This page can be used to request
edit filters, or changes to existing filters. Edit filters are primarily used to address common patterns of harmful editing.
Private filters should not be discussed in detail. If you wish to discuss creating an LTA filter, or changing an existing one, please instead email details to wikipedia-en-editfilterslists.wikimedia.org.
Otherwise, please add a new section at the bottom using the following format:
== Brief description of filter ==
*'''Task''': What is the filter supposed to do? To what pages and editors does it apply?
*'''Reason''': Why is the filter needed?
*'''Diffs''': Diffs of sample edits/cases. If the diffs are revdelled, consider emailing their contents to the mailing list.
~~~~
Please note the following:
Edit filters are used primarily to prevent abuse. Contributors are not expected to have read all 200+ policies, guidelines and style pages before editing. Trivial formatting mistakes and edits that at first glance look fine but go against some obscure style guideline or arbitration ruling are not suitable candidates for an edit filter.
Filters are applied to all edits. Problematic changes that apply to a single page are likely not suitable for an edit filter.
Page protection may be more appropriate in such cases.
Non-essential tasks or those that require access to complex criteria, especially information that the filter does not have access to, may be more appropriate for a
bot task or external software.
It might be useful for this to not be a in-the-face notice but rather a filter that passively tags edits, atleast as a start.
Sohom (
talk) 05:27, 12 March 2024 (UTC)reply
I checked this through batch testing, it already matched two redirects created and didn't show any false positives for the 2 edits it matched. Probably best to start on a filter with no actions rather than straight to tagging.
EggRoll97(
talk) 19:03, 22 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Interesting, might just have to add those to a list, or change it to {{.*(Redirect|R from).*}} Yes they should be notified
Geardona (
talk to me?) 21:28, 22 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Tested that new condition, and it should work, with a modified proposed filter of:
It would, this will fix that {{.*([Rr]edirect|R from|R to).*}}
Geardona (
talk to me?) 03:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Modified the one I just pasted in for easy review.
EggRoll97(
talk) 04:26, 23 March 2024 (UTC)reply
I'm also editing the proposed filter syntax so everything can start uppercase or lowercase, not just 'redirect'. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 19:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Implementing some more edits to the proposed filter to make it more efficient. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 01:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
EggRoll97: would you mind implementing the filter and creating it as log only or maybe tag now that you are an EFM?
24.4.109.4 (
talk) 00:31, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
24.4.109.4: I'm doing so right now, just double-checking through batch for good measure, even for log only.
EggRoll97(
talk) 00:32, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
EggRoll97: You might want to change rcats := "\{\{.*(redirect|r from|r to).*\}\}|\{\{NASTRO comment\}\}"; into rcats := "\{\{.*(redirect|r from|r to|NASTRO comment).*\}\}" to condense the regex a bit more. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 01:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
One question: do we need the filter to log every single redirect creation without rcats, regardless if the user who created it is experienced or not?
Codename Noreste 🤔
talk 01:26, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
We should. This is a mistake that even experienced users make sometimes.
24.4.109.4 (
talk) 01:28, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Excuse me if this question comes across as rude, but who are you? I tried looking at the previous history of your IP, but it has been mostly vandalism. –
2804:F14:80EC:AB01:DD3F:A8CA:F653:DD84 (
talk) 01:35, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
It’s perfectly fine to ask and no offense taken. I am just a regular IP, and if you look back to my edits from January, it will look more clear. My IP just changed sometime in February to a vandal.
24.4.109.4 (
talk) 02:12, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I've added in the regex and changed the deprecated variables out for page instead of article. As for user experience, it might be worthwhile to exclude bots, but other than that, it seems as though valid filter hits even occur on sysops, so given this is just a log-only filter, it may be best to keep it without exceptions for now.
EggRoll97(
talk) 04:30, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
It might be worthwhile to add something like !("bot" in user_groups) but I know of no bot that creates redirect pages (though I could be mistaken as I don’t go into that part of Wikipedia often). – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 18:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Shouldn't the filter exclude exoerienced users? Every 10 minutes or so, one of the redirect creations are, and would be tagged with this. Any thoughts?
Toadette(
Let's talk together!) 21:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
ToadetteEdit: No objections to limiting this a bit, though experienced users seem to be the main ones actually tripping this filter. If we limit it down to only new editors that are creating non-categorized redirects, there would indeed be a lower filter rate though, yes, though as far as I can tell the intent of the filter request was to catch all the uncategorized redirects. Will leave for feedback for a day or two before limiting though. Obligatory ping to @
24.4.109.4,
Codename Noreste,
PharyngealImplosive7, and
Geardona: as they were involved in creation.
EggRoll97(
talk) 21:41, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Exempting bots should do, although experienced editors do make redirects but sometimes forget to add rcats. My redirect creation (La Sultana del Norte) to Monterrey counts as one.
Codename Noreste 🤔
talk 21:44, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I also believe that experienced editors should be included on this filter because they do forget to categorize their redirects. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 21:53, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
EggRoll97: I believe that this would work well as a filter that tags edits also as most of the 500 ish edits triggered are non-FPs and it would work well to categorize such edits. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 21:56, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Pinging IPs doesn't do anything btw, though you might already know that. I just helped with the syntax. I want to point out though, that @
Geardona said "[..]tell the editor to add some rcats", which sounds like they want a warn filter - pretty sure that would require community consensus, in whatever forum is most appropriate(i.e. likely not here). Unless just logging is sufficient?
Also on the syntax thing again, it looks like there are still a few variations of rcats listed at
WP:ALLRCATS that the filter wouldn't recognize, other "R word" variations. –
2804:F14:8090:C501:8CF5:7412:F217:B3C2 (
talk) 22:54, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Would prefer a warning before saving, having a log would be fine as well. What other variations may need to be added? not sure about the community consensus bit, although
WP:VPM,
WP:VPR or
WP:VPT might workGeardona (
talk to me?) 22:59, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Looking at it now, what would the issue with doing {{.*R.*}} that should hit every possible redirect template, as long as it stays only on #redirect pages.
Geardona (
talk to me?) 23:07, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
True. I don’t think people would add other templates on a redirect page with r in them, and we shouldn’t forget about {{
NASTRO comment}}. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 23:14, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
It would pick up the R in NASTRO so thats not a huge issue.
Geardona (
talk to me?) 23:17, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I just realized that. See my next comment. I’m extremely worried about the amount of FPs though, as this will match huge numbers of different templates, many having nothing to do with rcats. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 23:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Except {{
NASTRO comment}} has an r in it so it would be included too by the filter. The amount of FPs might be concerning in here though, so maybe .*\br\b.* and code for NASTRO comment should work and minimize the amount of FPs. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 23:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
False negatives, you mean? And I don't think so, though admittedly I haven't checked, how common is it for people to create a redirect with a template that includes an R that isn't an rcat? Also this isn't looking for abuse or anything, so presumably no one is going to try to bypass the filter. –
2804:F14:8090:C501:8CF5:7412:F217:B3C2 (
talk) 23:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
That sounds good, is there a way to look for FP's using logging?
Geardona (
talk to me?) 23:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Yeah. Look through all the times the filter was triggered and see if you find a false positive or negative. It’s tedious but the only method I know of. If the amount of templates with r in them is small enough, the regex could always be changed to \{\{.*r.*\}\} but someone should check the logs to understand how many false negatives we’re going to be dealing with, telling us whether we need something generic or to specify every variation individually. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 23:39, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
All right, we should get the regex ready and tested before going to any of the village pumps, if someone could set that up so we could review it that would be great. (log only, no warning)
Geardona (
talk to me?) 23:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Having now properly read the thread, I see the filter.
Geardona (
talk to me?) 23:52, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Geardona: I think the main question to you, before I pinged you because I was sure you wanted a warn filter, was what you think of Toadette's question about making the filter not go off on extended-confirmed edits *experienced users, which EggRoll97 then pinged you about.
@
PharyngealImplosive7: A
false negative in this case, would be an edit that creates a redirect without an rcat, but that does not set off the filter, so there would be no logs to check. You would need to use a test filter or something to see if those edits even exist. –
2804:F14:8090:C501:8CF5:7412:F217:B3C2 (
talk) 00:05, 6 April 2024 (UTC) *edited 00:14, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Oh I am sorry, I would say that theres no reason to keep it to new users/ip's as its supposed to be a filter that gets rcats on every single new redirect. (sorry, I clearly need to focus)
Geardona (
talk to me?) 00:09, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I think that going through the list of rcat templates and seeing what doesn’t match the current regex, for example all the comic and middle earth templates could be the best thing us non EFMs can do. Otherwise an EFM could always use a test filter. My point about false positives and negatives still does stand though. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 00:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I'll try to summarize:
0. The filter created for this was 1298 (
hist·log);
1. Toadette asked "Shouldn't the filter exclude exoerienced users?[..]"
Comment by Geardona about that above (Geardona is the one who suggested the filter);
2. EggRoll97 also commented on the possibility of excluding bots (2 people agreed with that);
3. There are more rcat variants listed in
WP:ALLRCATS (examples:
link);
On that end it might be possible to just match \{\{.*r.*\}\}, discussion ongoing;
4. I point out and asked that Geardona appears to be asking for a warn filter, Geardona confirmed that.
I'm pretty sure this would require community consensus, though Geardona wants the regex ready and tested before starting any discussion about that (no one else besides Geardona commented on this yet);
As PharyngealImplosive7 briefly commented on, is there actually a bot that creates redirects? –
2804:F1...17:B3C2 (
talk) 00:45, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I support excluding bots, but oppose adding a warning. Log-only seems to do the job well.
Codename Noreste 🤔
talk 00:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Oh no, SoY is ranting again. Allow me to strenuously object to any sort of warning. Last night when I was bit tired, I decided to create a new redirect at
maximal repeat. I usually don't bother with rcats, but this time I decided to do the "right" thing. It took me about five minutes to sift through the sea of tiny text at
Template:R template index and figure that, no, even through I was redirecting from a phrase, the correct (?) template was {{r from related word}}. Or wait, was it {{r to related topic}}? Whatever, toss a coin. I can easily understand why people don't bother. This is about edits that are unfinished, not harmful. A redirect without rcats is a net positive. A tagging filter is an excellent idea; it helps people who like categorizing redirects find the redirects to categorize. But a warning filter would be bitey to new users and irritating to experienced ones.
Suffusion of Yellow (
talk) 00:57, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Yeah. Tagging would be a better idea in my opinion to. I also don’t categorize my redirects and sometimes it’s just annoying to find the correct category to use. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 01:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Also pinging @
EggRoll97: as I’m sure they’re interested in the recent ideas for changing the filter by possibly making it more generic and making it exclude bots and tag edits passively. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 02:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Also not seeing any value in a warning filter. This filter is specifically designed to catch good-faith edits so someone else can come along and fix the redirect. I'm not a fan of tagging yet though until this whole idea of the r versus the current code is figured out. I did a couple of batch tests with that new \{\{.*r.*\}\} instead, and it seems to be working, but I'll hold off until the morning before I run it against a couple more edits and implement. Probably will go ahead and apply the tags at that point unless any objections arise overnight.
EggRoll97(
talk) 05:11, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
As an update, tagging is now Done and fully enabled as uncategorized-redirect . You can track changes in
Special:RecentChanges as well as via the hit log for 1298 (
hist·log).
EggRoll97(
talk) 18:52, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
EggRoll97: Would it be better to check if the user is a bot after you check if it's a new page in article space? I think currently it's always checking if every user doing any action is a bot, probably why the average conditions are now 1.9 instead of 1.
Also, unless bots are going to create a significant amount of redirects (and often), this check is probably pointless. –
2804:F14:8090:C501:5CC4:7D96:1106:13FE (
talk) 21:36, 6 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Looks like changes were made by Zzuuzz.
EggRoll97(
talk) 01:35, 7 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Filter 260 (Common vandal phrases)
I think we should add "skibidi" to this filter because a lot of disallowed vandalism tries to add "skibidi" if you check in the filter log.
Faster than Thunder (
talk |
contributions) 18:11, 1 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I don't see the point in adding the same phrase to multiple filters.
Philipnelson99 (
talk) 19:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)reply
The purpose of filter 260 is to distinguish vandals who should be blocked from those that should be warned. Faster than Thunder (
talk |
contributions) 23:16, 1 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Yeah, that comment is way out of date. 260 (
hist·log) is just a cruft-magnet of slurs, dick jokes, stale memes, and even more stale LTA phrases. I'm slowly moving various bits into other filters.
Suffusion of Yellow (
talk) 23:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Vandalism to meme pages
Task: Filter 614 exists for a reason, but it doesn't catch edits like the ones mentioned below:
Reason: To catch vandalism to meme pages like
Skibidi Toilet
Looks like the third filter log entry should be disallowed by filter 1233 (
hist·log) but wasn't caught, the second log entry looks like your everyday run-of-the-mill disruption, and the first log entry is likely low-effort disruption that may want to be prevented by some filters. Maybe we could set 1163 (
hist·log) to warn+tag or disallow.
By the way, !( (removed_lines + page_title) irlike abuseStr) basically means that Skibidi Toilet additions are excluded from said article describing this meme itself.
Codename Noreste 🤔
La Suma 02:13, 6 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Also, please note that before disallowing, we always test filters on log or tag before to minimize the possibility of a huge amount of false positives. If this is made into a seperate filter then, I highly doubt it will be set to disallow immediately. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 13:45, 6 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I hereby retract saying to set 1163 to disallow after seeing your comment, but couldn’t we at least set this to warn with the tag?
Codename Noreste 🤔
La Suma 14:58, 6 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Yes, but I believe that usually, filters are first set to log or tag just to see if they work well or not, as even warning could be problematic if the filter has too many FPs. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 15:01, 6 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Can you break down what each part of that filter is trying to do? It doesn't make sense to me.
Suffusion of Yellow (
talk) 21:06, 8 May 2024 (UTC)reply
length(meme) * 2 < rcount(meme,added_lines) | // prevent excessive use of the meme
First, you're generating meme by splitting apart the title. That's clever, but what about a title like "Bozo the Clown"? One of your words is going to be "the". Second, rcount() counts the total number of matches, not the total length of the matches put together. If you want to prevent excessive use of a word, say something more like:
This won't match anything, but could be fixed by using added_lines instead of old_wikitext. But we already have 132 (
hist·log) for category removal.
Thanks for this, but I think it's just inevitable that "meme pages" are going to end up semi-protected, at least temporarily. There are just too many creative ways to vandalize.
Suffusion of Yellow (
talk) 21:24, 9 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Maybe the 3 in get_matches(bad_desc,added_lines) > 3 | // prevent defamation of the meme is supposed to be compared to the array length so maybe @
Faster than Thunder really just meant length(get_matches(bad_desc,added_lines)) > 3. I also do sadly agree that vandalism to meme pages is bound to happen, and we'll probably need to protect them at some point. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 22:34, 9 May 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Faster than Thunder: Also, if we have a bad_desc variable to prevent defamation, wouldn't another issue be to say that the meme is the "best"? So would it also be a good idea to create a separate variable to prevent additions like that? – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 02:57, 10 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Could we also block "skibidi toilet", "skibidi", and such as per the thread below? I don't know how the filters work.
Myrealnamm (
💬talk ·
✏️contribs) at 19:17, 14 May 2024 (UTC)reply
That is the wrong filter to request it in, because that was in another article, but this could be added to a new filter idea or something like 614 (
hist·log). – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 00:32, 24 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Now that some improvements have been made to the filter idea, what new changes need to be made to the filter before it can be created? Faster than Thunder (
talk |
contributions) 17:39, 22 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I share the same concerns as SoY. Vandals on meme pages are going to come up with new ways faster than a filter can catch them, and it's far more efficient to just protect the small number of "meme-type" pages than to try and craft a filter that has every single variation and type of petty vandalism out there. It's possible for general vandalism filters, because the terms in those are spread throughout the encyclopedia, but for specific pages, it's going to just end up with vandals getting around the filter on purpose.
EggRoll97(
talk) 22:29, 26 May 2024 (UTC)reply
@
EggRoll97 That's very true. However, these vandals seem to vandalize with "meme words" on all the pages, so hmmmm.
Myrealnamm (
💬talk ·
✏️contribs) at 00:22, 27 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Yeah. I think the best thing to do is to just semi-protect the meme pages, instead of creating and constantly changing a filter that won't catch all the vandalism sadly. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 04:45, 27 May 2024 (UTC)reply
New Filter Request - "Skibidi Toilet"
Task: Stop users from inserting the word "skibidi", "skibidi toilet", and such into talk pages.
Reason: Vandalisers are adding this internet meme into Wikipedia talk pages.
They didn't use "skibidi", they used "skbidi". Maybe all forms of "skibidi", including typos such as "skbidi" and "skibid" should be added to the filter as well.
Myrealnamm (
💬talk ·
✏️contribs) at 18:14, 12 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Disallow changing result parameter on Infobox military conflict by IPs/new users
Task – In the |result= parameter of {{
Infobox military conflict}}, disallow edits between sides of "X victory", in addition to edits away from or between "X victory", "Inconclusive", and "See (article section)" by IP addresses or very new users.
Reason – Widespread tendentious editing by those unfamiliar with site guidelines, at a bare minimum with
MOS:MILHIST. After parameter is in accordance with said guideline, it almost never needs to be changed.
This is a hard one, because there could be so many false positives, like if someone corrects a typo in the result parameter and gets a disallow message. I would suggest something like tag or warn at most unless someone can find a non FP-prone way of filtering these types of edits, but this should definitely be a log-only filter at first. The regex should also probably be similar to something like 391 (
hist·log). – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 02:15, 11 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Agreed that initial caution is required, but unfortunately I don't see a warning saying "changes require reliable sources" being effective in the end?
Remsense诉 02:21, 11 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Totally agreed. But first we should make the filter ready to be disallowed by minimizing the amount of FPs as much as possible. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 03:15, 11 May 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Remsense: As to the prospect of disallow, I'm going to say Not done. The top of this page even states, Edit filters are used primarily to prevent abuse. Contributors are not expected to have read all 200+ policies, guidelines and style pages before editing, and I don't think it's a far stretch to assume that edits are all in bad faith. Even in the diffs provided, the edit to
Fourth Crusade seems misguided and wrong, but not necessarily in bad faith. Any filter that catches this would end up with a non-zero amount of false positives. I'm not against a log or maybe a tag filter, though. I'll see if I can work one up, but if anyone wants to have a shot at trying the code in the meantime feel free.
EggRoll97(
talk) 04:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Creating mainspace articles which begin with your username
Task: (This is my first post here, so please let me know how I borked it up.)
I think a filter which logs (and eventually warns?) people who attempt to create an article which begins with your username would be beneficial. I have seen multiple people who create (e.g.)
HouseBlaster/sandbox as opposed to
User:HouseBlaster/sandbox (and I have personally done something similar).
It also might catch people who try to write autobiographies and people whose usernames violate
WP:CORPNAME, both of which seem like positive side-effects.
Reason: Self-explanatory
Diffs: They are all deleted fairly quickly as
WP:G6 (if it is a benign mistake), and I don't have any evidence that the autobiography/CORPNAME thing is a problem (I just think that it is a something else which this filter would happen to catch).
My proposal is slightly different, in that it would catch people with more than 100 edits who make a mistake rather than a deliberate attempt to create an autobiography.HouseBlaster (
talk · he/him) 01:09, 18 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Such a filter might make life interesting for the likes of
User:F, but generally there seem to be few false positives.
Certes (
talk) 17:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Would it make sense to additionally check that the title/username is longer than x? Not sure which is more efficient.HouseBlaster (
talk · he/him) 17:46, 18 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Possibly. We might also need to convert spaces to underscores in user_name before matching to page_title.
This query may be of interest.
Certes (
talk) 18:13, 18 May 2024 (UTC)reply
"Skibidi" username filter
I've noticed that new usernames which contain "Skibidi" in them often are used only for disruption/vandalism/trolling. Is there any way we could add a filter which blocks all usernames with "Skibidi" and/or sends them to UAA? If you reply here, please
ping me. Thanks — thetechie@enwiki:
~/talk/$ 02:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure if creating a filter that prevents Skibidi (toilet) usernames is necessary (after all, it compares every account creation when set to action == "createaccount"); there is
User:AmandaNP/UAA/Blacklist in which you can propose adding s+k+[i1bdt]{4,}y*\b on the talk page.
Codename Noreste 🤔
La Suma 03:15, 29 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Also note that the regex above would need to be continuosly updated as the filter changes. – PharyngealImplosive7(talk) 19:47, 29 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Not really; there's no need to catch them all. I don't like disallowing usernames which scream "I am NOTHERE" but aren't so offensive as to require a revdel; those usernames just make the vandalism easier to spot. (Plus the first word to disallow should be "Truth".) And reporting to UAA on account creation isn't really helpful unless the username is block-on-sight. They might wait hours or days to edit, or never edit at all. Now, we could have filter which reports to UAA on the first edit, at which point it's usually clear what the user is up to. But as CN points out, DeltaQuadBot already does that, so why not just add to DQB's list?
Suffusion of Yellow (
talk) 19:56, 29 May 2024 (UTC)reply