Wikivoyage talk:Autoconfirmed users

Main page edit

Swept in from the pub

So how did that happen, I though the page was protected from new users? --Traveler100 (talk) 10:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

It was restricted to autoconfirmed users (the only other restriction available is to restrict to admins). Somewhere there is a $wgAutoConfirmAge and $wgAutoConfirmCount. It looks like the latter (and possibly both) are still at the default values of 0, which renders the restriction useless. I have temporarily restricted editing to admins. Anyone know how to put some sensible values to those two settings? Nurg (talk) 11:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks like it needs to go thru Phabricator. Info about WP's settings are at w:Wikipedia:User access levels#Autoconfirmed users. Shall we go with the same settings, incl the variation for Tor users? Nurg (talk) 12:00, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Per Wikivoyage:Autoconfirmed users, $wgAutoConfirmAge should be set to 4 days. Don't both the age and edit count criteria have to be met to be autoconfirmed? Or is it either/or? Powers ^(talk) 15:02, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I was rushing and didn't see that page. So it seems we have age set to 4 days and count set to 0. Both criteria have to be met, but any criteria set to 0 is automatically met, so we have only an effective age criteria at present. Any budding vandal who creates a sleeper account and just waits 4 days, will be autoconfirmed. Shall we follow Eng WP and get the edit count set to 10? Nurg (talk) 22:36, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Full support from me for matching the WP settings for autopatrolled status. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:41, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Sure, set the same parameters as Wikipedia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:30, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I would also strongly support this change - otherwise, it's a major liability. --Nick ^talk 22:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't care what settings are chosen, so long as they're not zero/zero. There are remarkably few pages, mostly major templates like {{see}}, that are semi-protected, so this decision is really about the point at which a newbie should be able to directly edit listings templates. There are no articles under either semi or full protection. Different Wikipedias have chosen different settings. It's been a long time since I looked at that, but I believe that the typical range runs from four to ten days, and from ten to twenty edits, with a few choosing even looser or even tighter restrictions. Nurg is correct that this is a "both/and" criteria, not an "either/or" thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Remove automatic autocomfirmed status for users who make consistently bad/incorrect edits?

We have a particular user who isn't a vandal as such, called Turbo8000. Please see Wikivoyage:User ban nominations

Their edits are of very poor quality, combined with a personal sense of infallibility even when consistently proven wrong. Every single edit they make requires checking.

Can we possibly exempt this user from becoming an Autoconfirmed user? This would highlight every edit they make as well as preventing them from moving pages where they obviously don't know what they are doing.

We could always remove this exception later if their behavior changes and their edits become trustworthy. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:18, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

This is quite a creative idea! It could be a good way of allowing Turbo8000 to edit and (hopefully) become more sensible, without giving him too much power to just do what he wants all the time.

Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate, mightn't that set something of a precedence for new users to be nannied by admins? Of if you decide to make Turbo8000 a case all by himself, might that not make him act out further? While I do want to believe he is a genuine user who wants to help, my instincts tell me he likes the attention generated around him from being a nuisance. In paying special attention to his edits (which I've been guilty of too, these last couple of days), that just feeds into it. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:45, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I like the sound of this procedure. It's worth trying. The more options of damage control, the better, I think. Let's go for it. Ibaman (talk) 00:00, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I would say all new users shouldn't be nannied by admins. As far as I can tell this isn't required in over 95% of new users and ideally only be done in exceptional circumstances when we are trying to avoid a ban situation (i.e. giving certain articles a minimal protection rather than an admin-only projection).

Also I'm not speculating on Turbo8000's motivation, just trying to take steps to limit the issues that they are causing. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:50, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I like this, but I think this should be exceptional, requiring individualized action, and that the default for autoconfirmation should remain as it is. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

OK then. I'm on board. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:02, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Does anyone have a suggestion how to actually do this? The ability to removed from the confirmed users group is limited to Bureaucrats Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:02, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Revoking the confirmed status of users who consistently make bad edits?

Swept in from the pub

I asked a question on Wikivoyage_talk:Autoconfirmed_users about revoking the confirmed status of users who have been editing for more than 4 days, but are consistently making incorrect and poor edits. I'm not sure about the technical feasibility, process or potential drawbacks for doing this. Can anyone comment? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:33, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not possible (from a technical perspective). You can change the settings (e.g., six days and 20 edits) or you could perhaps use PendingChanges to do something like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks WhatamIdoing . I notice the Abuse Filter can automatically revoke an auto-confirmed status, although I really don't want to use the Abuse Filter for this kind of user management. Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:39, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed user

Swept in from the pub

Contributions by User:Air fans appear in Recent Changes with a ! even though they are an autoconfirmed user. Air fans is a reliable contributor whose contributions do not need to be patrolled. Does anyone know how to fix this? Ground Zero (talk) 22:19, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

That is the difference between auroconfirmed users and autopatrollers. AlasdairW (talk) 22:28, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand the difference, but I guess I can fix the problem by making them an autopatroller. Ground Zero (talk) 22:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikivoyage:Autoconfirmed users vs. Wikivoyage:Autopatrollers Nelson Ricardo (talk) 23:11, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I made Air fans an autopatroller earlier this afternoon. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both. Ground Zero (talk) 13:59, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Revisiting the criteria for autoconfirmed users

Continuing the discussion we had on Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#Vandalism on Template:See also, there seems to be broad support that the current criteria, 4 days and 0 edits, is not sufficient enough. This is largely due to how easy it is to get a sleeper account to become autoconfirmed.

I propose making the criteria 4 days and 5 edits. 5 edits is enough to know whether a user is a good-faith user or if their true intentions are to vandalise/spam. This is the same criteria also used on Meta-Wiki, which has worked very well. I'd like to adopt the same here.

--SHB2000 (t | c | m) 10:39, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think you can identify vandals based on those edits (discussion better held away from the public), but they require some manual work for every one, which is enough to keep the number of sleeper accounts down. –LPfi (talk) 13:10, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

The other aspect is what is lost with the change. Autoconfirmed users can edit pages locked for those not confirmed. The change should raise the bar for that kind of locking, which may have a drawback.

On the other hand, a good-faith editor who bothers to create an account and comes back after five days probably already reached the five-edit threshold. We probably have some good-faith editors who create a throw-away account for a single edit (believing you need to register), but those who remember their password probably make several edits.

–LPfi (talk) 13:18, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

In any case, we can always manually confirm good-faith users need it be. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 14:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem is with those whom we don't know about. If they have less than five edits, we probably don't know them (other than those from other projects doing advanced work). The problem is a user who tries to do an edit but is stopped by a locked page. They may simply leave. –LPfi (talk) 14:30, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the solution to that would be to make a venue where non-autoconfirmed users can request changes and providing more helpful guidance on MediaWiki:Semiprotectedpagewarning than what we have right now. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 23:35, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

What do you think about requiring 4 days + 1 edit? That will stop anyone whose goal is just vandalism, especially since most don't know what autoconfirmed means, or that the levels can be different. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking that. Autoconfirmed with 0 edits just seems wrong, but 5 edits is an arbitrary number. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:05, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I support 4 days and 5 edits. 1 edit doesn't tell you anything. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I think 1 edit doesn't tell you much. While vandals probably don't know what it means to be "autoconfirmed", long-term abusers probably do know (and will probably make 1 innocuous edit to their userspace to evade this). 5 is enough edits to tell whether they're here to stay or not. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 23:33, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

But why 5 in particular? Would it be any different for the number of edits to be 4, 3 or whatever? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:38, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I think I'm just slightly opinionated that it's worked fine on Meta (a lot of the disruption over there comes from IPs who are globally blocked anyway, which isn't a problem on any other wiki). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:45, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

to be clear, I'm fine with 3 or 4, just anything is better than 0–2 (and even 1 or 2 is better than 0 edits). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:46, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Sleeper accounts are about long-term vandals, and most of them probably know how things work. For those it is about the work needed to create an autoconfirmed sleeper account. One edit is easy, but one edit for each of ten accounts is not negligible. For the number, the critical thing is how many edits a new long-time good-faith user will do with their account in the first 3–5 (or whatever) days. I suppose that they'd do more than 1, probably at least 3 – but I have no statistics. We should have as high a threshold as we can, as long as it doesn't keep those good-faith new accounts unconfirmed. –LPfi (talk) 05:42, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

2 edits is the 50% point at the English Wikipedia. Half of contributors make 1 or 2 edits (ever, but mostly on the first day), and half make 2+ edits (ever, but the accounts that stop after a small number of edits generally only edit on one or two days). I don't remember the equivalent numbers here, but it's probably not very different. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you think we can go with three, then? --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 23:11, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I've found the local numbers. Our median editor makes 3 edits. About 30% of Wikivoyage contributors make 5+ edits.

As a general rule, accounts that make an edit will usually do so on the day they created the account, and those with very few edits only edit for one or two days. (Some of this is obvious; if you only make 3 edits total, then you can't make edits on 4+ different days.)

SHB, I think we can go with any number that we want. The question is: what percentage of editors do you want to exclude? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

That's true. I'm with LPfi on "We should have as high a threshold as we can, as long as it doesn't keep those good-faith new accounts unconfirmed.", which to me, 1 or 2 edits sounds like a bit too low. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:53, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify, what problem are we trying to solve here? As far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), this discussion came about because of recent vandalism on Template:Seealso, which was done by a user who apparently wasn't autoconfirmed even under the current criteria. Is there actually a need to increase the autoconfirmed threshold? In my opinion, a change that makes it harder for users to edit should only be made if there's a good reason. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:29, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion regarding the vandalism on {{seealso}} incited it, but it has been a known problem for a while. I have had sleeper LTA accounts vandalise my talk page (even though you wouldn't typically be able to do so).

Making it easy for long-term abusers is one very good way to make this wiki a target for long-term abusers that do know it means to be autoconfirmed. Special:Protectedpages lists only 57 out of 32,595 pages protected (and this number is higher than usual due to the New Jersey LTA, and this includes pages like the main page, dotm pages, certain redirect pages), so in theory, the chances of a non-autoconfirmed user actually landing on such a page is about 0.17 per cent (or 0.0017 out of 1).

If you exclude those, that brings the number down to 45 out of 32,595, about 0.14 per cent (or 0.0014 out of 1). The chances of a new user actually being affected by a protected page is so slim that it's nearing a non-issue, and even then, this can be easily mitigated by providing a good venue and providing good guidance – every other large wiki has done this for years without issue, there's no reason why we have to put it in the too hard basket. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 02:05, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You draw too strong conclusions. A new editor is quite a bit more likely to edit Israel than to edit Petäjävesi. High-profile pages are more likely to be edited by new users as well as vandals. Anyway, if those who are going to edit the fifth day are likely to already have made three edits, then requiring three edits for autoconfirmed is no big deal. For vandals, the effort for two edits is double that for one edit, while the difference between four and five is small. I'd settle for three. Mechanisms for edit requests or applying for autoconfirmed are no alternative for direct editing: few will use those. –LPfi (talk) 05:29, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

The autoconfirmed status does have some importance, behind the scenes. –LPfi (talk) 05:35, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

So the problem we're trying to solve is LTAs vandalizing SHB2000's user talk page? If so, I think this is misguided. User talk pages shouldn't be protected except in exceptional circumstances, since they're the usual way for new users to ask questions or find out why an edit was reverted. Vandalism on a user talk page is annoying but fairly harmless – it's easily reverted and doesn't affect readers the way vandalism to a content page does. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:05, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It may be very cruel to the user though (which may cause us losing high-profile editors). But LTAs using multiple accounts to vandalise destination pages is not uncommon. I am uneasy to have this track of the discussion in public, but I think that we should try to deter the creation of sleeper accounts to the degree we can without causing any significant collateral damage. I am certain that page locks and filters have much bigger probability of losing a user on their first edit than that same user on their fifth-day third edit. –LPfi (talk) 17:47, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

No, that's not a problem, at least on this wiki or cross-wiki anymore, but it was merely an example I brought up on why 0 edits is a bad idea for autoconfirmed. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:08, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

and for the record, this wasn't achieved through page protection – I won't say how this is now achieved in public (and don't feel comfortable sharing with non-admins). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:18, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

If everyone here is okay with 3, shall we opt for that then? --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 09:48, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say since no-one is really objecting, just wait 24 hours and then make the change. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:36, 17 July 2024 (UTC)