Last modified: 2014-09-08 18:17:36 UTC
Hello, I'd like to propose that a tag be added to edits with "canned edit summaries". The problem is some new users are using "Fixed typo" as their edit summary when it is far from a minor edit such as that. Good-faith examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Westlife&diff=prev&oldid=623760732 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Drake&diff=prev&oldid=623875114 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohammad_Azharuddin&diff=prev&oldid=623983292 Many patrollers misconstrue these edits as being bad-faith, as they think the user is trying to cover up their vandalism with an innocent edit summary. In reality, I think the user is just lazy and picking any of the pre-supplied edit summaries. So in the end, we have new users being treated as vandals, which is not good... This is why you see the "possible vandalism" tag on the aforementioned edits, as a result of en:Special:AbuseFilter/633, which was created out of concern of patrollers believing the usage of the "fixed typo" edit summary as being intentionally misleading. I think the patrollers don't realize they are "canned". I often see patrollers citing the misuse of the "Fixed typo" edit summary at en:WP:AIV. I think the concept of canned edit summaries is good, but we should tag them as such so patrollers don't misinterpret them, and the tag should probably link to a MediaWiki doc explaining what canned edit summaries are. Furthermore, if there's anything we could do to lessen the misuse of "Fixed typo" edit summary, in particular, that would be a large improvement. Perhaps "Fixed typo" should not be one of the top choices, just further down the list. If the user is going to just pick whatever one they see, I think "Added content" would be better than "Fixed typo". We could create our own (and probably very fragile) edit filter at en-wiki to add a tag to edits with canned edit summaries, but I thought if there were a way to automate this through the mobile site itself, then we might as well do that. Hopefully I've done a fair job at explaining the issue... let me know if you need more examples or further clarification. Thanks!
Prioritization and scheduling of this bug is tracked on Trello card https://trello.com/c/DSRYrRvO
As an alternative to tagging, we could prefix the edit summaries. So it may read "CES: Fixed typo", CES standing for canned edit summary, and it should of course link to a doc explaining what it is. Just another thought, many thanks
Card not found, it says. Could you please handle this stuff somewhere where those whom the bug affects can actually comment and see what's going on? This is a real issue, with a pretty simple fix - either prefixing (like AES, for automatic edit summaries, which is done as part of core) or tagging (like some other extensions do).
It's come to my attention that the issue is specific to the mobile apps, that have the pre-supplied "canned" edit summary buttons. I thought it was on the mobile site as well... should we change the product to "Wikipedia App"?
(In reply to MusikAnimal from comment #4) > It's come to my attention that the issue is specific to the mobile apps, > that have the pre-supplied "canned" edit summary buttons. I thought it was > on the mobile site as well... should we change the product to "Wikipedia > App"? Yes, canned edit summaries only exist on the mobile Wikipedia app, not on the mobile site. I've changed the product accordingly :)
> Could you please handle this stuff somewhere where those whom the bug > affects can actually comment and see what's going on? FYI The Trello code as stated is only for _prioritisation_ and _scheduling_. All discussion happens on Bugzilla.
I'm not sure this is as much of a problem as it seems. I took at the last 15 edits made from the app that used canned edit summaries, and only two of them misused them. Anyway, I'm sorry if you're having to slightly adjust your anti-vandalism patterns, but we're not considering tagging the edits at this time. The standard format of the canned edit summary is easy enough to spot if you want to look out for them, and you can always use the "mobile app edit" tag to give special scrutiny to app edits if you must.
(In reply to Jon from comment #6) > FYI The Trello code as stated is only for _prioritisation_ and _scheduling_. > All discussion happens on Bugzilla. I'd complain about discussing prioritisation, but now it occurs to me that phabricator should be resolving all of this soon enough anyway, so nevermind. Sorry for bringing that up. (In reply to Dan Garry from comment #7) > I'm not sure this is as much of a problem as it seems. I took at the last 15 > edits made from the app that used canned edit summaries, and only two of > them misused them. 2 out of 15 is pretty bad. > Anyway, I'm sorry if you're having to slightly adjust your anti-vandalism > patterns, but we're not considering tagging the edits at this time. The > standard format of the canned edit summary is easy enough to spot if you > want to look out for them, and you can always use the "mobile app edit" tag > to give special scrutiny to app edits if you must. The standard format of the canned edit summaries currently matches a common vandal tactic (that of using misleading simple edit summaries when doing something else entirely), but changing them to use a prefix (which basically just means changing the strings and doesn't require any real technical changes, unlike tagging) would address that. Please don't needlessly impair the workflow of the users who keep the sites worth visiting, especially when it has a relatively trivial fix.
(In reply to Dan Garry from comment #7) > I'm not sure this is as much of a problem as it seems. I took at the last 15 > edits made from the app that used canned edit summaries, and only two of > them misused them. > > Anyway, I'm sorry if you're having to slightly adjust your anti-vandalism > patterns, but we're not considering tagging the edits at this time. The > standard format of the canned edit summary is easy enough to spot if you > want to look out for them, and you can always use the "mobile app edit" tag > to give special scrutiny to app edits if you must. There's many, many patrollers out there, and new ones recruited regularly. It's not going to be easy to train them that a mobile edit with a "Fixed typo" edit summary should not be interpreted as such. It's perfectly understandable why they'd think the user is trying to be deceiving, and that's just not fair to the user – or the patrollers. Again, I can create an edit filter to look for mobile edits with the known canned edit summaries and tag them as such, but this is unnecessarily taxing the system. It's also fragile as it'd have to be updated when the canned edit summary list is updated. Could we at the very least move "fixed typo" further down the list? I think having "added content" as the first option is not only going to help alleviate the overall issue, but it is also probably more commonly accurate. E.g. I see new content added more than typos being fixed. If I could get confirmation that this change will or will not happen, that'd be appreciated, so that I know whether or not to move forward the edit filter implementation at en-wikipedia. Thanks
