Wikipedia talk:Tags

Styling tags

Now that MediaWiki has been updated past r52071, Tags are now wrapped in a span which allows us to identify them. There is now an open discussion on whether we should style tags when they appear in RecentChanges, Watchlist, etc. All commens welcome! Happy‑melon 09:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

What is "the software"?

I notice tags appearing and wonder how it works. It is not well explained. For a start, what is "the software"? Is that MediaWiki or something else? thanks Nurg (talk) 04:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and more specifically, the abuse filter module. See WP:Abuse filter. –xeno^talk 00:43, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I second this question. This special page at first appears to be about WP tags in general. Instead, it's about automatically generated tags - did I get that right? What is "the software"? Josef Horáček (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

False positives

Sometimes there are false positives that cause tags to appear where they shouldn't[1], which can make it look like the most recent edit to an article is vandalism that hasn't been reverted. When a tagged edit has been checked by an administrator (or maybe a reviewer if flagged protection is ever implemented), and there is no reason for the tag to stay, can tags such as this be removed or hidden (at least when viewing an article's history) or do they have to stay there permanently? snigbrook (talk) 22:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I've come across a few false positives myself [2]. Maybe we should set up a designated page where false positives can be posted by users for tracking purposes. -- œ^™ 03:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

See WP:FALSEPOS. –xeno^talk 00:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I just archived my talk page, and my archive got tagged for "possible Michael Jackson vandalism". Huh? --Susan118 ^talk 03:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Is there a way to get a false postive tag removed? I don't want people looking at my archive and thinking it's vandalism! :O --Susan118 ^talk 17:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so. Again, don't sweat it - if anyone ever has any question they can examine exactly what was done in the edit to see it was a false positive. I got hit by the MJ filter too...ironically, while fixing up the tag for the MJ filter. [3] –xeno^talk 00:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I don't feel so bad now! Sorry, I wasn't paying enough attention to realize you were working on this, or I wouldn't have re-posted the issue over here. I will go post it on the WP:FALSEPOS page for the record, though. Thanks.--Susan118 ^talk 16:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

That filter is completely and inherently broken, I removed the tagging functionality. Cenarium (talk) 17:22, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Tag use

"Tags shouldn't be used for edit filters affecting autoconfirmed users"

Uhm, what makes them so precious? This "us vs. them" mentality is half the problem with the abuse filters. Gurch (talk) 10:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed that, it makes no sense. Prodego ^talk 14:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Missed repeated characters

Why wasn't this edit tagged? - RoyBoy 04:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It's helpful

As a recent changes patroller, I feel these tags have been helpful in catching vandalism. Of course, not all tagged edits are vandalism, but I can spot the bad edits more quickly with these. Savie Kumara (and Nini Kastoa) 04:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Could someone create a tag for...

Could someone create a tag for edits which add a new section to a talk page called "Dubious"? This happens frequently because of use of the 'Discuss' section of the 'Dubious' template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.65.109.10 (talk) 10:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Tag linking to "Talk" section

I know there's a way to incorporate a link to a specific "talk" section supporting a tag placement but I've been unable to find the "how to" within Wikipedia help. Can anyone assist? Thanks. JakeInJoisey (talk) 19:07, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

@JakeInJoisey, where do you want a link to a talk section? ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 14:24, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

(Tag: Possible autoconfirm evasion)

I've noticed some users rapidly undoing their own edits over and over so that they reach the 10 edit minimum. This usually involves an edit, followed by 9 consecutive self-reverts to equal 10 edits. Then they commit vandalism on semi-protected articles.

This filter would occur after the user makes 3 consecutive self-reverts. mechamind90 06:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Genre warring/fiddling

Could there possibly be a tag for edits that may constitute unnecessary genre-fiddling in the infobox for music pages or maybe film pages? I am a regular editor of music pages on wikipedia, and it happens often that there are unnecessary edits to the infobox's genre section done by ill-intended genre warriors. It's a problem that a lot of people on wikipedia have dealt with and can understand its bothersome nature. A tag for such genre-fiddling is something that I would like to see on wikipedia in the future. If not, then I guess that's okay too. Thanks. Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 05:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible test edits

Shouldn't the possible test edits tag come back again? Wayne Olajuwon chat 21:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Movies tag

Is the "tireless sock" mentioned on filter 129 still active? I haven't seen many "nonsense movie" articles created lately, and the filter generates a lot of false positives. Feezo (Talk) 05:29, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No one has commented on this, so I've dropped the edit count ignore setting from 50 to 10. At this time, the filter matches 0.03% of the last 9,861 actions. I haven't seen any evidence that the "tireless sock" is still active, so it may be time to disable it entirely. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 09:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Sock may have finally taken a rest. Turning off the filter for now. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 10:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

References removed operation?

It seems as if references removed is only triggered by IP edits. Is this by design? I would prefer if it also alerted on removals by registered editors, since few seem to provide useful WP:Edit summaries. --Lexein (talk) 00:26, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Tag Advice

It would be handy if, upon inserting a tag, the tag page automatically generates a section for the tag; For example, if I insert a Neutrality tag on X page, in the X page talk, the neutrality dispute (with date) section appeared even before I clicked onto the talk page. As the tag is inserted, this could then also include the effective link, so that these tags move EXACTLY to the discussion on the tag; I can use the tag itself to get to the effective discussion. A. J. REDDSON

What extension is responsible for tags?

Hi everyone! What extension allows to create and manipulate with tags? I quite like them and want to use them in my wikis. Katkov Yury (talk) 06:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

See #What_is_"the_software"?. --Palosirkka (talk) 22:04, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

"Removal of all interwiki links"

Since interwiki links are handled by Wikidata now, I guess the "Removal of all interwiki links" tag is no longer needed, and will only cause removals of these redundant links to be wrongly accused of vandalism. —WP:PENGUIN · ^{[ TALK ]} 21:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

This seems to be under discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Removing Wikidata interwiki links and their reversal regarding this. —WP:PENGUIN · ^{[ TALK ]} 21:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Why is it that I see those tags along with the edits of new users alone?

Or is it meant to be that way? smtchahal^(talk) 17:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Reader feedback: I was hoping to find some in...

The_Magnificent_Clean-keeper posted this comment on 7 July 2013 (view all feedback).

I was hoping to find some info/explanation on how some tags are of help and not just unneeded clutter. I.e. "mobile edit" and "visual editor". (repost, will mark previous as resolved or else. I'm new to this, even have a hard time to find my own feedback as it's not listed in my edits...)

Any thoughts?

I've added a brief sentence about the purpose of tags in general. The particular VisualEditor tag is used to detect all edits using the new visual editor, this is a new bit of software which needs a lot of testing (see Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback) and the tag is useful for that. The VisualEditor-needcheck tag is more useful as it shows when the software thinks it might have got it wrong and the edits with that tag often need fixing. Salix (talk): 11:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"To detect potentially... software bugs." Now it makes sense. Thanks for the addition, TMCk (talk) 15:58, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Tag descriptions - mass update needed

Possible changes needed.

1. According to m:Tech/News/2013/29, "Wikis that use links in tag messages should remove them."
   1. I think this means that someone needs to remove all the wikilinks from the actual Special:Tags' definitions ("Appearance on change lists") for the ones that have any.
      • Currently: "possible libel or vandalism", "visualeditor", "Removal of interwiki link", "gettingstarted edit", "Removal of all interwiki links", "visualeditor-needcheck", "prod removed", "WikiLove" - all have wikilinks
   2. and update the documentation at Wikipedia:Tags
2. Additionally, details at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/72984/ - "a link to Special:Tags and "Tag(s):" text is shown before the list of tags everywhere it's shown."

   suggests that we might need to alter all the definitions that currently/already use the text "Tag:" as a prefix?

I'm not positive though. @Matma Rex and Catrope: possibly you can confirm/clarify? Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 19:07, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you need to remove the "Tag:" part, as it's included in the software now. Instead of "(<tags go here>)", the format now is "(Tag(s): <tags go here>)" (with "Tag" or "Tags" depending on the number). Matma Rex talk 20:10, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect tagging

Why was this edit marked as blanking, when it clearly isnt? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:31, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

There may be something fishy going on with tagging in general. Mobile is also experiencing odd tagging errors. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:12, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

@Steven (WMF): See also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Blanking_filter_misfire. I'm not sure who to poke. –Quiddity (talk) 22:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I posted on T53254 about it. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:59, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay it looks like the mobile issue and this error are unrelated. The blanking tag is due to a wrong AbuseFilter. The mobile error was contained to mobile code. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 01:04, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Separate the inactive ones to a separate table

Can we separate the inactive tags to a separate table. There are a lot of them now and its getting rather cluttered with both active and inactive tags in one big table. Kumioko (talk) 12:47, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Special:Tags out of date

Some of the descriptions seem out of date - for example, it says "possible vandalism" is tagged by filters 23 and 77, but both are deleted; the tag's still used, but by filters 432 and 491 (and possibly others). Peter James (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

false positive (Tag: Text added at end of page)

This got (Tag: Text added at end of page), even though the categories are the last text on the page both before and after the edit. Why? K7L (talk) 04:19, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

This is still happening - when I made this edit with HotCat, I received a warning and before saving and then the tag appeared in my edit summary. How can this be updated to prevent these false positives? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:31, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Numerical vandalism tag

I notice this page doesn't get much chatter, so I hope my comment is seen. :) Hello all! Numerical vandalism is rampant. Bots/malicious users increase all the numbers in an article by one or randomly, or whatever (Here's an example). I usually revert these edits with the edit summary "Unsourced, unexplained numerical changes". Was wondering if it made sense to create a tag to that effect, to help other editors quickly spot these edits, and to mark the editor's history for better analysis of the user's behavior. From my personal experience IPs seem to make these edits most often although accounts (socks and SPAs) do as well. If the bot/user learned to add a summary they might be able to game the system, so if there's a way to pre-emptively plan for that, that'd be great. Sometimes only one number is changed, sometimes the edits are vast like in the example above. I think I'll make this same pitch over at the ClueBot page, because I think the bot needs to help out here as well. Thanks for listening! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb 91.186.225.61 (talk) 22:14, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

visualeditor tag and mobile edit tag are useless

I think visualeditor tag and mobile edit tag are useless.117.79.232.231 (talk) 09:15, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. See my comment below. — Confession0791 ^talk 07:18, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Introduce a new tag?

Hi, how can a new tag be introduced? I run a tool on Tool Labs and send the users directly to Wikipedia, where they see the diff view of the changes before they can save them. Can I specify some hidden field to introduce my own tag? I'd like to see how many edits get done this way. --Dnaber (talk) 08:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

At the moment, the only way to add a tag from your tool would be for the tool to submit the edit using OAuth, which will automatically tag every edit.

Ability to specify tags for edits when submitting the edit via the API is an interesting idea, but it would probably need to be limited in some manner to avoid spamming via tags and would probably need to come with a method for deleting inappropriate tags from edits. Anomie⚔ 13:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dnaber and Anomie: FYI, the proposal for bot tagging of edits may be of interest. Of course, any bot would have to be approved for the task. Cenarium (talk) 12:33, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Bot tagging of edits

I've made a proposal to allow bots to tag edits at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Bot_tagging_of_edits. Cenarium (talk) 12:31, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Revision hashtags

We would like to have your input on the following proposal phab:T123636 aiming to simplify the generation of statistics on the volume and quality of edits as well as the user base of individual tools, gadgets or editing interfaces by using revision hashtags in edit summaries. For additional context on revtagging and how it differs from WP:Tags see mw:revtagging (cc Slaporte (talk · contribs)). --DarTar (talk) 17:05, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@DarTar: It's over six months since the last comment on this talk page so I think there should be other notifications. I'm not sure where, but if the proposal is going to change what editors see I would start with WP:VPT and WP:AN—neither of those are quite right but putting a pointer there to this discussion would ensure lots of people see it. I had a quick look at your links and I'm afraid it is not clear to a casual observer what the proposal entails. Would there be an extra visible tag shown for each edit in a history page or a list of user contributions? What would it look like, and would it link anywhere? Perhaps the proposal simply makes metadata available for anyone interested to harvest, and the hashtags would not influence normal editing? That is, a hashtag would be of no immediate use to an editor? What magic would assign a particular hashtag to an edit, for example as "part of a bulk-revert generated by a bot"? Johnuniq (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, the proposal is to include "#hashtag" text in the edit summary (as in this edit). It's not clear in what way this would be more useful to anyone than the tags described on this page now that it is possible for bots and scripts to tag their edits (and, for bots and admins, to tag and untag revisions after the fact). Anomie⚔ 03:21, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Why are these tags?

Someone help me understand why Visual Editor and mobile edits are tags? Why is either one suspect to begin with? — Confession0791 ^talk 07:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't know, really, but I'd say that a tag itself doesn't make an edit a "suspect". Tags are just labels to allow any kind of filtering. One is to find vandalism, but there are other reasons to filter - such as extracting all edits done by a specific bot.

The tag list gives a usage description for each tag. The ones you mention are not that elaborate, but PHP7 tag says: "Revisions made with PHP7 enabled instead of HHVM (expected to improve performance, tagged for debugging/analysis)". Monitoring a new feature might also be the reason for "Visual Editor". If no other means, it would allow statistics to tell which method is used more, to focus development resources. Another use could be for a reviewer to expect different kinds of problems from a Visual edit and a wiki-style-edit. Mobile edits perhaps put awareness for "mistaken auto-correct words" and lack of overview. So, even if they don't seem to add value for you, there are plenty of possible uses for these tags. JAGulin (talk) 07:08, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

PROD removal?

Why isn't there a tag for PROD removals? I'm perfectly aware that PRODs aren't supposed to be placed back in articles if they're removed, but I've had cases where I proposed that an article should be deleted (and the rationale does apply), but then the PROD template is removed, and given that there's no tag that appears whenever PRODs are removed (unlike with AfD and CSD template removals, which do have tags), it's not uncommon that such edits end up being missed, and the article remains. Such a tag could prove useful, in case the same user or another user wants to nominate an article for deletion after a PROD template is removed. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:34, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Add TAG addition capability to EFM's

Please see Wikipedia:Edit_filter_noticeboard#Adding_the_ability_for_EFMs_to_access_the_edit_interface_at_Special:Tags regarding allowing non-sysop edit filter managers to be able to access tags. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:07, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Filters

Is there any way of creating some sort of feed which can take adjustments to multiple logs?--Launchballer 20:46, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Launchballer, this is probably a question better asked at The Village Pump. Primefac (talk) 02:07, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Possible vandalism?

This tag is a joke. It's misleading and whatever algorithm runs it isn't up to the job. 86.185.30.254 (talk) 23:18, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

The joke's on you ; you failed to tell us what the problem is. --Palosirkka (talk) 22:07, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

New tags added Dec 2017

Sorry if this is the incorrect venue to post this. On 7 December 2017 and subsequent dates, I have noticed a set of new tags added to certain edits, including "Rollback" (for edits made with the rollback feature), "Replaced" (for edits that removed over 90% of page content), "New redirect" for creation of a redirect page, etc. The actual tag names for these all begin with the "mw-" string, as in "mw-blank", and they do not appear to have any restriction as to what user groups' edits trigger them; even I as a rollbacker and extended confirmed user have gotten edits tagged with these.

My question is as follows: what is the purpose of these tags? From my impression (which is confirmed from reading this project page itself), the primary purpose of tags is to spot potential vandalism and harmful edits, and glancing at some of the tag names (e.g. "repeating characters", "possible vandalism", "shouting", etc., with the majority of these being displayed as a result of one or more abuse filters), this does seem to be the case; however, I would imagine use of rollback or creation of new redirects by experienced users to vandalize or otherwise screw around is exceedingly rare. In addition, removal of the majority of page content is also not always vandalism; sometimes, for example, you may be archiving a talk page or a vandal added a huge wall of text that inflated the page size. As such, what purpose do these extra tags serve, and why do they apply to all users as opposed to merely non-autoconfirmed or non-extended users?

Thank you,

65HCA7 23:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Those tags are added automatically by the MediaWiki software and not by the local edit filters for the English Wikipedia. They were implemented in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/390224/ referring to phab:T73236 and phab:T167656. They can be individually disabled with the setting mw:Manual:$wgSoftwareTags. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:02, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

PrimeHunter: Thank you for the information, and I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I couldn't find a setting regarding this in my user preferences; how exactly do I apply it? 65HCA7 22:59, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

$wgSoftwareTags is a MediaWiki configuration setting. A whole wiki can disable them by requesting a change to $wgSoftwareTags for the wiki. Individual users cannot disable them in preferences or change $wg configuration settings for their own account. But you can hide the tag names with code like this in your CSS:

.mw-tag-marker-mw-replace, .mw-tag-marker-mw-rollback, .mw-tag-marker-mw-new-redirect {display: none;}

You will still see "(Tag: )" without the tag name so it's not ideal. I don't know a way to hide "(Tag: )" without hiding all tags. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:45, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Update needed

I just read the "Tag management" section. It says that tags cannot be added to revisions yet, so this functionality is currently of no use. Is this still the case? I ask since, on the beta cluster, I can add and remove tags from revisions. See this page for examples. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 07:14, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

I was wondering this also.

Related: does good tag management involve occasionally coming through and deleting unused tags or those w/ only one use? That is hinted at by the docs, but unclear how it applies on en:wp. How would one figure out if those tags are still helpful to someone? Is it easy for them to readd a deleted tag if it becomes useful again? – SJ + 20:37, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Confusing and ambiguous

I would caution against calling these things "tags". Until now, the only "tag" in computing is an HTML tag. In XML, it's known as an element. When "tag" (in computing terms) is so firmly established as being a specific component of the structure of a webpage, it's probably better to refer to this new idea as "keyword" rather than "tag" to avoid ambiguity and unnecessary confusion. 120.18.143.227 (talk) 11:57, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

See Tag (metadata). Anomie⚔ 13:02, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

2017 source edit

In my opinion, these should be tagged as '2019 source edit' now (or the message made clearer). --Eleassar ^{my talk} 08:58, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

How to (apply to) add new tags?

Could any wise friends on this page kindly point me to where should I go to if I want to apply for a new Tag to be activated for en-Wiki (or global)? I built a tool that I want to have something similar to tags like STiki to mark all edits created by that tool.

Xinbenlv (talk) 07:45, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@Xinbenlv: Were you able to find an answer to this? I'd like to know as well> –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:34, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

@Xinbenlv: @MJL: I'm not sure, but Feature_requests might be the thing? Also this. JAGulin (talk) 06:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Jagulin: [Thank you for the ping] Already posted on phab:T226563. No responses yet, though. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:36, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Huh... didn't see that. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:36, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Xinbenlv any admin can create a tag. What is the tool you have built? I don't think global tags are a thing, though. Jagulin The "introduce a new tag" answer by Anomie is out of date - currently, anyone can apply any tag through the API (see mw:API:Edit docs). Though Xinbenlv probably would want to use OAuth for the tool, which would come with automatic tagging. Of course, to request a software change would require a Phab task as MJL has done.

This page doesn't seem very well watched, so I would suggest posting to WP:VPT if answers aren't forthcoming. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:52, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Jagulin:, @Galobtter:, @MJL: This is where I apply https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T226459 Xinbenlv (talk) 22:40, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

What does "Active" mean?

On the list, there's a column marked "active". What does it mean, could that be mentioned in the article? I thought it meant "not disabled", but the "source" field seems to be for that, sometimes saying "No longer in use". Specifically PHP7 tag awoke my curiosity. It's marked "active: no" but is certainly still tagging new articles. JAGulin (talk) 06:50, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Tagging edits vs. logs

The content page says, "tags cannot be added to revisions yet". Is that still the case? Adamw (talk) 12:07, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Editor privacy

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T235107

Is it not a privacy violation to publicly disclose via tags that an editor is, for example, editing while using a mobile device? Or that they are using iOS? –xeno^talk 13:32, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Xeno: regarding this concern, it does not appear that those tags are being applied based on configuration here on the English Wikipedia (such as tags applied by the AbuseFilter) - but from upstream, correct? If so this is probably better raised as a phabricator issue as any fixes would be far reaching (e.g. the same disclosure of "mobile edit" occurring here occurs elsewhere - see this example from eswikt. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Special:Tags shows it as 'defined by the software', so could we over-ride it? –xeno^talk 15:32, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Xeno: Special:Tag's isn't the most intuitive screen, but this appears to be from core - and not local config. I'm opening a phab ticket to better explore this concern. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:52, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

phab:T235107 has been opened. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:53, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

This is merely recording the method of editing, which is typical (mobile web, 2018 wikitext editor, VisualEditor, Huggle, etc.). I do not think the software is actually parsing user agents. The tags are very useful in some cases, especially counter-vandalism and fighting long-term abuse, where they help identify patterns. Being able to detect mobile edits from AbuseFilter sometimes is the sole factor that makes it effective. I am not seeing a problem. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:54, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I understand it can be useful for certain purposes. That doesn't make it any less of a violation^{in my opinion}, to disclose information about an editor's socio-economic status via the software with no apparent opt-out. –xeno^talk 17:01, 9 October 2019 (UTC) ^{18:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)}

I'd be interested to hear what the broader community thinks. I for one don't see a difference between "mobile web" and "Huggle". It reflects the software used to edit, not your user agent. I can edit on desktop in the mobile UI, for instance. One could deduce similar information by other means; The "(using reply-link)" advert in edit summaries tell me your editing in desktop mode. The "AWB" tag tells me your using Windows. The list goes on and on. It's been this way for ages. Removing these identifiers would be a massive change that would come at a huge loss, and of questionable gain. I think there is a big difference between privacy violations and harmless tracking. A change to this practice needs community-wide consensus, perhaps on a global level (the software isn't necessarily built exclusively for English Wikipedia).

Special:AbuseFilter/819 is a prime example of where this information was critical. Without user_mobile we would have had a very big problem. See also Special:AbuseFilter/633 and Special:AbuseFilter/970, which have no real reason to be private but are very useful. Meanwhile the "VisualEditor" tag helped the community identify issues such as WP:VPR#RFC: Block edits that contain a VisualEditor bug. Is there an example of where this is information was clearly detrimental? — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:57, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I suppose they could, but the most likely explanation is they're using a cell phone. It does make me uncomfortable to have these types of things being disclosed without the editor's foreknowledge that the software will be doing so. I could be wrong, or that the community and WMF feel the violation is so minor (or merely perceived) that it's worth the benefits to be able to combat abuse (but perhaps the disclosure could be limited from "everyone" to efm, and the like), that's why I started the section off with a question and posted to VPT. Happy to hear from others and advertized further. –xeno^talk 18:06, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

This edit was done from a desktop. 93.173.75.86 (talk) 19:08, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

From a desktop, use the "mobile link" and it will report it as a mobile edit. Presumably, the other way around is equally true. 93.173.75.86 (talk) 19:10, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

This edit should show up as mobile if that's true. Daß Wölf 19:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC) -- Yep, apparently it only checks if the edit was made through https://en.m.wikipedia.org et al. Daß Wölf 19:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Tag for changing name of sports team owner

There is a common unconstructive edit that occurs on the WP entries of sports teams; it involves changing a team's infobox owner parameter to the name of a team or a player who has been successful against that team (one team or player is said to have "owned" the other team, in childish 1990s sports slang). Sports owners usually control their teams for many years at a time, so most changes to this parameter will just be vandalism. When this type of vandalism goes unnoticed on WP, it often gets posted somewhere on the web like this.

I'm thinking that a tag might help to identify these edits a little sooner; we have them for other parameters that are unlikely to change frequently (such as changing height and/or weight). Is this the right place to discuss it? Larry Hockett (Talk) 14:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

How to edit "use of deprecated sources" tag?

This tag is picking up dailymail.co.uk (good - it's deprecated), it's picking up liveleak.com (not good - it's dubious, but not deprecated as such) and not picking up thesun.co.uk (bad - it's deprecated). I can't see how to check what it's picking up, or how to edit it. Is this literally a MediaWiki code change to fix? - David Gerard (talk) 00:45, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Predatory open access tag

I noticed a tag on this edit. It claims that the editor is "Citing predatory open access journal". User:MrOllie removed it shortly afterwards.

Here is information about the journal: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100798718

It is considered a middle-of-the-pack public health journal (third quintile). If you like Wikipedia:Impact factors, it's 2.0, which is typical for its field. It's CiteScore is 1.50, which is decent. In other words, this is not actually a predatory journal; instead, it's a reputable journal that happens to be owned by the same publisher that was previously accused of other journals being predatory (five years ago). This is a publisher that WP:CRAPWATCH calls questionable, not predatory; it is hit-or-miss – but this tag seems to be encouraging people to treat them as 100% "misses".

I think it's probably a good idea to remove this tag (it doesn't seem to get many hits anyway, and we have other methods for finding these), or at least to remove any merely "questionable" publishers from a tag that declares them to actually be predatory. If necessary, we can create a separate tag for "questionable" journals, although it'd be nice if any such tag didn't flag the known-good journals from Frontiers. (For this journal, that would mean not flagging anything that contains 10.3389/fpubh.) It seems like almost every time I see someone doing one of these "Frontiers is always automatically bad, because Beall listed them briefly five years ago", they're reverting journals that we've discussed repeatedly. And if we can't figure out how to flag the worst of their journals while keeping the best, then maybe we shouldn't do that at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Typo in tag "External link added to disambiguation page"

• External Link added to disambiguation page • Special:Tags lists this text as a tag (cap "L").
• External link added to disambiguation page • but this is the tag added to edits (lowercase "l").

Can this inconsistency be fixed? I saw the second in an edit at Digital and copied the tag text into Recent changes, but that link shows nothing. Using the correct case works: [4]. Preferably "L" should be lowercase in the first (phab?). Johnuniq (talk) 07:55, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: If you are still interested in this, it is managed by Special:AbuseFilter/657. A good place to ask would therefore be the Edit filter noticeboard. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:29, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

mw-reverted tag

I'm a bit confused on how the mw-reverted tag is utilized. Its tag description states "Edits that were later reverted by a different edit" but there is no additional information on which previous edit was reverted. I'm not even sure if there's false positives. For instance, a personal example seen here. I'm reviewing previous edits and there's nothing even related to what I added. I hope a minor capitalization change didn't flag this edit. It seems more context is needed with the tag. – The Grid (talk) 18:59, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

@The Grid: The tag is added to the edit after it is later reverted, separate from if it is itself a revert. In this case, your edit was reverted in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_Sally&diff=next&oldid=978587392&diffmode=source which added the tag. DannyS712 (talk) 05:10, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Oh! I see now - the tags are applied retroactively? I could have sworn I saw the tag when I made the edit but then again my mind does crazy things. Thanks for the explanation. – The Grid (talk) 14:27, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure where better to write this, but many thanks to whoever thought up and implemented the new Reverted tag. It saves so much time when going through the contribution history of a vandal, and has other uses. Certes (talk) 10:52, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't possibly agree more. The tag is extremely helpful and saves an enormous amount of time. So it is sorely missed when it's not there. What has happened to it in last few hours?? --DB1729 (talk) 20:07, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

The reverted tags are now displaying again. Seems it was just a short-lived temporary glitch. --DB1729 (talk) 23:23, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

deprecated source tag

I believe that the tag is misleading. Its description at Special:Tags says "This edit added a deprecated source. Deprecated sources are not usually appropriate for Wikipedia articles" however in fact it's also used for generally unreliable sources which are different from deprecated sources (see WP:RSP. While the latter should not be normally used on Wikipedia, the former in many cases have valid uses. What is the right place to request changes to the tag algorithm and/or label? Alaexis_¿question? 13:06, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect 'Removed redirect' tag due to subst:null

This diff and several others were incorrectly tagged as "Removed redirect" because {{subst:null}} was appended to the page right before "#REDIRECT"; once resolved, the redirect is maintained. {{subst:null}} should be ignored when detecting this tag, and probably others.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:39, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Where does the AWB tag come from?

Where does the AWB tag in edit summaries come from? I.e. where can I find its tag rule page (or whatever it is called)? Or does it come from AWB itself? I'm wondering if it's easy to implement in other wikis. 85.76.100.94 (talk) 12:28, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

It depends on Special:UserGroupRights and (applychangetags). I am pretty sure it comes from AWB itself for what it's worth. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:41, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Filtering out tags

Is there a way to filter a tag out rather than in? For example, if I wanted to exclude all visualeditor-tagged edits from a filter, is there some easy syntax for that? czar 10:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation links added - how to find them?

My last edit was tagged "disambiguation links added". As far as I can tell, the links I added do not go to disambiguation pages, although somewhere else on the page there may well be such links. Is there a way to find out which links the tagger had in mind? W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@W. P. Uzer: Tags are done automatically by the wiki software, not actually added by a tagger. Clicking all the links you added to that article, it was conjunction that brings you to a disambig page (your preferred target would be conjunction (grammar))! Also thank you for your contributions, that was a very useful edit! Don't let it being tagged discourage you! Gatemansgc (TɅ̊LK) 21:46, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, somehow I missed that one! W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@W. P. Uzer Is there anyone to help me how to find out way to finnaly reach my Team. 109.183.106.18 (talk) 23:03, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

how do I remove edit tags from my edits?

such as "2017 wikitext editor" or "visual edit" from my edits? Esaïe Prickett (talk) 21:39, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

That's not possible. The whole point of tags is that they describe what happened. Someone at WP:VPT could explain alternative editors and what you might want to try instead of using the 2017 wikitext or visual editor. However, the tag and those tools are nothing to be concerned about. Johnuniq (talk) 22:11, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Wide column at Special:Tags

The "Appearance on change lists" column at Special:Tags is forced to be wide by the non-breaking "Medha_Bansal_intern_at_WikiEduDashboard". It causes the table to not fit on my desktop screen, and nearly all rows are at least three lines because "Defined by the software" is broken into three lines. Can this tag be renamed (e.g. using spaces instead of underscores) or removed? It appears to be from a 2017 project based on meta:Wiki Education Foundation/Monthly Reports/2017-07#Digital Infrastructure. I don't know whether it's still used. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:03, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Got a "Reverted" tag where it hasn't been reverted

My edit on March 23, 2022: Special:Diff/1078756408 is now tagged "(Tags: Undo Reverted)", where actually it is still valid and has not beed reverted by any later editors as of April 30, 2022: Special:Permalink/1085470760. I think this tagging is wrong, because it is my understanding that the "Reverted" tag is only for edits that are being reverted, not for edits that are reverts. --Wotheina (talk) 02:12, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

@Wotheina: Looks like what happened was the most recent edit, this one on April 30 restored an old version from way back, likely to this revision of 16 October 2021. In other words, the user opened the edit window on the October 16 revision and hit publish. A clue is all the edits behind yours are tagged "reverted" until that October 16 revision. Even though the edit may or may not result in any change to any particular content, when restoring an old revision like that, it still tags every edit in between the two revisions as "reverted". --DB1729 (talk) 04:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

...just to further clarify, viewing the edit history and then selecting the 'cur' (current button) on the October 16 edit by Edwardx, produces this diff, which is identical to the IP edit from yesterday. All it did was change 1.5 → 2, but it still tags every edit between October 16 and April 30. DB1729 (talk) 05:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the investigation and clue. Indeed it looks like a long-haul revert, so the tag is correct. --Wotheina (talk) 11:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

{{WikiProject Disambiguation}}

Adding {{WikiProject Disambiguation}} to talk pages incorrectly triggers the Disambiguation links added tag. Examples: [5] [6] Please fix, thanks. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:40, 31 August 2023 (UTC)