Requests for comment/Why is automatic indefinite blocks allowed on Turkish Wikipedia?

The following request for comments is closed. Seems all cleared out. Any further discussion on chess spam can be elsewhere, same for bot reporting of automatic blocks. These aren't the scope of this particular RFC and hence, I don't think there is a need for this to remain open for further discussion.Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:47, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was shocked to find out I was indefinitely blocked on the Turkish Wikipedia. I found out that a "bot" had placed the block on my account and claimed my account was used for "heavy vandalism," I have had a few edits on tr wiki, none of which are actually vandalism. I have never been on a Wikipedia where bots randomly give out indefinite blocks to accounts, even taking the ability to edit our own talk page away from us! Why is tr wiki an exception? I request an investigation into this and for the block to be lifted.--▸ épine _talk♬ 06:36, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure there are valid reasons for this. How about asking on the talk page of the bot that blocked you or on the Turkish Wikipedia help desk before starting a global rfc on the matter? Zoozaz1 (talk) 22:49, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This was probably an abuse filter false positive (The blocking admin was the abuse filter blocker). This is not to be solved by global rfc.--S Ruiz R

22:58, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've requested you unblock on trwiki--S Ruiz R

23:04, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comment @Zoozaz1: the ability to even edit my own talk page was disabled, so that would have not been possible. Thank you @SRuizR: for the unblock request. I think tr wiki should be advised to disable this feature. It should not be active. Now it shows up on my global contributions that I have been blocked and it was not even for a valid or good reason.--▸ épine _talk♬ 23:29, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They should at least keep track of the blocks. I'm sure there is a good reason why they have this feature enabled. Here is the discussion where the consensus took place. A single false positive is not enough to disable the feature. If there was evidence that there are too much false positives, then maybe yes or at least advice them to be more careful. As for now, there is no reason to disallow communities from having that feature enabled.--S Ruiz R

23:47, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that but there is no follow-up at all though. There is an unblock request placed on my talk page and nobody is reviewing the request. It is neither denied nor accepted.--▸ épine _talk♬ 18:04, 17 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Épine: [1] --S Ruiz R

05:03, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Épine has been unblocked.--S Ruiz R

01:37, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Épine: That's not a bot, but the abuse filter. We do this on Wikibooks too and it's incredibly powerful in stopping LTAs. Leaderboard (talk) 16:04, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But you don't do indef blocks, only blocks for 24 hours for chess spam. SHB2000 (talk | contibs | en.wikivoyage | en.wikipedia) 08:47, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We have the AbuseFilter blocking feature in eswiki, it's really effective. However, we don't do indef blocks either, we block 24 hours (which is enough to review the block) and have a page where a bot reports all automatic blocks so we can keep track of all the blocks, so we review them all and make a resolution (unblock or extend block), and no false positive stays blocked. This is pretty safe and appropiate. Anyway, if any change shall be made in trwiki, I think they should discuss it locally.--S Ruiz R

01:04, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I personally think it's a global issue. For those like me doing SWViewer patrol, fingerslips, translation errors could just let us be indef blocked for something we didn't even intentionally do wrong, failing to AGF. SHB2000 (talk | contibs | en.wikivoyage | en.wikipedia) 02:41, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I can understand a bit carrying out blocks but indefinite blocks seem excessive. I think it's important that there is human oversight alongside such blocks and that the blocked user can be unblocked within, say, a day or two if there is an error. I feel like trwiki is relying too heavily on the bot here with insufficient oversight. Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 10:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Épine: As an admin from Turkish Wikipedia, I reviewed your edit blocked by abusefilter (ağır vandalizm). You have been blocked by abusefilter admin that permanently blocks the users who use most used swear and argot words in Turkish. Your block has been removed by (@Seksen iki yüz kırk beş: thanks) and the settings that it may be give false positive errors in this abusefilter have been solved by same admin. I'm sorry for this error. --Uncitoyen^talk 19:07, 22 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Uncitoyen: You might want to make that block 24 hours to 1 week so admins can review it and pick whether indef needed or a false positive. SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 07:40, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, if I'm not wrong, this abusefilter was mostly made to block vandals and trolls. But if it is need to detect false positives, I can discuss ideas with other local admins. --Uncitoyen^talk 08:54, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The filter serves a good purpose, but it should be reviewed by someone, unless it is something like the English Wikibooks where blocks are only for 24 hours. SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 09:03, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’m the trwiki admin that removed the block in question. A few updates: 1) I have since modified this filter so that it blocks only for 24 hours rather than indef. There are no remaining active filters with indefinite blocks AFAIK. 2) I have also audited the edits triggering the filter in the last couple of months and weeded out keywords that are responsible for/likely to cause false positives. I am also monitoring this weekly at the moment. Nothing more to see here. —Seksen iki yüz kırk beş (talk) 09:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks mate :) Is there also a reason why the abuse filter marks my file renaming process as vandalism? SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 10:08, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

SHB2000 That's tagged as "Possible number vandalism". Happens most of the time when IPs or users with not a lot of contributions change numbers in an infobox. ~Styyx^{Talk? ^-^} 13:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense. I know there's a frequent date changing vandal on the French Wikipedia so makes sense to have this filter. SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 22:05, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Guess this is now resolved? SYSS Mouse (talk) 01:54, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I guess so. Can a steward close this RfC? SHB2000 (talk | contibs) 08:34, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just what is "Chess spam" referred to in a previous comment? I find block 'justifications' are often extremely terse, and not comprehensible by the people affected. I got that block message (twice) on Wikibooks after trying to insert "(or lifting lugs)" after "eyelets" on the jump starting article/page/book (on two separate occasions). The message stated, "Even if blocked, you will usually still be able to edit your user discussion page ". Yet, just as the OP has described, there is no ability to raise this as a problem, because when I try to add {{unblock|What is chess spam? I think this filter has gone off by mistake. —DIV (~~~~)}} to my (IP) Discussion page, it raises another message: "Error: This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and you have been prevented from executing it. In addition, to protect Wikibooks, your user account and all associated IP addresses have been blocked from editing. If this has occurred in error, please contact an administrator. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: Chess spam"! Admittedly I don't really care about unblocking for a 24h block, the issue is that if these mistakes in the filter cannot be reported, the creators of the filter sit in serene (some may say smug) confidence that their filter is working perfectly. —DIV (49.195.231.159 14:25, 20 October 2021 (UTC))[reply]

It would be a good thing to have bots reporting all the automatic blocks and being able to make a resolution about all of them (reblock/unblock). This is done in eswiki.--S Ruiz R

04:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, there seems to be something similar operating in arwiki for "newish" accounts. See here: https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%86%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B4_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%AF%D9%85:Dr-Taher#Thanks,_but_same_error - I alerted their admins (in two places, one public) in detail and in Arabic (!) but they either misunderstood me or took no action. I would rather not trip their filter by removing that iffy source. Zezen (talk) 02:17, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]