Talk:Global AbuseFilter/Archives/2014

Meta Vote

Hello everyone, I'd like to get going with this. There doesn't seem to be too much input or interest in developing the proposal, so I'd like to see where everyone stands. Please support/oppose/neutral it, and provide some reason for doing so. This will help everyone decide whether or not this is something we should go through with. If this proposal passes a meta poll, then a global vote will be organized on the final draft of the proposal.

Support

1. Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Definitely. We can stop so much x-wiki vandalism and spam with this. πr² (t • c) 18:17, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
3. -Orashmatash (talk) 18:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
4. Support in principle. However it would need to be used with great caution, especially this part of the proposal is important: "After no more than a day without any successful actions, filters should be disabled to prevent false positives". --MF-W 19:01, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
5. Furries (talk) 00:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

   It's a good idea, but I oppose the automatic block or right removal, it should be always done manually. I'm also on the fence of having deny filters apply to major projects such as enwiki/dewiki who already have very active and effective filters in place. It would be nice to be able to have a global filter exclude certain wikis or apply only to a certain wikiset, but I assume that's not feasible at this time. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 14:10, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

   Time has passed and my comments here no longer reflect my current position on the matter. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:19, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

6. --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 14:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC) we have to sort out the details, especially in regard to mature wikis with distinctive local habits in regard to the application of the basic tool locally, but i endorse the general proposal. its heading in the right direction
7. In principle fine but filters are not necessarily fully effective across multiple projects. I've found that filters may be better here than Commons and vice versa. Good idea but maybe not simple to get really right. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
8. PeterSymonds (talk) 20:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
9. Looks like a good idea, but one should be careful with this. I support the part about enabling these for very short times in the proposal. As such, I believe they should be implemented only in wikis which do not have an abuse filter or which opt-in to this (if it is implemented). Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 16:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
10. While this proposal makes some sense for it to be implemented, but there would always be a significant margin of error, so I am hoping managers of these Abuse Filters would limit their use to, say, 2 - 4 filters only, or it can cause serious disruption. --Hydriz (talk) 02:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
11. Support, but agree with Snowolf.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  03:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
12. I agree with Snowolf, but local communities should be able to opt in/out at their own discretion. I think that by default any wiki not opted out of global sysops should fall under this. Yes, it can exclude certain wikis, but there is no GUI; it's a text file setting. I don't see why we'd need a global abuse filter to remove rights, except the usual blockautopromote.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Sorry, but I can't support this. As I already said before, Abuse Filter can be a highly capable tool, but the results depends of the way it is used. Did you even think about what will happen if a filter blocks people or forbid actions on enwiki or any other big project ? Plus AbuseFilter needs to be oversighted everytime it triggered a libel or a private info, which are sometimes already detected before by traditional detection methods (in this way, the filters represent one more task to do).
   To me, the best thing would clearly be to create a private tool to make stewards and crosswiki vandalfighters able to detect on-going issues : no need to oversight more log entries, no more work for the devs, no risk to do something wrong on big projects... -- Quentinv57 ^(talk) 16:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
2. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 18:20, 10 March 2012 (UTC) Global means global. I will not support until and unless the list of opted-out wikis is removed and global sysops are removed from the ability to manage global filters as well. I would support, however, adding field in the global filter that allowed you to exclude wikis in a case by case basis. Thanks.
3. There should be an opt-in when need is detected on a projects on things like this, not an opt-out. (The only spam I have detected on the project where I am Sysop, has been done by wmf-staff.) Actions from SWMT can be confusing and frustrating on minor projects, and random AF-actions even much worse. -- Lavallen (talk) 19:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

   Currently looking into an option which would allow filters to only be active on the specific wikis that they need to be. Regardless of that, though, there is a real issue that this proposal looks to solve. These filters would not be causing any local confusion because they would only do what they are meant to, and that is to stop cross-wiki spam (and sometimes vandalism). The point of the global abusefilter is to be less intrusive than the global spam blacklist or title blacklist, two extensions which already take action on every Wikimedia wiki. Just because you don't know about the problem doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:39, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

   This looks like a Wikipedia-problem, not an "all Wikimedia-site"-problem. Solve them on Wikipedia, not Global! -- Lavallen (talk) 19:43, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

   No... this is a global problem. About half of my actions as a global sysop are cleaning up spam - it happens on a wide variety of wikis, but not all. These filters would allow the spam/vandalism to be stopped globally, since they do affect tens to hundreds of projects. Again, just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

   And the conflicts between swmt and the local wiki-culture exists even you are not aware of it. -- Lavallen (talk) 07:24, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

   Isn't spam blacklist for spam?  Hazard-SJ  ✈  03:38, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

   Whilst the spam blacklist is effective, there is no log of actions prevented by it and there is no way of leaving a warning message explaining why adding a certain link was disabled (example: when someone adds an URL shortener, there should be an explanation). πr² (t • c) 15:34, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Trijnstel (talk) 00:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC) I like the idea, but I think we need a better proposal.

Comments

If you have any comments, put them here :) Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• "The ability to remove a user from all privileged groups if they trigger the filter." - I think this possibility should not be used. If a "privileged user", i.e. a sysop, does something caught by an AbuseFilter, the filter is apparently misconfigured or there is a serious problem with the user, that should not be dealt with via abuse filter. --MF-W 19:01, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

  I agree, that setting makes no sense for global filters, or even local filters. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:03, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• Imo we shouldn't create a new global group named "global AbuseFilter managers". Give the right to stewards and (maybe) to global sysops. Trijnstel (talk) 00:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  That isn't a new group, it's an existing one for User:Werdna. Agree though that global sysops should have access. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  • I agree that we don't this group (it would practically be new, as the current configuration is very different from the proposed one - and only one user has it, unelected(?)) but stewards and global sysops are good enough for this. --MF-W 00:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

    • (speculation) I don't know why that group was created, but the user in it is the person who maintains the abusefilter extension (and is a system admin or something). It might be good to give him access as well for technical reasons, so he can maintain global filters as well as local ones. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• It needs to be clarified if "The ability to block a user or IP which triggers a filter" would mean a global (b)lock or a local one. --MF-W 00:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  A local block, I'll clarify that. Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• The idea of a global filter is interesting and rather useful. I don't much like the idea of automatic local blocks, removing of userrights and so on, manual action by stewards, global sysops or local sysops should be required for that. Also the idea of requiring filters to be removed after one day without successful actions, especially for filters that do not block the action but simply report it (and I can see several filters that could be used for that). Also, wikis should have the option to opt out entirely, I see no point in Global filters being applied to enwiki or dewiki, for example, they'd do more harm than good imo. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 05:08, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  Filters that just report need not be removed - their purpose is to find lots of edits, false positives included, for future review. I've noted that on the page. I must say that I'm not a fan of complete opt-outs. Some filters, such as anti-spam need to be applied everywhere to work. The global abusefilter being global does not infringe on local wiki's autonomy since each filter can be disabled, but completely opting-out is a step in the wrong direction. That being said, if this is implemented with the largest projects completely opted out then it would still be beneficial. Ajraddatz (Talk) 05:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• Many people have commented on using these filters on large wikis with well established abusefilters - one thing that this vote has shown is that these projects should be given the option of completely opting-out. However, this full opt out should be limited to projects with very active and properly used filters. Since every project on Wikimedia currently has abusefilters enabled (that I've seen), the only issue is using a determining factor to see which wikis don't need this. I'd personally support it being enabled on all but the very large projects - enwiki, dewiki, etc - and active on all other projects while still giving them the ability to locally disable individual filters. Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

  I think letting non-GS wikis opt out is a good solution, but let's try to limit the opt-out set as much as possible. At this point, I'd be happy if we could even get this enabled on half the GS wikis. πr² (t • c) 15:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

  Or even a quarter. PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:47, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Vote conclusion

Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts in this! Your insight has been very valuable in terms of modifying this proposal so that it is practical and makes as many people happy as possible. On that note, below are the major changes to the proposal that have been made from this vote.

• Large wikis with active abuse filter managers will not be affected by these filters. These are projects such as enwiki, dewiki, itwiki, ptwiki, eswiki, nlwiki ,etc who have active people maintaining the local abuse filters, and would not really benefit from global filters.
• Global sysops would be granted access to the modifying the filters. Since these filters will not affect every Wikimedia wiki, this can be seen within the global sysop scope, as well as the practical application of it in regards to the current role of global sysops in global anti-spam and counter-vandalism.
• The global filters would not include the options to locally block and remove local rights. These options are not practical with local filters, and even less so with global ones which could cause more false positives.
• Emphasis will be placed on removing filters after one day, or short time of no positive actions. This policy will exclude filters which just tag edits.

Additionally, in response to Quentinv57's comment, the global abusefilter log could be restricted to global rollbackers/global sysops/stewards, thus removing the need to oversight (in a practical sense anyways). I am not going to add this to the proposal, pending further discussion.

Beyond that, if you still have an opinion and have not voiced it please do! This proposal still isn't finished, and more input (positive or negative) is very welcome. Regards, Ajraddatz (Talk) 03:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I would think that we should get input from the local communities (like centralnotice about this) about this, as it affects everybody. Just 13 days on meta without centralnotice seems a bit too little to implement it, imho. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 06:06, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Oops, sorry for not being more clear on this. The Meta vote is just to nail down the details for the final proposal, to ensure that the people actually dealing with the cross-wiki spam and vandalism are good with it. After the "final proposal" has been made (hopefully by the 20th), then there will be a global request for input or vote with central notice, so that the projects affected can voice their opinions. I had that one the timeline originally, but then removed it when the dates started fluctuating... I've re-added it now. Thanks for mentioning :) Ajraddatz (Talk) 15:15, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understand it completely (and correctly), but I think that 'tag' filters should work on all wikis (this would make finding cross-wiki vandals easier). πr² (t • c) 05:32, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

It should, but tbh I have no clue how this will exactly work. Still need to ask Werdna about that... Ajraddatz (Talk) 05:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Any updates on this? πr² (t • c) 01:15, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Still waiting on technical information unfortunately. Ajraddatz (Talk) 01:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

How will translation of messages happen? This is important IMO. PiRSquared17 (talk) 17:12, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Somewhat of an update

A solution to the big wiki problem would be to add a variable to the AF that allows it to see what project it is acting on. This would work the same as the current option that allows a filter to see what page it is acting on, and then we could either confine the global filters to a few projects, or make them affect all except a few depending on the needs of the filter. Still waiting on technical information about this though :/ Ajraddatz (Talk) 03:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

That is possible already.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:26, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I tried to get it enabled on a testwiki (see mw:User talk:Sharihareswara (WMF), mw:User talk:Cmcmahon(WMF), request), but nobody seems to be able to do this. I really hope this proposal doesn't die out completely, we still REALLY need this. (I at least hope we will be able to salvage most of proposal this for a new one...) Do you know why all the other RfCs get so many more comments? :/ Do we need to "advertise" this more (like in a sitenotice or global message?) πr² (t • c) 15:39, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry, when we get technical confirmation then this will go on a larger scale. I need a working proposal first. The technical details are almost sorted out - see the bugzilla. It will most likely follow Jasper Deng's suggestion of wikisets, but we can make wikisets based on need (or rather stewards will). Ajraddatz (Talk) 16:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Ehm, what is now the problem? The technical function? (If not, why can't it be tested on Labs?) Or is it that we still need to hold a wonderful global vote for getting this enabled? --MF-W 16:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the technical function to act on some projects but not others doesn't currently exist. Once it does, then it will be tested and a global vote can be arranged. Ajraddatz (Talk) 17:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Another update would be nice. I know that this is enabled on Meta and a few other wikis, but what exactly has been implemented? πr² (t • c) 21:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Currently, global filters can be made, but we do not yet have functionality for including or excluding specific wikis on a per-filter basis. We also have the ability to list global vs. local filters in Special:AbuseFilter on wikis other than Meta and the ability to search by wiki on Meta's abuse log.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Enabled on small wikis

Nobody bothered to post on the talk page. Enabled on small wikis. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Filter 46 visibility

I guess it should be private as it says "You may not view details of this filter, because it is hidden from public view." when I click the filter ID. Palosirkka (talk) 17:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, it's a private filter as can be see at Special:AbuseFilter. I changed it now on the page from private to public. --Stryn (talk) 17:42, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Enabled on medium wikis

...today without much discussion. @PiRSquared17: or someone else, can we send a mass message about this to all the wikis affected? I think that specific wikis, if they want, should be able to opt out. Many of the medium wikis have active communities with active sysops. --Glaisher (talk) 17:29, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

PiRSquared and I am working on MMing a condensed version of this: Global_AbuseFilter/2014_announcement. --Glaisher (talk) 14:41, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm waiting for an announcement on de-WB. -- Juetho (talk) 13:42, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

@Juetho: Glaisher and I are going to spam this message on these wikis tomorrow. We're currently accepting translations of the notice. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:09, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I translated and requested MF-Warburg to check the text. -- Juetho (talk) 11:54, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Can’t log in

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T75462

Is it possible that I am a some kind of victim in this AbuseFilter system. I am the only administrator in Ido Wiktionary ([1]), so it is necessary that I can log in the system. Now I keep receiving message about error when I try to log in at home (in my job place there is no problem to log in !). Just for testing the system I created at home a new account, and there are no problems acting as a normal user. It seems that the problem is connected to my original user name and my IP at home. This problem emerged when we got in the Ido Wiktionary the message about this AbuseFilter in the 14th of November. So – help is needed, thanks. Sorry – no signing but you can find me.

It is highly unlikely that the Global Abuse Filter would prevent you logging in and there are no hits for your account in the log. There is no global IP block affecting the IP address you used to post here. As the issue only affects one account from your home it cannot be caused by a local IP block. Have you changed your password recently and not updated the saved password in your browser at home? If you can be more specific about the error message received we can look at it further. QuiteUnusual (talk) 13:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for answering! I do not know any other place to solve my problem. You can feel free to transfer this case in a correct arena. – In addition to the situation described above, I am an administrator in the Ido Wikipedia ([2]). The conditions are completely exact and there is no problem at all. The only difference between these cases is that the connection to the Wiktionary does not work but to the Wikipedia it does. I am completely puzzled but it seems that the problem is not in my end of the wire. Sorry – still going on without signing.

Would you mind giving the exact error message you are receiving? Is it the "wrong password" message? Did you change your password recently? If so, have you tried resetting it? Also, make sure your browser is allowing cookies from wiktionary.org and wikimedia.org. PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:15, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Here is one message about error. First I get a notice that my password is uncorrect, then I get this after quite a long waiting:
If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.

Request: POST http://io.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Specala:Enirar&action=submitlogin&type=login&returnto=Wikivortaro:Frontispico, from 10.64.0.104 via cp1068 cp1068 ([10.64.0.105]:3128), Varnish XID 3032683507

Forwarded for: 91.155.201.229, 91.198.174.103, 208.80.154.77, 10.64.0.104

Error: 503, Service Unavailable at Wed, 19 Nov 2014 15:31:28 GMT

Hello again! Now the problem has gone worse. I lost my possibility to log in the Ido Wiktionary even at my job place when I am using my original user name. But on the contrary my alter ego which I created is still valid there. What is happening? – Artomo

The error message suggests it is a problem within the Wikimedia environment but it is beyond my expertise. I think this would benefit from a sysadmin looking at it. Do you have IRC access? If so, you could try asking at #wikimedia-tech^connect. QuiteUnusual (talk) 15:19, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I am absolutely not capable to solve this by myself. Someone else has to help me. --91.155.201.229 12:15, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Might be related to phab:T75462. --Glaisher (talk) 17:00, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Here is my "solution" to this problem. I know nothing about programming so I did what an amateur can do.
At first there were two Wikis (io.wiktionary and mhr.wikipedia) which did not let me in but on the contrary other Wikis having my account let me to log in. So I logged in io.wikipedia where I am a sysop and I selected under "Special pages" "Login unification status". Until now I didn’t use it. It gave me a list about the Wikis where I have an account and using these links I was let in every Wiki to my account. The result of this action is that now I can log in io.wikipedia and io.wiktionary only, and elsewhere not through their frontpages. Is this a normal result using "unification status"?
If I now lose the contact to io.wikis I'll be out of the Wiki-world. My hunch of amateur is that those two Wikis mentioned above (io.wiktionary and mhr.wikipedia) contain some kind of bug and the problem can't be in my browser or so. Now I am waiting how the situation will change because there have been quite a lot of unlogical suprises. --Artomo (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

You should be able to use every wiki on that list without even a need to log in. You said that you can log in only to io.wikipedia and io.wiktionary. What happens if you go to fi.wikipedia for example? Aren't you logged in automatically? What happens if you try to log in there? --Stryn (talk) 20:10, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

OK. Next surprise. This morning when I was using different IP (at working place) than yesterday (at home) I could log in io.wikipedia only. Through any other frontpage it was not possible, even in this Meta or in the fi.wikipedia. The list of the possible links which you (Stryn) gave me, is practically identical to the one under the "Login unification status" in io.wikipedia. Those links does function fine after being logged in io.wikipedia. Now I am waiting for the next surprise. --Artomo (talk) 07:13, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

To whom this might be interesting: The conditions described above seems to be resting. Using one IP address I have access to two Wikis and using other IP address I have access to one Wiki only. After being logged in I can use my accounts elsewhere. Maybe somebody someday can explain this. --Artomo (talk) 06:54, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, there is discussion also in fiwiki. Not any solutions though. Artomo if it is possible test following thing. Next time when you are not able to login you could try to open private window tab (or incognito tab in chrome etc) and test if using private tab will change anything. If you are able to log in with private tab the i would like ask you to test log in again with normal tab. Second question is that can you describe the network operator which you are using when problem occurs (eg is it Elisa/Saunalahti only or does it happen with other network operators too) --Zache (talk) 17:40, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Active Filters isn't up to date

This list isn't correct. At least global filter 104 is active. -- Juetho (talk) 09:12, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we can't always keep it up-to-date as global filters are modified very frequently these days. I've updated that list a bit and added a note about how to obtain an up-to-date list of global filters. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Glaisher (talk)

Set filter 104 to disallow

I recommend to check a list of English words and disallow such content on all non-English projects, at least.

See b:de:Special:AbuseFilter/14 and c:Special:AbuseFilter/112 or 113 by billinghurst (all of them are private). -- Juetho (talk) 09:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Filter 104 is fine the way it is. The spam bots don't seem to continue after a warning. Also, I strongly disagree with your suggestion to prevent writing in English on non-English projects, even if it were possible (it's not, since there's no way to detect project language). Some examples of why:

• There are plenty of articles which should include English terms, for example an article about the United Kingdom should include its native name, or a public domain short poem/song in English accompanied by translation would be OK. An article about English grammar or quoting a famous scientist should use English words too. There are lots of other cases, but I will leave it at this for now.
• Like it or not, English is the default lingua franca, at least as far as Wikimedia is concerned. Global messages, bot requests, requests for help, etc. may be written in any language -- preventing valid communication is a big no-no.
• Language detection is not perfect. There are many ways to detect languages, such as using trigrams, or (as suggested) checking for a few common words. However, it would be hard to find the right balance between false positives and false negatives. For example, "the" is not only an English word, but also a word in Gothic, Danish, Interlingua, Irish, Murrinh-Patha, Old Saxon, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, and Welsh (if we include accented versions, then French, Italian, and Vietnamese are added). It also goes without saying that Scots is lexically very similar to modern English, and this proposed filter would probably catch a significant portion of written Scots too.

To reiterate: it's not something we can do currently, would definitely prevent adding valid (and useful) content, would hinder cross-project coordination, and could result in many false positives. I can't read the filters you linked, so I can't comment on them. PiRSquared17 (talk) 06:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

False Positive

Where is the place for the global filter's false-positive? kowiki received false positive report for global filter at ko:백:편집 필터/오동작 (last section). — Revi 05:07, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

For now, this page and SRM would be the pages to report FPs, I believe. --Glaisher (talk) 05:50, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Filter #69 seems it is not set to block subpages, but Special:AbuseLog/58706. — Revi 04:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)