters I have academic training in regexp and have demonstrated their use here. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:03, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support have discussed sensitive information with Bri before; they're trustworthy, a long-term contributor, competent and show a need for the right -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 17:00, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 01:51, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

NWithdrawn.EFH is not granted.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 05:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting EFH bit to view hidden logs. My interest is more of academic nature to study and help improve m:Edit filters benefiting to various local Wikiprojects this meta page started by me. It will also help in giving references to my bugs filed at phab.

I am not technical expert on regex but have learned, compared and implemented techniques from en:wp and other lang wps past four-five years public filters here. While I have tried inter acting on en wp ef forums, frankly many times may be due to lack of man power, its slow in responding. Over the years I have been supporting mainly help pages on my local lang wiki. I suppose my participation may help, help pages and and once in a while in en wp ef related support/ help activities.

Whatever you decide but please keep supporting. m:Edit filters benefiting to various local Wikiprojects

Thanks and regards

Mahitgar (talk) 08:19, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I'm not sure how viewing the hidden logs will help with the page you've set up. Almost all private filters pertain to specific vandals here on English Wikipedia. They likely will not be of as much use elsewhere, and moreover they should not be published on any public page like the one you speak of.
  I would also recommend renaming your page to something like "Edit filters of cross-wiki interest". The term "Wikiproject" can be confused with Wikipedia:WikiProject, which is different than a project like enwiki, frwiki, etc., also known simply as a wiki. Other wikis also use the term "WikiProject" to refer to their own internal, specialized collaboration groups. — MusikAnimal ^talk 14:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per MA. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per above concerns. I'd like to see a bit more local activity before this was handed out, as was decided in the perm's RfC -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 15:37, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Oppose--I want to see much more local activities related to specific usage of EFs before granting the right.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 16:18, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Thanks, As per MA's good suggession I will go for change of page name. In most cases specific words which want to get filtered are confidential and not all technical configurations. If not all atleast few stable configurations are shared (sans confidential part/wors) on common meta page all wikis will benefit from experience and help improve efficiancy to all of us.

As I said my interest in EFH bit is limited only and not granting as of now is not an issue to me. Just I wanted to bring a common page into focus, and that has been achieved by this discussion. Thanks for considerations. It is ok to close the discussion as EFH bit not accepted.

Mahitgar (talk) 05:00, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 11:41, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dane (t · th · 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 · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

Hello,

I am requesting the Edit Filter Helper right so I can view hidden logs. I am a Tool Administrator at the ACC tool and run across tripped filters occasionally that I am unable to view/evaluate in the course of my work there currently and this would help me in processing those requests. Thank you! -- Dane ^talk 03:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Q: Can you give a specific (even hypothetical) scenario where seeing the logs would be useful? Crow^Caw 15:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A: Yesterday, I worked a request for example that showed an Edit Filter was tripped but only had a number specified. When we defer requests for CheckUser, we've been asked by CU to supply as much information as possible to assist in their processing of the requests. Because I did not have that information available I wasn't able to properly defer even as a tool administrator and I had to find an on-wiki administrator to research the specific request and write up the summary for CU which can add a delay in processing. In some cases, having the EFH right may even allow a bypass for CU if it's clear that it's the target for a filter created for specific LTAs. -- Dane ^talk 19:43, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding on the above, I don't believe being an ACC tool administrator is a sufficient reason to grant, and given the fact you were able to find an administrator to assist there's no real issue.. However, do you posses sufficient understanding of regex/AbuseFilter syntax to be able to reliably make the call on if a specific LTA filter was indeed targetting the request IP you're looking at? -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 19:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that I was in one instance able to find an administrator who holds sysop on en-wiki as well to evaluate it, however there have been times where there is a delay in that. In asking for the right i'm looking to be able to avoid this delay to resolve the issue myself. I do have a basic understanding of regex and I would defer any case that was in question or unclear to me per the existing operating guidelines. I do not have intent on authoring any filters now or in the future. -- Dane ^talk 20:20, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose No real on-wiki need for the tool if other, more trusted editors administrators and EFMs are easily available via the mailing list or on IRC. There's a reason we have private filters and granting access solely for off-wiki tools is not a good precedent to set, given there is a real risk of sharing details of private filters with unauthorised parties on mailing lists we would not have access to. EFH was not created for this purpose -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 20:59, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm still not sure that ACC yields enough of an ongoing need for the access. The logs won't tell you why a filter was tripped, just that it was... you'd need to dig into the regex to determine why. And since the number of EFs dealing with ACC is small compared to the total (Meta prefers to handle name blocks now), it seems like an email with the regex would cover 99% of the issues, with that 1% being new additions to the filter. Crow^Caw 22:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• @Crow: I think this argument can be reversed and be equally as valid - even if there isn't a hard ongoing need, if there aren't any specific issues that lead to the candidate user to be considered untrusted despite their long-time status on Wikipedia, as long as they are competent in regular expressions and know not to break things, and as long as there are even potential gains to be had, is there harm in granting the user group? To me, the potential usefulness of this access is at least some kind of positive factor, and there don't seem to be any negative factors beyond lack of precedent which seems like should it should be a relatively minor factor - though this is admittedly very much an outsider perspective (with respect to edit filters). --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 07:51, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - this is a perfectly reasonable request IMO. This is such an inconsequential right that I can't imagine why we would turn away anyone with a potential use for it. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 00:19, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for this being an inconsequential right, I draw your attention to the closing caveats, namely community and/or the granting administrator are adviced to carefully evaluate the candidates before granting the flag due to the huge fallouts of any misuse. -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 07:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is almost no fallout for misuse. The absolute worst-case scenario is that an LTA is able to figure out what the filter conditions are, so they can bypass it a few minutes earlier than they could by trial and error. And when any sort of trusted editor is the one requesting the right, we can be pretty sure that the worst-case scenario won't happen. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Per Ajraddatz. Perhaps the demonstrated need (#1) is not strong enough, but I would be satisfied if there are potential uses (indicated in the response above) by a trusted editor. Alex Shih^Talk 06:44, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]