Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
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) nemow...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter) Message-ID: 507bc9a1.7040...@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.g...@dunelm.org.uk To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter) Message-ID: CAE4f== fvjisftyb20d8vo6qszfh1k-3sav+phxojmy0rmtx...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On 15 October 2012 09:30, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
On 15/10/12 16:15, WereSpielChequers wrote: 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. That's right. The ip limit applies to both anon and newbie users. The newbie limit applies by action and user, and the ip limit by action and ip. So if you have many newbies going out through the same ip, they all aggregate in the same count. Presumably established users of some sort are whitelisted through this? (...) But other editors have complained that Cat a Lot doesn't work for them and mysteriously hangs or fails, If you are autoconfirmed, newbie and ip limits don't apply to you. 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 When we whitelist an ip for a workshop, we should also be increasing the throttling limit for that ip. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
Can I second this one, we've run into it occasionally in WMAU outreach sessions as well, and it's always fun explaining why it's said no to someone without a foundation in computers or internet culture. A brief explanation of why it's happened and what to do in order to not lose your edit, made in simple language, would be lovely. We do find that the best way to get around the account creation throttle is to get people to create their accounts beforehand. In a given class, there's usually one or two who don't get the message or are unable to do it, but they can usually be dealt with by the instructor without triggering anything. Cheers, Craig Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:33:54 +0100 From: Andrew Gray shimg...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Philippe Beaudette pbeaude...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter Message-ID: CAE4f== fljhrgck+9ftttqmhsx1cgd+ob50vxtom0+qcjrih...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 I evade account creation by always making them log in first... Periodically, with a roomful of users, we'll get told that an edit has been throttled; no further details, I think. It seems to happen with one or at most two editors at a time out of a dozen, but it can happen to different people later on. This happened several times in a couple of weeks in the summer (I only started workshops in June), and then occasionally since - including yesterday. I originally assumed it was related to external-link additions by new users, but I've seen it for no-link sandbox edits as well. My guess is that this entails something to do with checking for multiple edits from the same IP at once, but I don't know if this is actually the reason, or if it can be disabled/whitelisted. (It's the one I give, though! Corrections gratefully appreciated) - Andrew. On 13 Oct 2012 17:25, Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 9:07 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: As it is this combined with the throttling feature made for quite a bit of disruption to a session where we had ten people having an introduction to editing. By throttling feature, do you mean the account creation restrictions? If so, you know there are ways around that, right? Email me offlist, so as not to clutter the list, and I'll give you a pointer. If you mean something different, disregard :) pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 6643 phili...@wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
If you are planning an event it is fairly easy to get your IP address temporarily whitelisted from the account creation throttle. You just need to know your IP address that will be used. On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Craig Franklin cr...@halo-17.net wrote: Can I second this one, we've run into it occasionally in WMAU outreach sessions as well, and it's always fun explaining why it's said no to someone without a foundation in computers or internet culture. A brief explanation of why it's happened and what to do in order to not lose your edit, made in simple language, would be lovely. We do find that the best way to get around the account creation throttle is to get people to create their accounts beforehand. In a given class, there's usually one or two who don't get the message or are unable to do it, but they can usually be dealt with by the instructor without triggering anything. Cheers, Craig Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:33:54 +0100 From: Andrew Gray shimg...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Philippe Beaudette pbeaude...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Please can someone put 50p in the meter Message-ID: CAE4f== fljhrgck+9ftttqmhsx1cgd+ob50vxtom0+qcjrih...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 I evade account creation by always making them log in first... Periodically, with a roomful of users, we'll get told that an edit has been throttled; no further details, I think. It seems to happen with one or at most two editors at a time out of a dozen, but it can happen to different people later on. This happened several times in a couple of weeks in the summer (I only started workshops in June), and then occasionally since - including yesterday. I originally assumed it was related to external-link additions by new users, but I've seen it for no-link sandbox edits as well. My guess is that this entails something to do with checking for multiple edits from the same IP at once, but I don't know if this is actually the reason, or if it can be disabled/whitelisted. (It's the one I give, though! Corrections gratefully appreciated) - Andrew. On 13 Oct 2012 17:25, Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 9:07 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: As it is this combined with the throttling feature made for quite a bit of disruption to a session where we had ten people having an introduction to editing. By throttling feature, do you mean the account creation restrictions? If so, you know there are ways around that, right? Email me offlist, so as not to clutter the list, and I'll give you a pointer. If you mean something different, disregard :) pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 6643 phili...@wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
On 14 October 2012 13:59, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com wrote: If you are planning an event it is fairly easy to get your IP address temporarily whitelisted from the account creation throttle. You just need to know your IP address that will be used. Is it possible to whitelist IPs from the edit throttle, though? That one's the killer, and it's not really possible to workaround. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
IPs shouldnt get hit with an edit throttle, (it is really really high) On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 10:04 AM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On 14 October 2012 13:59, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com wrote: If you are planning an event it is fairly easy to get your IP address temporarily whitelisted from the account creation throttle. You just need to know your IP address that will be used. Is it possible to whitelist IPs from the edit throttle, though? That one's the killer, and it's not really possible to workaround. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
On 14 October 2012 15:50, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com wrote: IPs shouldnt get hit with an edit throttle, (it is really really high) It doesn't seem it! Over the past few months, I've had it triggered four times in an hour in two workshops, and one or two times in perhaps four more. They're not all at the same location or using the same machines, though they were all using institutional networks. These are all new logged-in contributors editing from - presumably - the same IP; I've not had it happen to me in the same sessions, but that might just be chance. These aren't very busy networks, however, and I can't imagine there's a vast flood of active editing coming from them at the same time as the workshop... Is it possible to see where this is configured? -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Throttling (was: Re: Please can someone put 50p in the meter)
Next time you get said message can you take a screenshot and let us know, (it is by default somewhere over 60/edits per minute) On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On 14 October 2012 15:50, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com wrote: IPs shouldnt get hit with an edit throttle, (it is really really high) It doesn't seem it! Over the past few months, I've had it triggered four times in an hour in two workshops, and one or two times in perhaps four more. They're not all at the same location or using the same machines, though they were all using institutional networks. These are all new logged-in contributors editing from - presumably - the same IP; I've not had it happen to me in the same sessions, but that might just be chance. These aren't very busy networks, however, and I can't imagine there's a vast flood of active editing coming from them at the same time as the workshop... Is it possible to see where this is configured? -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
