Page MenuHomePhabricator

Allow tag filter on Special:RecentChanges and Watchlist to be inverted (enable the not operator)
Closed, ResolvedPublic

Description

See T119072 for this request for Special:Contributions.


I know it has been decided not to have tags exclusion because "it is complicated" (probably because of T166618: Handle more than 500 tags per wiki?), but I'm creating that task to have clarifications about that. Also when the possibility to exclude some filters will be available, you can be sure users will ask to have it for everything. :)

Following this discussion, imagine if a wikis has 79 tags: you have to select 78 tags to display all tagged edits except ones filtered by a particular tag. This is not simple.

Another solution is to have a filter that would filter "all not tagged edits", so that people can select a little set of specific filters and add all others.

There is already a way to exclude Namespaces, which could be an inspiration. However, this system is binary: you can include namespaces OR exclude them, but it is not possible select some but exclude others.

Related Objects

Event Timeline

There are a very large number of changes, so older changes are hidden. Show Older Changes

Thanks everyone.

It's not totally clear to me which filters are inclusions or exclusions. If I want to see "Changes by others," that's an inclusive filter? But if I request *not* to see "Changes by you" that's exclusive? I imagine I could generate the effect of most of my inclusive filters by excluding the other options, then, no? If that's the case, I don't see this as a problem.

Spotted here: "The proposed solution is quite reasonable."

Spotted here: "The proposed solution is quite reasonable."

I second that IP's comment. The solution as explained by @Catrope seems perfectly adequate.

Thanks, all. Since it sounds like we have a reasonable solution, I'm going to put this in Upcoming Work for us to triage.

Would any work on this also solve T119072?

This task has been assigned to the same task owner for more than two years. Resetting task assignee due to inactivity, to decrease task cookie-licking and to get a slightly more realistic overview of plans. Please feel free to assign this task to yourself again if you still realistically work or plan to work on this task - it would be welcome!

For tips how to manage individual work in Phabricator (noisy notifications, lists of task, etc.), see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T228575#6237124 for available options.
(For the records, two emails were sent to assignee addresses before resetting assignees. See T228575 for more info and for potential feedback. Thanks!)

Change 620512 had a related patch set uploaded (by Matěj Suchánek; owner: Matěj Suchánek):
[mediawiki/core@master] [changetags] Backend support for excluded tag filter

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/620512

What is the status of this?

There is at the moment significant friction on Wikimedia Commons: as a new tool is getting some traction, some users have their watchlists filled up with tool-assisted edits, and get (understandably) increasingly annoyed about it (compounded by the fact that these are SDoC edits, which cannot be marked as minor, which could be a stop-gap workaround).

As the tool-assisted edits are tagged, the ability to filter them out would probably solve the issue for most users.

Any chance this can be looked into?

What is the status of this?

At the moment, there is no plan to work on this feature.

And we aren't only blocked by a technical issue here. I understand the need you raise as excluding a user (here a bot) from the list of recent changes. However, excluding users, or only filter edit for certain users may lead to a risk of stalking and harassement. As a consequence, working on this requires more people to be involved then just the Growth team devs.

I'll bring this topic to the next team coordination meeting.

Thanks for the answer @Trizek-WMF,

I understand the need you raise as excluding a user (here a bot) from the list of recent changes.

I think we misunderstood each other: what you describe is T209589/T167224 (which I am also interested in, but for a separate use-case).

The particular situation is the following: on Wikimedia Commons, the AC/DC gadget is a power tool to add StructuredDataOnCommons claims. The edits are made with the user account which uses the tool − not some bot/tool account. Over its lifespan, AC/DC has been used by 135 distinct users to made half a million edits (although 10% of its users are making 80% of the edits).

Some users are not interested in SDoC edits, do not wish to audit them and do not want to see them in their watchlist − and especially not when they feel flooded by these edits. By extension, they are not interested in edits made with the AC/DC tool and want to filter them out from their watchlists − regardless of who is making these edits. Filtering out edits tagged with AC/DC would be a possible solution for this problem.

I think we misunderstood each other: what you describe is T209589/T167224 (which I am also interested in, but for a separate use-case).

You are right, and I actually realized it when I turn my computer off after writing my reply. :/

I'll bring this topic of excluding tags to the next team coordination meeting. :)

The Growth team is going to expand, and we are considering to have this task as a first one for new hires.

From Wikidata, I can say that having the possibility to filter out some tags from the watchlist (especially tags referring to semiautomatic tools such as QuickStatements and OpenRefine, which periodically flood the watchlist when big imports are done) would be much useful; selecting all other tags is very complex.
P.S. Maybe this ticket should be triaged?

kostajh moved this task from Upcoming Work to Needs Discussion on the Growth-Team board.
kostajh added a subscriber: kostajh.

@Epidosis I'll move it back into the needs discussion column so we can revisit it, but note that there are 55 other tasks there at the moment, so it still seems unlikely that we would be prioritizing this soon.

Change 620512 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] [changetags] Backend support for excluded tag filter

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/620512

@Epidosis I'll move it back into the needs discussion column so we can revisit it, but note that there are 55 other tasks there at the moment, so it still seems unlikely that we would be prioritizing this soon.

No discussion in 6 months, so moving to Triaged on our board.

Change 866814 had a related patch set uploaded (by DVrandecic; author: DVrandecic):

[mediawiki/core@master] Added a check box to Special Contributions to invert tag filters

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/866814

Jdforrester-WMF renamed this task from Have a way to exclude Tagged edits to Allow tag filter on Special:RecentChanges and Watchlist to be inverted (enable the not operator).Dec 12 2022, 8:43 PM
Jdforrester-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)

Change 866814 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Special:Contributions: Let the tag filter be inverted

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/866814

Change 867255 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jforrester; author: Jforrester):

[mediawiki/core@master] RecentChanges/Watchlist: Expose 'inverttags' param in form and API

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/867255

Change 867224 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jforrester; author: Jforrester):

[mediawiki/core@master] [WIP] Special:RecentChanges: Add ability to negate the change tags filters too

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/867224

Change 866817 had a related patch set uploaded (by DVrandecic; author: DVrandecic):

[mediawiki/core@master] Adding the ability to remove entries based on tags from logs

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/866817

Change 867255 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] RecentChanges/Watchlist: Expose 'inverttags' param in form and API

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/867255

Change 866817 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Special:Log: Let the tag filter be inverted

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/866817

Test wiki created on Patch demo by Roan Kattouw (WMF) using patch(es) linked to this task:
https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/dfcb3f04a7/w

The tag filters on Special:Log and Special:Contributions can now be inverted using a checkbox, see this example for Special:Log and this example for Special:Contributions. These patches are already merged and will be deployed with the next train (in the first week of January 2023).

image.png (538×812 px, 30 KB)
image.png (652×817 px, 53 KB)
Special:LogSpecial:Contributions

The patch for allowing the tag filter on Special:Recentchanges and Special:Watchlist to be inverted is still in progress, but it's already functional, and a preview is available here. This patch still needs to be cleaned up, which is expected to happen tomorrow, followed by code review. Once reviewed and merged, it will likely also ride the train in the first week of January.

Forgot to add to my previous comment: a screenshot of the inverted tag UI on Special:Recentchanges

image.png (527×801 px, 59 KB)

@Catrope If you don't object, I'll postpone the Tech News mention until the 2nd week of January, partially because Monday's edition is already very full, partially to give time for confirmation on whether we can mention both changes at once. Hope that's ok, and let me know if you believe it must be in this week's!

(Ideally with draft wording. And hopefully also a link to an updated onwiki documentation-page section!)

@Catrope If you don't object, I'll postpone the Tech News mention until the 2nd week of January, partially because Monday's edition is already very full, partially to give time for confirmation on whether we can mention both changes at once. Hope that's ok, and let me know if you believe it must be in this week's!

(Ideally with draft wording. And hopefully also a link to an updated onwiki documentation-page section!)

Yes that's totally fine! The Special:Log and Special:Contributions changes would then be deployed without an announcement at first, but that seems fine since they're pretty unobtrusive and most people probably won't even notice (since the "Invert selection" checkbox is hidden when the "Tag filter" input is empty)

Change 867224 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] rcfilters: Add ability to negate the change tags filters too

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/867224

DVrandecic claimed this task.
DVrandecic reassigned this task from DVrandecic to Jdforrester-WMF.
DVrandecic added a subscriber: DVrandecic.

Is this deployed yet? The similar request in T119072 for Special:contributions seems to be working, but this one is not. At least when using "Use non-JavaScript interface" is acitve.

Is this deployed yet? The similar request in T119072 for Special:contributions seems to be working, but this one is not. At least when using "Use non-JavaScript interface" is acitve.

Yes. Example: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges?namespace=1&tagfilter=discussiontools&inverttags=1&enhanced=1&urlversion=2

It'll arrive on the English Wikipedia (which I assume you actually mean :-)) tomorrow with the train.

T119072 shipped in the train before the New Year break, so it's been available for a month now.

Test wiki on Patch demo by Roan Kattouw (WMF) using patch(es) linked to this task was deleted:

https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/dfcb3f04a7/w/