Reedy (WMF)

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-- Meta-Wiki Welcome (talk) 20:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, you have a message at hyWP. Regards - Kareyac (talk) 12:25, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

AWB

Hi Reedy, I just noticed that you converted uk:Вікіпедія:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage to uk:Вікіпедія:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageJSON. Can you please tell which structure I should use to add new users, or should I use both in the meantime while transition is ongoing? Asking this because I am pretty much the most active administrator managing AWB rights in ukwiki. Thanks! — NickK (talk) 04:17, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for checking! As things stand, you only need to edit the non JSON page. AWB (until the next release) will only use that one - but if you want to edit both, that's not going to cause a problem (as long as you leave valid json behind ;)). I plan to re-run the script around the time I do the release, which will keep the two pages in sync. As of that release becoming compulsory, the non JSON pages will be deprecated, and stop being used completely in a release after that Reedy (WMF) (talk) 22:55, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Spambots (again)

Hi Sam, hope that all is well for you. At wikimaniawiki, I have a situation that the last 500 user accounts created solely at the wiki are all spambots (back to 2019-11) as demonstrated at

• https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=logevents&leaction=newusers/create&leprop=user%7Ctimestamp&lelimit=500

Generally for this wiki any legitimate users are going to arrive via other wikis within the WMF family. So I am interested in whether for such a wiki there is good evidence of the type of abuse that is occurring and the general approach the spambots are taking to try their nefarious business. Whether there is scope to have a wiki like Wikimania not to have account creations directly, but instead to have them from the other referring wikis as a means of defence, ie. "create your account over there, then come here" approach.

If I need to take this whinge query somewhere more specific, then please point me to the more appropriate space. Anything fro a general user into phabricator is like talking in a vacuum. And yes, I do go on about spambots, and their easy ability to create accounts, and that the security appears to leave the burden of response to the community, as that is solely how it appears to be. Happy to be proven wrong on these points, and happy to see more done to protect matters. Thanks for listening.  — billinghurst sDrewth 00:22, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

(replying with my personal account because it's nearly 4am and I'm lazy ;)) I don't think it's anything we've tried, but I don't see any particular reason we could't turn off registration itself on the wikimaniawiki, and then still allow login (automatic or manual) with CA accounts to then do the local account creation (same as normal for anyone that already has an account elsewhere on a SUL wiki, and hence, a CA account). Might need to change a few messages/similar to point people to register elsewhere, but that shouldn't be difficult. Like you say, I can't see any particular reason anyone would choose to sign up on the wikimania wiki directly; maybe in the run up to Wikimania...? If you could look a bit further back and see if that is indeed the case (ie say March/April 2019 to August 2019); we might want to turn registration again for a period, maybe not. I'll come back to this at a more sociable hour, and see what we can do. Will probably want to file a phab task for audit trail/actionability, but either of us can do this. While we all know our captchas suck, and all of these accounts have presumably passed it via one method or another, this seems like a good data point for reference. Reedy (talk) 03:55, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T247185

Thanks. I try to leave your personal page to your volunteer activities, esp. weekends. I will put a phabricator in place for the ability to switch off direct creations, and a note about a re-open at a later time. I will leave the remainder of the complaint on the outside, and a TBD against its components.  — billinghurst sDrewth 04:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. Lines get mixed. I have access to my WMF email in the same browser as my personal account. :) I left some comments about the patterns of some of the spam bots I had a quick look at. Disabled for the moment, but we might want to do some followup work/testing etc. Reedy (talk) 17:29, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

How we will see unregistered users

Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.

Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:17, 4 January 2022 (UTC)