@@ -1724,3 +1724,9 @@ is_bot edits Percentage of all edits
\item how many different edit filter editors are there (af\_user)?
\item categorise filters according to which name spaces they apply to; pay special attention to edits in user/talks name spaces (may be indication of filtering harassment)
\end{itemize}
\textbf{Questions on abuse\_filter\_action table}
\begin{itemize}
\item how many filters trigger any particular action (at the moment)?
\item how many different parameters are there (i.e. tags when tagging, or templates to show upon a warning)?
In this section, we explore some general patterns of the edit filters on Engish Wikipedia, or respectively the data from the \emph{abuse\_filter} table.
The scripts that generate the statistics discussed here, can be found in the jupyter notebook in the project's repository. %TODO add link after repository has been cleaned up
As of January 6th, 2019 there are 954 filters in this table.
As of January 6th, 2019 there are $954$ filters in this table.
It should be noted, that if a filter gets deleted, merely a flag is set to indicate so, but no entries are removed from the database.
So, the above mentioned 954 filters are all filters ever made up to this date.
So, the above mentioned $954$ filters are all filters ever made up to this date.
This doesn't mean that it never changed what the filters are doing, since, as pointed out in chapter~\ref{}, edit filter managers can freely modify filter patterns, so at some point the filter could be doing one thing and in the next moment, it is filtering a completely different phenomenon.
This doesn't happen very often though.
$361$ of all filters are public, the remaining $593$–hidden.
$110$ of the public ones are active, $35$ are disabled, but not marked as deleted, and $216$ are flagged as deleted.
Out of the $593$ hidden filters $91$ are active, $118$ are disabled (not deleted), and $384$ are deleted.
The relative proportion of these groups to each other can be viewed on figure~\ref{fig:general-stats}.
\caption{EN Wikipedia edit filters: hidden, disabled and deleted filters}~\label{fig:general-stats}
\end{figure}
Although the initial plan was to make all filters hidden, the community discussions rebutted that so a guideline was drafted calling for
hiding filters ``only where necessary, such as in long-term abuse cases where the targeted user(s) could review a public filter and use that knowledge to circumvent it.''~\cite{Wikipedia:EditFilter}.
Further, caution in filter naming is suggested for hidden filters and editors are encouraged to give such filters just simple description of the overall disruptive behaviour rather than naming a specific user that is causing the disruptions.
Interesting fact: there are edit filters that try to precisely identify the upload of media violating copyrights
%TODO refer to Lessig, Chapter 10 when making the upload filter commentary
% think about what values are embedded how in what systems (Lessig)
From talk archive:
"Automatic censorship won't work on a wiki. " // so, people already perceive this as censorship; user goes on to basically provide all the reasons why upload filters are bad idea (Interlanguage problems, no recognition of irony, impossibility to discuss controversial issues); they also have a problem with being blocked by a technology vs a real person