Wikipedia talk:STiki/Archive 14

Feature requests

 * Include the user reverted to in edit summaries. This would preferably be the default; or at least the capability should be provided as an edit summary "placeholder" for users to customize their own edit summaries. This piece of information is included in edit summaries of standard rollbacks – "Reverted edits by  (talk) to last version by "  – and of reversions done by ClueBot, Huggle, and Twinkle. It is very useful for anyone to see if the edit prior to the one reverted was by a trusted user, or if it should be investigated further.
 * Added as T#032 in table above and already implemented in source. I would appreciate community discussion regarding default settings. West.andrew.g (talk) 16:28, 22 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Make the (User-Talk) link red if their talk page does not exist. I issue a welcome to users who have made constructive edits, and welcomes are usually done on redlinked user talk pages. In feature request T#010 above, it's noted that there may be a "performance penalty" for determining existence of multiple links in the article's diff, but there should be no such problem with taking care of a single link. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  02:30, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Added as T#034 and also done in source. Don't expect things to normally get done this quickly. West.andrew.g (talk) 17:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks for the speedy action!

As for making the edit summary change the default, note that this feature would benefit all Wikipedia editors, not just STiki users. M AN d ARAX •  XAЯA b ИA M  19:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I THINK I agree with Mandarax. That said, if we're concerned about the previous editor, maybe it would make sense to provide relevant info and links in the STiki GUI. Yaris678 (talk) 23:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Renaming the "pass" classification button
Greenmaven posted a feature request directly to the table atop this talk page. We reserve that space for things that have reached consensus and it is essentially a "todo" list even if some of the elements are not on my front burner. Thus, I reverted his edit and I am posting his request here for discussion: "Could the classification button 'Pass' be renamed 'Refer on'; it is easy to confuse with 'Innocent'. West.andrew.g (talk) 21:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Personally, I don't see the distinction in meaning here. If anything, "refer on" is more confusing to me, but this may be a regional matter. One major complication I do see is that some of us have muscle memory to use the "VPI(G)" hot-keys to make classifications, and a "P->R" transition could be confusing. I will allow others to respond before deferring the suggestion, but thanks for your interest regardless. West.andrew.g (talk) 21:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * 'Pass' to me associates with pass/fail. Therefore, 'Pass' can be interpreted as synonymous with 'Innocent'. Just a suggestion - not a serious concern. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:41, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * One thought: If a user hasn't read the classification guide, and is confusing pass with innocent, then she is going to press pass a lot.  Eventually she's going to get that warning telling her what pass does and that it should only be used when the user really thinks that another user has a better chance of being able to classify the edit.  I'm sure you, Jack, haven't seen this warning yet because you've been a diligent classifier! Or maybe you have, I don't know; just a thought. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 22:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that "Pass" could be interpreted as "this edit's constructive; it passes". I think the best choice would be the unambiguous "Skip". It doesn't convey the meaning of "pass it on to the next user", but I still think it's preferable. And, while this function should have the "S" hotkey, it could additionally retain the "P" for the convenience of those used to it. Another option would be to label the button "Pass to next user". M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  23:10, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * 'Skip' makes perfect sense. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * 'Skip' seems better than 'Pass'. I take the point about reading the classification guide. However, the buttons should be as unambiguously labelled as possible. 'Pass to next user' would be ideal, but I guess it would not fit on the button. --Greenmaven (talk) 03:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Wow! just counted the bytes. I think that would fit on the button! --Greenmaven (talk) 03:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Any broader community input on this suggested change? West.andrew.g (talk) 16:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I think 'Skip' makes sense and is simple. Any chance of that being agreed to? --Greenmaven (talk) 22:06, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * My opinion: Weak support of name change. "Skip" seems less likely to confuse, when you consider "pass" in relation to "fail". Yaris678 (talk) 22:37, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Special permission to use STiki
Hello, I would like to be able to use STiki. I am a user who has reverted a good amount of Vandalism and checked Wikipedia for errors. I believe that STiki will make my search much more efficent. --William Wright (talk) 17:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * -- Your account shows only 20 edits made to article space. Moreover, < 5 of these appear to be vandalism reverts (with lack of appropriate edit summaries and templating). While I do appreciate your recent efforts and believe you are operating in good faith, this does not amount to sufficient experience. If you are interested in this kind of work, the folks at WP:CVUA can put you on the fast track to STiki use. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 09:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Thankyou for your time.

--William Wright (talk) 17:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Paid editing?
I have been coming across the 'Schulich School of Business' a few times lately, such as in Triple bottom line. Is there some way all recent edits adding 'Schulich' can be identified and analysed? --Greenmaven (talk) 03:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Are you saying you want prioritization in the queues if cases like this appear again? The CBNG queue is unlikely to address this, as I believe it is only periodically retrained. The "metadata" queue would begin to prioritize these edits if they were coming from a single user name, single IP, or well-defined IP block (per some of its live reputation metrics). If your concern is forward looking, a rule in the edit filter would probably be the best way to address this.
 * If you are concerned more with ex-post facto analysis, I have less ideas. STiki and its related databases don't store full text versions (far too costly). If these edits are coming from IP space I would do a CIDR range search for the adjacent spaces (I think this is a gadget that can be enabled). If this is more complicated sock-puppetry, maybe you should go talk to the folks at Sockpuppet_investigations for advice. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 09:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

We could do this manually. If I search for "Schulich School of Business" (in quotes, using the search button rather than go), then I get 72 results. This seems like a lot of results, implying that there has been a concerted effort to crowbar the school into articles. But it is small enough to be doable manually. Who would like to volunteer to join me in checking these articles manually?

We could split them between us and then for each articles:
 * check the edit history for edits relating to the school and whether or not they seem spammy.
 * find the phrase "Schulich School of Business" on the page and edit the article if required.

Who's up for it?

Yaris678 (talk) 08:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Request to use STiki
I request access to use STiki because I have been reverting vandalism for the past couple of days, and using STiki would make me to revert vandalism easier. -- Bloonstdfan360  (talk • contribs) 05:16, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅ -- Approximately 400 article space edits (and 1600+ overall), with no/minimal criticism, and a sharp focus on the reversion of unconstructive edits. This is sufficient from my point of view. Familiarize yourself with WP:STiki and happy editing. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 05:51, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Plurals in GFR messages
Will #s# work in good-faith-revert messages? I have modified STiki/Good-faith-revert messages but feel free to undo if this isn't gonna fly.

In other news, I'm looking forward to getting home and having a go on the new version of STiki.

Yaris678 (talk) 13:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yep, these substitutions work. I will make the change. West.andrew.g (talk) 17:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The first one needs to be reworded, or it needs an anti-s "placeholder" . M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  22:59, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yaris reworded and I've made the change in source. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Request to use STiki
I've been fighting against vandalism and it's really a difficult task without using a tool. Please grant me access to STiki so that I can fight more against vandalism, thanks.— FrankBoy (Buzz)  13:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * -- I identified only about 25 unconstructive reverts by this user, all coming in the past couple of days (for about 150 article space edits, most being minor edits to the same pages). There was a bit of a prior mess involving possible sockpuppetry, but those seemed to pan out as unfounded claims. Ignoring that, I am still not satisfied by the amount of experience. A run through WP:CVUA or a couple more days of dedicated editing using Twinkle would earn the bit. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

STiki freezing
Sometimes, when I press one of the buttons on the STiki interface (e.g. "Vandalism"), the application freezes and I have to force-quit it. Is there a known fix for this? Epicgenius (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * A lot more information is needed to track issues. What is your OS? What version of STiki are you using? Have you used another version previously without error? If you run STiki from the terminal/prompt is there any textual output when the error occurs? How reproducible is the error? West.andrew.g (talk) 18:00, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I use the latest version of STiki, on Mac OS X v. 10.8.5. This is the first version that I have used so far. I'll try running STiki from Terminal now. Epicgenius (talk) 20:57, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, so it turns out that I can open it from Terminal without problems. The error only occurs while I am using STiki. Epicgenius (talk) 21:02, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

STiki failing to close
Is anyone else getting STiki failing to close? For me it isn't closing when I press the X icon in the top right or go through the menu.

I'm using the latest version of STiki and Windows XP. I don't know if the problem is the machine or the version of STiki because I haven't used this machine for STiki before. If someone else is having the same problem then I guess that means its not just the machine.

I ran STiki from the command line and got no messages.

I was able to get STiki to close using the task manager.

When I run STiki again, my changed edit summary has gone back to the default. Presumably this means that STiki normally saves the summary when it closes but hasn't been able to because I've used task manager.

Yaris678 (talk) 20:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, settings are saved at program exit. Does the problem persist? It doesn't seem this issue is widespread in the new version (I would have expected other complaints to pile on by now) so it might be specific to XP or some other aspect of that machine's configuration. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:21, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Request to use STiki
I wish to have access to this tool, i understand i do not have that much experience, however i am a recent changes patroller, and going into each one, finding vandalism, reverting it, and then notifying the editor is a time consuming process, i feel with this i will be able to handle vandals more efficently, please consider my request. Joeyd718 (talk) 22:09, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * -- In my mind this is a pretty close case. We have a greater need for labor than ever with CBNG being down and higher than normal hit-rates as a result (yesterday 49% of edits viewed in STiki were reverted). Unfortunately, User:Joeyd718, you've only been active on Wikipedia for ~3 days. Your work seems solid so far, but there just isn't enough of it. As always WP:CVUA can fast-track newbies to approval, or just another couple of days of steady manual/Twinkle effort and I'd be willing to give you the bit. I hope you'll take this into consideration and we'll see you back here shortly. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:36, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure thing, and it's good to hear I'm doing good work, as you said only a few days experience, so it's good to know what I'm doing is right :)Joeyd718 (talk) 16:49, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Unable to access STiKi
Hello, I seem to be unable to use STiKi because I have insufficient privileges. I have previously requested for special permission to use STiKi and permission was granted, perhaps someone removed it because they thought it was a bug that I had permission? Thanks, Darylgolden ( talk ) 05:15, 7 December 2013 (UTC) Edit: It's fine now - turns out I put a space before my username. Sorry! Darylgolden ( talk ) 05:19, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought we were trimming that input, but regardless, as long as it is working for you now, happy editing! West.andrew.g (talk) 07:18, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Linking to the edited article from GFR messages
I've just realised that the GFR messages aren't linking to the article they are talking about! I have added links to STiki/Good-faith-revert messages. Yaris678 (talk) 16:12, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Change has been made in source. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 18:14, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yaris678 (talk) 18:38, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Request to use STiki
I have downloaded the file. What's next? ```Buster Seven   Talk  18:35, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that first you have to get special permission to use it! I can vouch for Buster7. He is young, but not inexperienced. Coretheapple (talk) 18:40, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Young? If I was young I would understand all this GUI/CBNG/Metadata stuff. As usual. I'm gonna need an eight year old to explain this to me.```Buster Seven   Talk  18:47, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ummm.. User:Buster7 has over 10,000 edits in article space and the rollback permission. Thus special permission is not required. However, perhaps someone could volunteer to educate Buster on the how STiki works? (presumably off this talk page). See also this video tutorial on how to use STiki (not my work). Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 18:55, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you User:west.andrew. Perhaps there is some wise old veteran that can assist a young whippersnapper like me to understand this new technology. ```Buster Seven   Talk  19:02, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Needless to say, I'm available if you have any questions. But it's very easy to use. The only issue is eyestrain.
 * Speaking of that, STiki people, I like that different fonts are available but I would gently suggest that they could be a bit bigger. Do you think such an innovation might be possible, for us dinosaurs?Coretheapple (talk) 19:20, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of perspective on this; I prefer a huge resolution with size 10 fonts. However, if this is affecting users I am happy to add more options. When you adjust the font size to "16" in the STiki options menu that still isn't sufficient? Would you like to see it go to 20 or ...? I assume font size is the issue and not type face? This is a trivial feature request on my end. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 04:48, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes it's really the font size; the typeface is fine. If you can make it bigger that would be great! 20 is good. A choice of even bigger fonts would be great too, for those of us with high-res screens that make everything small, if it's not too much of a chore. My eyes will be grateful! Thanks. Coretheapple (talk) 04:59, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Added to feature table as T#035. No problem to implement. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 07:17, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much. So, do I just re-download the file? Is it in the latest version? Coretheapple (talk) 13:48, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, not yet. I wait for several of these small changes to accumulate before packing it all up and pushing it to users as a new version. You'll notice the change on WP:STiki and I also post a notification/CHANGELOG here on the talk page when that happens. West.andrew.g (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's great. Thanks very much. So what font size do you think you'll be able to cram in? Some of us are cursed with 1080p displays and weak eyes. Coretheapple (talk) 15:57, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've included even numbered sizes, 10-24. I think the previous largest was 18. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Good, that'll help. It will make a great tool even better! Coretheapple (talk) 18:42, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank goodness I've stumbled onto this thread and found out about font size options. Oh my eyes are much happier. And yes I'd vote for 20pt size option also. Great tool West Thanks for all you do!-- — Keithbob • Talk  • 16:40, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

CBNG Down; Metadata queue transitioned to default
Greetings STiki users. A brief FYI and a Happy Thanksgiving holiday to those who celebrate it. The CBNG bot (and therefore its data feed) have now been down for 16+ hours. This is apparently serious or ongoing enough to warrant a change to the navbox on the bot's talk page. Therefore I've decided to make the "metadata" queue that selected by default in the STiki GUI. You can still use the CBNG queue, but it is likely to dry up before too long (and people have already been hitting it for 16+ hours). Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 15:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Both queues spout out 50+ day edits today, what gives? hmssolent \You rang? ship's log 00:50, 30 November 2013 (UTC)\
 * Hmmm. Not an unusual amount of classifications over the last day or two, so that's not it. Moreover, the "revert rate" has been in a pretty standard 20-35% range, so if there is a problem, it certainly isn't one that is 50 days old. I'll look into it. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 02:12, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

No issues observed. Queue is populating normally. I also just ran through 100+ edits (guessing) towards testing the new release and a majority were from a very recent timeframe. This of course only holds for the STiki/metadata queue, as CBNG is currently being drained without population due to their downtime. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 07:10, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * If you join the #cluebotng-spam room on irc.cluenet.org, the CBNGRelay appears to be scoring every edit as it would normally... I've been using STiki with CBNG revision queue and am seeing very recent edits. Not sure what's wrong with the bot, but I'm assuming STiki is still grabbing recent CGNG data? &mdash; MusikAnimal talk 21:17, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Scratch that about the CBNG edits being recent, but my note about the CBNGRelay still holds true. I have no idea how the whole process works but it looks like the scoring mechanism is running, but whatever populates the queue and makes the reverts is not. Has there been any word as to why it's not running? Thanks &mdash; MusikAnimal <sup style="color:green;">talk 21:25, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Musik, I ducked in and noticed you were in the ClueNet IRC channel, so I speculate you are seeking out a reason/timeframe on CBNG downtime. Regarding CBNGRelay, it seems to be streaming edits, but not actually scoring them (or at minimum, not outputting the real valued scores). The feed cannot serve as a queueing mechanism until that is happening again. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:24, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

CBNG (and its feed) are back up and running. CBNG is once again the default queue. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 13:46, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Which queue to use...
Is the ClueBot queue available yet? --Greenmaven (talk) 04:32, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not believe so. I believe the way to check is to see whether it is making any new contributions here: ]. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 09:26, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * CBNG (and its feed) are back up and running. CBNG is once again the default queue. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 13:47, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Unable to log in, help!
Have tried multiple times, close Stiki, reload. Nothing seems to work. And yes my caps lock is off! :-) --<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> • Talk  • 16:45, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Waited 20 minutes and tried again. It works! --<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> • Talk  • 17:08, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Login issues have nothing to do with STiki (obviously, that would be a major privacy concern). Either Wikipedia's API was malfunctioning or it was something on your local machine. Either way, glad to hear things are working again! Space characters can also screw things up. West.andrew.g (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Andrew, Today I'm getting an error message when I log in that says I do not have STIKI permissions. Any suggestions?--<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> • Talk  • 23:02, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you placing a space character before or after your login name? West.andrew.g (talk) 23:22, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah yes a tiny space before my user name. Resolved! :-) --<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> •  Talk  • 00:19, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Substitutions
Is there a list of all the substitutions (e.g. #u#, #p#, etc.) available somewhere? APerson (talk!) 01:24, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, the STiki documentation available via the "Help" menu. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:55, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Additional link to the article talk page
Feature request: It would be nice if, in the "Edit Properties" box at the bottom, there was a link to the talk page of the article whose diff is being looked at. This would be convenient, for instance, if the user wanted to start a discussion about the edit. APerson (talk!) 01:46, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Added to the feature request table up top as T#036. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 02:03, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Digging into an article's history
Question for STiki users: Do you always look at an article's history?

I always do. Just in case there is some unreverted vandalism below the surface.

On Friday, I was able to have my first good blast on STiki for a while. I edited 42 articles that STiki brought to my attention. Of these 42 articles, in 3 cases (7%) I reverted the edits of more than one user (by using the "revert to this version" option in Twinkle).

I think 7% is a high enough level to justify looking at the article's history every time. This includes looking at a few diffs in most cases. Unfortunatly, this does mean that I revert at a slower rate than might otherwise be the case... which makes me wonder if the STiki user interface could be modified to improve efficiency.

Obviously, it really helps that there is a link to the page history in the STiki interface. But what I think would really help is if the interface had more than one diff from the same article, side by side. I guess it would have to be configurable so that a user can choose how many to display in the window at once and how many to display in total. If the second number is larger than the first then you can have a scroll bar to flick left and right.

You could use purple text, as you do with multi-edit diffs, to say something like "3 edits by Example_User. Will not be reverted by STiki."

Note that I am not saying STiki needs the ability to revert these earlier edits. I guess that could be added later, but it would require a bit of thought about edit summaries and warnings. In the first instance, the important thing is to display the extra diffs so that the STiki user can decide what the best action to take is. In the ~7% of cases where more than one user needs reverting, they can use the normal wiki interface, but the important thing is that they won't need to generate all the diffs in most cases and so can proceed more efficiently through the queue.

Yaris678 (talk) 14:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

STiki usage request
Hello there. I'm Ethically Yours and I am a rollbacker. I can distinguish vandalism from non-vandalism edits. I've heard of STiki lately and would like to try it out. I hope I'll be allowed to :) <b style="color:#060">Ethically</b> (<b style="color:#000">Yours</b>) 15:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, you can use STiki with rollbacker on your account. You shouldn't need to request access. TheEpTic (talk) 15:49, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. <b style="color:#060">Ethically</b> (<b style="color:#000">Yours</b>) 17:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ✔️ -- Yep, you've got rollback, you are good to go. Happy editing. West.andrew.g (talk) 03:47, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Alternate Account Usage Request
For User:EuroCarGT Mobile. ///Euro Car GT  23:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 04:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Requesting access to STiki
Hi, I know I'm new to the site an all but I've been really trying to help out with anti-vandalism. I'm doing it manually and using twinkle. I'm in the process of coding my own automatic bot for helping with vandalism and was hoping to use STiki to also help me on my journeys. It would be brilliant to use it now rather than wait to get 1000 edits which most members should know straight away, can take ages! I'd also like to add that I'm very-aware of how anti-vandalism works and have read WP:VAN. Thank you for your time and I'll be happy to answer any questions if needs be. TheEpTic (talk) 23:29, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * - User:TheEpTic, I appreciate your well thought out request above. However, you've been doing anti-vandal work for just two days. I notice you've also caught some criticism on your talk page which you then blanked. There's nothing wrong with this, you are new around here and no one is expected to have it all figured out when they first arrive. However, this is evidence you haven't completely assimilated with the norms of the community. As I tell everyone, be patient, have fun, maybe take a look at WP:CVUA, and things will work out for you in no time.
 * Best of luck with your anti-vandalism bot, and not to poke fun, but there is probably just a *wee bit* of background reading you should do on that. I just spent 5.5 years writing my PhD dissertation on the topic. Between STiki and ClueBotNG, we've got large parts of the problem space covered using some pretty intelligent machinery. That being said, both of these projects are going to appreciate any volunteer assistance they can receive. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 03:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks Andrew. I completely understand your view and respect that. May I should wait it out a bit more and work on actually helping the community a bit more. Cheers :) TheEpTic (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

STiki queue hang?
This isn't exactly the reverse of the CBNG hang, but the STiki queue has been churning out nothing more than 10+ day-old edits. The CBNG queue on the other hand is business as usual. What gives? hmssolent \You rang? ship's log 05:11, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've just had a go and tried three edits from the CBNG queue, there were 11, 10 and 6 days old (and all innocent). I've now switched to the STiki queue and I got two innocent diffs that were about 10 hours old.  But then I got a diff one hour old.  I think the 10-hour old ones were probably just passed by whoever used STiki in the last 10 hours.
 * TLDR: I am getting the opposite problem to that reported by HMSSolent. STiki queue is basically fine, CBNG queue is stuck in the past.
 * Yaris678 (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Frustratingly ClueBot NG is down again, which explain why the queue is "stuck in the past." Every time this happens people end up frantically running around IRC channels and talk pages (myself, namely) trying to get a hold of the bot owners... all of whom appear to be marginally active. Anyways hopefully it won't be down for long. &mdash; <b style="color:black;">MusikAnimal</b> <sup style="color:green;">talk 16:47, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ Managed to get a hold of Damian on Twitter and he promptly fixed it. I take back what I said, which may have implied that they're neglecting their bot. Anyhoo, happy editing! &mdash; <b style="color:black;">MusikAnimal</b> <sup style="color:green;">talk  17:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep, pattern reversed today; severe CBNG hang. hmssolent \You rang? ship's log 03:31, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I opened up STiki this evening and the first 10 edits I looked at in the metadata and CBNG queues were under an hour old. Moreover, I checked the health of the indices on the queue tables and everything came back normal (a corrupt index has caused some rather random behavior in the past). I am considering the issue resolved. Queueing dynamics can be very difficult to understand from a local perspective. Fortunately, I have a global viewpoint and receive multiple reports daily on the health of everything involved. If something meaningful breaks, I do try to post it here. West.andrew.g (talk) 05:23, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for ability to use STiki
Hello! I've been using Twinkle for a while now to stop vandalism, and I would like to have access to STiki in order to stop vandals more efficiently. I have read WP:VANDAL thoroughly as well, and I will use the tool properly. Thank you, whether you grant my request or not. <span style="text-shadow: 2px 2px 3px #00FFFF, -2px -2px 3px #00FF00;">Antideregister - <span style="text-shadow: -2px 2px 0px #00FF00, 2px -2px 0px #00FFFF;">✉ 21:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You do not have sufficient experience: just 92 edits on articles (19% of your total contributions) in your first month with Wikipedia. — &#124; Gareth Griffith-Jones &#124; The Welsh Buzzard&#124; — 21:56, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * -- No assessment required. Requesting user has been blocked due to account/vandal/sock-puppet issues. West.andrew.g (talk) 05:28, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Request to use STiki
In addition to my previous comments, I'd like to say that I've read the page WP:VAN and Vandalism related pages so I guess there will be less chances of wrong revert(s). Regards.— Frank Boy  19:43, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * -- (some of these notes are just for my own reference, its getting hard keeping everyone straight) You previously requested STiki access on Dec. 3, when you had about 25 reverts. In the 13 days since that time, you've probably added another 30 reverts using Twinkle. This hasn't generated any talk page controversy, I am pleased to see your interest in the "Wikipedia Adventure", and I appreciate you've demonstrated some patience in making a second request. However, this isn't an overwhelming amount of experience (2 reverts/day) and you haven't seemed to catch on that unconstructive editors are supposed to be warned about their actions. Have you considered visiting WP:CVUA? If you pass that, I will be satisfied and promptly grant access. Otherwise I am going to wait and see what some other community members think. West.andrew.g (talk) 03:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose permanently- this editor has done only 361 edits and has already had some mild conflicts. There's some over-confidence in evidence here. I am opposed to anyone, who writes a sentence like this, "instead of welcoming and helping new users you doubt on them and your doubt is based on pity things", being able to use the power of STiki to make decisions about the quality of other people's edits. It is not hard to detect hardcore vandalism, but there is a borderline zone with GF reversions, in which good judgement, cultural and general knowledge, and grammar and spelling is required. Sorry. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * For what its worth, I will not follow Greenmaven's "permanent" distinction above in any case. This user has been acting in good faith. I am supportive of a community in which individuals can grow and learn. This users first interactions were "bitey", as were Greenmaven's comments. My research supports the fact this "borderline zone" is a very blurry one even among experienced editors. We don't need genius editors to do this work, we need someone with enough good sense to take their time and know when the "pass" button is appropriate. Building high barriers-to-entry beyond this are a net loss for STiki and WP. West.andrew.g (talk) 06:30, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Request of permission to use STiki
By means of this message I ask for permission to use STiki. In the past I have been doing some anti-vandalism work, mainly using Twinkle and wpcvn (which is down now BTW). Having a stronger tool might make the patrolling task lighter. Please consult my previous edits and tell me if I accumulated enough experience. Thanks, Super48paul (talk) 15:01, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- -- 650 article space edits most of which are anti-vandalism reverts using Twinkle is sufficient for me. Happy reverting! Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 15:22, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Rename
Soham was recently renamed so STiki! may need to compact the edits of Sohambanarjee1998 to Soham. Also you need to remove Sohambanarjee1998 from the list. Typing this because of this. Anyway before doing this ask him once. -- Pr at yya  (Hello!) 14:31, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, I want the edits of two of accounts to be merged. Soham 15:55, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- Remapped 439 classifications. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:05, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * X mark.svg N Not done I think, cause they are still not appearing.  Soham  05:18, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- Apologies, I made a typo and mapped them to "Sohan" instead of "Soham" in my first attempt. West.andrew.g (talk) 15:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, nevermind.  Soham  09:29, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

STiki questions from a Twinkle addict
Questions from a beginner who is used to Twinkle: 1)Is it possible to easily deliver warning levels 1, 2, 3 + optional text messages to vandals, using templates (like in Twinkle)? I know I can type in the box below left, but that is cumbersome; 2) Say I have a suspect edit open in STiki, then switch to the diff (below) and handle the edit through Twinkle (say: a revert) and deliver a message on the vandal talk page. Then, switching back to STiki, what do the 4 buttons (vandal, agf, pass, innocent) do: does any of them override my Twinkle decision? If so, what is the outcome of Twinkle decision followed by STiki button (for all combinations)?! Or, if back in STiki, how do I go to the next edit for inspection without invalidating my Twinkle decision, sneakily as it were? That is all for now...Super48paul (talk) 21:46, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If you've already reverted the edit with Twinkle (or with any other method), classifying the edit as Vandalism (or GF revert) will not perform any action on Wiki, it will only affect the classification. So just press the button that you want to classify it as; it won't override anything (unless there's a bug). -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:52, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If you want to deal with it outside of the options given to you by STiki, you just make sure you have pulled up the article page in a browser window, so you don't lose track of it, and then let it pass through STiki by clicking 'innocent'. That gives you the next edit in STiki. My advice: deal with it with one tool or the other, but not with both - it's unnecessary. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:56, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Greenmaven, as I understand it, when you classify, that is part of the algorithmic training for STiki. If you press "Innocent" for an edit, but you've reverted it as vandalism with Twinkle, then you are undermining this training. You should always give your sincere classification.-- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 22:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * is correct. — &#124; Gareth Griffith-Jones &#124; The Welsh Buzzard&#124; — 22:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. You are right. I did not think that through. Sometimes I find that there is enough of the edit that is useful, that it is worth going in to fix it, or to fix something you see that is not part of the edit, but needs to be changed. I often find that an edit is substantial enough that there are errors in an otherwise useful edit. I am not always willing to revert a whole edit which has been made in good faith. --Greenmaven (talk) 01:35, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello, this is the original Twinkler who initiated this section: thanks everybody for solving my question nr 2. I now will press buttons honestly and faithfully, even if I reverted outside STiki. As to question 1): I found the answers in the manual, I just have to insert a vandalism template as my personal default, that is all there is to it. For now, I have two more (silly) questions I could not find answers to: 3) What happens when I use https? 4) Why are mosty revision filters not activated? Will that happen in the future? Thanks.Super48paul (talk) 10:16, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * (3) See HTTPS, it encrypts all connections to the Mediawiki API. This is a security feature. It is a touch slower than using plain HTTP. (4) Because I haven't programmed them, but I do envision them to eventually be available. West.andrew.g (talk) 00:56, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Permission to use STiki
I have made 600+ edits to Wikipedia .Most of these edits were done using Twinkle .But now I want to use Stiki to fight vandalism on Wikipedia.--Skr15081997 (talk) 08:40, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * ✅ -- Borderline case here, but I have decided to grant access. User has ~500 article space edits. Contribution history shows a knack for automated tools, but only some anti-vandalism experience. The broader good faith intentions and varied workload are good enough for me here. West.andrew.g (talk) 16:10, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

AGF messages?
On reverting an edit as AGF, I want to leave a message on the user talk page. (People are easily offended..) To that effect, I introduced the subst:Uw-vandalism1 template in the good-faith box on the left below, as my default. But alas, STiki ignores this command and just does not deliver any message at all (at least not there). Can I do better? For example, substitute 1 with #? I know, I can always copypaste such a warning in the special box that pops up upon reverting as agf, but that takes more effort... Any other solutions?! Thanks,Super48paul (talk) 14:02, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * -- (1) The "box at bottom left" is for the *edit summary* that is left with a revert, it is not posted to the user talk page. (2) You should use the box that pops up at AGF, as this is what goes to the user talk page. In particular, there are "custom" options in the drop-down menu of pre-formatted messages. These will "remember" what you last typed into them, eliminating the need to copy-paste at each iteration. West.andrew.g (talk) 15:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Have I need special permission?
STiki didn't work for me, but I want to give it another try, because I like this tool. Can I use it "special permission"? Because I submitted my request before, but using of STiki was not successful and I had problems to access it. --Zyma (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You don't need special permission, since you have rollback. Were there software issues? West.andrew.g (talk) 20:39, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Here: Error: Backend connection is required. --Zyma (talk) 20:53, 8 January 2014 (UTC)


 * You have the permission to use the tool. The problem is that your computer is not speaking to STiki's backend servers. To paraphrase from our previous exchange .... "STiki needs to communicate over port 3306 (mysql)... Are you in some institutional/corporate/educational setting? It is atypical for home connections to block this port, and even if it does, you should be able to configure your firewall around it." We can troubleshoot this together, but let's start with that first question. West.andrew.g (talk) 21:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I log into Wikipedia from different locations. Home, Office, and University. All of them show this error message. I guess ISPs are the reason behind this. For example, Wikipedia in HTTPS is blocked for me and I couldn't use WPCleaner tool. I suggested to them to enable "HTTP mode" for their tool and my problem solved. Is there any similar solution for STiki? Also, I didn't test the new/current version of STiki. I have a lot of problems to access some parts of WP due to strong censorship and firewall settings by my ISPs. --Zyma (talk) 21:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. You could also try to confirm your local firewall isn't doing this, but if you are in a region with restrictive Internet policies, there won't be much you can do. Could you ask a network administrator if they have a firm policy against opening these ports? This is not as simple as an HTTPS->HTTP conversion. STiki currently uses the MySQL protocol to do database queries and call stored procedures. While an HTTP version could be coded, it is not currently high on my priority list. You could probably get around all this using HTTP tunnelling, but that is going to require some technical fiddling and a proxy. West.andrew.g (talk) 17:53, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

After downloading how does STiki open?
I was wondering what happens after downloading STiki, how do you open it? Is there an icon on your desktop? Maybe on the project page this should be mentioned. Thanks! Raquel Baranow (talk) 04:31, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Per WP:STiki : "After unzipping, double-click the *.JAR file to launch (Windows, OS X), or issue the terminal command "java -jar STiki_exec_[date].jar" (Unix)." West.andrew.g (talk) 05:52, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Raquel, drag the JAR file to your desktop, then you can always double click it in a second.Super48paul (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks Super48Paul, that answers my question, looks like you have to work in a separate window but once that window is open, you can easily go back and forth between WP and STiki (I watched the video). I was using http://wpcvn.com/ to zap vandals but it is no longer working, I may give STiki a try, it looks very simple to use. Raquel Baranow (talk) 15:42, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello Raquel, I also used wpcvn for a long time, learned to patrol vandalism in that way! But now, wpcvn is dead. I contacted Dmitry, its author: the box doesn't turn on anymore, and he is no longer able to operate it. So that is the end! Super48paul (talk) 07:59, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Bucks County Community College
While editing Bucks County Community College I found Johan Hegg among the 'Notable alumni'. He has no article - just a redirect to another article. So I removed him from the list in Bucks County Community College. Should I also delete the redirect? I have never seen this method for creating a pseudo notable name in a list before. --Greenmaven (talk) 07:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not an expert on protocol on WP but I'll bet that to Bucks County Community College he's notable (did you see his picture? lol). I'd of left it. Clever redirect. Raquel Baranow (talk) 14:59, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I regard the redirect as dishonest, not 'clever'. It gives a false impression that an article exists for him. Re Notability. If he comes from the College, no doubt they are proud of him, but that would not be enough to confer notability on WP (WP:N). Notability cannot be inferred by association with other notable people or entities. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Why would you delete the redirect? He is clearly a member of that band per the article and infobox. I have some doubts he is actually an alumni of this college in question (the college being in PA, USA and the band hailing from Sweden). However, if he were, it is not even clear to me that deleting the alumni listing would be the best course of action; the band membership seems notable, especially for a college that is thin on notable alumni. I don't think this is "vandalism-engineering" in order to blue-link a non-notable name in the list. West.andrew.g (talk) 15:59, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete the redirect because dishonest, as above. On the Bucks Talk Page, doubt has been expressed, but not resolved as to whether he attended the College. He may well satisfy WP:N, but no one has yet put it to the test and created an article. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

A different example, a different approach
Since the notability of list items has come up, I thought I would share this example that STiki showed me yesterday. The IP had (presumably inadverently) removed the section title and add a person (Ane Crabtree) who does not have her own article. On face value, there is a strong indication that it should be good-faith reverted. However, I did some Googling and found a number of independent reliable sources that mention Ane Crabtree. I conclude that she was notable by the standards of Wikipedia but it's just that no one had got round to creating an article about her. Rather than reverting, I edited the article using the wiki interface, to bring back the section title and add in one of the sources which mentioned her growing up in the town that is the subject of the article. I included a redlink, in the hope that it might encourage someone to create an article.

Yaris678 (talk) 14:53, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

User Box
Are STiki users entitled to put this on their user page? --Greenmaven (talk) 05:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Not really. CBNG's effort is to produce a corpus over a representative set of edits. While I provided them a dump of the STiki feedback database once, I am not even sure it was put into force via training. It is the "metadata" queue which is doing far more online learning in the form of dynamic reputations for users and articles. West.andrew.g (talk) 23:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

STiki: one pair of eyes only?
Regularly, using STiki, I try to (say) revert an edit and notice afterwards that another STiki-user did so before me. The dice has already been cast. So my decision (whatever it may be) is of no consequence. But I thought that each edit is only served to one pair of eyes only?! What is wrong with this argumentation? I do not remember exactly which queue it was: cluebot or STiki. Super48paul (talk) 19:17, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * STiki (on behalf of an individual user) always has the next ~10 edits to be classified cached on the machine (it goes out and pre-fetches the data so you don't have to wait when the "next" button is pressed). When it needs more edits to keep this stockpile full, it will ask the backend server to place a "reservation" on the edits atop the queue (most likely vandalism, absent anything that user has ignored). These reservations prevent another user from reserving them. These reservations are cancelled once the edit is classified, or ~15 minutes time have elapsed. These reservations "cascade" across queues, i.e., even if you are using "metadata" then the reservation applies to those using "CBNG" at the same time. Are you classifying really slowly? Otherwise I don't see how this is possible. There are also frequent checks to make sure the edits in your local stockpile are still most current (so even if everything else was failing, you'd need to both be viewing the conflicting edit at the exact same time). STiki's user-base is also not terribly large... Do you have any revision-IDs where you know this took place? I can track down database logs. Of course, user's outside STiki can be scooping your work and beating you to reverts, and there isn't much we can do about that. West.andrew.g (talk) 19:37, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What typically happens is, that I have my doubts about some diff and check it (extra) on the wikidiff to discover it has been dealt with. And indeed, sometimes it reads: performed by user using STiki. Then of course my edit decision is no longer of importance. I have STiki open all the time, but (obviously) do not actually work with it all the time. So it does happen that I resume stiki-work after say a few hours. It might have happened then (old queue), but I really cannot remember if it happens only then, or also when I work on Stiki at a steady pace. I will try to pay attention to the phenomenon.... Thanks for the quick answer anyway, Super48paul (talk) 19:54, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

STiki user getting criticism
At the end of this discussion an editor is criticised for over-eager editing. I thought we should know about it here. --Greenmaven (talk) 22:20, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Request for semi-protection
Please put semi-protection in response to a high growth of vandalism found on STiki itself. Some have used STiki on STiki to remove vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Order of the sword (talk • contribs) 05:39, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Order of the sword,
 * I'm not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that the page STiki needs semi-protection?  Are you saying that there should be an option in STiki to request semi-protection for a page you are looking at?  Are you saying that it would help if STiki attempted to work out if the page you are looking at was in need of semi-protection?  Yaris678 (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I think he's saying the first one, to prot the WP:STiki page.  Soham  13:21, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reverts on the WP:STiki page history that were conducted using STiki. These reverts were all conducted using WP:Huggle. However, with the high amount of recent vandalism, the project page itself will indeed need semi-protection. Epicgenius (talk)
 * Really? There was a period of a few days in November with a number of reverts.  Nothing recently.  Yaris678 (talk) 10:05, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I, as well think no protection is required for now. User:West.andrew.g is an admin and if need be I think he will protect the project page.  Soham  12:04, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

No protection needed at current. If it does become necessary, I have the mop and can do it myself. I'd need to find the mop in my closet, though, as I utilize it almost exclusively for data research purposes instead of on-wiki actions. West.andrew.g (talk) 20:37, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * All right, but just keep this in thought. Put it into consideration when you feel the need to. Thanks! Order of the sword (talk) 06:23, 18 January 2014 (UTC)Order of the sword

Vandalism percentages?!
I have been using stiki now for some time, and I want to draw attention to the (bad faith) vandalism detection rates as reported in the leaderboard. My rate hovers around 15%. How on earth can people obtain a score of around 50%? I never see so many of them, and I cannot imagine other patrollers to detect so much. And the queues are the same for all of us. So can anyone explain?! (Are some patrollers too eager to score, cf. above)?Super48paul (talk) 07:19, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Paul - you have been using STiki for 17 days. Don't be in a hurry to accuse other editors of bad faith classifications. --Greenmaven (talk) 09:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Jack, I am in no hurry: I just cannot imagine that much will change in my detection rates later on. Anyway, looking at the percentages I see a pattern (even without me as an editor..). And I wonder why. I am not making accusations, that would be overinterpreting my message. I am just very curious, maybe I missed something, maybe I should do better?! That is all. BTW, thanks for joining the discussion,Super48paul (talk) 10:07, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have also noticed the large differences between editors in their classification statistics; and I have wondered how that comes to be. Perhaps we will get some useful interpretations from someone. --Greenmaven (talk) 10:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * There are some people with vandalism classification rates at 100%. Notice that they've only made one or two edits using STiki. It's all a matter of relativity. Epicgenius (talk) 18:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * It is dependent on the number of classifications the user has made. If the user has made two classifications - one innocent and the other vandalism then their vandalism percentage would be 50%. Some people also only use STiki at times of day when vandalism rates are higher. Fraggle81 (talk) 07:32, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I do not understand you. Innocent V would be dealt with as goodfaith edit, is reverted, and gets scored in the leaderboard as AGF rate. Vandalism (bad faith) would be reverted as such, and gets counted under Vandalism rate in the stiki leaderboard. Then the avarage AGF rate is about 10%; extremes are slightly higher, say 30 to 40 % (one has 60%). The average Vandalism rate is about 25%. But here we do see some extreme patrollers, scoring percentages in the 60s, even in the 70s, up to 92%. Or do I get it all wrong?! And note: even if people distinguish a bit differently between good and bad faith edits that get reverted and score accordingly, even then, the high percentages under Vandalism are amazing...Super48paul (talk) 08:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Time of day is such a good predictor of vandalism that one of the queues uses it as part of its predictive model. --Greenmaven (talk) 10:16, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the "leaderboard" there are some users with thousands of classifications and vandalism revert rates over 90%. Based on the fact I recognize some of these names from discussions and they haven't been blocked, I have to believe that these rates were largely achieved via good-faith work. So how could this happen: (1) They choose to use STiki when no one else is using STiki concurrently, and no one has used STiki recently (this can be gleaned from the "recent stats" menu option). Thus they have a queue that is "primed" with vandalism; this probably has a time-of-day component. (2) When they do this, they don't classify *many* edits. Going deep into the queue means a reduced probability of vandalism. (3) They are lucky. Less good faith we could imagine someone who (4) over-uses the "pass" option. I treat "pass" as a null action, so it doesn't figure into the sum/denominator for figuring out leaderboard percentages. Thus, just hit "pass" instead of "innocent" all the time and you'd inflate your percentages. This is a dumb idea; it hurts the STiki framework and other users. I could care less what these percentages are, and nothing merit-based will ever be based on them. If anything, these high percentages might inspire me to review one's classification history to make sure nothing fishy is going on. West.andrew.g (talk) 15:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)