Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested

Requested edit filters
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. To prevent the creation of pages with certain names, the title blacklist is usually a better way to handle the problem - see MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist for details. To prevent the addition of problematic external links, please make your request at the spam blacklist. To prevent the registration of accounts with certain names, please make your request at the global title blacklist. To prevent the registration of accounts with certain email addresses, please make your request at the email blacklist.
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Telephone numbers added to articles

• Task: To prevent the addition of personal telephone numbers (either of the editor adding them, or of their friends/enemies) to articles
• Reason: I've been going through all our Telephone numbers in [Countryname] articles and related subjects per this AN discussion, finding telephone numbers that have been added in the past 50 edits in the last 2 years and having them Oversighted. This is now more or less done, but as I've been removing them I've been watchlisting the articles and am therefore seeing new ones being added live. HJ Mitchell suggested an edit filter might work to block these in the first place, saving Oversighters a lot of work.

I've not worked with regex for some years, so I'm very rusty. The filter would be something like:

^[\+]?[(]?[0-9]{2,4}[)?[-\s\.]?[0-9]{3,4}[-\s\.]?[0-9]{4,6}$

but not where the digits are consecutive (123456789, 2345678, 0123456 etc) and not when the digits are repeating 5 or more times (0800 1111111, 1-333-333-3333 etc) as these are both valid "example of number formatting" edits. That's where I get stuck!

• Diffs: Recent diffs in question have been revdelled, but older ones include [1] [2] [3] and this edit summary — Trey Maturin™ 17:53, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

  I regularly undo the addition of strings which are probably phone numbers in some country or other, and also see them in edit summaries where they're harder to remove. Some are obviously commercial (contact 012345789 to order), others more cryptic (probably the author's own number). Blocking this for everyone would produce lots of false positives, but it might be reasonable to stop IPs from adding (\d[- \d]{7,12}\d), where the capture contains either 5+ consecutive digits or 9+ total digits. That would allow ISO dates (2022-12-18) and year ranges (1998 - 2001) even if poorly punctuated. Multi-digit amounts, such as large sums of money, generally contain comma or dot. Certes (talk) 21:20, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Bumping thread for 14 days. 137a (talk) 13:12, 9 January 2023 (UTC) 137a (talk) 13:12, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

A minor issue would be that the filter log entries would still need to be oversighted anyway, which would then push the task of finding and reporting such log entires solely onto EFHs, EFMs and sysops. Unless just keeping the filter private would be enough? Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 04:40, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I’d see the filter as preventing the edit happening at all (once the testing and refinement period is over). I’m not sure what kind of information the system logs: if it logs the text of the edit, then yes, the log would need to be trusted-users only (sysops as a minimum, oversighters-only as an ideal). This may need discussion with (or by) those very trusted users — that’s above my pay grade! — Trey Maturin™ 09:26, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Filters log basically anything you can see from a diff, even when set to disallow. If made private, they still show it to several thousand more users besides oversighters (namely, EFHs, EFMs, sysops). So, yes, the logs would contain oversightable material, and it would still (at least technically) need oversight requested anyway. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:43, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

It would be up to oversighters to say if this was more or less convenient than having me emailing them manually for the 250 most-telephone-number-attracting articles on my watchlist, but it doesn't sound like it, does it? Bum. — Trey Maturin™ 13:47, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, in one rather extreme case of something later oversighted which was known to a lot of users, User:CheeseDreams password was avaliable on User talk:Rienzo up until March last year. OK, someone had logged in and changed it since, but... it had been up there for over eighteen years after they posted it there.

Regarding your question, probably not, since someone would still have to request oversight, but unless you become an EFH, you wouldn't be able to. So, it would still be just as much work, only it would fall on editors who may be more busy with other stuff, like keeping edit filters running smoothly, and general admin stuff. Setting it to warn would probably be a problem too, since the effect would be much the same, with "successful" warnings (where they didn't make the edit) still leaving a oversightable log entry behind (as much as disallow), and "unsuccessful" warnings (where they did make the edit) leaving two log entries and an edit to be oversighted. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

It might be feasible to make a bot that oversights everything the filter catches automatically (or, when I think about it, skip the middleman and just use a bot). Snowmanonahoe (talk) 12:59, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

We've had Special:AbuseFilter/247 which blocks addition of emails for quite a while. Surprised the equivalent for phone numbers doesn't already exist. I think having a private filter would reduce visibility quite a lot in practice by not allowing phone numbers into articles, since no one really looks at log entries and they are functionally automatically revdelled (EFHs and non-admin EFMs are trusted and they are the only non-admins who can see). So I think I'll see if I can test something decent. Also per Special:PermaLink/1093966130#EF_247 having a filter to stop oversightable stuff does seem to help oversighters. Galobtter (pingó mió) 03:43, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Prevent removal of talk page headers

• Task: Identify when an editor removes all items in a talk page header or removes a portion in a way that breaks a template
• Reason: It's not uncommon for inexperienced editors to remove a talk header while trying to use a talk page. Many of these edits go undetected for a long time.
• Diffs: Special:Diff/1105054073, Special:Diff/1136030142, Special:Diff/1084946475

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Monitoring removal of all WikiProject banners at Special:AbuseFilter/953; let's see what's going on and what can be done. There might be some potential for a filter similar to Special:Abusefilter/957. I think really this is a mobile UX bug, where it is really easy to edit the first section of a page by hitting the edit button at the top. Galobtter (pingó mió) 03:24, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Interstate 20 spam link

• Task: Prevent insertion of https://i20accidents.com/i20-accidents into the Interstate 20 article
• Reason: Several IPs from the same general range of addresses in Bangladesh keep adding a link to a website ostensibly run by a law firm seeking clients related to vehicle accidents on I-20. Once the link was added to the external links section, but typically it is inserted as a reference even though it is clearly not an RS nor does it reference the content of the article.
• Diffs:
  • [[Special:Diff/1142971753 March 5, 2023], 37.111.245.208
  • [[Special:Diff/1140262032 February 19, 2023], 37.111.244.118
  • February 19, 2023, 37.111.246.48
  • February 19, 2013, 37.111.246.48
  • February 17, 2023, 37.111.245.233
  • February 17, 2023, 37.111.243.86

Imzadi 1979 → 19:08, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: Is the spam blacklist talk not a superior venue for this report? – dudhhr ^talk _contribs (he/they) 16:11, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Request moved there, thanks! Imzadi 1979 → 19:54, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Furry convention page vandalism

• Task: This filter would filter out attacks on pages related to furry conventions. A good start would be to add it to members of Category:Furry conventions. Specifically the string "furries are queers" or variations of it would be what is filtered out.
• Reason: There have been several attacks on pages in this category in recent days. I noticed it today and instead of protecting these pages, a filter would make it so valid edits from users without extended confirmed protection could edit the page. Of course the filter may need to be a little more robust than just this string. Looking at the history of some these pages, this seems to have been going on for quite some time.
• Diffs: [4] [5] [6]

Philipnelson99 (talk) 21:05, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Support with the option to expand the filter as new phrases are discovered. Furry hate is not new to this encyclopedia, and more phrases may be discovered over time. Jalen Folf (talk) 21:32, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of, new phrases used: "They're weird and creepy" and "I dont like these people", as of the latest edits on affected pages. Examples: [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Jalen Folf (talk) 22:18, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

This is an LTA that has demonstrated some degree of dexterity in evading filters. I'm not saying it isn't worth trying out a new filter or modifying an existing one as it may temporarily slow them down and may keep their preferred abuse from going live, but our primary tool is likely to remain ECP. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 14:07, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Removal of fringe-theory keywords

• Task: Flag revisions in articles with word changes matching at least one of the following regex, case-insensitive:
  • alternative medic([a-z].*) → medic$1
  • fringe (scien[a-z].*|theor[a-z].*) → $1
  • medical quack[a-z].* → anything matching medic[a-z].*
  • pseudo[- ]?arch(a?e[a-z].*) → arch$1
  • pseudo[- ]?hist([a-z].*) → hist$1
  • pseudo[- ]?math([a-z].*) → math$1
  • pseudo[- ]?scien([a-z].*) → scien$1
  • pseudo[- ]?scholar([a-z].*) → scholar$1
  • quack[a-z].* → anything matching medic[a-z].*
  • A word matching any of the above regex, except quack[a-z].* not preceded by medical, is deleted entirely.
• Reason: Edits of this type are often promoting a fringe POV, which is common in articles about fringe theories. Makes it easier to catch and revert these edits on sight. See also Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Would_it_be_worthwhile/possible_to_get_a_filter_showing_removals_of_"pseudo".
• Diffs: changing pseudoarcheology to archeology; deleting pseudoscientific and pseudohistoric; deleting pseudoscientific, along with many other examples at the same article.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:51, 25 March 2023 (UTC)