Forum:AbuseFilter 17 for blocking outside links

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Note: This topic has been unedited for 1794 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

AbuseFilter 17 is currently disabled due to earlier protest. This was installed to keep users from posting outside links. We're all growed up now and real big kids and this is one of many things we need to decide: restore or keep disabled?

Posting outside links seem to be a "thing" now with some newer articles having several each. It's always bad to allow users to jump off site. I'd prefer to decide whether to keep them in a limited way on a case-by-case basis. So can this be made advisory instead of a hard block? Still, enabling AbuseFilter 17 lets us focus our attention on more pressing matters. -- (talk) 07:28, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I would say a case-by-case filter. Depends on where the links are taking you. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 09:07, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Since when did this become a "hard block"? It originally threw up a tame write funny stuff message and allowed readers to force their edits through. In the old days, Llwy took personal offense to being told not to insert external links, but this never prevented anyone from doing so. I still think it is wise both to dispense this advice and make it a bit difficult to insert them.

Romartus, it does not depend on where the links are taking you. A link designed to share someone else's humor on the outside, or a link to provide evidence that Politician X really is an ogre, are digressions from the task of writing original comedy. Both should be slowed down.

Nigel, we are not all growed up now. And external links are not a "thing" now. To both observations, the actual problem is the tendencies of user "Factfinder" and he has been dealt with for the moment. Spıke 🎙️12:27 20-May-19

Yes, it was always just a warning, and you can ignore everything I said back then because it was pretty much all nonsense.

The previous discussion that led to me disabling the filter was at Forum:Uncyclopedia Forbids the Internet. Five people showed up to it, two of whom were Loveshade accounts. I do still believe that warning all non-admins (previously admins as well) for external links is a bit much, but since the forum was skewed and we seemed to be having problems with links again, I thought it was worth reconsidering the issue. I also may not have been fair or accurate about the reasons for the filter. I thought it had something to do with directing traffic offsite, but I don't remember everything that was going on then. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 19:51 20 May 2019

On Wikia, I justified our policy and AF17 under Wikia's Terms of Use ("do our host the favor of not directing its traffic elsewhere") but it is just as important that we do ourselves a favor of not directing our traffic elsewhere — while pursuing our policy of writing funny stuff by making it a bit harder for Truth Crusaders like "Factfinder" to avoid writing funny stuff by supplying data to support their manifestos. I suggest that AF17 be re-enabled. Exempting Admins and probably Patrollers is fine. Spıke 🎙️20:52 20-May-19

"We're all growed up now and real big kids" Sorry, Spike, I was referring to the admins. You can speak for yourself, I'm sure. I needed to add a ;-) perhaps? This post should have been put in Ministry of Love, but that's not working, and I'm not even sure if it ever needs to be revived.

And yes, it's not something we want to encourage, but outside linking is being done frequently today in a lot of places whether we like it or not. People are following cues from social media and applying "accepted practice" generally. So, since AbuseFilter17 is a warning only, I vote to enable it. -- (talk) 23:08, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. The point of my remark that you quoted was not to disagree with you but just to segue to my point. Spıke 🎙️23:26 20-May-19

I'm not seeing any objections at this point, so 17 is back on. It's just as it was before, with admins and bots exempt but no one else. Adding rollbackers to that list would be good -- should we do that? These days I seem to be the only one who touches abuse filters at all. If anyone else wants to get in on the act, there's a guide here.

I fixed Forum:Ministry of Love, by the way. The problem was <createbox>. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 01:54 23 May 2019

Thank you for all that! Adding rollbackers make sense but can that list be easily added to AbuseFilter 17? And how far back in time are we going for the rollbackers list? -- (talk) 11:29, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not a list; AF17 determines whether the current edit was made by an editor with Rollback privileges at the time of the edit. Spıke 🎙️14:33 23-May-19

Yes. There's a line !("sysop" in user_groups | "bot" in user_groups). All that has to be done is changing it to !("sysop" in user_groups | "bot" in user_groups | "rollback" in user_groups). ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 17:00 23 May 2019

Then, I would go for including rollbackers. -- (talk) 19:08, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Done.

I see the first edit caught by the revived 17 was by a spambot. Speaking of spam, we now have QuestyCaptcha to help stop it, which adds a further barrier to external links. Testing with my main account and Llwy-ar-nenfwd shows that it affects autoconfirmed users but not admins. I also found out that 17's warning doesn't look as good in 1.31:

Maybe we need to use <h2> tags or additional line breaks? ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 21:57 25 May 2019

Looks fine to me (perhaps a dark border) except for the mechanical "Error: **External link added to article**". If they give us no way to remove that, then yes, I'd start the remainder on a new line. Spıke 🎙️22:05 25-May-19

I added a line break at the beginning of MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-externallink so the header displays properly instead of turning into raw wikitext. I tested this on a wiki at home where I test abuse filters. The CSS class that produces the pink box is errorbox -- custom formatting can be applied to that if desired. Within errorbox, h2 headers appear as plain bold text rather than what you expect, but it's still an improvement. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 22:17 25 May 2019

If there a subelement of .errorbox by which the mechanical error message could be gotten to go away? Spıke 🎙️00:09 26-May-19

The "Error:" text is in the first <p> element in the div, so you can get rid of it with .errorbox p:first-child { display: none; }. (I looked for an interface message that produced the text and didn't find one.) "External link added to article" is part of the text you added to MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-externallink. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 00:41 26 May 2019