[Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)

Mon Oct 15 14:15:37 UTC 2012

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Edit_throttling is well worth
reading, especially the warning that "Many users sharing the same IP
address could kick in throttling". Which seems a pretty clear indication to
me that this is working at the IP level and looking at all edits by newbies
and unregistered editors, rather than treating each member of the workshop
separately. Once you get to each trainee you find that previewing and
trying to save again will usually solve the problem, but leave you unable
to replicate the bug.

So I think we have found our problem! Now lets see how many months it takes
to fix it.

One obvious workaround is to use multiple IPs in the same workshop. I think
the cost of Satellite broadband is only a few hundred quid a year per
subscription. I've already proposed a subscription for the UK as it would
enable  people to run editing sessions at big public events such as county
shows, but it would also help counter this bug.

WSC

----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:30:25 +0200
> From: "Federico Leva (Nemo)" <nemowiki at gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Cc: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put
>         50p in the meter)
> Message-ID: <507BC9A1.7040305 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> WereSpielChequers, 15/10/2012 09:56:
> > 60 edits a minute sounds high, and probably faster than most of these
> > sessions run at, but not if it is as I suspect, calculated every few
> > seconds.
>
> It's not, as far as I can see. This is how it works:
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgRateLimits> (someone please
> expand it otherwise).
> And these are all the existing limits:
> <
> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=operations/mediawiki-config.git;a=blob;f=wmf-config/InitialiseSettings.php;h=f814f3b46e996d6cb33d64c43965e807dfaec810;hb=HEAD#l6437
> >
> Does Andrew's experience not fit with this?
>
> > So if the tutor says "all save now" and ten people hit enter
> > simultaneously the attempted editing rate is briefly rather more than 1
> per
> > second - hence the throttle kicks in and the tutorial collapses in chaos
> > with several students getting throttling errors at the same time. It
> would
> > be nice to think that the WiFi we used was going through the same IP as
> the
> > rest of the British library and that we merely lifted the normal editing
> > rate above 60 edits a minute, but I suspect that the rate is calculated
> > rather more frequently than every minute.
> >
> > Presumably established users of some sort are whitelisted through this?
> If
> > so it could explain a longstanding Cat a Lot problem. I frequently use
> Cat
> > a lot to categorise images on Commons and my personal editing rate there
> > has gone far above 60 edits a minute, however I'm pretty sure I'd be on
> any
> > commons whitelist. But other editors have complained that Cat a Lot
> doesn't
> > work for them and mysteriously hangs or fails, Is it possible that this
> > throttling feature could be  the cause of that problem as well?
>
> noratelimit circumvents all such limits, but on Commons only the
> standard groups plus account creators have it, and you're just
> autopatrolled.
> The only group having serious throttling problems in the past were
> rollbackers on en.wiki; it shouldn't be too hard for Commons to add
> noratelimit via some group, if that's a problem.
>
> > If so perhaps it would be a good idea to analyse some of the recent
> > incidents where this feature has kicked in, see how often it disrupts
> > goodfaith editing and how often it disrupts badfaith editing that
> wouldn't
> > have triggered the edit filter. Maybe this was once a net benefit, but
> with
> > the edit filter dealing with most badfaith editing, and increasing
> amounts
> > of editing workshops and tools like Catalot, perhaps this feature has
> > transitioned from net positive to net negative? Alternatively could we
> have
> > a process where we can whitelist the IP Addresses of places where we are
> > running training sessions, and put  note on
> >
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-Cat-a-lot.jsexplaining
> > how to spot if your editing has been throttled and how to get
> > yourself Whitelisted
>
> Rate limits have never been a problem with some minimal preparation:
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Mass_account_creation> (in 6-7
> years of WMIT workshops, I've never heard of big problems with this).
>
> Nemo
>
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:07:30 +0100
> From: Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put
>         50p in the meter)
> Message-ID:
>         <CAE4f==
> fVJisFTYb20D8Vo6qsZfH1k-3saV+PHxOjMY0RmtXDWg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 15 October 2012 09:30, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > WereSpielChequers, 15/10/2012 09:56:
> >
> >> 60 edits a minute sounds high, and probably faster than most of these
> >> sessions run at, but not if it is as I suspect, calculated every few
> >> seconds.
> >
> > It's not, as far as I can see. This is how it works:
> > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgRateLimits> (someone please
> expand
> > it otherwise).
> > And these are all the existing limits:
> > <
> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=operations/mediawiki-config.git;a=blob;f=wmf-config/InitialiseSettings.php;h=f814f3b46e996d6cb33d64c43965e807dfaec810;hb=HEAD#l6437
> >
> > Does Andrew's experience not fit with this?
>
> These limits confuse me a bit, I have to admit. The key one seems to be:
>
> 'edit' => array(
> 'ip'     => array( 8, 60 ),
> 'newbie' => array( 8, 60 ),
>
> but per the manual, "ip" only applies to "each anon and recent
> account", and "newbie" applies to "each recent account" - surely
> "each" means the rate-limiting should be applied to the accounts
> individually, rather than being triggered by them all coming from the
> same location?
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Edit_throttling suggests it can
> also be configured as something on the enwiki edit filters, but I've
> had a look at those and couldn't immediately see one that seems to do
> this.
>
> > Rate limits have never been a problem with some minimal preparation:
> > <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Mass_account_creation> (in 6-7
> years of
> > WMIT workshops, I've never heard of big problems with this).
>
> I want to emphasise again that I've pretty much never had problems
> with account creation rate limiting - everyone attending a workshop is
> asked to create an account as part of a little bit of homework three
> days earlier - it's only ever been edit throttling that's an issue.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
>
>
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