MediaWiki:Edit Monitor Admin

The aim of the Edit Monitoring system is to monitor vandalism on the site. It does this by preventing excess activity from new accounts or IP addresses. This activity might originate from a malicious bot or a user who intends to corrupt content on the site.

Block codes

When the EM system blocks a user action, it provides a code explaining why the action was blocked.

Most frequent user action blocks

13: Vandalism detected. The system automatically blocks usernames for 2 days (change block to indefinite when vandalism is confirmed) and IP addresses for 3 months. Block should be changed to indefinite.
31: Website is in protected mode and account creation is disabled.
15: The website is in protected mode and edits from IP addresses, or users who are not on the two safe lists are disabled. Account creation is disabled.

Other activities

Edits:

10: User is not on the safe list and exceeded the number of edits allowed.
11: Website is in lockdown mode and editing from user users is disabled
12: Similar to the above case except only anonymous edits are disabled. Edits from all existing user names are still allowed. Account creation is disabled.
14: New user link. This function is currently not implemented however the site has other protections against spam (Captcha on account creation, or for all edits from an IP address).

Moves:

20: New users are not allowed to move pages to new titles.
21: The site is in manual protected mode and pages moves are disabled for new users.
22: Similar to above, except that unknown activity was detected and the site is in automatic protected mode.

Account creation:

30: Excess account creation was detected.
31: Account creation is disabled because site is in protected mode.

Safe User Lists

There are two safe user lists that can be maintained through User rights management:

em-bypass-1: New users who have started contributing should be on this list to decrease the likelihood of being blocked by the system. Anyone can be added to this list without any risk.
em-bypass-2: Users on this list are not monitored at all. Only users who are completely trusted should be on this list.

A user should only be one of these two lists. Administrators do not have to be added to any lists.

It would be very rare for anyone with a malicious intent to try to get on these lists and for that they would have to make some positive contributions to the site. If the account goes 'rogue' for some reason, we will revert the edits and if that's difficult, we can revert to a backup and retain their positive contributions.

Changing rights

Click a user's contribs link, for example: Special:Contributions/Axius
Click on "user rights management" at the top. You will see: Special:UserRights/Axius
Assign right of bypass 1 or 2 (choose only one)
- Choose bypass-1 if its a new editor
- Choose bypass-2 if its a trusted editor
Click "Save user groups"

These lists are separate for every multi-lingual site.

Clearing the Edit Monitor Table

This table should be cleared in the following conditions:

A User was a genuine editor blocked by mistake
User is new and has made some edits but cannot yet be trusted to be put on the "em-bypass-1" or "em-bypass-2" lists. Clearing the EM table occasionally will make sure they won't be blocked by the EM system while they are editing and establishing that they can be trusted. This is usually only needed for new editors who are making a lot of edits. In any case, it should still be safe to add them to the "em-bypass-1" list. Users can be added on the "em-bypass-2" only when it is certain that they can be trusted.
User cannot be trusted yet to be put on the em-bypass-2 list and is making some edits.
There have been some valid edits from an IP address.
Vandalism has subsided.

The table clears itself every now and then so it should not need to be cleared unless a user has been blocked.

Clear Edit Monitor Table

Unblock message

After unblocking a valid user, use {{subst:MediaWiki:Edit Monitor Admin/Unblock message}} as the unblock message (edit as needed).