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{{Temporary Accounts/Header}}
{{IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/header2}}
{{shortcut|TAUE|TempAccounts|Temporary Accounts}}
<translate>
<translate><!--T:251--> '''Temporary accounts for unregistered editors''' will be a new type of user account.</translate>
== What is IP Masking and why is the Wikimedia Foundation masking IPs? == <!--T:250-->
<translate><!--T:282--> IP addresses of unregistered editors will no longer be publicly visible.</translate>
<translate><!--T:283--> Only those who fight spam, vandalism, harassment and disinformation will have access to IP addresses.</translate>


<translate><!--T:252--> Currently, anyone can edit Wikimedia wikis without a Wikimedia account or without logging in.</translate>
<!--T:251-->
<translate><!--T:284--> MediaWiki, the software behind Wikimedia projects, records and exposes your IP address in its public log if you edit without logging in.</translate>
IP masking hides the IP addresses of unregistered editors on Wikimedia projects, fully or partially, from everyone except those who need access to fight spam, vandalism, harassment and disinformation.
<translate><!--T:285--> Anyone seeking your IP address will find it.</translate>


<translate><!--T:253--> Wikimedia projects have a good reason for storing and publishing IP addresses: they play a critical role in keeping vandalism and harassment off our wikis.</translate>
<!--T:252-->
Currently, anyone can edit Wikimedia wikis without a Wikimedia account or without logging in. MediaWiki, the software behind Wikimedia projects, will record and publish your IP address in its public log. Anyone seeking your IP address will find it.


<translate><!--T:254--> However, your IP address can tell where you are editing from and can be used to identify you or your device.</translate>
<!--T:253-->
<translate><!--T:286--> This is of particular concern if you are editing from a territory where our wikis are deemed controversial.</translate>
Wikimedia projects have a good reason for storing and publishing IP addresses: they play a critical role in keeping vandalism and harassment off our wikis.
<translate><!--T:287--> Publishing your IP address may allow others to locate you.</translate>


<translate><!--T:255--> With changes to privacy laws and standards (e.g., the [[w:en:General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulation]] and the global conversation about privacy that it started), the Wikimedia Foundation Legal team has decided to protect user privacy by hiding IPs from the general public.</translate>
<!--T:254-->
<translate><!--T:288--> However, we will continue to give access to users who need to see them in order to protect the wikis.</translate>
However, your IP address can tell where you are editing from and can be used to identify you or your device. This is of particular concern if you are editing from a territory where our wikis are deemed controversial. Publishing your IP address may allow others to locate you.


<translate><!--T:256--> We're aware that this change will impact current anti-abuse workflows.</translate>
<!--T:255-->
<translate><!--T:289--> We are committed to developing tools or maintaining access to tools that can identify and block vandals, sock puppets, editors with conflicts of interest and other bad actors after IPs are masked.</translate>
With changes to privacy laws and standards (e.g., the General Data Protection Regulation and the global conversation about privacy that it started), the Wikimedia Foundation Legal team has decided to protect user privacy by hiding IPs from the general public. However, we will continue to give access to users who need to see them in order to protect the wikis.


{{ContentGrid
<!--T:256-->
|content=
We're aware that this change will impact current anti-abuse workflows. We are committed to developing tools or maintaining access to tools that can identify and block vandals, sock puppets, editors with conflicts of interest and other bad actors after IPs are masked.
{{InfoCard

|heading=<translate><!--T:290--> For everyone</translate>
== Statements from the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department == <!--T:65-->
|content=<nowiki/>
</translate>
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Help:Temporary accounts|<translate><!--T:291--> Help:Temporary accounts</translate>]]
{{main|Special:MyLanguage/IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates{{!}}IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates}}
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/FAQ|<translate><!--T:292--> FAQ</translate>]]
{{:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates/Legal}}
|footer=
<translate>
== Updates == <!--T:60-->
</translate>
{{main|Special:MyLanguage/IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates/Legal{{!}}IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates/Legal}}
{{:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates}}
<translate>
== Data on Portuguese Wikipedia disabling IP edits == <!--T:110-->

=== Portuguese Wikipedia’s metrics following restriction === <!--T:270-->
</translate>
{{new collapse|headline = <translate><!--T:271--> 30 August 2021 Update </translate>| content =
<translate>
<!--T:151-->
Hello. This is a brief update about Portuguese Wikipedia’s metrics since they started requiring registration to edit. We have a comprehensive report on the [[<tvar name="1">Special:MyLanguage/IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Impact report for Login Required Experiment on Portuguese Wikipedia</tvar>|Impact report]] page. This report includes metrics captured through data as well as a survey that was conducted among active Portuguese Wikipedia contributors.

<!--T:222-->
All in all, the report presents the change in a positive light. We have not seen any significant disruption over the time period these metrics have been captured. In light of this, we are now encouraged to run an experiment on two more projects to see if we observe similar impact. All projects are unique in their own ways and what holds true for Portuguese Wikipedia might not hold true for another project. We want to run a limited-time experiment on two projects where registration will be required in order to edit. We estimate that it will take approximately 8 months for us to collect enough data to see significant changes. After that time period, we will return to not requiring registration to edit while we analyse the data. Once the data is published, the community will be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to continue to disallow unregistered editing on the project.

<!--T:152-->
We are calling this the [[<tvar name="1">IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Login Required Experiment</tvar>|Login Required Experiment]]. You will find more detail as well as a timeline on that page. Please use that page and its talk page to discuss this further.
</translate>
}}
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{{InfoCard
=== <translate><!--T:258--> Portuguese Wikipedia IP editing restriction</translate> ===
{{new collapse|headline = <translate><!--T:272--> Update</translate>| content =
|heading=<translate><!--T:293--> For patrollers and functionaries</translate>
|content=<nowiki/>
<translate>
*[[foundation:Special:MyLanguage/Policy:Access_to_temporary_account_IP_addresses|<translate><!--T:294--> Wikimedia Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy</translate>]]
<!--T:198-->
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust_and_Safety_Product/Temporary_Accounts/FAQ#Experienced_contributor_questions_and_access_to_IP_addresses|<translate><!--T:295--> FAQ for experienced contributors and IP addresses policy FAQ</translate>]]
Portuguese Wikipedia [[<tvar name="1">pt:Wikipédia:Votações/Necessidade de registo para editar a Wikipédia lusófona#3. Ritmo de implantação</tvar>|banned unregistered editors]] from making edits to the project last year. Over the last few months, our team has been collecting data about the repercussions of this move on the general health of the project. We have also talked to several community members about their experience. We are working on the final bits to compile all the data that presents an accurate picture of the state of the project. We hope to have an update on this in the near future.
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/IP Info|<translate><!--T:296--> IP Info</translate>]]
</translate>
|footer=
}}
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<translate>
== Tools == <!--T:42-->


{{InfoCard
=== Tool development === <!--T:273-->
</translate>
|heading=<translate><!--T:297--> For developers</translate>
|content=<nowiki/>
{{new collapse|headline = <translate><!--T:259--> Update 02 </translate>| content =
*[[Special:MyLanguage/User account types|<translate><!--T:298--> User account types</translate>]]
<translate>
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/For developers#How_should_I_update_my_code?|<translate><!--T:299--> How to update your code</translate>]]
<!--T:192-->
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/For developers#FAQ_for_developers|<translate><!--T:300--> FAQ for developers</translate>]]
As you might already know, we are working on building some new tools, partly to soften the impact of IP Masking, but also just to build better anti-vandalism tools for everyone. It is not a secret that the state of moderation tools on our projects doesn’t give the communities the tools they deserve. There is a lot of scope for improvement. We want to build tools that make it easier for anti-vandalism fighters to work effectively. We also want to reduce the barrier to entry into these roles for non-technical contributors.
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates/Related changes|<translate><!--T:301--> Related changes in user-facing software</translate>]]

|footer=
<!--T:107-->
We have talked about ideas for these tools before and I will provide a brief update on these below. Note that progress on these tools has been slow in the last few months as our team is [[<tvar name="1">mw:Anti-Harassment Tools/SecurePoll Improvements</tvar>|working on overhauling SecurePoll]] to meet the needs of the upcoming WMF Board elections.

==== IP Info feature ==== <!--T:108-->
</translate>
[[File:IP Info (10 June update).png|thumb|right|<translate><!--T:193--> Mockup for IP Info</translate>]]
<translate>
<!--T:194-->
We are building a tool that will display important information about an IP address which is commonly sought in investigations. Typically patrollers, admins and checkusers rely on external websites to provide this information. We hope to make this process easier for them by integrating information from reliable IP-vendors within our websites. We recently built a prototype and conducted a round of user testing to validate our approach. We found that a majority of the editors in the interview set found the tool helpful and indicated they would like to use it in the future. There is an [[<tvar name="1">IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/IP Info feature#25 Mar, 2021</tvar>|update on the project page]] that I would like to draw your attention to.</translate> <translate><!--T:195-->
Key questions that we would like to have your [[<tvar name="1">Talk:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/IP Info feature</tvar>|feedback on the project talk page]]:
* ''When investigating an IP what kinds of information do you look for? Which page are you likely on when looking for this information?''
* ''What kinds of IP information do you find most useful?''
* ''What kinds of IP information, when shared, do you think could put our anonymous editors at risk?''

==== Editor matching feature ==== <!--T:109-->

<!--T:196-->
This project has also been referred to as "Nearby editors" and "Sockpuppet detection" in earlier conversations. We are trying to find a suitable name for it that is understandable even to people who don't understand the word sockpuppetry.

<!--T:197-->
We are in the early stages of this project. [[<tvar name="1">Research:Sockpuppet detection in Wikimedia projects</tvar>|Wikimedia Foundation Research has a project]] that could assist in detecting when two editors exhibit similar editing behaviors. This will help connect different unregistered editors when they edit under different auto-generated account usernames. We heard a lot of support for this project when we started talking about it a year ago. We also heard about the risks of developing such a feature. We are planning to build a prototype in the near term and share it with the community. There is a malnourished [[<tvar name="2">IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Sockpuppet Detection tool</tvar>|project page]] for this project. We hope to have an update for it soon. Your thoughts on this project are very welcome on the [[<tvar name="3">Talk:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Sockpuppet Detection tool</tvar>|project talk page]].
</translate>
}}
}}
{{InfoCard

{{new collapse|headline = <translate><!--T:260--> Update 01</translate>| content =
|heading=<translate><!--T:302--> News and updates</translate>
|content=<nowiki/>
<translate>
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/For developers/2024-04 CTA|<translate><!--T:303--> April 2024 call to action for developers</translate>]]
<!--T:99-->
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates|<translate><!--T:304--> General project updates</translate>]]
Like mentioned previously, our foremost goal is to provide better anti-vandalism tools for our communities which will provide a better moderation experience for our vandal fighters while also working towards making the IP address string less valuable for them. Another important reason to do this is that IP addresses are hard to understand and are really very useful only to tech-savvy users. This creates a barrier for new users without any technical background to enter into functionary roles as there is a higher learning curve for them to work with IP addresses. We hope to get to a place where we can have moderation tools that anyone can use without much prior knowledge.
*[[Special:MyLanguage/Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates/Legal|<translate><!--T:305--> Legal updates</translate>]]

|footer=
<!--T:89-->
The first thing we decided to focus on was to make the [[<tvar name="1">Special:MyLanguage/Help:CheckUser</tvar>|CheckUser tool]] more flexible, powerful and easy to use. It is an important tool that services the need to detect and block bad actors (especially long-term abusers) on a lot of our projects. The CheckUser tool was not very well maintained for many years and as a result it appeared quite dated and lacked necessary features.

<!--T:98-->
We also anticipated an uptick in the number of users who opt-in to the role of becoming a CheckUser on our projects once IP Masking goes into effect. This reinforced the need for a better, easier CheckUser experience for our users. With that in mind, the Anti-Harassment Tools team spent the past year working on improving the CheckUser tool – making it much more efficient and user-friendly. This work has also taken into account a lot of outstanding feature requests by the community. We have continually consulted with CheckUsers and stewards over the course of this project and have tried our best to deliver on their expectations. The new feature is set to go live on all projects in October 2020.

<!--T:90-->
The next feature that we are working on is [[<tvar name="1">IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/IP Info feature</tvar>|IP info]]. We decided on this project after a round of consultation on six wikis which helped us narrow down the use cases for IP addresses on our projects. It became apparent early on that there are some critical pieces of information that IP addresses provide which need to be made available for patrollers to be able to do their roles effectively. The goal for IP Info, thus, is to quickly and easily surface significant information about an IP address. IP addresses provide important information such as location, organization, possibility of being a Tor/VPN node, rDNS, listed range, to mention a few examples. By being able to show this, quickly and easily without the need for external tools everyone can’t use, we hope to be able to make it easier for patrollers to do their job. The information provided is high-level enough that we can show it without endangering the anonymous user. At the same time, it is enough information for patrollers to be able to make quality judgements about an IP address.

<!--T:91-->
After IP Info we will be focusing on a [[<tvar name="1">IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Improving tools#2. Finding similar editors</tvar>|finding similar editors feature]]. We’ll be using a machine learning model, built in collaboration with CheckUsers and trained on historical CheckUser data to compare user behavior and flag when two or more users appear to be behaving very similarly. The model will take into account which pages users are active on, their writing styles, editing times etc. to make predictions about how similar two users are. We are doing our due diligence in making sure the model is as accurate as possible.

<!--T:92-->
Once it’s ready, there is a lot of scope for what such a model can do. As a first step we will be launching it to help CheckUsers detect socks easily without having to perform a lot of manual labor. In the future, we can think about how we can expose this tool to more people and apply it to detect malicious sockpuppeting rings and disinformation campaigns.

<!--T:93-->
You can [[<tvar name="1">Special:MyLanguage/IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Improving tools</tvar>|read more and leave comments]] on our project page for tools.
</translate>
}}
}}
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<translate>
__TOC__
== Research == <!--T:10-->
{{void|1=
== Timeline == <!--T:279-->


<!--T:280-->
</translate>
''Last edited in <tvar name=date1>{{date|2023|11||{{TRANSLATIONLANGUAGE}}}}</tvar>.''
{{new collapse|headline = <translate><!--T:261--> IP masking impact report</translate>| content =
<translate>
<!--T:30-->
IP addresses are valuable as a semi-reliable partial identifier, which is not easily manipulated by their associated user. Depending on provider and device configuration, IP address information is not always accurate or precise, and deep technical knowledge and fluency is needed to make best use of IP address information, though administrators are not currently required to demonstrate such fluency to have access. This technical information is used to support additional information (referred to as “behavioural knowledge”) where possible, and the information taken from IP addresses significantly impact the course of administrative action taken.
</translate>
[[File:IP Masking Impact Report.pdf|thumb|<translate><!--T:262--> A Wikimedia Foundation-supported report on the impact that IP masking will have on our community.</translate>]]


<!--T:281-->
<translate>
* Deployment to testwiki – <tvar name=date2>{{date|2024|03||{{TRANSLATIONLANGUAGE}}}}</tvar>
<!--T:12-->
* Deployment to first pilot wikis – no sooner than <tvar name=date3>{{date|2024|04||{{TRANSLATIONLANGUAGE}}}}/{{date|2024|05||{{TRANSLATIONLANGUAGE}}}}</tvar>
On the social side, the issue of whether to allow unregistered users to edit has been a subject of extensive debate. So far, it has erred on the side of allowing unregistered users to edit. The debate is generally framed around a desire to halt vandalism, versus preserving the ability for pseudo-anonymous editing and lowering the barrier to edit. There is a perception of bias against unregistered users because of their association with vandalism, which also appears as algorithmic bias in tools such as ORES. Additionally, there are major communications issues when trying to talk to unregistered users, largely due to lack of notifications, and because there is no guarantee that the same person will be reading the messages sent to that IP talk page.

<!--T:13-->
In terms of the potential impact of IP masking, it will significantly impact administrator workflows and may increase the burden on CheckUsers in the short term. If or when IP addresses are masked, we should expect our administrators' ability to manage vandalism to be greatly hindered. This can be mitigated by providing tools with equivalent or greater functionality, but we should expect a transitional period marked by reduced administrator efficacy. In order to provide proper tool support for our administrators’ work, we must be careful to preserve or provide alternatives to the following functions currently fulfilled by IP information:

</translate>
* <translate><!--T:14--> Block efficacy and collateral estimation</translate>
* <translate><!--T:227--> Some way of surfacing similarities or patterns among unregistered users, such as geographic similarity, certain institutions (e.g. if edits are coming from a high school or university)</translate>
* <translate><!--T:228--> The ability to target specific groups of unregistered users, such as vandals jumping IPs within a specific range</translate>
* <translate><!--T:229--> Location or institution-specific actions (not necessarily blocks); for example, the ability to determine if edits are made from an open proxy, or public location like a school or public library.</translate>

<translate>
<!--T:15-->
Depending on how we handle temporary accounts or identifiers for unregistered users, we may be able to improve communication to unregistered users. Underlying discussions and concerns around unregistered editing, anonymous vandalism, and bias against unregistered users are unlikely to significantly change if we mask IPs, provided we maintain the ability to edit projects while logged out.
</translate>
}}
}}

{{new collapse|headline = <translate><!--T:263--> CheckUser workflow</translate>| content =
<translate>
<translate>
== Statements from the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department == <!--T:65-->
<!--T:45-->
We interviewed CheckUsers on multiple projects throughout our process for designing the new Special:Investigate tool. Based on interviews and walkthroughs of real-life cases, we broke down the general CheckUser workflow into five sections:

</translate>
</translate>
{{main|Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates/Legal|l1=Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates/Legal}}
* <translate><!--T:46--> '''Triaging''': assessing cases for feasibility and complexity.</translate>
{{:Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates/Legal}}
* <translate><!--T:230--> '''Profiling''': creating a pattern of behaviour which will identify the user behind multiple accounts.</translate>
* <translate><!--T:231--> '''Checking''': examining IPs and useragents using the CheckUser tool.</translate>
* <translate><!--T:232--> '''Judgement''': matching this technical information against the behavioural information established in the Profiling step, in order to make a final decision about what kind of administrative action to take.</translate>
* <translate><!--T:233--> '''Closing''': reporting the outcome of the investigation on public and private platforms where necessary, and appropriately archiving information for future use.</translate>
<translate>
<translate>
== Updates == <!--T:60-->

<!--T:47-->
We also worked with staff from Trust and Safety to get a sense for how the CheckUser tool factors into Wikimedia Foundation investigations and cases that are escalated to T&S.

<!--T:48-->
The most common and obvious pain points all revolved around the CheckUser tool's unintuitive information presentation, and the need to open up every single link in a new tab. This caused massive confusion as tab proliferation quickly got out of hand. To make matters worse, the information that CheckUser surfaces is highly technical and not easy to understand at first glance, making the tabs difficult to track. All of our interviewees said that they resorted to separate software or physical pen and paper in order to keep track of information.

<!--T:49-->
We also ran some basic analyses of [[<tvar name="1">Research:CheckUser design research/English Wikipedia SPI, May 2019</tvar>|English Wikipedia's Sockpuppet Investigations]] page to get some baseline metrics on how many cases they process, how many are rejected, and how many sockpuppets a given report contains.
</translate>
</translate>
{{main|Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates|l1=Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates}}
}}
{{:Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/Updates}}

{{new collapse|headline = <translate><!--T:264--> Patroller use of IP addresses</translate>| content =
<translate>
<translate>
<!--T:51-->
== Get in touch == <!--T:306-->
Previous research on patrolling on our projects has generally focused on the workload or workflow of patrollers. Most recently, the [[<tvar name="1">Research:Patrolling on Wikipedia/Report</tvar>|Patrolling on Wikipedia]] study focuses on the workflows of patrollers and identifying potential threats to current anti-vandal practices. Older studies, such as the [[<tvar name="2">Research:New Page Patrol survey/WMF report</tvar>|New Page Patrol survey]] and the [[<tvar name="3">Research:Patroller work load</tvar>|Patroller work load study]], focused on English Wikipedia. They also look solely at the workload of patrollers, and more specifically on how bot patrolling tools have affected patroller workloads.

<!--T:52-->
Our study tried to recruit from five target wikis, which were

<!--T:53-->
* Japanese Wikipedia
* Dutch Wikipedia
* German Wikipedia
* Chinese Wikipedia
* English Wikiquote

<!--T:54-->
They were selected for known attitudes towards IP edits, percentage of monthly edits made by IPs, and any other unique or unusual circumstances faced by IP editors (namely, use of the Pending Changes feature and widespread use of proxies). Participants were recruited via open calls on Village Pumps or the local equivalent. Where possible, we also posted on Wiki Embassy pages. Unfortunately, while we had interpretation support for the interviews themselves, we did not extend translation support to the messages, which may have accounted for low response rates. All interviews were conducted via Zoom, with a note-taker in attendance.

<!--T:55-->
Supporting the findings from previous studies, '''we did not find a systematic or unified use of IP information'''. Additionally, this information was only sought out after a certain threshold of suspicion. Most further investigation of suspicious user activity begins with publicly available on-wiki information, such as checking previous local edits, Global Contributions, or looking for previous bans.

<!--T:56-->
Precision and accuracy were less important qualities for IP information: upon seeing that one chosen IP information site returned three different results for the geographical location of the same IP address, one of our interviewees mentioned that precision in location was not as important as consistency. That is to say, so long as an IP address was consistently exposed as being from one country, it mattered less if it was correct or precise. This fits with our understanding of how IP address information is used: as a semi-unique piece of information associated with a single device or person, that is relatively hard to spoof for the average person. '''The accuracy or precision of the information attached to the user is less important than the fact that it is attached and difficult to change.'''

<!--T:57-->
Our findings highlight a few key design aspects for the IP info tool:

<!--T:58-->
* Provide at-a-glance conclusions over raw data
* Cover key aspects of IP information:
** Geolocation (to a city or district level where possible)
** Registered organization
** Connection type (high-traffic, such as data center or mobile network versus low-traffic, such as residential broadband)
** Proxy status as binary yes or no

<!--T:59-->
As an ethical point, it will be important to be able to explain how any conclusions are reached, and the inaccuracy or imprecisions inherent in pulling IP information. While this was not a major concern for the patrollers we talked to, if we are to create a tool that will be used to provide justifications for administrative action, we should be careful to make it clear what the limitations of our tools are.
</translate>
</translate>
* {{clickable button 2|Special:Newsletter/35/subscribe|<translate><!--T:307--> Subscribe to the newsletter</translate>}}
}}
<gallery mode="packed" style="float:left;">

File:Szymon Grabarczuk2.jpg|[[User:SGrabarczuk (WMF)|Szymon Grabarczuk]]<br/><translate><!--T:308--> Movement Communications</translate><br/>sgrabarczuk{{@}}wikimedia.org
{{IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/footer1}}
File:Kohli, Niharika June 2019.jpg|[[User:NKohli (WMF)|Niharika Kohli]]<br /><translate><!--T:309--> Product Manager</translate><br>nkohli{{@}}wikimedia.org

</gallery>
[[Category:IP editing{{#translation:}}]]
[[Category:Privacy{{#translation:}}]]

Latest revision as of 13:49, 20 September 2024

Temporary accounts for unregistered editors will be a new type of user account. IP addresses of unregistered editors will no longer be publicly visible. Only those who fight spam, vandalism, harassment and disinformation will have access to IP addresses.

Currently, anyone can edit Wikimedia wikis without a Wikimedia account or without logging in. MediaWiki, the software behind Wikimedia projects, records and exposes your IP address in its public log if you edit without logging in. Anyone seeking your IP address will find it.

Wikimedia projects have a good reason for storing and publishing IP addresses: they play a critical role in keeping vandalism and harassment off our wikis.

However, your IP address can tell where you are editing from and can be used to identify you or your device. This is of particular concern if you are editing from a territory where our wikis are deemed controversial. Publishing your IP address may allow others to locate you.

With changes to privacy laws and standards (e.g., the General Data Protection Regulation and the global conversation about privacy that it started), the Wikimedia Foundation Legal team has decided to protect user privacy by hiding IPs from the general public. However, we will continue to give access to users who need to see them in order to protect the wikis.

We're aware that this change will impact current anti-abuse workflows. We are committed to developing tools or maintaining access to tools that can identify and block vandals, sock puppets, editors with conflicts of interest and other bad actors after IPs are masked.

[edit]

[edit]

Hello! We have published a new policy page: Access to temporary account IP addresses. It explains how users can gain access to IP addresses. Later, we will update the section on using IP addresses. In it, we will add information on how and where to access the IP addresses, and what is logged when IP addresses are accessed. There is also a new page with frequently asked questions. Both pages use the term "temporary user accounts". This name comes from the first version of the software (MVP). Soon, we will share more information about it. We welcome your comments on the talk page.

Updates

[edit]

: Global blocks are here. Temporary accounts on testwiki

[edit]
  • Deployment on testwiki. We have rolled out temporary accounts to testwiki. Anyone who edits testwiki without an account will see their edits being attributed to a temporary account. We would like to emphasize that this is an early release, and things may break. This deployment makes it possible for some teams (like Data Platform Engineering or Apps) to start adjusting their code to temporary accounts. We aren't planning on introducing temporary accounts on any other wiki just yet. Instead, we will invite patrollers from different communities to testwiki and ask them to familiarize themselves with the new experience and share opinions with us. Currently, only testwiki admins can see the implemented patroller workflows (such as revealing IPs and view IP contributions) for temporary accounts. Over the next few weeks we will broaden the access to allow more users to test temporary accounts related workflows on testwiki.
  • Global blocking. We are really glad to announce that we launched global account blocks on all wikis (T17294). A request for this feature was first documented in 2008. It was also the top6 feature in the stewards' wishlist from 2015. Now, stewards can globally block regular and temporary account users. Read our previous update to learn more about the expected impact of global blocks.
  • Wikimania. We will be hosting sessions "Temporary Accounts are coming" (add to your favorite sessions) and "Getting better at blocking bad activity on the wikis" (add to your favorite sessions). Register to Wikimania to add sessions to favorites. Please join us in-person or virtually, and don't hesitate to get in touch with our team members during the event!
  • AbuseFilter. Some existing edit/abuse filters set up by community members on different wikis will need to be updated to work with temporary accounts. (See our instructions for developers on how to do this.) After the deployment of temporary accounts on a given wiki, abuse filters using data about IP together with related logs will be hidden from general view. It will be possible for admins to view and edit these filters. Later, we may change the group of users with access to the impacted filters, to potentially include technical editors who don't have any other advanced permissions.

Get in touch

[edit]