Wikipedia talk:Edit filter

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Suggested project page wording change to aid general understanding

Hi all. Even though this would not be a policy edit, I am making a suggestion here first rather than directly editing as I'm not part of the project, mainly just a tag filter user. I propose a change to the lead section, to read as follows:

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The edit filter tool, also known as the abuse filter,[1] is a Wikipedia extension mainly[2] used for detecting common patterns of harmful editing, and addressing potentially-harmful edits at the moment of (attempted) submission. The tool automatically checks each new submission against a list of filters.

If a match occurs, the tool will log the action in the public edit filter log, and may additionally take any of the following actions:

• tag the edit summary
• warn the author
• revoke the author's autoconfirmed status[3]
• prevent the edit entirely (in this case, the attempted edit will only remain visible to other users via the log)

Because even the smallest mistake in editing a filter can significantly disrupt the encyclopedia, only editors in the edit filter manager permission group can configure filters. These permissions are rarely awarded, and users must first show very good judgement and technical proficiency. Currently, there are 146 edit filter managers and 23 edit filter helpers. The filters currently in use can be found at Special:AbuseFilter.

Note: This page does not discuss technical details relating to the operation of the extension. These can be found at Extension:AbuseFilter.

1. The AbuseFilter extension was enabled on English Wikipedia in 2009. "Edit filter" is currently used for user-facing elements of the filter, as some edits it flags are not harmful; the terms are otherwise synonymous.
2. Edit filters can and have been used to track or tag certain non-harmful edits, for example, the addition of WikiLove.
3. The extension also allows blocking, but this feature is disabled on English Wikipedia.

---

Reason: This wording and order is more focused on what most (i.e. non-managing) users see when we investigate potentially-rogue contributors, and helps us understand the operation of the tool better and more quickly, without detracting for managers. It also disambiguates the tool itself from the individual filters (both are currently called "filter"); keeps related information together; is more concise; and makes it clearer that we can see prevented edits via the log.

Me first discovering the latter today - in the process, discovering an obvious sockpuppet - was what motivated me to finally put some more effort into understanding the edit filter, and to suggest a change that hopefully helps others do the same.

Let me know of any objections or suggestions. Turtlecrown (talk) 19:16, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Edit filter manager has an RfC

Wikipedia:Edit filter manager has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 19:03, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this page an editing guideline?

I think it ought to be an enforcement policy. Editing guidelines generally cover how articles are structured, not how the backend runs. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Voorts: Not a bad idea, actually. Not sure if this would need further consensus though, I'm hesitant to make the change without consensus personally, though I doubt anyone would object if it was recategorized. Most recent consensus as of 2015 though currently stands at the community determining that This guideline does not have the force of policy. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 18:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:PROPOSAL, upgrading this to a proposalpolicy requires an RfC and a high level of consensus. Could you please link to the prior discussion that established consensus? I want to see if there are good reasons not to give this the force of policy. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:46, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you meant to say "upgrading this to a policy"? Edit filter/RfC said "guideline". I would object if it was made a policy. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of the idea of upgrading to a policy, it seems "editing guideline" would probably remain the appropriate category of guideline to place this in (we don't necessarily have a "technical guidelines" category), as the description says Editing guidelines usually provide non-content advice about categorization, navigation or other how-to-edit advice. The other categories are style (edit filters aren't really stylish), notability (there's a few filters that deal in deprecated sources, but otherwise the edit filter isn't necessarily a good fit there), naming (doesn't apply), deletion (doesn't apply), content (filters cover more than the article namespace, and this probably wouldn't be the best fit), and behavioral (which reads like more of a category for user conduct, not methods of enforcement). Ultimately, only behavioral would be close to a better place to move this to within the existing guideline categorization structure, and it doesn't really seem best to move it there. I'd still probably say the best way to change the guideline label would be to get consensus to upgrade the page to a policy, and to make it into an enforcement policy. I'm not necessarily sure about the odds of that, though. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 20:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Concern about filter 1045

Hi! I just tripped filter 1045 at a draft I'm almost done rescuing. I've been adding links to sources where the publication's official archives are hosted on Google drive (see Wikipedia talk:Citing sources § Linking google drive for my question to the community on how best to do this).

I'm not concerned that I tripped the filter (it's not a false positive: just an edge case). My concern is that I linked google drive documents in the draft three times previously, and none of those edits tripped the filter (false negatives). Not sure what the difference is between the triggering edit and the non-triggering edits, but it seems maybe this filter isn't activating as often as intended. Folly Mox (talk) 15:02, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, WP:EFN is a more active page. So put simply, filter 1045 does not trigger if the text already contains one of the following: a link to google drive, or a link to a PDF page. It seems to me that the former applies to your later edits, and the latter applies to an early edit (this one). Adding a PDF (even though that's not what you were doing) from a self-published site is tolerated by design. I'll let someone else add perfection to the filter if they can, but in the meantime as you say, edge cases. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:22, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ungraceful fail

My attempt (see 19:33, 17 October 2024 in my filter log) to ask for a page protection at RfPP failed. It turned out there was a (private) edit filter preventing it. Fair enough. But the failure is ungraceful.

I used the 'click this button to request protection' button that opens a (JavaScript-powered?) page to pre-fill the report. But the edit filter prevented it from being saved… silently. I was left with a page that just said "saving…" forever.

Of course, I assumed the error was my browser, so did it again. Same result. Then I tried to added it manually. Only then did the edit filter hit get reported to me.

As I say, this is an ungraceful fail, with no fallback, to the point of being actively unhelpful. Can anything be done? 80.42.207.226 (talk) 19:49, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like MediaWiki:Request-page-protection-form.js might have a bug (doesn't take into account API queries that fail via the edit filter). The author Enterprisey is inactive, but SD0001 is also listed as an author, so maybe he'd be willing to take a look. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:26, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed in Wikipedia talk:Requests for page protection#Interface protected edit request 19 October 2024. – SD0001 (talk) 10:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]