Improve/investigate solutions for the Flow botspam
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	Quiddity
	Oct 21 2015, 6:33 PM

Description

There is a recent problem with spam, primarily on mediawiki.org - e.g. https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&limit=250
The bots generally start off with 1 or 2 short nonsensical or autogenerated posts - e.g. "can i use very daily", "gdsfgfdgd", "this for side avoik", "can you help to choose catagory?", "this horse not listen our", etc.

Then they start the spam-posts - e.g. https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Sr7bc86hgw8bw34x&topic_postId=sr7bc873ambemp5t&topic_revId=sr7bc873ambemp5t&action=single-view and https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Sr5n47ab90qcpnsw&topic_postId=sr5n47anq07jf5j4&topic_revId=sr5n47anq07jf5j4&action=single-view

There's an active abusefilter which is catching a bit of it, but not all:

The same bots are also hitting non-Flow pages, but not nearly as much. e.g. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category_talk:Communication&curid=13058&diff=14224734&oldid=163254 and https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Billinghurst&curid=144231&diff=14223216&oldid=14196597

Related tasks:

(and lower priority)

Related Objects

Mentioned In: T115695: Add Flow support to Nuke
Mentioned Here: T116744: Add a post title variable to AbuseFilter
T60725: Flow: moderated content inconsistencies
T116226: Use a single-line text area, for Flow moderation reasons, and allow submit on Enter
T61811: Flow: AbuseFilter "Tag the edit for further review" doesn't work
T63927: Flow: Include working diff link in RC feed event
T93673: Remove Notifications about posts/topics that have been Moderated
T115128: AbuseFilter test tools does not work for Flow edits
T115695: Add Flow support to Nuke
T115887: Wrong AF variables computed for MassMessage account for edits on Flow topics
T116058: Deleted topics deleted edits shouldn't appear in recent changes

Event Timeline

Quiddity created this task.Oct 21 2015, 6:33 PM

Quiddity assigned this task to matthiasmullie.

Quiddity raised the priority of this task from to High.

Quiddity updated the task description. (Show Details)

Quiddity added projects: StructuredDiscussions, Collaboration-Team-Archive-2015-2016.

Quiddity added subscribers: Quiddity, Trizek-WMF.

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptOct 21 2015, 6:33 PM

Legoktm renamed this task from Improve/investigate solutions for the botspam to Improve/investigate solutions for the Flow botspam.Oct 21 2015, 8:02 PM

Legoktm set Security to None.

Legoktm added a subscriber: hoo.

Peachey88 subscribed.Oct 21 2015, 8:11 PM

Quiddity updated the task description. (Show Details)Oct 21 2015, 8:48 PM

Glaisher subscribed.Oct 22 2015, 11:07 AM

greg subscribed.Oct 22 2015, 4:30 PM

Raising priority per discussion in standup

• Mattflaschen-WMF claimed this task.Oct 22 2015, 5:57 PM

• Mattflaschen-WMF added a subscriber: matthiasmullie.

Stryn subscribed.Oct 22 2015, 7:31 PM

SBisson moved this task from Untriaged to In Development on the Collaboration-Team-Archive-2015-2016 board.Oct 22 2015, 7:35 PM

Matthias and I wrote https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:AbuseFilter/43 . It's currently just on "Prevent the user from performing the action in question" and flag.

• Mattflaschen-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)Oct 22 2015, 8:20 PM

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/248117/ will hopefully also help with this. It adds a ping-limiter. Currently it uses the standard 'edit' limiter, which is configured to 8/minute on MediaWiki.org.

However, this can be changed on a per-wiki basis, and if needed, we can make a separate limit for Flow (e.g. we can require them to be both below the overall 'edit' limit and a 'flow' limit, if desired).

Also added https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:AbuseFilter/44, which should stop most keyboard-smashing input. Clusters of multiple consecutive consonants/vowels are considered suspicious. E.g. "lkasdjkhg"

Found some spam on frwp. I'll investigate to see if there is spam elsewhere.

Steinsplitter awarded a token.Oct 27 2015, 10:50 AM

Glaisher updated the task description. (Show Details)Oct 27 2015, 12:27 PM

Shanmugamp7 subscribed.Oct 27 2015, 1:21 PM

Pmlineditor subscribed.Oct 27 2015, 1:40 PM

Glaisher added a parent task: T43492: [DO NOT USE] Steward, global sysop and SWMT tasks bugs (tracking) [superseded by #Stewards-and-global-tools].Oct 27 2015, 3:11 PM

• Mattflaschen-WMF mentioned this in T115695: Add Flow support to Nuke.Oct 27 2015, 3:18 PM

Jay8g subscribed.Oct 27 2015, 4:52 PM

Legoktm added a project: Stewards-and-global-tools.Oct 27 2015, 4:57 PM

Ciencia_Al_Poder awarded a token.Oct 28 2015, 10:41 AM

Ciencia_Al_Poder subscribed.

We're still working on this (and fixes have already been merged), but I don't think it's UBN any more. Correct me if I'm wrong, and the symptoms are still severe in production right now.

• Mattflaschen-WMF removed • Mattflaschen-WMF as the assignee of this task.Nov 20 2015, 6:04 PM

matthiasmullie moved this task from In Development to Ready for pickup on the Collaboration-Team-Archive-2015-2016 board.Jan 14 2016, 5:55 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: JEumerus. · View Herald TranscriptJan 14 2016, 5:55 PM

• jmatazzoni moved this task from Ready for pickup to RFP (Flow) on the Collaboration-Team-Archive-2015-2016 board.Apr 6 2016, 10:32 PM

• jmatazzoni closed this task as Resolved.Apr 11 2016, 11:27 PM

MarcoAurelio moved this task from Untriaged to Closed on the Stewards-and-global-tools board.May 8 2016, 8:32 AM

MarcoAurelio removed a parent task: T43492: [DO NOT USE] Steward, global sysop and SWMT tasks bugs (tracking) [superseded by #Stewards-and-global-tools].Jan 11 2017, 11:39 PM