Knowledge (XXG)

:Knowledge (XXG) Signpost/2024-07-04/In focus - Knowledge (XXG)

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423: 436: 268: 304: 207:; the number of active users is ten times smaller than the English Knowledge (XXG), and 2 times smaller than the German or French. Currently there are 63 administrators on ruwiki (not counting adminbots), and many of them are not very active; at the same time, ruwiki is in the top three most-visited Wikipedias (after English, and sometimes after Japanese or Spanish). Voters in ruwiki's RfAs tend to be very critical of candidates — which makes it impossible for many experienced, active and well-known users to be elected. 365: 325: 260: 355:— a model trained and operated by the WMF, used for highlighting suspicious edits in watchlists and recent changes. Like ClueBot, Reimu reverted edits and sent messages to the users who made them, explaining its actions and where to appeal a revert. Edits with ambiguous ORES scores were left alone, but listed at a special page for further analysis, which showed up in the watchlists of experienced users. Reimu also made automatic reports about users who made several suspicious edits to the 192: 130: 150: 264: 549: 110: 212: 140: 379: 287: 36: 272: 451:. An edit can be rolled back with a standard reason, or with one of 12 more-detailed reasons (for example, “No reliable sources” or “Replacing the transcription without page move or move request”), or a manually entered reason. The bot deletes processed edits (rolled back or approved) from the channel, so the channel contains only edits that have not yet been processed. 160: 120: 402:, AbuseFilter-generated edit tags and text patterns (so it absorbed the anti-Ukrainian bot) and a feature to post suspicious edits to the ruwiki's Discord server. After that, he decided to shut down the automatic-rollback feature, because he wasn't satisfied with the false-positive rate. From the fall of 2017 to the spring of 2024, Reimu made 170: 383: 429:
Vandal edit in Discord stream: the word "deputies" has been replaced with "faggots", spelled with a mixture of Cyrillic and Latin letters to avoid AbuseFilter rules. The red button does a rollback, the blue one allows to select more detailed or custom revert reason, and the green one just deletes the
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between the engineers and the old-school administrators – the latter argued that non-admins shouldn't be given higher rights than administrators, while the former proposed that (unlike engineers, who had already proven their competence) administrators be required to pass a JavaScript/CSS proficiency
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I am reminded of a discussion in a local Chapter meeting, perhaps a whole decade ago, in which a much-respected Arbitrator predicted that the future will be in unbundling Admin powers. It has not happened much; I have become a rollbacker and "event organizer" (actually a coach for newbies) in ENWP,
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Several semi-admin user groups have been created, to grant individual rights to users without requiring a formal request for adminship. Right now, ruwiki has several dozen users who can perform closures at deletion discussions, delete pages, edit protected pages, edit in the MediaWiki namespace,
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Maybe it was easy to get admin flag in ruwiki in 2008, but it is pretty hard to get any important flag now there. I particularly have faced resistance even for a patrolled flag, from people who either were part of Datapult or are active in forks and are banned now on ruwiki. While I applied for
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have been rolled back using this tool since its establishment 2 months ago. The same edits are posted to a page onwiki, with an excerpt of their text in the edit summary — that's often enough to recognize vandalism on its own), and edit can be rolled back by pressing a link just in the comment
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In 2022, after the start of the war, another user created a bot for detection of specifically anti-Ukrainian vandalism: this one streamed suspicious edits to a special channel on ruwiki's Discord server. In 2024, Reimu's author improved it by adding detection based on scores from the newer
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Since the second half of the 2010s, ruwiki's checkuser developed two adminbots, which perform many tasks, from blocking open proxies and IP/users whose edits were repeatedly rolled back, to protecting articles from (automatically detected) edit wars and vandal raids. In 2023, he created a
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This story shows how, thanks to bot owners and semi-admin usergroups, a very small group of people numbering only several dozen active users can effectively maintain ruwiki's two million articles, ensuring the functioning and reliability of one of the top three most-visited Wikipedias.
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With this adminbot script, a user can be blocked for vandalism, spam, inappropriate or promotional username. If the script is used by admin, he could block user, hide his contribs and delete pages, created by him, with a single click. Non-admin can also cancel a block imposed by
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flag on enwiki — since technically-competent users usually can't pass ruwiki's RfA due to a lack of social skills. Since the establishment of this usergroup, almost all edits on protected templates, MediaWiki pages, sitewide scripts, and sitewide
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For what it's worth, introducing interface administrators wasn't a WMF decision. I worked on it in my free time and all the decisionmaking followed community and developer processes. (You can find more background on the old feedback page at
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In recent years, the Russo–Ukrainian war and political repression in Russia have made it more dangerous to be a member of the wiki community, and even more so to be an admin there; in the last two years (since summer 2022)
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and in Commons I fairly often use my file mover right, but we WP sergeants are neither many nor powerful. No, I am not seeking more bits of officer power for myself but others might make good use of a different fraction.
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I am one of the very few (two ever?) users who have been through an RfA in both Russian (2008?) and English (2012?) Wikipedias, I do not have an impression that one RfA was significantly more difficult than another
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Xfdcloser flag, I got an oppose vote from Jukoff on the grounds that my reply was badly formatted, even though he was the one who got the formatting bad while answering. Top Xfdclosers couldn't get admin flag.
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In the face of this long-standing severe shortage, the ruwiki community has developed a few mechanisms to spread some of the burden of project maintenance: automation with bots (including some that use
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change site-wide scripts and styles, block vandals and protect pages — but they aren't admins. They do this by using admin permissions from their usergroups, and by using userscripts connected to an
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It would have been better to have a single flag, but it is not feasible. Now it's difficult to get elected as admin, and there are few active admins. This division of rights is a must for ruwiki.
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Meanwhile, authors of Reimu and anti-anti-Ukrainian bot have implemented a mechanism to revert problematic edits directly from the Discord server, by clicking the buttons under the post in the
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allowing trusted non-admins to block IP addresses and new users for clearly-disruptive edits and to apply protection to actively-vandalized articles. Currently, this script and bot
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How the Russian Knowledge (XXG) keeps it clean despite having just a couple dozen administrators: Unbundling, automation, fighting spirit, and a bot named Reimu Hakurei.
845: 303:(intadmin) permissions to a separate usergroup, it was mostly engineers and not admins who became interface administrators. In fact, this WMF decision caused 219:(about 15% of the corps) either lost their status through inactivity, abandoned it due to fears for their own safety, or joined one of the pro-Kremlin forks; 21: 821: 816: 811: 113: 806: 275:
their powers in AfD have been nearly equal to those of administrators. The number of such users is slightly less than the number of admins, and
191: 422: 801: 548: 49: 35: 17: 412:, which uses both ORES and a self-written detection system; the bot owner hopes that the new bot will have fewer false positives. 279:. Initially, many users supported a strict hierarchy of users and usergroups, and accordingly objected to the creation of these 204: 263:— "summarizers" — who were given the authority to sum up the results of AfDs. Initially, their powers were very limited, and 310: 435: 399: 430:
post from the stream. A post contains links to the article's history, the edit's diff, and the editor's contributions.
290:, are "engineers". These are technical specialists, who need to edit protected pages — a stronger analogue of the 409: 232: 827: 782: 763: 747: 732: 715: 701: 509: 492:"Did the Ministry of Internal Affairs try to remove data about Kolokoltsev's "offence" from Knowledge (XXG)?" 697: 280: 759: 743: 711: 364: 300: 253: 754:
I wouldn't call the flag summarizer. Xfdcloser seems a better adaptation, because that is what we do.
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exam to become intadmins. Nowadays, almost all edits to sitewide scripts, styles and system messages
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How the Russian Knowledge (XXG) keeps it clean despite having just a couple dozen administrators
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has fewer administrators per active user or per article than many other large Wikipedias
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without opening a diff (the link leads to a Toolforge-hosted tool that does rollback).
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File:Discord stream of ruwiki's vandalism detection system (cropped).png
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have been made by engineers and not admins. When the WMF moved
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m:Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS
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Suspicious edits stream in watchlist, with a rollback button
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they've had the permission to actually delete pages, and
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they didn't even have the technical permission to delete
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designated a "foreign agent" by the Russian government
679:If your comment has not appeared here, you can try 277:60% of AfD decisions have been made by these users 267:; there was a bot to handle deletion-by-request. 8: 334:, with spell cards, prepared to do battle. 846:Knowledge (XXG) Signpost archives 2024-07 408:. The checkuser mentioned above created 18:Knowledge (XXG):Knowledge (XXG) Signpost 682: 658: 470: 90: 461:works on the Ukrainian Knowledge (XXG) 225:killed in action in the Ukrainian army 29: 7: 510:"The Great Knowledge (XXG) Edit War" 384:are used by about ten trusted users 56: 28: 664:These comments are automatically 190: 168: 158: 148: 138: 128: 118: 108: 796:: doing it for free since 2005. 675:add the page to your watchlist 410:his own automatic-rollback bot 215:. Since the start of the war, 1: 217:more than ten administrators 357:ruwiki's analogue of WP:AIV 862: 398:revert risk models on the 213:only two have been elected 481:at pageviews.wmcloud.org. 259:In 2009, ruwiki gained a 783:11:38, 6 July 2024 (UTC) 764:19:32, 5 July 2024 (UTC) 748:19:32, 5 July 2024 (UTC) 733:06:21, 5 July 2024 (UTC) 716:19:32, 5 July 2024 (UTC) 702:17:14, 4 July 2024 (UTC) 301:interface administrator 201:Russian Knowledge (XXG) 672:. To follow comments, 552: 439: 426: 368: 328: 203:(ruwiki) historically 39: 551: 438: 425: 367: 327: 38: 668:from this article's 453:More than 1500 edits 311:are made by one user 281:unbundled usergroups 339:In 2017, the first 243:), and unbundling. 659:Discuss this story 553: 496:REGNUM News Agency 440: 427: 380:userscript and bot 369: 347:. Unlike enwiki's 329: 45:← Back to Contents 40: 683:purging the cache 589:Discussion report 405:120,000 rollbacks 400:LiftWing platform 392:language-agnostic 50:View Latest Issue 853: 830: 686: 684: 678: 657: 571: 563: 556: 539: 531: 518: 517: 506: 500: 499: 488: 482: 475: 407: 341:machine learning 313: 241:machine learning 194: 186: 172: 171: 162: 161: 152: 151: 142: 141: 132: 131: 122: 121: 112: 111: 62: 60: 58: 861: 860: 856: 855: 854: 852: 851: 850: 836: 835: 834: 833: 832: 831: 826: 824: 819: 814: 809: 804: 797: 789: 788: 688: 680: 673: 662: 661: 655:+ Add a comment 653: 649: 648: 647: 639:Recent research 599:Sister projects 564: 559: 557: 554: 543: 542: 537: 534: 529: 523: 522: 521: 508: 507: 503: 490: 489: 485: 476: 472: 449:Discord channel 444: 443: 432: 431: 419: 418: 403: 374: 373: 361: 336: 335: 321: 320: 309: 305:a huge conflict 292:template-editor 286:Another group, 249: 195: 188: 187: 181: 180: 179: 178: 169: 159: 149: 139: 129: 119: 109: 103: 100: 89: 85: 84: 81: 78: 75: 72: 69: 65: 63: 53: 52: 47: 41: 31: 26: 25: 24: 12: 11: 5: 859: 857: 849: 848: 838: 837: 825: 820: 815: 810: 805: 800: 799: 798: 791: 790: 787: 786: 785: 766: 752: 751: 750: 720: 719: 718: 663: 660: 652: 651: 650: 646: 644:Traffic report 641: 636: 631: 626: 621: 616: 611: 606: 601: 596: 591: 586: 581: 579:Special report 576: 574:News and notes 570: 558: 546: 545: 544: 535: 526: 525: 524: 520: 519: 501: 494:(in Russian). 483: 469: 459:This bot also 445: 441: 433: 428: 420: 417: 414: 375: 370: 362: 337: 330: 322: 319: 316: 261:new user group 248: 245: 197: 196: 189: 177: 176: 166: 156: 146: 136: 126: 116: 105: 104: 101: 95: 94: 93: 92: 87: 86: 82: 79: 76: 73: 70: 67: 66: 64: 61: 48: 43: 42: 33: 32: 27: 15: 14: 13: 10: 9: 6: 4: 3: 2: 858: 847: 844: 843: 841: 829: 823: 818: 813: 808: 803: 795: 784: 780: 776: 772: 767: 765: 761: 757: 753: 749: 745: 741: 736: 735: 734: 730: 726: 721: 717: 713: 709: 705: 704: 703: 699: 695: 694:Jim.henderson 690: 689: 685: 676: 671: 667: 656: 645: 642: 640: 637: 635: 632: 630: 627: 625: 622: 620: 617: 615: 612: 610: 607: 605: 602: 600: 597: 595: 592: 590: 587: 585: 582: 580: 577: 575: 572: 568: 562: 555:In this issue 550: 541: 533: 516:. 2024-04-15. 515: 511: 505: 502: 498:. 2018-12-10. 497: 493: 487: 484: 480: 474: 471: 468: 464: 462: 457: 454: 450: 437: 424: 415: 413: 411: 406: 401: 397: 393: 387: 385: 381: 366: 360: 358: 354: 350: 346: 345:Reimu Hakurei 342: 333: 326: 317: 315: 312: 306: 302: 298: 293: 289: 288:added in 2016 284: 282: 278: 274: 270: 266: 262: 257: 255: 246: 244: 242: 236: 234: 230: 226: 222: 218: 214: 208: 206: 202: 193: 185: 175: 167: 165: 157: 155: 147: 145: 137: 135: 127: 125: 117: 115: 107: 106: 98: 59: 51: 46: 37: 23: 19: 793: 756:BilboBeggins 740:BilboBeggins 708:BilboBeggins 594:In the media 583: 567:all comments 540:"In focus" → 504: 486: 473: 465: 458: 446: 396:multilingual 388: 376: 338: 285: 258: 250: 237: 209: 198: 114:PDF download 74:CC BY-SA 4.0 828:Suggestions 666:transcluded 561:4 July 2024 297:stylesheets 269:Since 2010, 164:X (Twitter) 57:4 July 2024 532:"In focus" 479:statistics 416:Automation 349:ClueBot NG 273:since 2012 247:Unbundling 102:Share this 97:Contribute 22:2024-07-04 822:Subscribe 725:Ymblanter 670:talk page 624:Crossword 840:Category 817:Newsroom 812:Archives 794:Signpost 604:Obituary 584:In focus 530:Previous 514:iStories 254:adminbot 154:Facebook 144:LinkedIn 134:Mastodon 88:In focus 20:‎ | 634:Cobwebs 614:Gallery 609:Opinion 723:one.-- 629:Humour 227:, and 174:Reddit 124:E-mail 807:About 773:.) -- 619:Op-Ed 332:Reimu 16:< 802:Home 792:The 779:talk 760:talk 744:talk 729:talk 712:talk 698:talk 538:Next 477:See 394:and 372:him. 353:ORES 318:Bots 231:was 223:was 199:The 775:Tgr 229:one 221:one 184:MBH 182:By 99:— 83:300 71:MBH 842:: 781:) 762:) 746:) 731:) 714:) 700:) 528:← 512:. 386:. 256:. 235:. 777:( 758:( 742:( 727:( 710:( 696:( 687:. 677:. 569:) 565:( 80:0 77:0

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Knowledge (XXG):Knowledge (XXG) Signpost
2024-07-04
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Russian Knowledge (XXG)
has fewer administrators per active user or per article than many other large Wikipedias
only two have been elected
more than ten administrators
one
killed in action in the Ukrainian army
one
designated a "foreign agent" by the Russian government
machine learning
adminbot
new user group
they didn't even have the technical permission to delete
Since 2010,
since 2012

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