We also had this issue before, see [[de:Anthocyane]], s. [[de:Diskussion:Anthocyane#Aufrufzahlen]]

The pageviews are here: https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=de.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2019-06-17&end=2019-09-15&pages=Tobias_Sammet|Avantasia|Edguy

The pageview statistics are here, with the mentioned articles on rank 2,3,4_ https://tools.wmflabs.org/topviews/?project=de.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&date=last-month&excludes=

I removed [[Formelsammlung Trigonometrie]] from Topviews as an obvious false positive, though I realize that wasn't reported in this task.

I am not sure about the three musician pages. The mobile/desktop ratio seems normal, so it will require further investigation of private data to confirm it is fake traffic. This is very tedious, but I can try to look into when I have the time.

I think MobileFrontend was tagged because these pages are showing up in the app (which I think would be Wikipedia-Android-App-Backlog and/or Wikipedia-iOS-App-Backlog), but this isn't really the app's fault. The core issue is T123442: Pageview API: Better filtering of bot traffic on top enpoints. Topviews and the app are merely pulling data from there.

Thank you for your intervention and comment. I would recommend to take out the three articles about musicians/bands as well. The pageviews of the three articles are synchronized over weeks, and they are far too high as these items have no corresponding presence in the news or charts.

https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=de.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2019-06-17&end=2019-09-15&pages=Tobias_Sammet|Avantasia|Edguy

About the mobile frontend: I thought it would be an option to temporarily remove the "Most read on Wikipedia" section from the app, if it is such an easy target for manipulations. That was just a suggestion, I don't know if that's a good idea. Topviews, on the other hand, do not play a major role on the Web interface.

Status update: The three articles have been in the top 5 since August. There are still 40,000 bot pageviews per day. The manipulators are completely fooling us.

Can someone please remove those articles from Topviews? I don't know any other solution than to temporarily move them to another namespace.

The removal of bot spikes we are working on would work for spikes like the ones on Formelsammlung Trigonometrie : https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=de.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2019-06-01&end=2019-09-01&pages=Formelsammlung_Trigonometrie

For spikes like the ones on tobias_sammet it will not work as the rate of requests is actually quite low (it is sustained constantly at 1.5 reqs/sec). It is not that is hard to do, the bot detection (for now) is targeting high volume spikes and in this case volume is not that high.

I'd suggest to remove the articles from the list for at least two months (I thouht that happened already?). It is very unlikely that Mr. Sammet and co. will become famous in the next few months.

That's why I suggested 2 month :)

I would like to add that we now regularly receive complaints in OTRS about this manipulation. It's a bit embarrassing that nothing has changed effectively so far.

In T232992#5597291, @MusikAnimal wrote:

Just as with T236121 I think we've done all we can do here. We've identified obvious false traffic and removed it from Topviews. The long-term solution is tracked at T123442: Pageview API: Better filtering of bot traffic on top enpoints.

@MusikAnimal Could you consider to remove the three articles completely out of topviews? We get OTRS-Complaints every few days about that topic and I ran out of ideas how to answer them.

In T232992#5632739, @Superbass wrote:

I would like to add that we now regularly receive complaints in OTRS about this manipulation. It's a bit embarrassing that nothing has changed effectively so far.

I can confirm this. I think the priority for this task should be raised.

See also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Umfragen/Umgang_mit_der_Anzeige_von_beliebten_Artikeln

In T232992#5666267, @Superbass wrote:

In T232992#5597291, @MusikAnimal wrote:

Just as with T236121 I think we've done all we can do here. We've identified obvious false traffic and removed it from Topviews. The long-term solution is tracked at T123442: Pageview API: Better filtering of bot traffic on top enpoints.

@MusikAnimal Could you consider to remove the three articles completely out of topviews? We get OTRS-Complaints every few days about that topic and I ran out of ideas how to answer them.

Can you link me to an example? As far as I can tell they are being excluded from https://tools.wmflabs.org/topviews. Are you sure the OTRS complaints are about this tool, or are they about the "trending" list in the mobile app? I unfortunately can't help you with the mobile app :(

Please see: T238357 for upcoming task to label bot spikes as automated traffic, this will address part of this issue and result in more sensical top lists

@MusikAnimal, that's what we can see since month:

@MusikAnimal The complaints are about the mobile app with it's trending list. I thought it would use the same database as topviews.

So, who can remove artickes from the mobile app's trending topics?

In T232992#5668846, @Superbass wrote:

@MusikAnimal The complaints are about the mobile app with it's trending list. I thought it would use the same database as topviews.

So, who can remove artickes from the mobile app's trending topics?

I created a task at T236121 but it was declined (and for good reason, it's not really the app's fault). I recommended a short-term solution at T236121#5669186.

See also: T239018 (Request for removing the whole trending-section from dewiki app)

Automated marker is been deployed, issues such as these should be mitigated going forward: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Analytics/Data_Lake/Traffic/BotDetection