Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

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WATCH Recent filter changes (): Filter 1298 (deleted) — Actions: none; Flags: disabled Last changed at 19:17, 15 October 2024 (UTC) Filter 54 — Pattern modified Last changed at 14:26, 15 October 2024 (UTC) Filter 1276 — Pattern modified Last changed at 22:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC) This is the edit filter noticeboard, for coordination and discussion of edit filter use and management. If you wish to request an edit filter, please post at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested. If you would like to report a false positive, please post at Wikipedia:Edit filter/False positives. Private filters should not be discussed in detail here; please email an edit filter manager if you have specific concerns or questions about the content of hidden filters. There are currently 331 enabled filters and 48 stale filters with no hits in the past 30 days. Filter condition use is ~1043, out of a maximum of 2000. (). See also the profiling data and edit filter graphs. Click here to start a new discussion thread

Update to filter 707

I recently made an update to the code that can potentially exclude users withdrawing their own report, here's what I made:

page_id == 26204397 /* False positives reports page */ &
!("confirmed" in user_groups) &
(
    (
        /* Prevent the removal or modification of [[WP:EFFPR]] headers */
        contains_any(
            removed_lines,
            "__NONEWSECTIONLINK__",
            "__NOINDEX__",
            "<noinclude>",
            "{{Wikipedia:Edit filter/False positives/Header}}",
            "{{shortcut|WP:EF/FP/R|WP:EFFPR}}",
            "</noinclude>"
        )
    ) | (
        /* Page blanking or report meddling from non-confirmed users */
        (
            new_size < 300 &
            old_size > 300 |
            edit_delta < -250
        ) &
        /* Allow users to withdraw their own report */
        !(
            user_name in removed_lines &
            user_name in page_recent_contributors
        )
    )
)

Any improvements or suggestions? Thank you. Codename Noreste 🤔 Talk 08:17, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Moving !("confirmed" in user_groups) & down might make sense, as headers shouldn't be removed by other users either. Nobody (talk) 08:24, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I like the idea, but I don't think there's really a lot of cases where a user would need to withdraw a report. Reports are responded to within a pretty decent amount of time, and archived fairly quickly after response anyways. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 15:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Edit filter 1298

Going to just bring this one here in case there's any opinions about it, but Hey man im josh has brought up 1298 (hist · log) on my talk page as having flooded his log with false positives (ones in which he used Capricorn right after creating the redirect). Given the sheer number of false positives and the lack of much use of the edit filter to correct these uncategorized redirects, is there anyone who would object to disabling the filter? For context, see here for the discussion being referred to on my talk page. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 21:56, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I feel like these kinds of log-only maintenance filters are often not a good idea. In my experience, these quickly ended up unmonitored and unused. I'm also personally wary of the edit filter being used for non-abuse related stuff much of the time. There are definitely legitimate use cases, but I think many requests at EFR for non-abuse related use cases were (are?) unnecessary. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I have 3 main issues with it.

1. Rcats are entirely optional. Would it be nice if people included them more? Absolutely, but a lack of them doesn't mean there's necessarily an issue. There's an implication based on this filter's existence, I believe, that a lack of rcats on the immediate creation of a redirect is a bigger sin than it really is.

2. The false positives. I often create a redirect and immediately tag it. I don't remember all the tags off the top of my head, I know the relevant ones that exist, but I don't know all the templates and I don't try to memorize them because I have tools to add the tags. I know where to find them in Capricorn and what to search in the page curation bar to add the tags. However the edit filter will still show these entries anyways.

3. If someone is looking for redirects to add tags to they'd be better served with a database query of some kind. Ideally something to the effect pages with redirects without rcats, sorted by target so that proper tagging can be done in batches.

Anyways, while I think there were good intentions with this filter, I don't believe it's actively used and helpful. It's more likely to drown out some relevant entries in an individuals abuse logs in my opinion. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:58, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I know it was mentioned in the user talk discussion, but I'll re-mention it: This filter was created as a result of this request (permalink), which, disclaimer, I took part in.

Also pinging @Geardona as the original poster of the request (even if it was a request for a warn filter). – 2804:F14:80EB:C501:DD4E:2EFB:9ECB:8A56 (talk) 20:20, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I sometimes patrol that filter log and add rcats where I'm sure, so I'd like the filter to stay enabled. Also I'm not sure if Josh knows this, but it's possible to add rcats while creating a redirect with Capricorn. If it's really that big an issue, then we can just add an exclusion for him (or the sysop user group for example) to the filter. Nobody (talk) 05:21, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean, is a non-abuse filter with apparently 102,147 hits over the past six months really something that's practical to monitor? That's 500 new additions per day- when compared to other common non-abuse filters, we see it trips ten times as often as filter 1030 (URLs with tracking parameters) and 1,254(oops! you broke an sfn), and five times as often as 550 (nowiki tags). Again, with all due respect to people who do monitor it- I think there might be much more efficient solutions that don't clog up individual editor's filter log. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 06:13, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I always thought that it would be better to have a tracking category for these redirects instead of a filter, but not sure if it's possible to get consensus for a tracking cat with possibly millions of redirects. Nobody (talk) 06:46, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

If there wouldn't be consensus for a tracking category, is getting around that by using an edit filter for something non-abusive really the better option? Hey man im josh (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's better than having nothing at all. Especially since it's easy to remove sysops or individual users from the filters. Nobody (talk) 14:40, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@1AmNobody24: There are millions of redirects without rcats. This is not the way to address the problem, nor is it anywhere close to an efficient way to do so. By keeping a filter such as this active we're flooding the abuse log and reducing the effectiveness of it for a few individuals who would like to occasionally find redirects to add rcats to. If those individuals have that desire, I encourage them to instead join WP:NPP and patrol the massive redirect backlog we typically have. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:01, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that for new redirects NPP is better, it's one of the main reason I've considered applying for it. But at the same time there are millions of old redirects and ones from autopatrolled users that go unnoticed. I think there should be a way to track them. Be it a maintenance cat, a query, a filter or a external tool doesn't matter to me. Nobody (talk) 15:18, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The old redirects, and this not being actually abusive in any sense of the word, is exactly why this edit filter doesn't make sense to keep in my opinion. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I requested a quarry query (thank you Cryptic) to see how many uncategorized redirects we have. Based on this query, it appears we have 6,265,917 uncategorized redirects at the time of the run. They also provided a sample of 10,000 uncategorized redirects. A quarry query like this, in my opinion, would be far more useful for folks attempting to categorize redirects than flooding the logs. Pinging @1AmNobody24 and @Geardona, as they've been the only two I'm aware of who expressed interest in using this filter to tag redirects. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:00, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

That looks great, thanks for doing it. I'll probably ask Cryptic for some sorted querys then and start gnoming away. Given this, I have no objections to disabling the filter. Nobody (talk) 18:36, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

The missing datum here is that there's 11,150,454 total redirects in mainspace. So less than half are categorized. —Cryptic 18:48, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done Given the Quarry query seems to alleviate all concerns, I've deleted the filter. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 19:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)