Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard

"WP:EFN" redirects here. For information on the {{efn}} template, see WP:EXPLNOTE.

Welcome to the edit filter noticeboard

WATCH

Recent filter changes ():

Filter 50 — Pattern modified

Last changed at 00:45, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Filter 614 — Pattern modified

Last changed at 19:28, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Filter 1346 — Pattern modified

Last changed at 16:20, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Filter 1357 (new) — Actions: throttle; Flags: disabled,private; Pattern modified

Last changed at 22:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Filter 1347 — Actions: tag,warn; Pattern modified

Last changed at 19:50, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Filter 1356 (new) — Actions: none; Flags: disabled,public; Pattern modified

Last changed at 18:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Filter 1355 (new) — Actions: none; Flags: enabled,public; Pattern modified

Last changed at 05:05, 8 April 2025 (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 or changes to existing filters, 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.

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There are currently 354 enabled filters and 48 stale filters with no hits in the past 30 days. Filter condition use is ~1017, out of a maximum of 2000. (). See also the profiling data and edit filter graphs.

Click here to start a new discussion

Add Heritage Foundation to filter 869

Please add heritage.org to Special:AbuseFilter/869. Closure review of Heritage RfC closed as amended with "also deprecated". Please talk care to not harm heritage.org.nz or english-heritage.org or any other stuff.
Yes, they were blacklisted, but I think we'd forget if it were unblacklisted but not undeprecated. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

The added regex would be \b(?:(?<!english-)heritage\.org(?!\.nz))\b. Codename Noreste (talk) 01:32, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

That would exclude every heritage.org link. / and . are non-space characters. The filter currently relies on wrapping domains with \b which is generally okay although false positives are possible from "something-" before the match or ".tld" after the match (e.g., the examples Aaron Liu gave). I looked at this briefly when I updated the filter recently and it didn't look like a major issue, but out of paranoia, I'm going to review the last 100,000 hits to see if the regex needs to be more paranoid about those cases. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 07:55, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

There was one significant issue with "-rt.com" being the ending to some domains unrelated to "rt.com". That's fixed now. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 09:25, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I've just fixed the regex that I noted (removed the negative lookbehind and lookahead for \S), opting to exclude said examples that Aaron Liu gave. Codename Noreste (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to add blacklisted domains to the filter. It's already complex enough. If the domain is ever removed from the blacklist, adding it to an edit filter will almost certainly be part of the discussion. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 07:32, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Request to become edit filter helper

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.

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• ScrabbleTiles (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)} Hi there. I would like to become an edit filter helper because I would like to be more involved in helping with the edit filters. I’m not sure I’d have enough technical knowledge to apply for to become an edit filter manager which is why I’m applying for helper. As somebody who mainly fights vandalism, I come across edit filters quite often which is why I am interested.

ScrabbleTiles (talk) 16:39, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose due to very low experience in helping out with edit filters (has made only five edits to EFFPR), and the OP has been active since December 2024, which I consider too early to apply for this very sensitive permission. Codename Noreste (talk) 19:23, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict × Codename Noreste) Strong Oppose and suggest a withdrawal: due to very little activity to filter-related pages, and the OP being a relatively new account. Most of the time, seeing private edit filters do not help when fighting vandalism, so I don't see much of a demonstrated need either. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 19:28, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose Far below what would generally be considered requisite experience in the area. I'd encourage helping out more at EFFP and coming back with far more significant contributions to edit filters. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 01:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. Insufficient experience with edit filter-adjacent processes such as WP:EFFPR. Would normally expect hundreds of edits there unless edit filter experience was gained via a different area. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:59, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Alright then, I see I have come too early. I will withdraw and help more in other edit filter areas. ScrabbleTiles (talk) 05:55, 1 April 2025 (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.

EFH for PharyngealImplosive7

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.

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The earliest closure has started. (refresh)

• PharyngealImplosive7 (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}
• Previous requests: 1, 2, 3
• Courtesy ping to admin who closed the previous request: @Xaosflux:

Hello everybody. I'm presenting myself here to request the EFH right today. I've been thinking for some time whether to make this request go live or wait some more time, but EggRoll97's encouragement swayed me to go for it. I mainly want EFH to help author private filters and to help respond to false positive reports involving private filters at WP:EFFPR. It's been a few months since my last failed nomination, but since then, I've tried to address your concerns including increasing my activity overall and generally continuing to participate here.

EFH is a high-trust role, some would say on par with sysop, and whether it is granted to a user often depends on trust. I know the permission has significant repurcussions if abused, as it contains sensitive data used for fighting LTAs among other things. In terms of trust, I am identified to the Wikimedia Foundation (see m:Special:Diff/26090536) and am a pretty active user here.

In terms of my contributions to filters, I have made over 1400 edits to WP:EFFPR (see [1]) and have proposed numerous additions to filters both public and private. I believe that I have a strong understanding on the technical side of things (including regex), and some examples of where I've help create code for filters are shown below:

• 984 (hist · log) (private): I created the initial code for a suggested addition to this filter, not the filter itself (that dates back to way before my account was even created). Changes are still being discussed on the mailing list.
• 1161 (hist · log) (private): added code that blocks WP:DADASAHEB violations (from a while back, but still demonstrates my technical skills)
• 1353 (hist · log) (private): see WP:Edit filter/Requested/Archive 21#Date format changes. I believe the code was implemented into this private filter but I'm not sure.
• 1324 (hist · log) (public): blocks hurricane rating changes without a source. I was a significant contributor to making that filter (as can be seen here)
• 1297 (hist · log) (public): helped reduce a false positive reported to WP:EFFPR
• 1354 (hist · log) (public): I was a significant contributor to this filter, as can be seen WP:EFR#Careless moves to mainspace

I would like to emphasize again that I understand that this is a very sensitive permission, and that I will only discuss the details of private filters with EFHs, EFMs, and sysops if granted this right. Finally, in terms of account security, I currently use a strong password, and although I don't have 2FA enabled right now, I am open to enabling it if this right is granted to me. Thank you for your consideration, and I'm open to any questions if you have them. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 01:10, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support My concerns from prior requests appear to have been addressed. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 21:06, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support This should've passed last time. JJP_Master (she/they) 13:19, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support. The OP seems to be trusted enough for this role and has made basic code for some filters (but I had to occasionally help out with some fixes), and has addressed multiple concerns including his activity. Codename Noreste (talk) 15:19, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support. 1,459 edits to EFFPR. Has put in the work. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  For a bit of perspective, that's over one quarter of all of their edits. JJP_Master (she/they) 18:40, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support. PharyngealImplosive7 is a key contributor on EFFPR and meets the requirements of WP:EFHCRITERIA. This will definitely help us handle false positive reports better. PharyngealImplosive7, I would like to caution you about prematurely applying for EFM as it is a much more selectively granted right. I also encourage you to maintain some balance in your editing since staying connected to articles and content is important. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for the advice. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 22:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support. Good work so far. – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:07, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support. No indication that the concerns I had in the past requests still apply. Nobody (talk) 05:37, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support. No concerns. Ternera (talk) 14:20, 7 April 2025 (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.

Question regarding 1347

Regarding Special:AbuseFilter/1347, why did Special:Diff/1284477127 trigger it? Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 20:42, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

They pasted the entire content of the article (including the {{pp-vandalism}} template) inside a {{subst:trim}} template on the (unprotected) talk page. Most of that was substed away, except for one line from a table. The filter checks added_lines not the (supposedly slower) added_lines_pst, so it "saw" the pp- template even though it wasn't saved in the end. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:06, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Gotcha. So if an editor puts, say, gibberish, on an article inside a subst trim, then the filter would catch it. Ok, understand. Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 21:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Yep, but there's nothing special about {{subst:trim}} here. That just removes leading and trailing whitespace. The problem was that they used table syntax inside a template argument, and the |s looked like extra arguments. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:59, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

We should be able to add a check of added_lines_pst on line after the first added_lines without a significant performance impact (also changing the subsequent checks to use added_lines_pst). I went ahead and made that change. I'll double check the performance impact after it's been running for a while (it's at 0.12 ms and 2.7 conditions after 178,000 actions). Daniel Quinlan (talk) 00:12, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

The updated filter seems to be working fine and it was already down to 0.13 ms and 3 conditions after 29,000 actions. I realized the second added_lines_pst prefilter was unnecessary as long as we use added_lines_pst in the subsequent checks. I made some other improvements to bring the condition count down to 1 and improved the sandbox exception. We'll see how the performance numbers level out once it's been running long enough. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 05:54, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

After 95,000 actions, it's at 0.14 ms and it consumes 0.8 conditions, barely slower than the original 0.12 ms (could just be noise) and 0.8 conditions is definitely better than 2.7. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 18:32, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Just a quick note that I added a warning to the filter since it seems accurate enough. It's at MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-protection-unprotected. @Queen of Hearts: Keeping you in the loop as the original author. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 19:59, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Update regarding the temporary account option in GlobalPreferences and protected filters

Just a heads up regarding the Temporary account IP reveal option on Special:GlobalPreferences (for GAFHs and AFMs, or admins on some wikis): if you can view private and protected filters on a wiki (e.g. on Meta-Wiki or Test Wikipedia), and when the temporary accounts option is disabled in your global preferences, you may not view a protected filter nor its hit log until you enable that option.

Regarding the latter (and for example, on Meta-Wiki), this is what you will see when the temporary account option is disabled and you attempt to view a protected filter:

You may not view details of this filter, because it uses protected variables and is hidden from public view.

The same thing applies when attempting to view a protected filter's hit log:

One or more of the filter IDs you specified are protected. Because you are not allowed to view details of protected filters, these filters have not been searched for.

Note that this does not apply to the English Wikipedia or some other wikis that still have the AbuseFilter option in local preferences. Codename Noreste (talk) 01:49, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Does this change affect local EFHs and EFMs as well? – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 02:31, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Because temporary accounts are not yet enabled here, and because the AbuseFilter tick option is still available on the local preferences, the answer is probably no. Codename Noreste (talk) 02:50, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

The easiest fix here I think would be to improve the error message. Filed phab:T391549. On Phab, please feel free to click "Edit Task" and fix if I misunderstood something. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:55, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I haven't looked deeply into the issue, but that phab ticket seems to be requesting a change to MediaWiki:Abusefilter-edit-denied-protected-vars. We can do that here. You can usually find these system messages at [2] (or thereabouts). -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 05:54, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it more likely needs a new message specific for AFH/Ms, EFH/Ms and sysops (any group that has abusefilter-access-protected-vars). Nobody (talk) 06:26, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Looks like MediaWiki:Abusefilter-edit-denied-protected-vars covers two situations. Modifying it to apply to situation 2 would make it wrong for situation 1, and vice versa. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:04, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Another heads up: per phab:T380920, the AbuseFilter tick option has been merged with the global temporary accounts IP reveal option, and T391549 has been closed as a duplicate of phab:T389640. Codename Noreste (talk) 02:53, 11 April 2025 (UTC)