Let's say someone is autoconfirmed at English Wikipedia, but not on Commons. Would you want them to be allowed to upload or not? And vice versa?

Shouldn't be just autoconfirmed (or perhaps a new permission specific to upload dialog) on Commons? That would be more straightforward and make more sense to me. At least an autoconfirmed user at Commons is more familar with Commons procedures than a user without that permission.

Let's say someone is autoconfirmed at English Wikipedia, but not on Commons. Would you want them to be allowed to upload or not? And vice versa?

Shouldn't be just autoconfirmed (or perhaps a new permission specific to upload dialog) on Commons? That would be more straightforward and make more sense to me.

@whym Dunno why a non-autoconfirmed Commons user is and should be treated as any different from a non-autoconfirmed Wikipedia user, aside from extra criterion (ten edits minimum) for enwiki autoconfirmed users. The WMF study was more concerned about English and Arabic Wikipedia editors, so this task should concern enwiki and/or arwiki users as well.

I would state "transferring uploads from one local wiki to Commons" differently, unless you meant what is done with FileImporter (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FileImporter). Something like "Doing cross-wiki uploading using Upload dialog (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upload_dialog )" will be clearer.

Also, aren't all IP users already disallowed to upload on Commons? If so, "most likely especially IP users" doesn't make much sense when talking about uploads.

@whym This task should apply to all tools performing cross-wiki uploads, IMHO. I can accept possibility that this task might be impossible to fully achieve on all applicable tools.

I think this task shouldn't be marked as invalid or declined just because making changes is technically impossible on just one tool, but I can allow such marking if making changes on all tools is technically impossible.

I think the community favors restricting non-confirmed users from using especially those crosswiki tools you mentioned, especially for unintentional copyright infringements. The WMF study conducted actions by certain enwiki and arwiki users.

From task description:

This task, IMO, must apply to the FileImporter extension, the...

I don't think that FileImporter is relevant here. Respective tab button ("Export to Wikimedia Commons") is already hidden from non-autoconfirmed users (T160891). Even if it wasn't hidden it's unlikely that non-autoconfirmed (new) user bothers to take this specific export task.

I opened a discussion since August 25 on arwiki, Most of the discussion participants agree to restrict non-(auto)confirmed users from uploading files to Commons.

To this date, the enwiki community has supported (the implementation of) restricting non-confirmed users (of enwiki) from migrating uploads into Commons.

There is a related discussion thread at Wikimedia Forum.

I created a (re-)proposal subpage at Meta-wiki about this request.

I’m not sure if this is the right place to bring this up, but I believe this issue is important, and currently discussions are happening in multiple places, which may not be helping to move things forward. From my understanding, no action will be taken unless there is both a technical solution and consensus to implement it.

My first question: Is the consensus in the Commons discussion enough to restrict cross-wiki uploads from all Wikipedias to Commons? As I understand it, this would mean that users who are not confirmed on their respective wiki would be unable to use the Upload dialog to upload images to Commons. (Whether they are confirmed on Commons itself seems irrelevant, as most users only have a Commons account due to Central Auth.)

If the consensus is sufficient, the next step is technical implementation. The Chinese Wikipedia decided to block cross-wiki uploads completely (T208397), and when users click the Upload dialog, they are redirected to a local upload method instead. Would it be possible to have a system that checks whether a user is confirmed, and if they are not, modifies the Upload dialog's behavior? Instead of allowing direct uploads, could it redirect them elsewhere or display a notification explaining that they cannot upload yet due to their account status?

As for my own interest in the matter, a few years ago, I began tracking cross-wiki uploads from my home wiki with the goal of gathering enough evidence to encourage the Finnish Wikipedia to block cross-wiki uploads in some kind of similar way as Chinese WP has. However, I became sidetracked and busy, so I never followed through with it. In the data I collected, approximately 45% of the uploads were deleted, leaving a significant number of files still requiring review—whether for potential deletion or for fixing incomplete metadata. I believe the Upload dialog is ultimately detrimental, particularly for new users who use it without fully - or at all - understanding the implications of their actions.

I would appreciate any advice on how to hopefully move things forward. (Parts of this message were edited with the help of a friendly LLM.)

(Whether they are confirmed on Commons itself seems irrelevant, as most users only have a Commons account due to Central Auth.)

So the idea is that people who are not confirmed on a sister wiki but confirmed on Commons are a small minority of power users, and that although they don't have to be stopped from using UD, it's not a big deal because they would know how to work around the restriction?

In T370598#10698080, @whym wrote:

(Whether they are confirmed on Commons itself seems irrelevant, as most users only have a Commons account due to Central Auth.)

So the idea is that people who are not confirmed on a sister wiki but confirmed on Commons are a small minority of power users, and that although they don't have to be stopped from using UD, it's not a big deal because they would know how to work around the restriction?

No, quite the opposite. The idea is that you can use the Upload Dialog on a wiki only if your user account is confirmed on that wiki. For example, my account is confirmed on Commons but if I were to go to a wiki where my account is not confirmed, I couldn't use the UD there.

I thought about it more. What we want to do is to stop total wiki-newbies from using the UD, because they have no idea what they're doing with it. It is not likely that a total wiki-newbie is confirmed on Commons. It's not totally impossible either, and if that happens, it's one of the rare cases that won't be caught with the restriction. But, a user becomes autoconfirmed on Commons when their account is 4 days old, so the wiki-newbie would then likely also be confirmed in the sister wiki, if it has the same requirement.

So, when a user tries to use the UD -> Check if the user is autoconfirmed on that wiki. If they're not, then (and only then) check if the user is autoconfirmed on Commons. If the user is neither, don't let them upload using the UD.

In light of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Technical#Understanding_AbuseFilter_code we should consider declining this, the filter has basically been broken its entire existence and if it had worked properly I don't think that research report would have had the same result, nor would it have resulted in the same level of frustration.

The filter generally supersedes and is more stringent than a local wiki side restriction, so I don't see how this is actionable/useful to achieve some means.

There is now a decision on Commons that if the Upload dialog is not updated in a way that it is hidden to users without sufficient rights an AbuseFilter will be activated to block those uploads. As filters can not look for local rights on the Wiki where the Upload dialog is used the filter will block all uploads of users who are not autoconfirmed on Commons. We will activate this blocking filter in August and a warning filter some weeks before. (The warning AbuseFilter is technically not possible, warnings are de facto also blocking the upload in Upload dialog.)

The blocking after the upload process is a very bad user experience. But if there is no other solution it is needed to reduce the massive upload of copyright violations.

I'm told that a separate (child sub)task is unnecessary, but we have two months until the Commons community decides to adjust the AbuseFilter in August.

I think there's already the consensus to stop the newbies and other non-(auto)confirmed users from using the Upload dialog, isn't there? I've yet to see comments from the WMF about the Commons community's recent consensus lately.

Noting that I have officially closed the proposal on Commons as accepted by the community. If cross-wiki uploads are not turned off in software by August 26, then the edit filter on Commons will be activated.

Where does "If cross-wiki uploads are not turned off" come from? Did you mean "If cross wiki uploads are not turned off to new users"? The proposal said "If there is no solution" and I didn't get the sense that turning it off to all users was on the table at this time.

The turned off means hidden from users without sufficient user rights. This is of course also reached if entirely turned of.

In T370598#10954220, @GPSLeo wrote:

The turned off means hidden from users without sufficient user rights.

@Pi.1415926535 Is that what you meant? If so, do you want to add a few words (like "new users" or "users without sufficient rights") into your closure statement for clarity?