Talk:Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/2024/August

Alien UI

Congrats on the deployment! The banner on top of the entire page looks to be not an existing Codex design token, and I'd doubt that it fits its style guide that I have not read. I'd remove it and put the username in the normal spot instead, but if the intention was to annoy, fair play I guess, but maybe it should pick a color from the current Codex theme?

I doubt that this is an issue you'd like to fix, but when I was testing the interface in monobook, the top banner didn't appear and there was an ëdit session" portlet link. I clicked on it and got logged out. Did it actually say ëxit session"? I'm too innocent to find out by polluting the database w/ another account. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:15, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for testing the feature, @Aaron Liu. My understanding is that the intention for the banner is not to annoy but to draw attention. I will pass the feedback along.

We will look into the issue of the banner not appearing in Monobook. And yes, that was an "exit session" link for temporary account holders. The idea being that if you are on a shared library computer or such, you may want to get rid of your temporary account to avoid incorrect edit attribution. It is one of the features we want to get more feedback about. What do you think?

(so sorry for the delayed response)

-- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

When this feature will be deployed on non-test wikis?

Hi, I know that the temporary account has been deployed in testwiki in July, which is a half-year delay when it was first announced in September 2023. What is the current timeline on the deployment on non-test wikis? On the announcement on September 2023, it was said that it was planned that the deployment on the first non-test wiki would be on March 2024. Due to the fact that the deployment on test wiki was delayed for half a year, is it expected that we will have this feature in September this year? 132.234.229.50 00:34, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello. There has been a lot of unexpected work on this project that altered our projected timeline.

We are currently chalking out the rollout plan for this work and selecting small, low impact, pilot wikis to deploy to first. It won't be before October at least. We'll update the project page when we have more information to share. Thanks. NKohli (WMF) (talk) 14:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

IPv6 implementation?

@SGrabarczuk (WMF): IPv6 is 128 bits, /64 for the network and /64 for the host. For privacy reasons, most operating systems will rotate the /64 host portion of the address every once in a while. Will this each time generate a new temporary account or will these edits be grouped together? Multichill (talk) 16:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@Multichill temp accounts are cookie based, so the temp account is generated on first edit, and will persist so long as the user does not clear cookies. If the user clears cookies or the account expires after 90 days, then on the next logged-out edit, the user will have a new temp account. KHarlan (WMF) (talk) 14:51, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Please provide the exact wording of the notice which will appear when the editor whose device is cookie-free clicks the edit tab. Will she be warned of the wide range of information which will be collected about her as evidenced by this spreadsheet [1]? 92.29.240.122 19:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

According to the page about temporary accounts, the feature has been enabled on testwiki:, so you can test it there. If you try to edit a page, then you see MediaWiki:Autocreate-edit-warning above the textarea where you type in the wikicode. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:40, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

How will access be decided?

The lead paragraph says:

Only those who fight spam, vandalism, harassment and disinformation will have access to IP addresses.

How will that determination be made? My main activity is at en-wiki, and I don't specialize in any of those. However, I do on occasion revert and flag vandalism, place UTP templates following the multilevel warning system at en-wiki, and I sometimes initiate or follow up at en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. I have identified a few patterns to look for, and linked up the offenders; example: en:User talk:129.94.8.198#Updated list and followed them up at SPI, but I rarely am the lead investigator. All told, this must represent < 5% of my activity, but it exists. How will you decide if someone like me (or anyone) gets this type of IP access? Mathglot (talk) 22:53, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Does [2] answer your question? Basically, either you are an admin, checkuser, etc. or you are long-term user, and you agree with the policy. --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 06:24, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Link to what was archived on Sunday Talk:Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/2024/June. It was archived because seven weeks went by without the Board responding to the issues raised. Please remember that the bare statement that "a temporary account will be opened for you" is illegal - the editor must be asked whether she wants a temporary account, told about the cookie and what will happen when it is implanted, and given enough information to enable her to give informed consent (or not, as the case may be). Here is a sample notice:

Page 1

I have completed the Wavelength Impact Measurement Part 1 (page 2) and agree to provide feedback upon equipment provided and its benefits via Part 2 (page 9), to help Wavelength understand and promote the effectiveness of its work. I agree to take all reasonable steps to look after any equipment, provide feedback and co-operate with any third parties Wavelength is working with. For the purpose of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018, I agree to the information given to Wavelength being kept by them and shared with Wavelength to allow Wavelength to conduct its work.

Page 2

We need your explicit consent to provide such information about you. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, except to the extent that action has already been processed based on your consent.

Page 9

We will store and process personal data you have provided as set out in the Wavelength Privacy Notice available at https://wavelength.org.uk/contact/privacy-cookies-wavelength-website

How will you ensure the user's informed consent and how will she be able to withdraw her consent? Having withdrawn her consent, how will you convey that information to the thousands of people using her private information? 92.29.249.130 15:10, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi. We are not withholding any more information with this change. Currently IP addresses for unregistered editors are publicly stored in perpetuity. Our goal is to reduce how long this information is stored for how many users have access to it. With this change, IP address access will be limited to a small number of users who need it for patrolling purposes. This information will only be retained for 90 days.

I will assure you that our Legal team has reviewed every aspect of this project thoroughly. NKohli (WMF) (talk) 14:42, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Special:MyPage

If you go to testwiki:Special:MyPage (or testwiki:Special:MyTalk or testwiki:Special:MyContributions) with no cookies, then you see the user page (or talk page or contributions) for your IP address. Isn't this confusing, if you get a 'real' username as soon as you edit a page?

I tried typing ~~~~, {{subst:REVISIONUSER}} and {{REVISIONUSER}} in the edit textarea and clicked on "show changes" and found that the first two show the name of a temporary account (which doesn't exist yet) while the latter shows my IP address. I find this inconsistency confusing. I didn't proceed to click on "publish changes", so I don't know what happens on the saved page. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:40, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Stefan2 for reporting these, I filed task T372722 about the My* pages, and task T372723 about the magic word issue. KHarlan (WMF) (talk) 05:04, 19 August 2024 (UTC)