Future of MediaWiki's bad image list (MZMcBride)

Hi.

In the context of https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14281 ("Suggestion: Rename "Bad image list" to better title"), it occurred to

me

that a bad image list is a specialized (and hackish) feature that

probably

wouldn't be accepted into MediaWiki core today.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to split this feature (a bad image list)

out

into a MediaWiki extension.

If splitting this feature out of MediaWiki core makes sense, I'm

wondering

whether it should be put in its own extension, be part of another

existing

extension (such as Phalanx), or be part of a more generalized behavior control extension.

An alternate approach suggested on the bug would be to use an

AbuseFilter

filter instead of a bad image list (thereby deprecating "MediaWiki:Bad

image

list"). This gets slightly more complicated if you want to also

replicate

the MediaWiki page's exceptions functionality (you can block inline

usage of

an image except on specified approved pages). This exceptions

functionality

may make an _exact_ replica of the bad image list in an AbuseFilter

filter

impossible. That said, the AbuseFilter extension was seemingly designed

for

exactly this type of behavior control and includes handy features such

as

disallowing the edits altogether and logging attempted edits.

Thoughts?

MZMcBride

I would like to see some simplicity to be available to be retained, and not the never-ending complexity of trying to write complex abuse filters. Keeping simple files like "Mediawiki:Bad file list" enables those admins not hacking-literate to be able to add an image and have it locally blocked. That said, I can see value in having a more sophisticated approach to both bad and good lists that we can store in a protected environment like Mediawiki: namespace AND to have both portability and the ability to develop new features.

Is it possible to write AbuseFilter so that it is able to make use of both bad and good lists stored within the MW namespace? I especially like that if we are able to utilise that in the global space. We have had global vandals come along and start spamming or vandalising by the addition of an image, or a singular image with coding. To be able to slow down that process with a global filter, would be excellent.

I would see that a simple AbuseFilter that says inhibit (in whichever flavour) 'this' edit based on finding a filename found in 'Mediawiki:Bad image list' as a base feature would be the simplest response. Default the behaviour to on (for WMF) and it replicates the present case. If wikis wish to then further develop these filters, excellent. I also see that such filter behaviour could allow wikis to battle other forms of vandalism, and one that I know that I have put into bugzilla previously. We had a vandal who was putting sexually explicit pictures on contributors' user and user talk pages. If this wiki was then able to write a filter that basically said block the addition of images to such and such local namespace, from such a such category at Commons, and/or matching such and such keywords from a filelist, rather than have to try and write an abusefilter that had all the series of swear words and references to sexual appendages, BRILLIANT!

Billinghurst