Hi, Kinneret. If I understand this correctly, where we currently have multiple devices on a network with a shared IP, they will now get different temporary IDs per device that edits. Obviously this is a good thing where we currently have two or more different people using different devices with a shared IP address. Not so good where we have one vandal automatically being given separate ids for their tablet and their smartphones. Will the people monitoring this change be producing any metrics such as how often we now get multiple temporary IDs from the same IP address?
IP edits and temporary ID edits are not going to be quite the same thing, and it would help if those with access to the IP addresses behind this could give some metrics re this change. Cheers WSC On Mon, 28 Oct 2024, 1:56 pm Kinneret Gordon, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all!I am writing to let you all know about an upcoming change that may > affect your work. As you may recall from Leila’s email > < > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/EJ3Y4HKOEMNM5A7WUP5E65SKZB6JYTVN/ > > > about > a year ago, the Trust and Safety Product team (TSP) at WMF has been working > on releasing Temporary Accounts > < > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Trust_and_Safety_Product/Temporary_Accounts > > > (previously > referred to as IP Masking), a major change to unregistered user identity in > our systems that is precipitated by legal and privacy imperatives. The team > has solidified deployment plans in place for rolling out Temporary Accounts > progressively on all our projects. *The first phase of this deployment > (Minor Pilots) will happen on October 29 and will roll out on approximately > 12 small and medium-sized wikis *(see > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T376499). The second round of deployment > is tentatively scheduled for February 2025 and a final all-wiki deployment, > if all goes well, may happen in May 2025. This is a rather ambitious plan > that is driven by the importance and urgency of strengthening privacy for > all our logged-out editors. > This change may affect you if you are actively using IP addresses of > not-logged-in editors of the Wikimedia projects for your research or intend > to do so in the future.When WMF launches Temp Accounts, future edits from > not-logged-in users (sometimes referred to as unregistered users) will no > longer be attributed to their IP addresses. Instead, they will be assigned > auto generated temporary usernames that will be tied to a cookie on their > browsers. As long as the cookie persists, the edits will be attributed to > that user. After 90 days, the cookie will automatically expire. Users who > need access to IP addresses to protect Wikimedia projects from vandalism or > other abuse will be able to do so on a limited basis and for a limited > period of time (see > > https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Access_to_temporary_account_IP_addresses > ). > IP addresses of not-logged-in users in the historical data will remain > unchanged. The Temporary Accounts rollout will affect future edits > (relative to the time of rollout) only. > *We are sending this message specifically to the Wikimedia research > communities because we predict these changes may have the following impacts > on data used by many of you:* > > - New fields (user_is_temp and user_is_permanent) have been added to > data tables, which will help distinguish between temporary and permanent > accounts. The existing field user_is_anonymous will be false for > temporary > users. This impacts how users are classified > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_account_types, and researchers > might > need to adjust how they query and analyze data. *It’s important to > mention that while these fields have been added to tables, the work to > make > this change visible is still in progress. We will send a further update > when this happens.* > - There will be a transitional period where both temporary and anonymous > user fields are active, but eventually, all editors will have a > username/user ID, and the user_is_anonymous field will be phased out. > - Researchers should think about how they want to handle and classify > temporary users in their projects moving forward, as the rollout will > affect all Wikimedia wikis. > > You can stay updated about this project and contact the team leading this > work through the project’s dedicated page > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Trust_and_Safety_Product/Temporary_Accounts > . > > Best, > Kinneret > > -- > > Kinneret Gordon > > Lead Research Community Officer > > Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
