They set up edit filter 407 to stop me from putting Abd in edits or edit summaries.

The log.

Okay, it caused me some minor annoyance, but, of course, I then tested it to figure out what was being filtered, and it was the phrase I was putting in edit summaries of "self-revert per Abd," and just "Abd" alone would trigger it. As it turns out, I never tested Abd in the body of the edit, but then I noticed that an IP had mispelled "and" as "abd" and the filter stopped the IP, who tried twice before giving up.

I notified an admin of it, and fixed the IP's edit and, of course, my IP was blocked for this, and my edit was reverted. They really don't give a damn what happens to innocent users.

(I'm already on a /19 range block, which won't be near enough to stop me, but you'd think that at some point some admin would notice, hey, we are creating all these range blocks to stop Abd from making contributions that are, at worst, harmless? Whatever happened to RBI? Hint: the R in RBI doesn't stand for RANGE. /19 is a mere 8190 IP addresses, but we'll see how far they go. I can't check edits from the range, because, it turns out, if you are a blocked editor, it seems, the gadget no longer allows CIDR range display in Contribs. I'll have to use a sock. They are absolutely forcing me to sock. Clever, those admins.)

My last edit triggering the filter was at 04:27, 8 May 2011: The five after it that I see now, after that, were not me. I won't trigger the filter, because it gives them a leg up in identifying my IP, if they are watching the filter reports. So, like all those blocks of individual Verizon IPs, of longer than 24 hours, the filter is completely useless and will just annoy our friends, the "anyone can edit" crowd.

I love this from the log:
See, what you get when you trigger the filter is a request that you report false positives, as this IP tried.

One more person convinced, by personal experience, that Wikipedia is completely insane. I didn't realize that I'd be performing such a valuable educational service.

I tried to fix the edit to the article from the first IP to be bitten by the filter, they simply reverted it with no care.

The second IP had tried to insert:

"The Muslims who were injured in the attacks strongly Asked for Justice , Especially After The Hate Speach By Christian Extremists Like Abd al-Masih Baseet and Bishoy."

Abd. That's what they wrote the filter on, either in the edit summary or in the text. Who needs "Abd" in an encyclopedia anyway? It's just one of the most common Muslim names. (It's often combined with the nominative "ul" ("[of] the") that follows to become Abdul, but it's really a word of its own, see Abd.

It also stands "all but dissertation," so if a recent doctoral-level grad student tries to correct a mistake of some sort with an edit summary like "Don't worry, I'm ABD at Harvard," that's another academic type they've driven off.

Still, you'd think they wouldn't do something like that - targeting edits based on a common first name? Admittedly not as common in English-speaking countries, but still... Are there any precedents for this?

Perhaps I'll start correcting typos and use an edit summary of "I am not Abd"

There are now sections on Wikipedia that an IP can't edit unless they delete the section link in the summary.

These people don't explain what they do. They can range block a half million IPs and give no explanation but "block evasion," no balancing of cost and benefit.

The precedent for this is Raul654, blocking huge swaths of the internet to prevent one persistent Scibaby from making a handful of cow-fart edits. And, of course, he'd been the one to originally block Scibaby, instead of trying to negotiate consensus with him. Negotiate with POV-pushers? You have to be crazy! Why, they will....

This is purely, "We say you cannot edit, and we will use every tool in our possession to stop you from editing, so, just go away."

Perhaps they had weird childhoods, they never understood that when you tell someone "You cannot do this because I say so," some healthy people who naturally resist domination will do it as soon as possible if it doesn't result in immediate electrocution. And sometimes even if it does.

I saw a discussion between an admin and someone he'd identified as a sock. "Go away, you can't win, because there are many of us and only one of you."

I just glanced at the block log. Are you aware of how many blocks are being issued in a day? It's phenomenal. Yeah, there are many of them, but there are more of us. Treat us like shit, what are we going to do? The only thing that saves Wikipedia from total collapse is that most of us eventually realize that It's Only a Damn Web Site, and we go on to play other games, whereas the admins are more stuck in the obsession.

Doing my new approach, heh!, I have to do a lot of reading of Random Articles and Recent Changes, and, in fact, by certain measures, quality seems to be improving. With random articles. Not sure what that means.

No problem if you are logged in, I believe, though I can't be sure, I haven't tested it with a sock account. My guess is that they would require autoconfirmed, because an instant account is too easy.

But the crazy thing is that this only prevented me from cooperating by identifying myself. Perhaps they imagine that I'm trying to promote my name. No, I was trying to promote self-reversion.

I'll test various combinations, but I'm not about to risk an autoconfirmed sock on it. What does an innocent little old lady in Springfield, Massachusetts, interested in knitting articles, doing mentioning "Abd"? Quack.

Nah,folks, that's not me. If you whack some poor old lady's account, on account of this comment, and she's mispelled "and" as "abd" -- that's what an innocent IP did to trigger the filter -- shame on you. Not on me.

That's another thing - you'd think they'd realize that the "b" key is right next to the "n" key, since the keyboard is right in front of their faces. But no! Such practical considerations never occur to some of these folks.

Why I do believe I shall search for 'abd' and where it is meant to be 'and' shall correct it with the appropriate edit summary.

Edit: Not a lot of those: William Massey (rower) (T-H-L-K-D) has this sentence - "Massey played 19 innings in 13 first class matches at an average of 4.64 abd a top score of 42."

Dunno if abd is a typo or a cricket abbreviation.

It's a typo. It is not a standard cricket abbreviation, according to the world's most authoritative source.

Our dear and lovely friend Lara has proven that User accounts in good standing are not affected by the "abd rule" in edit summaries.

From the filter traffic, I'd infer that. What about "abdicate", though?

Looks like Timotheus did work on the edit filter as a result of my report to the false positives page: The result: more false positives. This is doing real damage to IP editors, as can be seen from the log.
(The edit summary called attention to the last edit in the filter log, which was an attempt to report a false positive on this filter, which triggered the filter because the editor tried to copy the text of the change.)

He may have made it worse. It's triggering on "Abdul" now, as in "Paula Abdul." Somebody get this idiot's hand off of the edit filter and fix it! That filter does no good at all, and it does more damage than range blocks. The range blocks do more "good" as to inhibiting me, I now have to reboot my modem several times and may need to move to my iPhone or other alternatives (I have many).

Basically, by tightening enforcement, when what I was doing was open and transparent and the good was easily separated from the bad (if any of it was bad) with no admin attention really needed at all (except from the lunatic position that all block-evading edits must be prevented even if they are all harmless at worst, which is contrary to policy), they are simply forcing me to become less cooperative, not more.

The range blocks cause collateral damage, too, but at least the user is not sucked into making a page edit, with the time invested, before discovering that it's not going to be allowed. The edit filter did no damage to me at all, since I willingly invested a few minutes learning what was going on. It's helping make my point, which is that strict enforcement of blocks for harmless edits does more harm than good.

(That's still understood, I saw a recent discussion where editors of a page (RSN?) were commiserating that admins would not semiprotect the page because of vandalism, because the vandalism was at a level that could be handled by ordinary reversion, and there were constructive IP contributions. That was vandalism!)

There is only one cogent objection to that, that block evasion causes disruption, because it was already decided, supposedly, that an editor's contributions would be harmful, mostly, so reviewing them wastes labor, on the average. That's what self-reversion was invented to deal with, by respecting a banned editor in turn, if the editor respects the ban by self-reverting, and since a self-reverting editor depends on other editors to voluntarily read and perhaps bring back in the edits, they are far more likely to be constructive edits. I abandoned self-reversion because of the stringent enforcement, and I've noticed a marked decline in my civility -- I'm now more inclined to be sarcastic. Contempt breeds contempt.

By failing to allow an efficient channel for constructive contributions from blocked/banned editors, the administrators force these editors into other channels. Some just go into pure vandalism and disruption, few, currently, continue to attempt to make positive contributions without a disruptive quality, mostly through socking. That's why it used to be required to show disruption to run checkuser, because the point of finding and blocking a non-disruptive sock is?

I have socks, I always had socks, but they were, previously, disclosed. Punish disclosure, it stops. So it stopped.

I think this whole sequence is beautiful as a demonstration of Wikipedia dysfunction. It's revealing weak points in the admin structure, such as admins who will RevDel contrary to policy. In his last RevDel, Timotheus Canens lied with ''RD3:Purely disruptive material," that edit was a good-faith attempt to point out collateral damage so it could be prevented from continuing, as well as corrected. (He also reverted my correction, restoring what an IP editor had tried to do -- this was the "and" misspelling.) If another admin looks at what he RevDel'd (the text is above), and sees that his RevDel summary was deceptive, or grossly negligent, it's possible that this kind of damage can be prevented for the future.

I think Wikipedia needs a new class of editor privilege, Ombudsman. Ombudsmen would have only investigative tools, like the ability to read deleted material. It's kind of like the Founder privilege set as it came to be after Jimbo got whacked for perceived abuse of authority. It might be cleaner if it included the ability to read oversighted edits, but, apparently, unless that's been fixed, that is inseparable from the ability to oversight. (Jimbo still has that right, it's the only active,, non-investigative tool that he still has, globally, I think.)

And an Ombudsman would be charged with investigating claims of abuse of tools and reporting to the community and ArbComm. Ombudsmen would not have the active admin tools, so the watchers would not be watching themselves. If an Ombudsman lied in a report, any admin could see the primary evidence, as can any arb and any steward, etc.

Blocking an Ombudsman would be technically possible, just like any police officer could shoot a judge, the officers have guns and the judges don't. Wonder why that doesn't happen often in democracies?

There should be a lot of these Ombudsmen, it would be a great tool for decent editors who care about the project and understand the damage caused by admin abuse, which is huge, and who know how to investigate and report objectively and neutrally. (Isn't understanding NPOV important for editors?) (They could simply be called Judges, short for Investigative Judges. They would not have coercive power, only the power to investigate and advise.)

I do not know how much vandalism and sock puppetry is caused by admin abuse, but I'm sure it's significant, and the damage extends far beyond what is visible, as abused editors tell their friends, etc. In academia, Wikipedia has a terrible reputation for abuse of experts, and this is largely where it comes from.

Simple. Powerful. Overdue.

Why was this IP editor able to invoke the "abd" name in an edit summary?

"You may not view details of this filter because it is suppressed from public view." x(

And it's a moving target. Timotheus Canens labors long and mightily.

I can't easily find out without sacrificing an IP -- or sock. But others are welcome. Whether or not this IP knew the controversy involved is unknown to me. But it wasn't me, that's for sure. I'm not taking any chances at triggering the edit filter until I know it's shut down. And that's pretty easily done. For all I know, he's poked out its eye.

Interesting. My IP is blocked, and so I can't see the abuse filter log! This gives me an edit prohibited notice. This is the first time I've seen or suspected anything like this. Reading a Wikipedia page, not ordinarily protected from view, is impossible for an IP editor who is blocked. Eh?

The notice lies.
Okay, a modem reboot later, I can see the log again. What they are doing with all of this crap is encouraging an editor with substantial knowledge and skill -- I'm not entirely dead yet -- to probe the defenses and document it. Brilliant, don't you think? Maybe it's really a good thing, though, in the long run. The most recent triggers of the filter.
Timotheus Canens' last change to the filter was at 15:59, 9 May 2011, so maybe he's fixed it. He had plenty of notice the filter was causing problems before, though.

I thank 128.193.80.102 for testing the edit filter. This demonstrates that it's looking for "Abd" in edit summaries, and that the filter is being watched. It probably only triggers with IP edits, my guess, but I wouldn't count on that. I'm not willing to waste a sock checking this, but others may, if they wish.

It also demonstrates that Hut 8.5 is watching the filter log and acting quickly based on an assumption that anyone testing the filter is me. What a waste of time! I wouldn't do this unless I were fully prepared to sacrifice the IP -- or a sock --, so the filter is almost totally useless. If it's triggered, Hut, it is almost certainly not me!, so your block reason was completely stupid, unless by "block evasion" you are referring to someone else who is blocked, and how you would derive that from the IP alone and that edit is beyond me. Maybe you have a reason.

So, folks, if you do test this, please be aware that you will come under scrutiny, and that checkuser is possible, and that if you do have any socks, they might be found, if you've made any easy and common "newbie sock" errors. I don't recommend it for someone who cares about the scrutiny.

It is not against policy to do what you did, IP, so regular editors willing to brave the response should be able to do it if they think it valuable to know or demonstrate. At least until they are warned.

If the enforcement effort keeps up, I'm thinking of creating a guide for socking on Wikipedia. Does one already exist somewhere? Obviously, I would not do this on any WMF wiki. I'm learning a great deal about IP, user agents, etc., and I thank all those who have provided me with helpful information. Most of my laundry may go unwashed for too long, but my socks can be kept clean, at least.

For those who may not have been following all this, I'm restricting myself, totally, to constructive edits. Lately, with the stronger enforcement, I'm not bothering with self-reversion (which guarantees innocuousness as a base). So the enforcement that is taking place is all about pure ban enforcement, not about content protection. With the stronger enforcement, as long as that remains in place, I can't guarantee absolute innocuousness, that would only come with self-reversion (the filter was designed and remains, to catch "self-revert per block/ban of Abd"). In other words, the strong enforcement is guaranteeing that it becomes harder to enforce the ban, and the alleged purpose of the ban, not easier.

Hey, I think it's clever! Toot! Toot! Toot! <-- tooting own horn, very unpopular on wikis.

Toot! Toot! Toot! <-- I'm not doing this to be popular.

I tested this and you are correct.

This has been discussed to death here. Search, and you will find. Assume that all of your IPs are kept indefinitely. Assume that accounts using Tor proxies will be blocked. Assume that you will be blocked regardless of checkuser evidence if someone wants to. The secret to socks is to have a lot of them. Keep a speadsheet, listing what IPs they were created from, where they were used, and if blocked, when, by whom, and why. Trade your socks with other interested users to muddy the trail. Never take a valued sock to ANI, a policy page, a vote, or an admin's talk page and expect it to survive. Create lots and lots and lots of socks -- did I say that already?

Personally, I don't know why anyone would do this for "constructive edits". Consider taking a real break.

If I was blocked for longer than a few days, I would just set up a big granite tombstone on my user page, request it be locked from editing, and leave, never to return.

Why bother with a place that doesn't want you?

Oh, I am taking a real break, compared to trying to convince the inmates of an asylum, and the Inmate Council, that there is a door out of the mess. This is really easy, and fun, and I'm now playing whack-a-mole from the fun side.

Gomi, you don't know why. That's fine. You don't have to know, nor do they. This is about experimental science, not theory. And I don't mean about cold fusion, I mean about "wiki science." Want an explanation, or is it already Bloody Obvious? Thanks for your comment, anyway, I can understand where you are coming from, I think. The thought is appreciated.

Now someone just needs to get an account called Rv subjected to the same filter, then we'd have some real fun.

Thanks, Peter, you're a peach. A brave one, if you care at all about having your IP visible. Otherwise merely helpful. Either way, it's appreciated.

To prove my warning, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/109.145.225.3 Wham!]. (for someone looking later, the block log.

The edits:
18:26, 11 May 2011 (diff | hist) Philosophy ‎ (Tetsting the and theory)
18:26, 11 May 2011 The edit filter log on a rejected edit. Edit summary: Tetsting the abd theory. No apparent reason for rejection in the edit content.
18:27, 11 May 2011 (diff | hist) Philosophy ‎ (Undid revision 428621602 by 109.145.225.3 (talk)) (top)
The ultimate effect of the pair of edits that went through. (complete reversion).

Notice the block reason:
We now have an entirely new offense for which an editor can be blocked. Now, Alison deliberately tested the edit filter, as far as I recall. I think she was logged in, though. So this is a special status offense: testing the edit filter when not logged in, or perhaps when you are an administrator/checkuser/oversighter. Since Alison can read the filter code herself, I'm thinking maybe my memory is defective, or she found it simpler to just test it.

Peter, you self-reverted promptly. Brilliant. I couldn't ask for more, really, for making the point.

Folks, don't test the filter if you care about your IP becoming visible, and if you want to do it for actual content disruption, well, that's not at all what I want to see, nor do I want to see them going for range blocks. But I can't stop you or them from doing that.

My test is this: to see how the admin community will respond to harmless block and ban evasion, as distinct from such which *requires* attention, as a non-self reverted edit that can be identified with an editor does, in fact, require. It is possible that the information developed will then be used to more effectively propose a self-reversion exemption from banning policy, as was previously proposed. The result would be, if this is accepted, a bypass for all bans, where the banned editor is willing to do the counter-intuitive: cooperate with a ban that the editor may well think abusive.

"Self-reverted" is easy to define and judge. An edit is self-reverted, or it isn't. Absent this kind of clarity, "disruptive" is very difficult to define, and "the community loses patience." For the first time, with self-reversion being practiced by just a few editors, we can see administrative response with "disruption" from tendentious or other "violating" editing teased out, so we just see what results from "exemplary punishment" and other nasties, like "How dare you defy ME?"

Timotheus blocked the IP more than three hours after the edits. The purpose of this was? If this is a sophisticated editor (and who else is going to be testing the edit filter?), the editor is long gone from that IP. If this were a real war, someone on the admin side would have a word with Timotheus about revealing their positions without any gain. A more sensible admin would simply have watched that IP, waiting to see if it would do something else that's a problem. But perhaps he doesn't want to put in that effort, I can understand that.

But it's not a real war, it's a play war, with the admin corps being this huge poorly-filtered and weakly monitored body, and this kind of trash attracts the stupidest and most stubborn of them. Timotheus Canens is using Revision Deletion, and sooner or later someone is going to have a word with him about that, I predict, it looks awful.

I am now into non-self-reverted territory. But not into "disruption" territory. Every edit I make, open or concealed, is intended to be non-controversially constructive. If a sock is attacked as such, I'll decide what the welfare of the project requires, it could be a difficult call. I don't expect it, but it's possible.

A little more on the edit filter. Filter 407 doesn't appear in Recent filter changes., You can see the edits to the filter, though, in the real Edit filter log. The filter was modified yesterday.

The third-party pay can be pretty lucrative.

You may be confusing Alison for Lara.

Mea culpa. Did that. Ah, well.

Meanwhile Sandstein has demonstrated how far into a dark place his head is wedged.

A unblock denial. Uh, Sand, the user edited the IP talk page logged-in. See RevDel.

And the block wasn't for block evasion, but see 109.145.225.3. It was by Timotheus Canens for ‎ (Deliberately triggering the Edit filter).

And the IP geolocates to Oregon State University, and until I graduate to proxies, all my edits are coming from Verizon, in Massachusetts. Unless I use AT&T, which I have access to. Filter 407 is only about me, as far as anything I've been able to see. No Shrines For Vandals? I've got a whole edit filter on my name, He Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. Way to go! Thanks! I feel sooo.... loved.

Our dear Timotheus blocked three editors today (May 11-12) for triggering the Edit filter. One of these editors, I believe, is very much a dedicated, follow-the-rules Wikipedian, his curiosity overwhelmed him. Don't Push This Button! Now he knows why. They Will Block Your Ass. You can vandalize any page, and they will warn you. But don't poke the Edit filter, that's Disruptive!

Now, who says that Content is King? That edit filter is useless, really, but it's fine if they imagine that I'm Seriously Concerned About It, it Interferes with My Evil Plans, and therefore they need to cling to it mightily, to Prevent Me From Winning.

This is soooo much fun.

And it looks like some good is coming from it all. Faster than I expected. I'm prepared to run this process, up and down a graduated, slowly escalated scale, for a long time. As long as is necessary.

Just remember, key point: the only damage from this is when the block/ban is excessively enforced, with Edit filters, RevDel, and range blocks in response to harmless edits, at a modest pace, self-reverted. Along the way, good content is being created, good practically by definition, by having been independently accepted.

Enric Naval is trying to claim that I was canvassing for proxies. Nope. I told *him* about two edits to Cold fusion. He's an adverse editor there, much of the time. He accepted one, and he ignored the second. Not sure why, it was very good content, from a source that he knows.

And I might have told him about the ArbComm archiving error that I fixed, I forget. That one was reverted back in by an SPI, blocked for it, but the block had nothing to do with me, it seems. And then Enric finally polished the archiving, with reference to the original removal diff and a template.

In other words, *cooperative editing.* It would be silly to set up anything else with self-reversion. It would be a pure waste of time for the blocked/banned editor.

Timotheus Canens has this thing about the edit filter. Don't mess with the edit filter. Don't even look like you are messing with his precious edit filter. I've listed the edits that triggered the filter, at a log page that shows if it was my edit and if a block resulted.

So an IP editor typed "abd" instead of "and" in his edit summary, see the log for that trigger.. Thus a significant edit is rejected. Fortunately, for him, he seems to have recovered and he corrected his edit summary.

However, Timotheus Canens then blocked the wrong editor, the IP editor who had previously triggered the filter. This was a regular (in good standing) editor who was just curious about the code. Perhaps, at this point, having clicked on the wrong link, T. Canens thinks this is a repeat offense, he ups the block to a week. This is fixed IP, obviously, if you look at contribs.

Isn't this lovely? You write a filter that produces false positives, then you block anyone who triggers the filter.

That is, the block is for interfering with his filter. Anyone else see "involvement" there? Yeah, deliberately interfering with block/ban enforcement, that's a problem. But this filter is doing absolutely nothing for ban enforcement, it hasn't caught an edit of mine for a week, as you can easily see in my log. (My edits are in italics, and triggers that resulted in blocks are in bold.)

I simply changed my behavior. Not that there was anything wrong with the behavior detected. He stopped me from doing something actually useful, aiding in ban enforcement by providing my user name in the edit summary.

Okay, so I'm not supposed to be editing. But I'm gonna edit when I feel like it, unless someone can convince me that it's harming the project, and nobody has even tried to do that. So, if I edit, is it better that I disclose who I am or that I don't?

Is it better that I openly edit or use IP anonymously, or use socks? If the range blocks become too inconvenient, then I'll use socks. Does anyone still imagine that this can be stopped?

He's a loose cannon, and demonstrating this -- which was not at all my goal -- may be a side benefit of what I'm doing. Consider me an admin action filter that detects vicious stupidity and reports it. I don't wonder that they want very much to get rid of me.

I'm going to spell this out: if you are an IP editor and you misspell "and" as "abd," your edit will be rejected and you won't get any hint of why, the filter doesn't tell you. And then you will be blocked, without warning. As long as Timotheus Canens has his way.

Wikipedia:Administrator review/Timotheus Canens

Get over it.

I'm so over it. Timotheus Canens is not harming me, he's harming the project, and he's harming completely innocent IP editors. Some of us occasionally care about that.

Apparently not "melloden."

I did make a mistake here. Timotheus did not block the IP after another IP triggered the filter. Rather, having blocked the IP for 31 hours, he then, apparently with no additional triggers, blocked for a week.

The block log for the IP.

The abuse filter log for the IP.

This IP tangled with a different filter back in February, wasn't blocked for it. The IP is complaining on his/her user Talk page, and apparently triggered the filter, while blocked, twice, trying to explain.

This IP was blocked again, apparently based simply on editing Abdülaziz. My guess, s/he was indeed testing the filter, but did not actually trigger it.

No, "Abd," I don't care. Timotheus Canens is a small pawn in the Wikipedia game, open your eyes and stop wasting time. There are plenty of more important edit filters to discuss. Like the hidden ones.

Care to share some hidden filters with the rest of us miserable wretches?

You know, I did write an exquisite step-by-step instruction on how to deal with posts by members you do not wish to view. Yet, no one seems to take advantage of it.

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=29188

So if someone writes "Paula Abdul," would that be perceived as an Abd edit? These edit filters seem like overkill. There really is no way to keep any editor out of Wikipedia without causing "collateral damage" and prevent others to edit.

This is a detailed consideration of the Edit filter. It's long. If allergic to Abd Walls of Text, consult your medical professional, do not read.

Filter 407 is hidden. The only reason that we know it is an "Abd" filter is that I reported it and I and others, deliberately or accidentally, tested it. The filter produces a report, "Disruptive block evasion," and there is a bot set to copy the report to IRC.

I'll agree that this particular "incident" is minor. However, often abuse is exposed through minor activities, one reason being that major ones are often confusing because of POV conflict, and it's easily taken with "a pox on all your houses."

Th edit filter log, by the way, is not visible from blocked IP or by any blocked editor. That, alone, is an interesting factoid. It is visible to unblocked IP. I know of no other pages at Wikipedia -- besides the edit screens -- that are not viewable based on blocked status. So if you are blocked because of an edit filter report, you can't see the entry in the log.

For reference, the filter log. Log for Filter 407. If you are sitting on a blocked IP and don't have an account to bypass it, you can see a copy of the filter log, as of May 15. I'm maintaining this page every few days, and it shows if IP was me and if it was blocked.

Recent filter changes does not show hidden filters like 407.

History of Filter log 407.

To answer another question, edit containing Paula Abdul. triggered the filter on 08:41, 9 May 2011. The filter was edited after that, but, of course, we can't see the edits. Hidden filter. That edit didn't add "Abdul," which was already in the edited section. Naughty, naughty, Timotheus Canens!

Edit filters should be run in log-only mode until and unless it is established that false positives are rare. Since blocks are not automatically issued, none of the exclusion action of the edit filter is actually effective for anything, since I don't need to mention my name directly, or at all, often. This filter triggered 11 times over a 12 hour period, as I probed it. It then has triggered 17 times over the next week. I believe that none of these were me. Watching that filter is wasting the time of many admins.

If they are on IRC, they will see the "disruptive block evasion" report, and, as in at least one case, they may knee-jerk block an editor, particularly one who has read these reports and who decides to test the filter, by making a harmless contribution. "Deliberately triggering the edit filter" -- which isn't an accurate description of testing behavior, by the way -- is a New Block Reason.

Testing is finding out what triggers the filter, and if the edit is one that should be legitimate, there is a positive purpose in it. Deliberately triggering the filter(s) would be disruptive. I could do that, if I were so inclined. Not yet. I have seen nothing that rises to the level of disruptive triggering.

Each one of the false positives does damage, since the filter is operating on block-edit mode. The filter message gives the editor no clue why the attempt is being rejected. Some false positives are not resulting in any sanction, but, in one case, I attempted to add text that an IP had added, rejected because of a spelling error (abd for and) and it was reverted and my IP blocked. (This was also reported by me to the False Positives page, and the report was reverted and the IP blocked. It used to be that helpful positive actions by a blocked/banned editor would be iallowed, but Our Will Be Done has become paramount, and what's insane here is that there seems to be no concern over collateral damage. After all, these are "only" IP editors.)

There is no policy requiring the reversion or automated blocking of edits by blocked editors. It is allowed and I have supported that policy. I was even blocked once on Wikiversity for routinely reverting the edits of a blocked editor, my goal in reverting was to:

(1) Enforce the block (which was for serious disruption, involving outing, if I'd been an admin, some of the edits would have been revision-deleted -- and some later were).
(2) Insure that the reversion was "per block," not "disruption" because this establishes no position on the content itself, thus allowing reversion back in of some of the edits. Historically, with this editor, most of the edits were good, I'd done this quick reversion, with later review and restoration. Most edits were restored.
(3)Self-reversion was suggested to this editor, but, in fact, the editor took an opposite tack: he revert warred over the removals. For him, it was His Will Be Done. I was blocked because, given the lack of custodial attention, I was repeatedly reverting, and that irritated a few editors. (Self-reversion shows cooperation with a ban or block, it is merely a cooperation that keeps limited communication open, instead of Go Away Forever "cooperation."

If they wanted to use the Edit Filter to enforce a block, there would be excellent ways to do it that don't censor content, but that result in bot reversion all contributions of a blocked or banned editor, automatically, with an informative edit summary and reference to a page that tells users that they can revert this material back in (or restore the removal that the banned editor did), by taking personal responsibility for it. This would be automated self-reversion. (The editor allows it by using an account that is identified or by using IP on a list.) Far more flexible and this could be -- should be -- fully open.)

The basic problem isn't Timotheus, would that it were that simple! The problem is lack of coherent and intelligent and efficient structure, designed to foster genuine consensus.

Efficient structure designed to exclude participation entirely, rather than channeling it into efficient consideration, is fascist, corrupt, it's predictable that it will ultimately fail. The edit filter is being used for this kind of efficiency, to enhance the personal power of the admin who created the filter, and those also inclined to rBI, yes, emphasis on "block" and "ignore." Problem is, intensive work on the Edit Filter, and blocking for any testing of it, is not Ignore, it's Attention. "Efficient" block enforcement, meaning strict enforcement, requires continuous attention.

The biggest problem with self-reversion, practiced alone, is that the edits under ban may be ignored, even if they are excellent, even when they correct obvious errors. The ignoring of these edits represents a common Wikipedia problem, that frequently nobody is watching, or, if someone sees the edit, they don't have time to review it, and it then slips unnoticed into the landslide of History. So, anyone practicing self-reversion may need to develop connections with other editors who remain aware of the contributions.

This requires cooperation. That's one reason why I claim that self-reversion develops cooperation, and the history of the practice shows that.

Cooperation scares the hell out of certain administrators for reasons that I won't explain today!

New trigger on an author's name: Anas Ahmad Amin Abd-Al-Rahman. Time of edit: 13:19, 16 May 2011. The filter was changed yesterday, but it's obviously still whacked.

This was an improper edit, for sure, but that was obvious. This would almost certainly have been picked up by RCP and reverted with no fuss, if the editor himself (perhaps Anas Ahmad, but IP geolocates to Jordan) didn't revert it. It would also have been seen by anyone who looked at the page, Wikipedia:When to cite.

This "test" demonstrates that the filter will pick up on ordinary Muslim names, in an IP edit, containing Abd, which is very, very common. It will reject the edits of any IP that tries to add such a name. The scope is unknown. If some admin emails me the text of the filter, I'll post it and keep the source confidential.

I obviously already know enough to keep from triggering the filter. I may, however, if this filter is maintained, start flooding it. This is cheap, it sacrifices no accounts. If the filter were useful to Wikipedia, that would be offensive and truly disruptive. WP:IAR trumps WP:POINT, when the disruption is limited, pointing to a situation that can easily be fixed. Some of the best actions I ever took, in terms of improving the project by reducing abuse, were, technically, POINT violations. I.e., I exposed myself to a block by an abusive admin, he blocked me, and lost his bit over it.

Were it not for the excellent response of certain admins to the RevDel situation, (I'll name FT2 and Rd232, and others have been helpful) where policy is being written that is exactly what I'd have proposed -- or better -- I'd likewise have flooded that, I'd have forced the obsessive admins to make Swiss Cheese of very public pages, forcing protection, and, then, there is no limit to the number of socks I could create. It's a bit more work to create autoconfirmed socks, but all that means is that it will take more time.

And I can create autoconfirmed socks that checkuser will not see as being me. I can totally isolate IP and user agent information. And so can anyone, though it takes discipline and care.

I am not revealing whether or not I am using socks, because that would be cooperative with an abusive structure, which I'm no longer willing to continue, given the result of four years of trying to operate fully within the guidelines. If the enforcing admins want to keep me out entirely, they will have to work at it. And I can make it so that the work required is more for them than for me.

I am, however, still confining myself with IAR. Everything I'm doing is aimed at improving the project. Damage, if any, will come from enforcement, not from me, I have not forced enforcement, it has always been voluntary, sometimes even reckless. And exposing recklessness is a service. If it's mere error, then any good admin will simply admit it and move on.

I'm not bragging. Anyone could do this. I'm simply describing what happens when routine sane process breaks down, as it has in a number of areas.

Well, there is, but it might be considered overkill and it would be costly, so the Foundation hasn't used it yet.

Newyorkbrad is correct, but also off as to real application, and it could be costly in more way than one.

Basically, he's talking about a formal complaint to the service provider, such as mine, Verizon, that the user is violating the TOS of the provider. Because such a complaint can cause actual damage to the user, Verizon, if it complies and revokes access, would be exposing itself to action for damages. So it better be a clear case.

Where the user actions would be seen as harmless by a court, it could get expensive indeed, both in terms of legal expenses for the Foundation, and in terms of negative publicity.

Someone like GRAWP, sure, might be possible. Someone like me, no. I have not violated any user agreement. By evading a block by editing by IP, or with a sock, I am not violating any user agreement as long as what I add -- or take away - from Wikipedia is not grossly inappropriate, there is an element to my TOS which might -- remotely -- be interpreted to prevent my addition of "off-topic" material to a "social neworking site," as I recall it. Is that what Wikipedia is?

If a user were dropped by their ISP for adding "excessive comment" to Wikipedia Talk pages, wouldn't this make interesting press?

No, there is a reason why the Foundation hasn't gone there! Very Bad Idea, unless the damage being actually caused by the user is serious. Not merely that some Wikipedia users Don't Like It. Even if those users are the entire Arbitration Committee, which has no legal standing at all. The Foundation, if it respects ArbComm decisions, does so voluntarily. The A/C has power on Wikipedia only because many users, and especially many administrators -- and Stewards -- respect its decisions.

By the way, because this possibility was raised privately, (I won't disclose by whom), I was offered legal expenses in return for a share of the recovery from Verizon, should Verizon be so foolish as to yank access. The person, who is knowledgeable, expects to make money on this. I would also make that investment should it be necessary.

Further, a determined editor can simply go to a library or other public access point, forget ISP. Again, there are laws against internet vandalism, and one could see that it was prosecuted. But against someone simply alleged to advocate some POV or action? The case would be so poor that the WMF could get dinged for frivolous claims.

Speak softly and carry a big stick, but a limp dick doesn't qualify.

Extrajudicial assassination?

I would appreciate some clarification from Brad as to whether or not this is, in fact, what he's talking about.

He could also be talking about a criminal complaint, in which case liability would largely be limited to the WMF. They still have deep enough pockets to be worth suing.

And any attorney worth his salt would tell them this. Now, avoiding what loss would lead the Foundation to assume the risk of losing a defamation or damage case? Loss of the value of volunteer time? What does that cost them? To defend against claims will cost them real money, and it would, unless their case is very solid, also cost them serious negative publicity.

Wikipedia, which claims to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has filed a criminal complaint against a whistle-blowing volunteer who tested the claim by editing it after other volunteers tried to stop him by blocking his account.

For this to happen, a Foundation agent would have to act, the complaint could not be effectively filed by any ordinary editor, even if the editor is an arbitrator or steward. Newyorkbrad is in over his head, I'm afraid, he'd get no support for this from the Board, my opinion. Unless they are crazy, which I don't expect. They will take a studiously neutral position, that it's up to the Wikipedia community to regulate itself, they cannot intervene in disputes except where legal issues are involved, such as copyright violation or libel, where they will protect the Foundation.

I assume you are unfamiliar with Wikipedia's Home For Angry Boys WP:ABUSE? They regularly contact ISPs in the name of Wikipedia. I am certain that there are others who also do so outside of this, um, controlled framework, or so I have seen claimed.

I hadn't looked at that for some time.

I've certainly heard of cases where an individual took it upon himself to contact the employer of an editor. It was quite ineffective, even if a case could have been made.

That project has stringent limitations. My guess is that if this is used for mere "block evasion," it would go rapidly into the trash. This is really designed for serious and persistent vandalism, where the edits would clearly show it to a neutral observer, no explanation needed. Note that if RevDel has been used, there will be no verifiable evidence to show the system administrator....

This is also not intended for user abuse, only anonymous IP abuse. For named accounts, they point to Wikipedia:Long-term abuse. There, the advice is: In the vast majority of cases Deny Recognition and Revert block ignore are more suitable approaches.

I see that Scibaby is there. Anyone who knows what abusive blocking that then becomes "considered to be a ban" looks like should have alarms go off looking at this.....
This editor would, without the "ban," make a few relatively harmless edits to Global warming, most would be quickly reverted, unless they were good edits. No effort was ever made to convert this user to a cooperative editor. Like quite a few others, he was met with hostility and harsh sanctions from the beginning, by involved administrators. Does anyone wonder that sometimes someone like this decides to "go rogue"?

Notice that many IPs came off block. That could reflect that, at one time, stringent range blocks were issued, I think GoRight did an analysis at one point, a major chunk of the internet was blocked to prevent a single person from making a few edits about cow farts. By an involved checkuser, who had been the one to block Scibaby in the first place. It became a personal battle for him, Bad Idea.

A piece of weirdness from this report:
Uh, that's incoherent. How do you use one sockpuppet account to register another? User logs will show account registration, doesn't, absent checkuser, connect an account with others. Scibaby was doing mass registration, and probably doesn't bother with stealth techniques. Here is my guess:

He'd find an unblocked IP, perhaps he goes to a library or something like that. Then he registers a pile of accounts, quickly. So if you find an account, you can then look for other accounts registered around the same time, and come up with some suspects. When one of the accounts finally makes an edit to his target articles, you can then get checkuser to look at other accounts, which you could list as suspects or checkuser might pick up anyway.

My guess is that Scibaby just does what is quick and easy. He probably doesn't bother with serious evasive tricks, because his game is mass evasion with socks, and the scurry-about-to-find-Scibaby-socks probably causes him no end of amusement. He's having fun playing whack-a-Mole and there is nothing they can do to stop it. At some point, a sane community would figure this out and come up with a saner response. But, as most of us around here know, Wikipedia is not a sane community, though some relatively sane people do participate sometimes.

No. I was referring to the possibility of filing a civil complaint against a user who is intentionally engaged in a serious and protracted pattern of disruption, seeking a restraining order against his or her continuing to edit the site.

That might fly in the USA, good luck getting one in Europe though.

Well, at least that is saner, though still utterly impractical. You'd have to show damage, right, Brad?

Now if I say occasionally say, "Can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man," and you run around, scream and shout, break your furniture, barricade your house, stop reading your mail, losing business opportunities, and others get disgusted at your behavior and don't engage with you as a result, can you get a restraining order against me, saying that I shall not mention the Gingerbread Man on pain of contempt of court?

Yeah, it would be expensive. And the attorney who files it might get whacked for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

I hope that some of the other "legal eagles" here on WR would weigh in on this, because from my not-a-lawyer perspective, it sounds like Brad has gone off the deep end on this one. While "intentionally engaged in a serious and protracted pattern of disruption" sounds scary, the defense would essentially re-frame it as "making improvements to the encyclopedia anyone can edit". After the laughter in the courthouse died down, I'd imagine a substantial counter-suit based on invasion of privacy, distribution of child pornography, and egregious copyright violations might be directed at the plaintiff -- not to mention the joy that Slashdot and TechCrunch would take in making the Wikimedia Foundation look absolutely foolish.

But, that's just me, and I don't have any formal legal training.

And are regularly ignored by the ISPs in question. The only time contact the "provider" works is when the provider is a college or university, because those places have reputations to care about and are often staffed by people who get off on stomping on the heads of undergrads. Most ISPs will only take action if the request is accompanied either by a court order or the payment of a "service fee", few Wikipedians indeed are able to afford the service fee, and the Foundation is too cheap to pay it for them (it would cut into Jimmy's castle fund).

I should think that the reason this hasn't been pursued is that most attorneys have no interest in having their name become famous to every first-year CivPro student as a result of the FRD-published Rule 11 decision that such a suit would inevitably lead to. Trying to be the next Kendrick Moxon?

Ongoing, the IP for which Timotheus Canens escalated a block to a week with no apparent explanation is trying to explain what happened, and is puzzled over the lack of response. A logged-in user says that s/he doesn't understand the problem, had no problem testing the "forbidden words." Of course. It's a filter that only blocks edits with the word "abd" or "Abd," by an IP editor. (It's a hidden filter, so only admins can see the code.)

The IP talk page with unanswered unblock request.

The editor is wondering where his request is being considered. I have no idea if this is sincere, or is trolling. What I can see is that AGF got tossed out the door, totally. I have not tested the filter since early on. All the reports aren't me. The editor confessed testing the filter, once, perhaps he read about it here, which block expired, and the editor was then re-blocked for a week without explanation or apparent cause.

To me, the cause is obvious: Timotheus Canens is completely unconcerned about collateral damage from his filter (or his range blocks or his usage of revision deletion contrary to policy), and he's doing what is quick and easy for him, preferring to err on the side of Stop That Damn Blocked Editor From Identifying Himself! Because I Say So!

And now his colors become even more clear, a different IP asked him about the block, the question was confirmed by a registered editor (Tyw7) and he blew it off with an edit summary of "Rm troll."

That different IP went to AN/I (permanent link) (live link)
TC doesn't address the extended block, which was issued with no additional trigger. The IP admitted triggering the filter out of curiosity and apologised, the block lapsed, and the T. Canens extended the block. And T. Canens attempts to get the "trolling IP" blocked, ignoring the comments by Tyw7 (on his own Talk page) and Fences&Windows.

Is Tyw7 a "Wikipedia Review" person? And is that an offense?

Tyw7 was threatened with a block today if any socks are used. That was after Tyw7 "retired" today.

Tyw7 has a clean block log, but was just placed under a topic ban. OMG. Don't read it if Business As Usual at Wikipedia upsets you. This stinks. 13,000 contributions since 2008. I have not reviewed the AN report that seems to have banned him from making uploads, just his appeal to Spartaz asking what he could do to redeem himself. Summary of Spartaz's response: Go Away, I'm Tired of Seeing the Orange Bar.

This is long. It provides notice of my intentions and describes my thinking about them.

I think I'll close my study on Wikiversity of this sequence, as to keeping it live and documenting current activity. I will, as I have time, write the promised analysis, and point it out to those who have requested notice.

Rather, it's occurred to me to move to the next level of escalation which must be, at least partly, covert, only revealed after the fact.

Timotheus Canens is clearly unconcerned about collateral damage, and intends to block any IP that uses my name in a way that seems to either be me or to be testing the edit filter. Since the edit filter is only detecting edits, for some time, that are not me, it's useless for its original purpose. Hence the Edit Filter is damaging Wikipedia. Thus to inhibit or frustrate its operation will help Wikipedia. Thus "testing the edit filter," which TC considers blockworthy, will now be done by me, as well as anyone else who wants to try their hand at it. The more the merrier. Be aware that any IP that seems to be testing the filter will be blocked, and that, now, checkuser will become more likely. If you are covertly socking without taking precautions, or you have made a slip, any registered socks might be detected. In addition, any unblocked registered accounts for an editor who is found to be socking "for disruptive purpose" -- which would surely be alleged -- are likely to be blocked, unless special conditions have been met, which I won't describe here.

So helping with this effort, I'm disclosing, could be hazardous to your wiki-health. Don't do it if your account(s) being unblocked matters to you. This could be a fun activity for editors who have been site-banned or indef blocked, and especially for those who think this was unjust. My whole activity, this month, has been aimed at preparing a path of return for "banned editors," because the demonstrated techniques are known to work for that, other than on Wikipedia. It doesn't work on Wikipedia because of the harsh and obsessive control of the project by the administrative core, which is terrified, my judgment, of losing control to the 'great unwashed,' who vastly outnumber them. The core is violating fundamental Wikipedia policy, but there is no external, neutral, restraining force. Unless we create one.

Range blocks, as well, damage the project, in ways extremely difficult to document, and should be justified by necessity, i.e., for the prevention of damage. So I will also start to damage or expose the range block activity.

In this, I may reflect the imperatives that seem to be operating on Wikipedia, that blocks must be enforced, whether or not it damages the project. However, Rule Number One is IAR, and IAR is an instruction and permission to anyone to ignore rules that prevent improvements. So, following the principles followed by the "community," some level of reversible damage may thus be allowed, if the intended overall effect is improvement.

(This is the argument behind the range blocks, that, sure, it causes damage, but preventing a "disruptive user" from editing has an overall salutary effect, by reducing the waste of time it takes for other editors to pay attention to those edits and prevent damage. However, the community operating consensus ignores actual damage or lack of same, and simply assumes that enforcing a rule will benefit the project, which can certainly be true, under some conditions, but not true under others. The range blocks on me were placed without any consideration of actual damage, since there was, with self-reversion, no actual damage, and even if all the edits had been disruptive in themselves -- none were --, the self-reversion should have made that clear.)

(Often, the ad-hoc participants in "community bans" do not consider possible collateral damage, they only have formed an opinion that an editor is "harmful," that they have "lost patience," and alternative solutions are rejected as a "waste of time." with others, long before it happened to me, I saw that mentorship solutions that I considered very likely to work were rejected, since "mentorship doesn't work," but that opinion was based on coercive mentorship where the mentor was imposed on the editor, the editor had not consented, and the protective possibilities of mentorship -- benefiting the editor! -- were not considered at all. The whole thrust was that the editor was Bad and needed to Learn His/Her Lesson, which makes an assumption that this kind of "education" works. It appears to work only often enough to feed the idea, for a few, that it works, as is true for many other common social abuses. Real consensus process integrates the activity of people such that all benefit and none suffer loss, other than minor and transient loss, and exceptions would be rare, and, yes, I have real-world experience with this, in highly contentious situations.)

What I may now do is to start to revert edits that were not mine, using Abd in the edit summary. Or I may make un-self-identified edits from one access mode, then self-revert them from another. I may create the false impression of socking by reverting the edits of other IPs or of registered users.

I will de-escalate if the community de-escalates back to the prior status quo that I was blocked, that my edits were block evasion, that any edit may be reverted on sight, without consideration of content, per normal policy. The use of the edit filter to prevent self-reversion "per lock/ban of Abd," the use of Revision Deletion for legal, non-harmful content -- given that it was only in History --, and the use of Range Blocks to attempt to prevent all edits, when Range Blocks are denied, often, even for blatant vandalism, because of collateral damage, these are escalations that I don't intend to accept and tolerate.

Yes, this is a kind of war. As the "Wikipedia community" side escalates without just cause, then I become allowed by my operating principles to escalate similarly. Minor and temporary damage may then be done, generally it should be reversible if the Wikipedia community allows reversal, paying attention to notice of such damage.

What I saw with Timotheus Canens was that, while he did not block for what may have been inadvertent triggering of the edit filter, he did not undo the damage caused by the filter blocking IP edits (i.e., by reviewing those accidental triggers and apologizing to the IP, responding on the False Positive page to attempts to point out the problem, or making the actual edit the IP had attempted, if it was decent, or at least documenting it on the Talk page.) And, in fact, my attempt to mitigate this damage resulted, as I recall at the moment, in the first range block. Apparently I was range blocked by TC because I pointed out damage his Edit Filter was causing to others, and in the recent AN/I report, TC was deceptive about what he's done handling edit filter reports. He may have intended to handle edits in a sophisticated way, but he's failed at that.

To anyone unjustly blocked because of my activity, I offer this condolence: you may have been prevented from becoming attached to an illusion of a just wiki process, and from wasting vast amounts of time slogging through the wiki-nightmare. You will only be blocked on Wikipedia because of this, should the process be abusive, and your account will still be usable -- unless something very unusual happens --on the other WMF wikis, such as Wikiversity or meta, and you can use the user interface there to email me, or leave a message for me on-wiki. I will attempt, eventually, to undo any damage caused by my activity. You may also PM me here, I'll eventually see it, I assume.

So I'll be targeting the Edit Filter and the blocking practices of TC or others who may join him. I will attempt to lead these admins into causing actual damage, if they are so inclined. Admins who simply follow RBI (a process which could be better used but which isn't seriously harmful in itself, if R represents simple reversion, not RevDel, and B a simple block, not a range block) will not suffer any loss. If my edits are ignored, and if some of them, as a result, cause (minor) damage, I'll fix it. This will require me to document, privately, everything I do, for later publication. I remain open to cooperation with the community, including any member of the core community, if this is offered to me.

I'd guess it would be more of a case of Jimbo and the gang encouraging one of the "volunteers" to stick their neck out and file the suit, then failing to back up the poor sap. Unless of course it actually went well and looked a good PR stunt, in which case he'd tell the international media that is was all his idea.

From what I can see, Tyw7 seems by all accounts to have been a mentally challenged (not in a derogatory way, just how it seems) teenager who failed to understand that he was an absolute dumbass.

Train-loving teenager or brilliant troll? This ANI thread is classic WP comedy. Then, immediately following the topic ban, they start a thread at AN asking for the terms to be changed.