Talk:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/IP Editing Restriction Study/Portuguese Wikipedia

Pipelines

The long-time editors I've asked generally edited Wikipedia for months or even more than a year before creating their account. In this respect, IP editors form a pipeline to the registered community. The effects of shutting off the pipeline might not be seen for a year or more. How long do you expect to follow this experiment? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:39, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to echo this sentiment. At the very least, any kind of conclusion reached so far should be contextualized or qualified. That is, a declarative sentence like this: "We found no significant negative impact in the analysis conducted thus far" should be more precise in what period was measured, at what time it was measured, and any notable comments about the limitations of the methodology. It currently reads like an ironclad conclusion, and as a researcher and academic, it really gives me pause. -- Fuzheado (talk) 16:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Nemo 17:21, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi there @Fuzheado, in case you missed it this section of the report will help with all things on context and period of measurement. I will also sum up here to save you time.

IP editing was turned off on October 4th 2020. Per the background section, we're concluding based on metrics gathered from October 2020 to June 2021. That should amount to Q2, Q3, and Q4 of the Foundation's 2020/2021. Ping me if you need anything else. STei (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

On the issue of limitations of methodology, that are about five points in the report that data shortcomings or lack of clarity were mentioned. I am also pinging my colleague Jennifer to help with further commentary if there's any to add. STei (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Kudos to the Analytics team for, erm, analysing this. (And to the Antabuse team for sponsoring it, if that's how it works.) I've been wondering whether any positive and negative effects of ptwiki's change have become discernible. Surely I'm not alone in that. I'd love to see a re-analysis in say a year's and two years' time with some longer-term data. ⁓ Pelagic (talk) 23:00, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Whatamidoing (WMF)! There could likely be long-term effects, as you have pointed out. We're looking at capturing data for 1-2 years and even more. STei (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Comparison graphs

In IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Impact report for Login Required Experiment on Portuguese Wikipedia#Net non-reverted content edits, I think it would be helpful to have graphs that visually show the changes at the Portuguese-language Wikipedia against the similar numbers for other Wikipedias. If everyone else is growing while you stagnate, that's not necessarily good. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Apples, oranges and herrings

Just above that, at § Net non-reverted edits, it says "In Q2, the monthly average of all wikipedias projects increased by 13.5%." Is that 13.5% total edits, or NNREs? I hope they're not comparing apples and oranges there! Pelagic (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, a global edit growth of >10% per month would be flabbergasting, if sustained. How much would that amount to over a year? (1.135)¹² = 4.57. Has anyone investigated where all those edits came from? And if it's just an unsustained glitch followed by a corresponding fall, then why is it relevant to this analysis? Is it a red herring thrown in to downplay the growth in NNREs? Pelagic (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Aha, at mw:Product Analytics/Data Products/ptwiki intervention impact report the context is that it's “year over year” not one month to the next. It would still be nice to see NNRE comparisons vs. other wikis. Pelagic (talk) 04:57, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Other research

I'm sure there has been several researches in this topic before. On impact of automated reverting of vandalism, impact of pending change on all of the wiki, and impact of restricting IP editing. All unanimously came to conclusion that making editing harder for IPs would harm the wiki's new user retention in long-term. It is interesting to see this research disagreeing with all of that. I'm not debating your result, It can be simply that users' behavior have changed since most websites require an account for really long time now.

I can find these researches if you want but finding them shouldn't be too hard. Amir (talk) 22:54, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

This study looked at a few months. If long-term is several years, then this study doesn't know what will happen.

OTOH, I think you are correct that people's expectations have changed compared to 20 years ago. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree with @Ladsgroup on this – the stark difference in the conclusions from examining pt.wp in this report versus the previous scholarship from very storied and respected researchers needs to be greatly highlighted and analyzed.

Also, in chat discussions with pt.wp editors before IP editing was turned off, we talked about the effectiveness on en.wp of anti-vandal bots (i.e. ClueBot NG) that essentially allowed en.wp to stay completely open to IP editing. Editors on pt.wp noted the lack of a similar performing bot on their wiki, and how this might have affected community voting sentiment. I'd like to see any kind of research take these other factors into account, in that wiki-to-wiki comparisons have multiple variables that can easily lead to improper conclusions. - Fuzheado (talk) 16:28, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fuzheado indeed. I can add that each wiki utilizes different tools to combat vandalism. In my home wiki (fawiki), AbuseFilter is heavily used and has rule that if an IP adds a swearword (and some other conditions), it also blocks the IP for three days. That helps with the flood of vandalism a lot.

IMHO, just blank banning all IP edits is lazy. There are lots of tools you can use. Amir (talk) 18:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Who does the WMF think it is?

Allow Portuguese Wikipedia to continue with their current practice for now, if the volunteers want to continue. 'Allow'? If a community wishes to change its rules, it will. It won't wait for the WMF to give permission. The WMF tried to bully the en.Wiki fpr 6 whole years over ACTRIAL until the volunteers got wise that the WMF are not the bosses. Please change the wording. Kudpung (talk) 09:51, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF), you seem to be more informed than most here. Could you consider rephrasing the page so that it reflects facts and reality? Kudpung (talk) 15:41, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The community has not approved this change. Nemo 17:21, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I say leave in "allow". It illustrates the attitude or misconception of the authors, and may serve as a stimulus for further discussion. ⁓ Pelagic (talk) 22:06, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: The pt.wiki community certainly has.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 12:10, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the w:pt community implemented this themselves using edit filters and javascript. (See also User:Stjn's post at Login Required Experiment#Technical implementation.) Ptwiki went to Phabricator with a community mandate, asking for a config change, and got no help from the sysadmins. I'm not sure whom else they petitioned, perhaps somebody could elaborate on that. Foundation management must have been aware what was afoot, but failed to support the community. However, once the community was forced into a hacky DIY solution, the only way the W?F could disallow it would have been to impose another Superprotect. ⁓ Pelagic (talk) 22:45, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Pelagic: After all the drama on phabricator, we decided to ignore it and go forward with solutions designed by ourselves that would accomplish what the community had decided, which we did. After that there was still a denounce to legal about the filter we were using potentially allowing for the match between IP and account, with some imagination (something that happens all the time without any need for imagination and special access to special tools when accidentally someone logs out and edit), and we had a WMF lawyer (very politely) expressing those concerns. It was quickly settled, in any case.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 12:10, 14 September 2021 (UTC)