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Logging AfD nomination or participation by new user

Events like what has recently been posted at WP:ANI made me look at the interaction of some AfDs where I noticed various participants that jumped into AfD after very few edits. It's only an idea up for consideration, but perhaps that an edit filter logging this could be useful to patrollers and for investigations into AfD related trolling/scams in the future. —PaleoNeonate – 12:07, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Maybe not always scam, but Special:Contributions/Mrradmand is suspicious; months of absence and then suddenly turning up to AfD with weak arguments... @Drmies: Does this ring any bell on the you-know-what front? This kind of filter would definitively be useful. I have some clues about specifics but don't think it's wise saying anything further openly. Obviously log-only. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:17, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
That's more frequently the behavior of someone who needs a few more edits to get autoconfirmed--often these are paid editors. Now, among their deleted edits are a few edits to Aidin Ardjomandi, which was written up by User:MrInfo2012, who was just blocked as a paid editor by MER-C... Drmies (talk) 03:39, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
MER-C, I just blocked User talk:IranPride as CU-confirmed and Mrradmand as "likely enough" and a behavioral match. Drmies (talk) 03:44, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Emojis

  • Task: Disallow (or at the very least log so we can check if this would have any amount of false positive) all edits by new users in article space which contain emojis - this could plausibly be extended to edit summaries too
  • Reason: There is very rarely a legitimate reason to add emojis in article space, and more frequently than not, like here, they are vandalism. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:58, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
We already have a filter to disallow emojis, filter 680. The filter might need modifying, I'll wait for a EFM come over and have a look. Pahunkat (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
...how do you even do that? Also note that is useful in user-talk space at least. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:27, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
Emphasis added for clarification. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:42, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
That edit got by 680 (hist · log) because it touched a line containing the string "nihongo". I don't know why that exception is in there. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

 Comment: You are more likely to find the emojis coming from a mobile edit, so that can be one of your filtering components, especially with an associated criteria. I regularly will utilise 👍 and 🤷 in talk nss, so just be wary what you wish for. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:31, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Interesting diff here. Emoji in edit summary... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:13, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
The filter doesn't check edit summaries. I don't think it'd be a good idea to add them in (since, well, emojis in edit summaries aren't really disruptive, and mobile users especially might use them more often). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Brief or misleading edit summaries can be an indication of vandalism

  • Task: Catch some IP vandals using super vague edit summaries in an attempt to make their edit seem legitimate. Examples include

"Added Content" "Added Info" "Facts"

Not just IPs, this also with the edit summary "Typo", not even a fixed (no, don't worry, I can't see it, but I reverted one of these so I know exactly what it is) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
"fixed" and "good" are another variant commonly seen. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:39, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Common vandalism : "YEET"

Does it also disallow 'fortnite'? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
11 (hist · log) warned for a while, but Reaper Eternal removed "fortnite" after too many FPs. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:52, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Ah, ok. Well, I was just asking. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: Doesn't appear like it caught this (yet another common vandalism word)... (apparently it caught the earlier attempts) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:00, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
We have a few uses listed on Yeet, several people called Aryeetey and a Yeeting, but legitimate references to them will be rare. Certes (talk) 00:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
@Certes and Suffusion of Yellow: Well thanks to Floquenbeam for reporting there are still some examples which evade the filter in main space, ex. [2]... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:56, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Don't we have a generic filter for catching repetition, other than 135 which would require more repetitions? (\w{2,10})(.?\1){3} is my naive first try but probably rather expensive. Certes (talk) 23:54, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Probably due to the word boundary on yeet. One easy way is just to encapsulate it in a group and slap a + on the end, ie \b(?:y+ee+t+(?:e+(?:r+|d+))?)+\b. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:57, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

BLP vandalism or libel

Can the word "nonce" be added to the BLP vandalism filter? It is almost never used legitimately and is often used in BLP-violating vandalism. It means "sex offender". Any time it is added to a biographical article, it is always vandalism, as nonce is a slang term that is never used legitimately. Steve M (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

One legitimate use would be in software engineering. See Cryptographic nonce. (though I'm guessing the BLP vandalism filter is limited to the Living people category) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:02, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader, yeah, but if it is limited to the Living People category, it would neatly filter out vandalism with virtually no false positives. Steve M (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
We do already have this in both filters 39 and 189. Also, archived discussion. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:43, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
That is good to know. Thanks. Steve M (talk) 22:52, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
What about notable cryptographers? A good idea would be to whitelist all cryptographers. (It took me a good 10 seconds to spell cryptopgrapher!) Sungodtemple a tcg fan!!1!11!! (talk)
Are there many biographical articles on notable cryptographers where a non-autoconfirmed editor is likely to add a previously non-existing discussion of a nonce? I suspect not. But also, due to the way this and many filters are constructed, a whitelist for one word is not a very practical solution. Additionally, these filters are only set to warn and tag, not disallow, so the edit will probably be made anyway. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:27, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

No refs in headings

This could apply also on talk pages or anywhere else were inexperienced users might try adding content. A potential variant would be preventing (warn seems appropriate) having an edit request (whichever exact variant) template (or in fact, any template, except maybe some substituted ones, if there are valid examples) in the section header, i.e. == {{edit request}} ==. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:08, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
{{anchor}} is the obvious example of a template validly found in headings. Certes (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Other than that? Would there be too many other exceptions? I don't know how complex the edit filter can get for this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
@Certes: I just looked at the documentation, and except for some cases where it should be substituted, even anchor is better not directly within the heading markup, but just before. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:42, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
I wasn't proposing a full "reject" filter necessarily, I would be fine with a warning too. I just think something should be done. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 00:00, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
The thing about the filter is that it runs before save (and hence contributes to the condition limit). Things like this, which are just informational tagging, are best done post-save if at all. I wish we had some kind of recent-changes bot (or the concept of post-edit filters ran as a deferred task) which would match edits and just tag them somewhere. It's probably easy enough to do using a bot, to be honest. Whilst we're below the condition count I guess this doesn't really matter, but this just doesn't feel like something the filter should be doing, to me. Reason being I don't like the idea of the filter being used for 'quality control'. But maybe that's just me. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:28, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Slight bone to pick...sometimes it might be easier/more expedient to put a link in a header on article-talk/user-talk/noticeboards when referencing vandalism or some other kind of issue. I get that linkage isn't supposed to happen in article headers but I think user talk/article-talk/noticeboards are a different matter. Shearonink (talk) 16:46, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
This isn't about putting wikilinks in headers; as far as I understood it. It's about having templates in headers, which are usually best avoided... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:55, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Non-autoconfirmed user rapidly reverting edits

Just a note: it probably would be more useful if this filter, once triggered, would block further instances around the same time the bot reports to AIV for triggering the filter 5+ times instead of simply logging while allowing further disruption. It can take 20 minutes and over before derp revert vandals get blocked while a small army of patrollers must remain active to revert each edit, which appears suboptimal (i.e. see the still-ongoing 114.17.235.146). Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 02:52, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

So disruption persisted for 34 minutes for this IP address alone. —PaleoNeonate – 02:58, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
29 minutes before 46.150.88.31 was stopped/blocked. —PaleoNeonate – 04:04, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I'd support this for a trial period. Checking the last 500 times this filter fired, just a handful of the Ips that triggered it are not blocked as of now. CrowCaw 19:16, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Support setting 249 to disallow! These types of vandals are far too difficult to deal with. I have only on one occasion seen a new editor going on a good reversion spree where they were cleaning up someone's else's vandalism. – Thjarkur (talk) 14:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
    Support as well. Happens way too often, and it's kinda irritating to see a small group of antivandals keep having to revert whilst a report sits at a backlogged AIV. Some of the changes, like the one I reference, are particularly problematic.
    Autoconfirmed is not a particularly limiting requirement for something like this. I would support moving this to block.
    Again, per the edit filter log for 249, most times this is done it is vandalism. On very few occasions (like this) it's an IP editor reverting vandalism, but these are things that would be picked up very quickly by recent changes patrollers anyway. ProcrasinatingReader (talk) 16:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Halkawt zaher

There is a sockpuppetteer (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ahmaddler) who repeatedly creates and recreates pages titled/about "Halkawt zaher" (in various capitalisations) anywhere they can, despite many problems (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Continued spamming, lack of communication and general NOTHERE behaviour from User:Ahmaddler). It seems to me like an edit filter that prevented non-autoconfirmed editors from creating pages with this title or with that phrase in the content would be helpful in this case.

Pinging those who commented at ANI/SPI @Victor Schmidt, Timtrent, Deepfriedokra, Joseywales1961, Spiderone, and Oshwah: Thryduulf (talk) 14:46, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with how edit filters work (have only ever looked at problem editors filter logs). But this one was widespread and a took a lot of work by Timtrent tracking down the socks. To me it seems a filiter would have been helpful here and in the similar cases we all discover on NPP, RC patrol etc. JW 1961 Talk 14:56, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Thryduulf, not having a huge amount of anything more than assumptions about edit filters I support the concept. They will get around it even if blocked by using user and talk pages, though, as they have been doin all along Fiddle Faddle 15:02, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Tracking 1125 (hist · log). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
I added this phrase to 53 (hist · log). ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 16:01, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. Thryduulf (talk) 16:23, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Removal of category

Task: log removal of Category:Hijacked journals. Reason: persistent socking; also simply suspicious for it to be removed... Diff: [3] - Simply log or tag if the relevant category is present in an article and is then removed by a sufficiently new account... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:26, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Any SPIs or evidence that this is a continuing issue (eg more diffs)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:30, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: Well there's Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Szniedersneir which has been going on for at least a month... Given what we know about predatory journals, it's not unlikely others would be trying to attempt to hide their reputation. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, that's just one report and no archives on the SPI afaics. And Category:Hijacked journals only has a couple dozen pages. Just have the feeling that this isn't a common issue, but possibly (along with the predatory journals cat) it is more frequent? Pinging in Headbomb also for thoughts. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
It's not a particular high priority issue, but it wouldn't be silly to track removal either. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:44, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

George MacKay hate campaign

Lately, for many months, I have been noticing an LTA hate campaign to attack George MacKay. The edits are all deleted. The range is 176.201.0.0/16 but has been spreading to other ranges. Affected articles include George MacKay (actor), True History of the Kelly Gang (film), Ophelia (2018 film), Captain Fantastic (film). I have screenshots of the edits, which I can share to trusted users, such as edit filter helpers/managers, if they email me. I cannot say anything about possible filter details per Wikipedia:BEANS, but if anyone wants to inquire further about this, please email me. Steve M (talk) 22:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I count at least 30 ranges used by this person since at least 2017 - they are Italia Telecom ranges, which are two a penny - but, yes, this person has taken against George MacKay (actor) in recent months (and also Jonathan Pryce this month), adding particularly derogatory comments to related pages. Partial rangeblocks are in place on two frequently used ranges but are largely ineffective. Current remedy is to watch and semi-protect affected pages (see also Wolf (upcoming film), Marrowbone (film), Munich (2021 film), 1917 (2019 film)). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 18:40, 10 March 2021 (UTC)Mackay.
My idea might be unkosher, but here goes: set up filters on the affected pages that'll not only revert edits with specific words or phrases (this vandal has a few) but block them at the same time. They've no interest in changing their ways, so the quicker we drop the hammer the better. I don't have the knowledge or authority to set up any filters myself. What's your idea?Crboyer (talk) 23:59, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
ammendment: ammend the proposed filter(s) if they get some new insults and modify/deactivate them if, for whatever reason, those words become relevant in a legitimate context. Crboyer (talk) 00:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
@Steve M: (hope you return), @Malcolmxl5 and Crboyer: doing something about this. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, the miscreant has been particularly active this week. (P.S. do come back Steve M!). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 22:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
P.P.S. Other pages targeted: Where Hands Touch, Been So Long (film), Pride (2014 film) - all films that feature George MacKay (actor). --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 22:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Automatic blocking can be dangerous, but a bot might examine the log regularly and report miscreants to AIV for a block to be considered. Certes (talk) 01:06, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
AFAIK blocking via the edit filter is currently not enabled on English WP. It's possible for the usual bots to report anyone triggering this to AIV immediately, but other than that... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
OK, do whatever you can. This user needs to be reported on sight whenever they act up. Starting off with Level 1 warnings is simply being polite, but I digress. As I said, they're not interested in changing their ways, and now that they've resorted to threatening a family member of the subject, they gotta be dealt with far quicker. Whatever page they mess with should be protected for a long time, too.Crboyer (talk) 05:10, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

"Books" by Heinz Duthel

  • Task: In Mainspace, warn or block edits upon attempted addition of references to works claimed to be by the author "Heinz Duthel".
  • Reason: Heinz Duthel is a bad-faith actor known to plagiarise Wikipedia for self promotion, in violation of our licensing policy, and reproducing content as self-published "books" which find their way to Google Books and other repositories. Unknowing good-faith editors citing those bad sources have repeatedly resulted in cases of WP:citogenesis.
  • Diffs: Special:Diff/874529558, etc. See my recent contributions for removals. Not all additions are in the form of Google Books links, and their are too many to list, so blacklisting is not suited here.

--Paul_012 (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

@Paul 012: It looks like most references you have been removing were using citation templates from looking at random few of them. There is also at least one that was outside of <ref/> tags here. Were there a significant number of them that do not use templates or outside <ref/> tags? ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 17:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Hmm. Initial thoughts: Special:Diff/874529558 was added by an established editor. If this were a sock spamming promo of themselves I'd be more open to the filter, but if it's established editors adding these works I'm more wary on whether usage of a filter is appropriate (without consulting the community in a broader venue as to whether they want this)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:16, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Aseleste, a couple used Harvard citations, a couple were listed as stand-alone general references (with cite book templates), one used Template:Google books, but either <ref /> tags or some kind of template were used in all cases, as far as I recall.
ProcrastinatingReader, I guess it could go through WP:RSN to be marked as a deprecated source, but I didn't think that was necessary, since these uses were quite clearly good-faith mistakes. Maybe a warning would be adequate for purposes of calling attention to the fact that the source should be avoided? --Paul_012 (talk) 17:37, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Generally, the filter should only be used to enforce consensus. Imo this is relatively borderline (blocking citations from a certain author added by established editors before) to the point where community consensus (probably at RSN) that this is okay before implementation would be preferable, but this is by no means a veto if a different EFM thinks this is okay to implement as-is. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps simply logging that the edit matches the filter may already be useful enough to an editor like Paul_012 to undo and explain the rationale behind it while not affecting edits by experienced editors much at all. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 18:12, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think I or other editors will be actively monitoring the tag. Since most additions are by experienced editors stumbling upon them while looking for books sources to back up a claim, it'll probably be more useful as a warning to help them realise they overlooked the reliability issue. I just realised though that there's already filter 894 for self-published sources. The publisher "Books on Demand" should in any case be added there. I'll ask at WP:RSN to see if others think Duthel needs more specific action. --Paul_012 (talk) 05:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Speaking of which, is there currently a filter or similar mechanism to flag citations to Wikipedia mirrors? --Paul_012 (talk) 05:30, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Duthel is also cited on dewiki. I'm not fluent in German but have notified its embassy. Certes (talk) 10:43, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Update:Aseleste, ProcrastinatingReader, the RSN post doesn't appear to be attracting discussion, but I think it should be straightforward to go ahead and add "Books on Demand" to filter 894 as mentioned above. This would have covered over half of the cases. "Neobooks" and "ePubli" are also vanity publishers found in some of the cases. More specific action can follow if consensus develops. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:57, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that kind of RS-related filter (894, SPS). Perhaps @Suffusion of Yellow and Crow: will be able to help? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
This seems like an obvious addition. But honestly I've never paid much attention to how it was decided to a add publishers to the "unreliable source" filters. It's been mostly JzG, Headbomb, and Newslinger working on these. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
@Paul 012: Thanks for looking out for inappropriate citations of self-published material. Edit filter 894 ("Self-Published Sources") attempts to identify these citations by looking at the domain name of the URL. Lulu.com (RSP entry) and several other vanity presses are included in the filter, because editors have been inappropriately citing pages (usually, listings that allow the visitor to buy the books) from their websites. On the other hand, Books on Demand does not appear to have listings for individual books on their website. (Compare the 27 search results for pages on booksondemand.com to the 451,000 search results for pages on lulu.com.) Unfortunately, this means it is not feasible to craft an edit filter for Books on Demand, since there is no way to track citations of their published books by domain name. — Newslinger talk 08:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Neobooks (4,000 search results for pages on neobooks.com) and ePubli (60,100 search results for pages on epubli.de) look more promising for inclusion in an edit filter. If you are interested in having the domains of these publishers edit-filtered, please start a discussion on the reliable sources noticeboard to confirm that there are no issues with filtering their domains (with edit filter 894, "Self-Published Sources"). — Newslinger talk 08:45, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Filter for moving drafts to mainspace

  • Task: This filter will block page moves from draftspace to mainspace unless if the user has the "new page reviewer"/"autoreviewer" or "sysop" rights. Or a new right could be created called "afcreviewer" for this purpose.
  • Reason: There are so many new users moving their drafts to mainspace after creation. Unfortunately, many of these pages are not ready for mainspace.
  • Diffs: [4] and more.

The warning could be something like "This is not the right way to submit your draft for review. Please go back and add {{subst:Submit}} to the bottom of the draft. An AfC or new page reviewer will move your article to mainspace if it is ready to be viewed by the public." Aasim (talk) 05:31, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

AfC is not required by any policy (except for non-confirmed editors, for which it is enforced by technical restrictions). Accordingly, this would be an inappropriate use of the filter absent explicit community consensus (likely via a CENT-advertised RfC) to do this. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:39, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Any account which can move a draft into mainspace could create it there by other means, which we wouldn't wish to encourage. Certes (talk) 11:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Agree. This filter would just encourage other means. So not getting done? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:16, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
How about tagging the edit instead? The tag could be "Editor moving draft to mainspace". Then we can review it later. Aasim (talk) 20:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
We already more or less have a filter similar to this but there's no prohibition on anyone moving a draft into mainspace with very few exceptions. VAXIDICAE💉 20:39, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Prevent removing lang-tr templates

-- RoySmith (talk) 17:31, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I think
page_namespace == 0 & 
!("extendedconfirmed" in user_groups) & (
  templates := "{{(lang\|tr|lang-tr)";
  removed_lines irlike templates &
  !added_lines irlike templates
)
or similar should do it (at least it works in the test filter, people who are actually good at regex could probably improve on the code here). Not sure how much collateral we'd be generating though, especially with a bar that high. Blablubbs|talk 17:57, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Blablubbs, If you wanted to start with autoconfirmed instead of XC, that would still be useful, and cut down on the collateral. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Is it possible to filter on categories? Limiting this to any article in Category:Cyprus would work. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:04, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Or, if you can't filter on cats, just looking for "cyprus" or "cypriot" anywhere in the text should be close enough. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't know of any way to parse what category (tree) something is in directly, but something like 
old_wikitext irlike "Category:.*(cypr(us|iot)" &
might do the trick. Might be a good idea to set the filter to log only for a while, see how many false positives it catches and then decide whether to narrow the filter. Blablubbs|talk 20:26, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Blablubbs, Unfortunately, that won't do it. Evrychou, for example, is only in Category:Communities in Nicosia District, which rolls up to Category:Cyprus. But, looking for Cyprus anywhere in the text should be fine. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:08, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
1125 (hist · log), but if I had to bet it probably won't get many relevant hits because the sock will likely change their editing habits. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:42, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader, Maybe, but removing Turkish names seems to be this guy's core interest. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:09, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Death threats filter

  • Task: Remove stuff like "I WILL KILL YOU"
  • Reason: Commonly used by vandals
  • Diffs: None, you know why

Firestar464 (talk) 07:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm hoping this is there already but, if not, we could widen the scope. I've been threatened with being blocked (by an editor who wasn't even autoconfirmed), fined $10,000 and having my Wikipedia account deleted if I remove various spam. Nothing credible or worrying, and somewhat less serious than dying, but it shouldn't be there. No diffs either (though I could find some), but making this effective without FPs would be difficult. ("I will kill you", said Alice, as part of a perfectly accurate plot summary.) Certes (talk) 09:27, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
(removed a message consisting of nonsense and personal attack in caps) ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 11:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Stuff like [10] (redacted, obviously) really should be stopped by the filter. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:29, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

"Everything" as an edit summary

Should be added to 970 or Common vandal summaries as nearly all edits with this summary are massive removal of content. BlueCrabRedCrab 22:35, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

@BlueCrabRedCrab: It would be nice to show some diffs. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 04:45, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Found one: Special:Diff/1016678619. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 14:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
thanks. --BlueCrabRedCrab 01:57, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
It looks like adding the phrase to Special:AbuseFilter/981 is reasonable. ~ Aseleste (t, e | c, l) 07:14, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Large number vandalism

  • Task: Disallow extremely large changes to numbers in article space, at least for non-confirmed users.
  • Reason: Vandals will sometimes change numbers in articles to absurd values, such as changing a number in the hundreds to one in the millions. Most instances I've seenof changing a number by much more than an order of magnitude are not legitimate.
  • Diffs: 1, 2, 3

TornadoLGS (talk) 03:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

More Diffs: 4 TornadoLGS (talk) 22:35, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Sneed to Chuck vandalism (Thanks to The Simpsons...)

Public discussion of this subject is no longer productive. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 16:15, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

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.

  • Task: Put a stop to or at least slow down the trolling/vandalism based on a place seen in the The Simpsons episode E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)#Legacy - "Sneed's Feed and Seed Formerly Chuck's". Based on a meme, named accounts and IPs continually change the occurrence of the place-name/surname "Sneed" to "Chuck" wherever it occurs in Wikipedia.
  • Reason: Please take a look at the edit histories of all the articles listed at disambiguation page Sneed, especially the WP:BIO and WP:BLP articles...almost every single one of these articles has suffered from this ongoing vandalism/trolling at one time or another, as examples Floyd Sneed, Carly Fiorina, Meg Sneed, etc.. This is happening because a trolling meme, see the Know Your Meme page "Sneed's Feed and Seed Formerly Chuck's"... This editorial behavior is ongoing and persistent, dealing with it piecemeal gives sporadic results plus is so aggravating for editors to deal with... Sometimes the vandalism is missed and the error persists - keeping up with the vandalism becomes a whack-a-mole task, almost impossible to stay on top of since the perpetrators are not from a single IP-range or from singular named accounts. SO many The Simpsons fans, so many meme'ers, so many Sneed articles on Wikipedia... Myself, Robvanvee & MelanieN have become aware of this behavior (see our discussion at User talk:Robvanvee#Re the Sneed -> Chuck vandalism...). MelanieN suggested I file a request here. So here it is. Shearonink (talk) 19:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
Yes. What I suggested is that an edit filter be created, if possible, that would prohibit changing the word "Sneed" to the word "Chuck". Or would it be possible to prohibit the word "Chuck" being added to any article that has "Sneed" in its title? I suggest that because many of the vandalism edits are not a simple replacement of the name, but the addition of a phrase such as "formerly known as Chuck" or "born as Chuck". This vandalism has affected 20 or so biographical articles and even Sneed, Arkansas. I have semi-protected or PC protected some of the articles, but I wish that a more general prohibition of this edit - which is always vandalism and never legitimate - could be arranged. Thanks. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:13, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment: Again. The following Sneed articles have been hit tonight by meme'ing vandals: William Henry Sneed, Christine Sneed, Sneedville, Tennessee. Is it possible for someone with the abusefilter/edit manager right to maybe do something to stem the tide? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 03:44, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
    Hmm, seems like a good use for a filter, but I'm not how efficient one would be. Pahunkat (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
    It sure would cut down on editors' frustration on us having to deal manually with this vandalism, whack-a-mole'ing away piecemeal at this chronic ongoing trolling vandalism behavior. This is not going away, it will never stop, it is a drip-drip-drip and wears away at Wikipedia's verifiability.
Btw, just now discovered an older Sneed/Chuck meme'ing in William Henry Sneed when I was combing through all the Sneed articles I know of. I am tired of having to deal with this crap. I don't care if it catches all of the Sneed/Chuck stupidity I would be thrilled if it just caught some of it. Shearonink (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
An aside to my edit filter request but thanks to Magnolia677 for reverting the vandalism-only Sneed/Chuck edits of this user. Is an edit-filter possible or do we just "have to deal" with this chronic behavior over and over and over again?If a filter is impossible then oh well. If it is possible I am asking again...Please. Shearonink (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
@Shearonink: This looks easy at first glance; I'll try to start something today. Suffusion of Yellow (talk)
Ah Suffusion of Yellow thankyouforever. I hope it continues to be easy in every aspect. Shearonink (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
@Shearonink: Logging at 1120 (hist · log). Before disallowing, the filter will need to be refined to prevent false positives; this often takes days. If you see any examples of this that are not caught by 1120, please report here. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
That's simple - it looks like it will work, but no hits so far. I wish I could help out here but I don't know perl - only python and basic HTML/CSS, which clearly isn't going to be helpful here. Pahunkat (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow The filter caught an edit, see Sneedsboro, North Carolina edit history and edit filter log. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:51, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
I see that the filter does not take any action - just flags the edit for someone else to revert. I gather that is because it hasn't yet been tested for false positives? I can understand that. How long/how much testing is usually needed before the filter simply disallows the edit? -- MelanieN (talk) 16:24, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
@MelanieN: (also got your email; will reply later today) That really depends on how frequent the disruption is; if it's flooding in like the "Notable people" nonsense; maybe hours? But for something like this, with one (real) hit so far, there's no hurry. I'll give it a few more days at least. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. At this point it doesn't seem to be urgent. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:00, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Cheeky myself has done a one off test, see the log - it seems to be working. (I'm not planning on using that account for anything else, ever: if you really want to you can block it). Support setting to disallow. I don't know about false positives, though. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:31, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
An aside...the thing I've noticed with this trolling/vandalism is that it happens in waves. There won't be anything for ages and then - WHAMMO! - all the Sneeds & Sneed-towns etc get hit with persistent crap-editing for a period of time. And then it dies down... I've been checking the filter quite regularly and things are very very quiet at the moment. Heh, maybe it has something to do with when the episode E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) is seen in syndication, the meme gets some media coverage, or it pops up on one of the "chans" again. Thanks everyone for keeping an eye on this, Shearonink (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
PS - I don't know if this is necessary but wanted to point out that it's not just the particular word [space]Sneed[space] that gets whacked, it's also variants such as "Sneeds(boro)", "Sneed(ville)", "Sneed's pincushion cactus", "Boyce–Sneed feud" and so on that get hit (see Sneed). Shearonink (talk) 22:25, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Another thing to keep in mind is that the filter should also account for possible mispellings (Chuk..., etc), unless that's already the case. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow When does the edit filter start snagging & stopping the meme'ing? I see that it caught a couple today but the edits are still going through... I ask a lot of questions about the process because I want to understand how it all works. This is the first filter I have requested so I am a noob at all of this. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
@Shearonink: There's no fixed process; it's a matter of when someone feels confident enough flip the "disallow" bit. I have done so; please report anything that slips past the filter. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:19, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Ah, I see...the filter gets written, the filter-writer lets it run to make sure it doesn't catch extraneous stuff but it's just running in the background and isn't "live" yet, someone has to turn it on. Didn't know that. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 04:15, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

We had a bunch of them on the 22nd and again on the 24th. I see that the ones on the 24 were disallowed, so I guess that is now the action taken by the filter? Thanks, Suffusion of Yellow, this should almost totally solve the problem. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:56, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Looks like edit filter 1120 is doing its job but the trolls are now implementing workarounds that pay homage to The Simpson's meme without strictly invoking its known parameters by changing occurrences of the phrase "Seed and Feed" to include "formerly Chuck's" or inserting new & completely false statements like "Feed and Seed stores"... Shearonink (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment: Suffusion of Yellow Such creative memesters... Another update looks like it is necessary, see blocked editor's contributions. Using © as a stand-in for C in various renderings of the word "Chuck" (©huckster, ©huck, Fu©her ©huck). Some of their edit attempts were caught by present filter. Also, see the blocked editor's change that got through of also known as Windy Hill to also known as Sneedside Hill. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
    Beginning to wonder if this is an LTA after all. Most casual vandals give up sooner than this. @Zzuuzz: Do your CU-glasses give you any insights? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:34, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
    Some memes just go on. However it is true that the latest editor ("Sneedside Hill") was an LTA - User:TryToBeFunny, who is very into memes, if always late. I'll keep an eye on that - we have methods available for that one. I'm not seeing any others or much else. As a general observation, there's a couple of very unusual countries in the filter log, so someone might have hopped on to a proxy or two at some point - not unusual for memers. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:09, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
    I was going to report that user here (and the very convenient list of articles in their contributions - seems that anything that had "sneed" in the title is a convenient target for this kind of abuse) after I noticed one of their edits on an article history but if that's already dealt with... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Ah...well that is possible. I remain unconvinced but whomever it is or they are, what persistence. If the filter is marked private I am hopeful that I can still "see" it... Thanks for all your work on this issue. Shearonink (talk) 00:59, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
I am almost of the opinion that the related disambiguation page could possibly be being utilized as a vandalizing resource. Perhaps a filter could be crafted that jumps off of the entries of this disambiguation page?... Shearonink (talk) 01:40, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
I have put the disambiguation page Sneed under indefinite semi-protection. That won't solve the problem everywhere but it might at least slow down the non-spelling-related vandalism. -- MelanieN (talk) 03:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
And now they've found ways of doing it that no filter could catch: [12] I'll semi-protect that page too, but just for a week. Let me know if it resumes. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
BTW about whether all this is coming from one person: it's possible, but if so they have a good way of spoofing their IPs. I am not a checkuser, but the most recent three IPs geolocate to different countries - even different continents. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:29, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
We could catch that sort of thing: prevent adding "feed and seed" (also "Feed & Seed" etc.) to pages which contain Chuck or Sneed but not "feed" or "seed". Certes (talk) 17:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow Another attempt that got through (& was manually corrected)...looks like a parameter for adding "seed n feed", "seed and feed", "seed & feed", or even just "seed" or "feed" might need to be added to the filter? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
The addition of a "fun fact" should also be a red flag. (If it's a fact, let it in; if it's fun, even better; but don't describe it as such.) Certes (talk) 11:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow FYI... see this. Shearonink (talk) 04:23, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
  • This is clearly an LTA. Suggest that further discussion about this not happen here in the open due to obvious beans concerns... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:09, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment: I Like Pie739 I'm sort of new to this thing but I've been checking in on this lately cause the guy has not given up. Not sure if you guys are aware but they have semi-protection on all but one page now. As a note to what RandomCanadian said above, yeah this guy has been writing KYS JANNIES and similar stuff on a bunch of the spoofed IP's so I'm certain it's down to one really persistant guy. Sorry if I'm not helpful by writing this comment, I'm new to this and just doing my best to keep the vandalism down. I just want to say thank you guys for working on this and I hope we put an end to this dumb joke soon enough. I Like Pie739™ 22:36, 16 April 2021 (PST)
    @I Like Pie739: Thanks. Unfortunately, this LTA seems to taking energy from discussions like this one, so it's best to keep our thoughts to email or other private channels from now on. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 16:13, 19 April 2021 (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.

Geological infobox vandalism

Talk:Wikipedia

A lot if not many edits on that talk page seem to entirely ignore both the talk page banners and the edit notice. Semi-protection is apparently off-limits due to the high visibility of the page. I'd wonder if any existing filter, such as the one for self-promotional edits (those where the username matches the subject being promoted), could be adapted and set to disallow on that page and that page only (so as to reduce some of the spam). Alternatively, a dedicated filter which gives an additional warning to all non-AC edits could be an option, though I'm not sure if that would dissuade anybody since they're already ignoring the banners and the edit notice. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:22, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Some of it is just disparate nonsense. I don't see how a filter could reliably catch much of this stuff. I guess some of the "yay" or "poop" crap could (maybe should already?) be flagged but other than that... ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:44, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Single-page problems are often better dealt with by page protection rather than filters. Certes (talk) 10:48, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I would also argue that page protection should be the solution here - has it been established (e.g. at RFPP) that protection is undesirable? Personally I think that if there is significant disruptive editing or vandalism (and from a cursory look there does appear to be) then in my opinion this outweighs any ideological concerns about "anyone can edit". ƒirefly ( t · c ) 12:10, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
@El C: You're the one that declined the protection here so guess we could use your input. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:41, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
My view remains that this article talk page does not merit long-term semiprotection at this point in time. I think, rather, we should aim to keep this particular page open to the uttermost, since it is the page about the project (by extension, representing it), so some extra attention and grunt work is a worthwhile pursuit. Report flareups in disruptive activity for brief protection durations. A wider community discussion (probably not at this somewhat niche board) is something to consider undertaking if a community decision were to be sought. I'll obviously go with the flow there. But as far as this being a followup to me having recently declined an RfPP request for this page, I stand by it. El_C 15:48, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm not seeing much of a pattern there. There's test edits and spam and some mobile editors who haven't been told what the page is for. Single-page filters are generally not worth the trouble unless the disruption is severe. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

New editor changing nationality

  • Task: Tag edits made by IP or non-autoconfirmed users who are changing nationality
  • Reason: There has been a spree of edits by User Lil Pablo 2007 and IP 91.211.65.101 that have been changing British to English when there is clear consensus to keep as British.
  • Diffs: 1

LOMRJYO(talk•contrib) 14:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the consensus is that there is no consensus, and styles shouldn't be changed arbitrary or in bulk, a bit like WP:CITEVAR? (WP:UKNATIONALS). Whereas I guess these edits are disruptive, I'm not sure the filter should be used for tagging violations of disparate consensuses. But I'm not going to object if someone else feels otherwise, of course. I suppose the recent activities of Lil_Pablo_2007 move this into sockpuppetry territory (possibly LTA territory if they keep it up), most arbitrary changes probably won't be LTAs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
I think to keep out of false positive territory there ought to be a (private) threshold for the filter to register, either rate or number of edits, and it would only flag, not deny. Acroterion (talk) 16:35, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Extend deprecated sources filter to Portal namespace

  • Task: Extend 869 (adding deprecated sources) to Portal namespace (100)
  • Reason: I noticed a few recent entries on Portal:Current events using the deprecated China Global Television Network as a source. It appears the current filter only works on Article, User, Template and Draft namespaces. We should warn users and tag edits for Portal namespace as well.
  • Diffs: [13], [14]

the wub "?!" 18:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure, done. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

General filter: Making an image super big

Can there be a filter on new users making images massive? One such edit is here and I believe that there is no legitimate reason for a new user to make any image that big. I have met it a few times and virtually 100% of such edits by new users is vandalism. Only vandals do it, and it can crash browsers. aeschyIus (talk) 20:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Tracking 1 ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:41, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader, why wasn't this hit by the filter? aeschyIus (talk) 13:31, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
The parameter is called |imagesize= whereas filter was expecting an underscore. Added; thanks :) Inconsistency between infoboxes and support for various aliases will probably be an issue in general, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:55, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Libel LTA

This vandalism is an IP LTA that is known to do this to BLPs. I am using this as an example as it is not a living person and doesn't need rev-del. Alse see this I have seen Ponyo (who likely knows much more about this guy) block an IP that did this many months ago, and they continue until today. More diffs are impossible as most of the edits have been deleted/suppressed. They use the exact same phrase on many different articles, so a filter is a good idea. aeschyIus (talk) 21:53, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I think I made a suggestion for a filter like this to GeneralNotability a long time ago, but haven't gotten around to looking into it again since my EFM flag. I'm not sure it's all one LTA, but in any case this stuff is also done by random users. Keeping it out of FP territory will be some work but this kind of filter is probably a good idea. We probably have a few overlapping filters already in this area, and I note that revision was logged. I'd probably need more diffs to construct a decent filter out of this. If an admin can email me a few of the variety that'd help. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:08, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader, see this. I linked to a few diffs that were not deleted properly. Also ask Muboshgu. He has had to deal with this guy since 2019. aeschyIus (talk) 12:16, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
I have encountered this LTA in American politics, at Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, Hubert Humphrey, Marco Rubio, and others that I can't recall off the top of my head. Glancing at IPs, they've also hit Kate Hudson. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:08, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader and @Muboshgu. Some filter can be made to deal with this. They use the same phrases and have a predictable style in vandalizing (always changes the name on the top of the infobox and adds an offensive sentence in the beginning). Is any type of filter possible? aeschyIus (talk) 16:49, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Warn on the addition of file:/// URLs as references

  • Task: Prevent Warn on the addition of file URLs (file:///path/foo/bar/baz.ext) in ref tags or as external links, as they do not work on the Internet. (Changed 'prevent' to 'warn on', as that is all that should be necessary)
  • Reason: Pretty self-explanatory - file URLs only work for the user that adds them, as they reference a file on that user's local computer. There is no reason ever to have these in articles.
  • Diffs: Take your pick from this search (hat tip to Chlod). Here is one specific diff.

ƒirefly ( t · c ) 07:42, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

@Firefly: As this is an edit that would usually be made in good faith, an edit filter disallowing such edits would require community consensus, per WP:EF. Warning might be a more productive route anyway. Sam Walton (talk) 09:38, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Ah of course, apologies, I'd forgotten that point. That's entirely fair - warning the user that they won't work should be all that's needed. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 10:20, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
A filter like this does already exist, though, and unfortunately it hasn't stopped a lot of edits from getting through. For some reason, compared to yesterday's 189 edits from the search linked by Firefly above, the results now stand at 259 hits. I guess it might be reasonable to assume that people just skip the warning. Some of these diffs are also (for some reason) inserted by extended confirmed users, which isn't caught by the aforementioned filter. Though they might be editing in good faith, it's extremely unhelpful to the wiki as it causes a lot of inserted edits to be unverifiable, and that can't be resolved unless we contact the editor who added it, or outright remove the (essentially unsourced) content. If it's community consensus that would be required, I'm willing to take this to WP:VPP for further discussion. Chlod (say hi!) 12:40, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Or perhaps maybe 1016 can be modified so that it warns all users instead of just unconfirmed users? And then we'll see what happens maybe a week or a month after that. Chlod (say hi!) 12:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
If we do something to detect or deter such links, edit filter or not, let's also check for C:\... etc. Certes (talk) 10:23, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Seems like a pretty innocent way to give away ones real name (via their /Users/name/ path). Makes sense to me to have this enabled for all users; @Suffusion of Yellow: thoughts on modifying 1016 to remove the user group check? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:05, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes; also /home/jsmith on Linux, etc. Certes (talk) 10:16, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
I removed the user group check, and marked the filter private, only to keep the log hidden. Here is the new version of the filter
equals_to_any(page_namespace, 0, 2, 118) &
(
    link := "file://";
    added_lines irlike link &
    !(removed_lines irlike link)
) &
!("bot" in user_groups) &
!(summary irlike "^(?:revert|restore|rv|undid)") &
!("URI scheme" in new_wikitext)
I'm not checking for C:\ or /Users/foo or /home/foo because I don't know what sort of FPs that would cause. I can test them in a separate filter, but wouldn't those strings typically be part of a file:// URL and caught anyway? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:32, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
The "file://" link results from a user dragging a file into a chrome tab and then copy-pasting the resulting link. I'm pretty sure "file://" is added by chrome and doesn't have anything to do with the OS file structure, but I could be wrong. Also, what kind of FPs are you worried about? Catalyzzt (talk) 14:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I think when people do this it's because they open it in their browser and copy and paste that URL in, not realising that file is not accessible to others. I don't think people go Rightclick -> Properties -> copy the file path and paste that in. The Chrome point may be valid, but can we test that Firefox/IE/etc aren't also adding file://? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:57, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Filter to stop mass move request vandalism

  • Task: Stop dynamic IP editors related to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mike Matthews17 from vandalism related to mass page move.
  • Reason: The IP editors pick a talk page (from an expanding list) and request disruptive mass page moves which, if not reverted quickly, will cause RMCBot to post the requested move to multiple talk pages. This dates back to early 2020 at least. They impersonate @Iggy the Swan: and often ping in other users/admin from wp:footy such as @ChrisTheDude:. I feel that a combination of key words they always use in the requested move (eg Hart, Sock, Lion) would be sufficient to filter out these edits and prevent a lot of RMCBot related disruption, whilst causing as near to zero as possible false positives.
  • Diffs: from 2020 [15], from 2021 (with a much longer list of RMs) [16], [17]

Gricehead (talk) 19:41, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Blocking the strings "Jonathan Field", "Harry Kirby", "William van den Berg" and "Noah Watters" in text and edit summary would be helpful and would not have any false positives. Other ranges used by this user: [18][19][20][21] – Thjarkur (talk) 12:12, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, great thinking. We are unlikely to have any famous people with those names at present though Harry Kirby is linked on this page and there's no article on that person. I should think Thjarkur's suggestion will work in blocking out those strings. Thanks, Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 21:00, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Edit to add: no longer just IPs involved in this disruption, non EC users as well. See Special:Contributions/Ron_Carlsen12 and Special:Contributions/Theresa_Wachowski42 from today. Gricehead (talk) 10:37, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
Now tracking in both a narrower filter and a broader one. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: Did this edit not trigger the filter? Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 09:38, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
It did, but filter is log only ATM. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:59, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Moving to disallow as no FPs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:00, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. It certainly stops impersonating me for one thing and causing RMCDBot to make dozens of edits which e.g. this text was removed manually by a certain user which had to be done on other affected pages as well. Hopefully one of our LTA's would never do this abuse again. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 21:02, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Inappropriately inserting "dababy" into random articles?

I have noticed a subtle trend where a vandal inserts the word "dababy" inappropriately into articles. Is a filter appropriate, and if not, why? aeschyIus (talk) 17:52, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

It's likely plenty appropriate, this seems to be some meme trend. —moonythedwarf 18:14, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
If it’s a meme trend then it’s definitely inappropriate for articles! ƒirefly ( t · c ) 18:17, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, it is likely a meme that is randomly put/replaced into infoboxes, lists, and names. This is one example. aeschyIus (talk) 18:44, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
May be related to this stupid memery although I can see no recent event that would trigger a surge now. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 19:38, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
@AeschyIus, Moonythedwarf, and Firefly: Testing in 1014 (hist · log). Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:41, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow, is there a way to whitelist all pages in Category:DaBaby albums, Category:Songs written by DaBaby, Category:DaBaby songs, and all pages with "dababy" in the title? That will cut down the false positives. I saw a false positive where a new user reverted vandalism and they were flagged by the filter due to it being a dababy song. aeschyIus (talk) 19:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
Also this (combined with the other recent trendy meme): [22] (and the other reverted edit by same IP on that page) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:23, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow, will it be possible to tag as possible vandalism in order to reduce the frequency of vandalism? aeschyIus (talk) 11:47, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
@AeschyIus: Forgot to mention yesterday that 1146 (hist · log) is warning+tagging for this. Will set to disallow soon. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow, thanks for creating the filter! I will let you know if there are any possible improvements. aeschyIus (talk) 17:59, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow, why didn't this hit the filter? aeschyIus (talk) 20:12, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
@AeschyIus: I was getting too many FPs for the usual removed_lines check, so I'm checking old_wikitext instead. The filter won't match on any page containing "DaBaby", anywhere. That will make merging into another filter tricky; hopefully the trend will die down soon. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:32, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Page blanking trend?

Lately there has been an IP that keeps blanking Wikipedia space pages and templates. It has happened on numerous occasions and I request a filter to deal with this IP. aeschyIus (talk) 20:17, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Such as? Page blanking or replacement is a pretty common vandalism thing in any case. Possibly 3 can be extended to the WP namespace, or 172 could catch them for tag. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:40, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader, yes, but there are a series of IPs that solely blank WP space pages and templates 10 per minute. aeschyIus (talk) 13:03, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Diffs? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:06, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
--Malcolmxl5 (talk) 22:28, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes. This trend had extended on for months; I have seen an IP blank discussions on the edit filter noticeboard. They never stop until they are blocked. I doubt this is an LTA: this appears be be more of a trend than one person.
Special:Contributions/210.14.97.243
Special:Contributions/2601:18A:C100:6240:C92F:E75C:B5B6:1C6E
Special:Contributions/2603:7000:9F00:A97:698F:8BCB:2DD3:23CE
Special:Contributions/2A00:1FA2:429A:EFF8:115:FDAC:93D3:EAB7
Special:Contributions/2001:44C8:411C:30D3:8832:92F7:3856:86C2
Special:Contributions/177.244.39.3
Special:Contributions/2806:103e:b::/48
See the history of Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects. Filled with IPs blanking the page. Similar for a lot of pages.
- aeschyIus (talk) 22:30, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow, the page blanking LTA is back. See Special:Contributions/27.55.66.173. Can a filter be made to stop this? aeschyIus (talk) 01:32, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
@AeschyIus: On my to-do list. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:57, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. Separately, I see Ohnoitsjamie has partially blocked 27.55.80.0/20 for six months (which covers the three IPs I mentioned above). Meanwhile, I’m keeping an eye on 210.14.0.0/16, which has gone a bit quiet at the moment. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:18, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Violence/hate filter.

  • Task: The filter would seek out edits that are hateful or violent against a specific race, ethnicity, religion, or movement/ideology. For example, if an edit is seen as calling for violence against Asian-Americans, for example, it will be logged. I would recommend the Warn option for this filter.
  • Reason: I have seen an uptick in hate edits for quite a while, especially from far-right accounts. I would credit it to the opposition and targeting of BLM or StopAsianHate, although I am not sure of its exact origin.
  • Diffs: This is a particularly obvious case of hate of minorities, coming from Barack Obama's page. Some other examples include this, this, and this.

Phantasm99 (talk) 23:27, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm slightly confused. All four of your examples were already caught by a disallow filter? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:55, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
It's by no means a complete list of examples. I have also seen some hate comments that were merely tagged or logged. Most were warned, however. Phantasm99 (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Do you have examples of ones that weren't disallowed, or ideally not tagged at all, so I can better see what you refer to? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:32, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader and Phantasm99: I think this is too wide to be filtered and logged. The n-word is already filtered, but asides from filtering blatant slurs, how will a filter help? For example, how on earth will stuff like this be reliably detected and tagged? aeschylus (talk) 23:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
I'd suspect that too, but I'm willing to take a look at the diffs if @Phantasm99: has some more they can share. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
Here is one that was only tagged. This, meanwhile, was only tagged. Although these are less extreme than the others, these were definitely hate-motivated at some capacity. Phantasm99 (talk) 02:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Issues like "Black Lives Matter" -> "Blue Lives Matter" is incredibly difficult to catch with a filter. While we could make a filter for this specific thing, there's probably any number of similar 'bad' edits, and then we'd need to account for FPs with Blue Lives Matter. Unfortunately things like that aren't really feasible for the filter, and are why human volunteers are still needed. I think ones like "(sue me)" are similar. The filter can only filter by patterns, so it is best used when there's a lot of edits exhibiting very similar and discernible linguistics. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:38, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
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