Given that wikimaniawiki has an AbuseFilter that disables logged out editing for everyone, I'm going to set edit => false for the * group like foundationwiki. This is intended as a temporary fix and we should fully address this ticket.

Change #1182587 had a related patch set uploaded (by Dreamy Jazz; author: Dreamy Jazz):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Temp accounts: Disable logged out editing on wikimaniawiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1182587

Change #1182587 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Temp accounts: Disable logged out editing on wikimaniawiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1182587

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-08-27T15:45:11Z] <dreamyjazz@deploy1003> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1182587|Temp accounts: Disable logged out editing on wikimaniawiki (T403067)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-08-27T15:51:02Z] <dreamyjazz@deploy1003> dreamyjazz: Backport for [[gerrit:1182587|Temp accounts: Disable logged out editing on wikimaniawiki (T403067)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-08-27T16:02:40Z] <dreamyjazz@deploy1003> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1182587|Temp accounts: Disable logged out editing on wikimaniawiki (T403067)]] (duration: 17m 29s)

• Make temporary account autocreation skip the createaccount check

I like this. There can be wikis that want to disallow account creation, but want to allow anonymous editing (for example if anons have more limited rights, like not being able to edit content namespaces, while named users immediately get higher access level upon registration).

To solve this we can do one one or some of the following:

• Make temporary account autocreation skip the createaccount check
• Disable anon editing on all wikis with $wmgDisableAccountCreation set
• Don't throw the CannotCreateActorException if the createaccount right is missing from the * group

Among these, the second option sounds like the easiest to me. Especially given the foundationwiki already has anon editing disabled and wikidatatestwiki is as test wiki which disabled account creation. That leaves wikimaniawiki where we can talk to the right team(s) to disable anon editing -- it doesn't make a lot of sense for that wiki to allow anon editing given that it is for an event for experienced editors.

@Dreamy_Jazz are there concerns against this approach?

In T403067#11162743, @Niharika wrote:

To solve this we can do one one or some of the following:

• Make temporary account autocreation skip the createaccount check
• Disable anon editing on all wikis with $wmgDisableAccountCreation set
• Don't throw the CannotCreateActorException if the createaccount right is missing from the * group

Among these, the second option sounds like the easiest to me. Especially given the foundationwiki already has anon editing disabled and wikidatatestwiki is as test wiki which disabled account creation. That leaves wikimaniawiki where we can talk to the right team(s) to disable anon editing -- it doesn't make a lot of sense for that wiki to allow anon editing given that it is for an event for experienced editors.

@Dreamy_Jazz are there concerns against this approach?

The second approach does not solve this problem for third-party wikis, so going with that option may not be ideal

However, the first option may be better here from my point of view:

• The first option may be the easiest approach from a technical point of view (we could make the check instead be against whether a user can autocreateaccount which is a one line change)
• Option 1 would solve the problem for any third-party wiki that has disabled permanent account creation but allows anon editing
• T403067#11126861 suggests that this might be the preferred option for the community?

Thanks for explaining. I'm okay with us going with option 1.

Okay, thanks for your input. I have updated the task to refer to us going with Option 1 and will move this to the 'Ready' column

In T403067#11162766, @Dreamy_Jazz wrote:

• T403067#11126861 suggests that this might be the preferred option for the community?

Please note that I only spoke for myself; I don’t represent “the community”, only a single member of it. (Or maybe not even that: I don’t administer any non-WMF wiki, so I’m not really affected by this change.) Of course I still support the option I supported two weeks ago, but please don’t take me for “the community” if you seek wider community input.

In T403067#11169961, @Tacsipacsi wrote:

In T403067#11162766, @Dreamy_Jazz wrote:

• T403067#11126861 suggests that this might be the preferred option for the community?

Please note that I only spoke for myself; I don’t represent “the community”, only a single member of it. (Or maybe not even that: I don’t administer any non-WMF wiki, so I’m not really affected by this change.) Of course I still support the option I supported two weeks ago, but please don’t take me for “the community” if you seek wider community input.

Sure. I think that point was a minor one at best, so I think going with the first option is still best here

Change #1187504 had a related patch set uploaded (by Tchanders; author: Tchanders):

[mediawiki/core@master] Allow temp account creation if anons have `autocreateaccount` right

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1187504

The above patch implements the favoured approach, outlined in T403067#11162766.

Note that even with this, we could still have the following situation:

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['autocreateaccount'] = false;
$wgAutoCreateTempUser['enabled'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = true;

...In which case, the user is shown the customary warning in the editor that their edit will be assigned to their IP address, then the edit fails due to CannotCreateActorException when attempting to create the IP actor (and any abuse filter hits will log their IP address).

Hopefully it's clear that these config are not really compatible:

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['autocreateaccount'] = false;
$wgAutoCreateTempUser['enabled'] = true;

...But the patch also documents this just in case.

Change #1187504 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Allow temp account creation if anons have `autocreateaccount` right

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1187504

IMO we can skip QA on this, so moving to Done