Meta:Babel/Archives/2018-08

Abuse of rollback right

The following discussion is closed: There's no abuse here, as it has been explained by many users, so I'm closing this discussion. A possible modification to rollback function is being discussed at phab:T201696. And no, there's not a Meta active editor statistics here. Matiia (talk) 17:20, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

---

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T201696

Please see this discussion:

• https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AChrissymad&type=revision&diff=18288520&oldid=18288513

This kind of stuff drives editors away. Otherwise I would let it go. I don't normally come very often to Meta. And stuff like this is just another reason not to come.

I will leave a link back to here from that talk page. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:12, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• I explained myself repeatedly. I rolled back a long term abuser who had already been blocked. When you requested an explanation, I explained to you why I did it. What more do you expect? Chrissymad (talk) 14:17, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

And I'll add that I explained to you several times after you continued hounding me. Chrissymad (talk) 14:17, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• (Edit conflict.) Drop the stick, Timeshifter. Chrissymad used rollback, you asked why, and she explained it. There is zero abuse. Primefac (talk) 14:17, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
• I don't see any abuse of rollback when reverting banned editors evading their ban/block/lock. -★- PlyrStar93 _{→Message me. ←} 14:27, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
• This IP editor is a good example which was use by the locked user User:A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver in previously, but I don't know how was about other users opinion. In fact, I do not wish to have an revert war with LTA, so I has leave it there and let other users to revert it. SA 13 Bro (talk) 15:22, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
• There is no abuse here. LTA posts are routinely reverted without explanation per the principle of denying recognition. If you want an explanation of a revert done with rollback, all you need to do is ask the user who performed it. And please avoid comments like "You should stop editing on Wikimedia sites if you don't know how to use edit summaries..."; we have expectations of users participating on Meta-Wiki and inflammatory/uncivil comments like that are discouraged. – Ajraddatz (talk) 14:28, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Circling the wagons. You all are determined to miss the point. Did you read the thread? My point was that when blanking part of a page for any reason one should put that reason in the edit summary. I was pinged by that part of the page that was deleted. I had no idea why that part of the page was deleted, and so I reverted its removal thinking it was some random vandalism, or some personal squabble.

Go ahead and continue to be dismissive. Drive away more editors. How many active editors are there on Meta Wiki? How hard is it to leave an edit summary, and prevent all these problems? --Timeshifter (talk) 14:35, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Rollback does not give an option for an edit summary. If the rollback isn't exceedingly obvious, then the user using the rollback should be able to explain what they did and why. Chrissymad did that. I'm not being dismissive, I'm wondering why you're still harping on a single instance where the user did exactly what they should have done. Primefac (talk) 14:41, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

No; you're standing alone as everyone else is telling you that you are missing the point. Nobody is driven off of Meta-Wiki because an LTA post was reverted without explanation. In fact, doing so makes Meta a much more welcoming environment - we've received feedback in the past that the sheer number of users who are banned elsewhere on Wikimedia but allowed to participate on Meta is off-putting for a large number of users. By taking a more serious attempt at removing illegitimate posts from discussions, we keep the floor open for the type of participation we want here. This entire situation should have been a slight misunderstanding - nobody is upset at your revert, or that you asked why the initial revert happened. But you've kept going with messages to the user and now the community over this. It's time to put the issue to rest. – Ajraddatz (talk) 14:41, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

You can put it to rest by acknowledging that the simplest edit summary would solve the problem.

By the way someone just thanked me for my work on the Commons categorizing charts with info on active editor statistics. I can't find any on active editors on Meta Wiki. Does anybody have any stats?

Commons: Category:Wikimedia active editor statistics --Timeshifter (talk) 14:58, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

For the fourth(?) time, rollback does not give an edit summary. Full stop, end of story. You keep saying "this could have been avoided if an ES had been used" but that's not technically possible. Primefac (talk) 14:59, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I already acknowledged that in the original thread (did you read it?), and suggested not using rollback in this case. That way an edit summary can be used while reverting. Maybe an edit summary option needs to be added to rollback. That may be something that could be suggested to developers. By the way I have rollback rights on Wikipedia. I never use it though. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:17, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

If someone so desires to add an edit summary with the rollback tool they can achieve this with a script, but none of them is mandatory if someone wants to use rollback in Wikimedia projects. If you are able to do a simple check of the edit history and a look-up of the users you should easily find why the edit was reverted, even without any edit summary. Meanwhile, if you don't need rollback on enwiki maybe you'd consider requesting it removed from your account to avoid accidental clicks. -★- PlyrStar93 _{→Message me. ←} 15:30, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I looked at the edit history, and I looked at that talk page and saw that he had stuff posted that was not deleted on that talk page. So I was baffled as to why he was being blanked. I looked at his user page, and user talk page, and saw no problems. I looked at his block log even. I was completely baffled. I have tens of thousands of edits on Wikimedia projects, and couldn't figure it out. So imagine what other users think when they see this stuff. Especially new users. I think it could easily drive away a few editors. This stuff messes up talk pages severely. Maybe the rollback function should be eliminated altogether if an edit summary can not be built in. I am being serious. Anybody have Meta active editor statistics? I want to start a Meta category here:

Commons: Category:Wikimedia active editor statistics --Timeshifter (talk) 15:39, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• (Edit conflict.) This is going nowhere, multiple people are telling you this is within the policy, and you are not listening. The reason behind the rollback can be presented if requested, and it was done so as requested by you. There is no room for abusers on Meta, as on other wikimedia wikis. (PS: You can have a custom edit summary with rollback but that defeats the purpose of the rollback - "make that gibberish gone ASAP".) — regards, Revi 15:42, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I understand that there is no edit summary with rollback, and have said so several times. So it is you that is not listening. So if the purpose of rollback is to speed up deletion of stuff, then let's suggest to the developers that some preselected edit summaries be built in to rollback. So that rollback uses the last one used. Until a new selection from some kind of dropdown list of edit summaries is selected. And it should be possible for the user to add entries to that local list of edit summaries. Problem solved. Fewer editors driven away. Maybe the title of this thread should be changed to "Rollback is currently inherently abusive". --Timeshifter (talk) 16:01, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

This is going off-topic. --MF-W 16:07, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

That precisely defeats the purpose of the rollback. Rollback is designed to send vandal, spammer, trolls to hell. Anything between the "rollback" button and the actual revert is the hassle. Community already have said so. (I never said "there is no edit summary with rollback", I said the opposite - you can have the edit summary, but that is so complex that you'd beter use undo.) Anyway per MF-W, this is indeed going offtopic, and again, nowhere. — regards, Revi 16:09, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

It is not offtopic. I created the topic, and it is about rollback. Is Meta always this dismissive? You did not read well what I said. I do not mean to put anything between the rollback button and the actual revert. I want an option for a default edit summary. That default can be changed at anytime. From a list of edit summaries. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

The rollback function with edit summaries is Twinkle, this is only using on English Wikipedia. Since you never use the rollback rights on English Wikipedia, then you can post a request for remove it at w:WP:AN or w:WP:ANI if you wish at anytime, even if you have no rollback rights on English Wikipedia, it can be set the preferences and use for it. This is quite ridiculous to have the category room for those abusers on Meta-Wiki. SA 13 Bro (talk) 16:29, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I want to keep my rollback rights. I tested it on my user page today. I will use it more if default edit summaries are built in later.

• Comment. Phabricator task has been suggested:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T201696 --Timeshifter (talk) 16:34, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I suggest it's time to close this discussion here. The original concerns of "abuse" have been addressed and explained adequately, and the technical issues will be handled elsewhere. -★- PlyrStar93 _{→Message me. ←} 16:45, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — regards, Revi 15:48, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Hacked

Hi n my name is Themba I am currently having a problem with my email ddress. I thing it has been hacked.

I am unable send my emails they keep on piling up on the outbox section.

Kindly assist please

Thank You

@41.113.135.107: Unless you have an @wikimedia.org email address, we cannot help you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:24, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: StevenJ81 (talk) 14:47, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Allow 'snowball' closures of unsucceeding requests sitewide

Hello. I am proposing that Meta:Snowball be amended. Please find the details at Meta talk:Snowball. Thank you. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 09:53, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

'editcontentmodel' permission for 'massmessage-senders'

After some unexpected remarks relating to a change which I deemed uncontroversial, I have to seek community consensus for phab:T202597. To me it makes sense to add this permission to the group since it a) solves a bug and b) members of the group are trusted not to be vandals and mess around with content models, anyway. Should there be consensus in favour, I will SWAT schedule the change in 2 weeks from now on. Regards, --Vogone (talk) 08:13, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

• As long as the concerns exposed at <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T85847#2959070> still remain unresolved I'd strongly oppose. Regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:19, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  I can't really follow your line of argument here. Shall we temporarily remove 'editcontentmodel' from admins as well then, in light of the discussion two sections above this one? If this is a bug, it needs to be fixed. Independently of the outcome of this discussion here. --Vogone (talk) 10:44, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  Why remove admins? Admins can already edit user JS pages with our without editcontentmodel permissions (soon to be lost in favor of interface-admin). While I agree the bug --if it still exists, something that I've already asked-- should be fixed, expanding this access so everyone can exploit it looks a bad idea to me. This is a conditional oppose as long as that bug exists. In any case, it looks to me that people with 'massmessage' rights should be able to create and edit massmessage lists without the need of 'editcontentmodel', but that's a config change for the extension itself that we're not discussing in here. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:06, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  Link to discussion on enwiki. Ping @Jo-Jo Eumerus so he can comment whether he knows the bug still exists or was fixed already. Thank you. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:16, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  It still exists, I have tested it in my own user namespace. But I do not consider it to be a blocker. This is a highly monitored wiki, the users are trusted not to be vandals, and that a MassMessage sender's account is being hacked is just as likely as a hack of any admin account. Also, MMS are not many in terms of numbers. --Vogone (talk) 11:35, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  (Edit conflict.) Well I'd say it's quite unfortunate that it still exists given the security concerns, moreover when those were recently exploited to hack into accounts with elevated permissions. Do we have a ticket for this? (there might be some in the security corner of Phabricator, but I don't have access there). —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:19, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

• I think the "bug" is that the Special:CreateMassMessageList requires excessive permissions (the ability to change the content model of pages to and from things that have nothing to do with message lists) and that if that could be fixed it would be ideal. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:55, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  Looking at SpecialCreateMassMessageList.php, removing the 'editcontentmodel' requirement would be a rather easy task. @Legoktm: Is there a reason for the requirement to have 'editcontentmodel' on that special page which we have not seen, yet? Removing it might indeed be the easiest solution to this problem. --Vogone (talk) 13:18, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  (Edit conflict.) As I've said avove in small letters I feel this should be the prefered option if at all achievable. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:19, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  Perhaps just change that check to 'massmessage' instead? After all we allow special workflows to create non-wikitext pages in general. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:14, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  Currently it checks for 'edit', 'create' and 'editcontentmodel'. In my opinion, there is no need to restrict it to 'massmessage', since it has nothing to do with the actual delivery and thus is not dangerous for someone to test/prepare his delivery list before applying for MMS rights. --Vogone (talk) 14:22, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

  I'd support that as "option 2" (and not something special here on meta, but the default). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:43, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

• As for this specific task, the access being requested appears to be overkill for the usecase calling for it, I'd rather see a use case solutions from phab:T92795. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:06, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose editcontentmodel as it unnecessarily raises security implications with javascript. Allowing CreateMassMessageList is a much better solution. As an additional note... if I recall correctly... the issue was very easily solved on EnWiki. I believe an admin simply created a large batch of empty MassMessageLists, and anyone could take (page move) an empty list as needed. Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems like Mount Molehill. Alsee (talk) 00:46, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
• I think the problem here is that the "editcontentmodel" permission lumps a number of things with disparate implications under the same permission. Changing a page from wikitext or JSON to JS or CSS and back just does not have the same implications as changing a page from wikitext to MassMessage. Perhaps splitting the permission into a "change content model except to and from CSS and JS" and "change content model to and from CSS and JS" makes sense. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:29, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose in favor of phab:T92795 fixing this condition instead. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:13, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Possible in-wiki changes to MediaWiki messages?

There are 4 MediaWiki messages on this project that are related to MediaWiki:Blockedtext and MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning, of which they are very plain and not using formats equivalent to Blockedtext and Abusefilter-warning:

• MediaWiki:Autoblockedtext: No link to information about autoblocks; doesn't provide additional information and alternate ways to bypass autoblocks.
• MediaWiki:Abusefilter-disallowed: No link to Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat to report false positives if a disallow-only filter has been triggered. This plain version would apparently bite the newbies.
• MediaWiki:Abusefilter-degrouped: Same as Abusefilter-disallowed.
• MediaWiki:Abusefilter-autopromote-blocked: Same as Abusefilter-disallowed.

The three Abusefilter messages listed here should have used a format deliberated from Wikipedia.

There were a few edit requests for more stylized versions of these MediaWiki message, but have been declined as a result of no advice for consensus. This is because that the actual pages do not exist, and if they was not created, they would use the default text for non-customized versions.

The following codes were used for these edit requests, which will be proposed here (results are shown below the code for each message):

Autoblockedtext

Abusefilter-disallowed

Abusefilter-degrouped

Abusefilter-autopromote-blocked

I think the interface editors wanted to keep the plain versions of these message because they would look very nostalgic for Meta-Wiki.

Raising the discussion, would it be possible to implement these changes rather than retaining the text-only messages? 2600:1700:A2A0:FB50:10F9:9565:352B:1C07 01:05, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't really care for all that here, since we serve users in all languages and I think it will be a royal pain to keep these translatable. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:50, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Can you present your proposal in a more readily understandable manner? E.g. by putting the old and the proposed new version next to each other in collapsible boxes. --MF-W 14:05, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, it was a little tricky, but I did what the OP did not, and configured it as you requested, MF-W. One technical point is that the originals aren't really surrounded by boxes; I just did that to set them off from anything else.

As far as the actual proposal goes, I think there are actually two separate pieces to that: (1) Should we add some formatting to the standard texts to make them stand out more—but rely on the standard texts because there are translations that already exist? (2) Should we actually change the text copy itself? Doing (1) overcomes Xaosflux's concern.

I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other, though I imagine that at least surrounding the message in a box to help it stand out would be useful, if that doesn't already happen. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:34, 21 September 2018 (UTC)