Undetected vandalism

[Háčky]

Not sure if this is the result of vandalism or just some Wikidata fuckery beyond my comprehension, but since 2019, the Commons category Reliefs in the Temple of Seti I has been a subcategory of Deaths in Toronto.

The latter. At one point in time, a bot added that Commons category to the Wikidata item for Amice Calverley (T-H-L), an Egyptologist who drew and photographed those reliefs (and who died in Toronto). Then another bot added a Wikidata infobox with her information to Commons, and later a user added the Deaths in Toronto category via an automated process. The Wikidata item has since been fixed and the infobox was removed from Commons, but the category was left behind.

Thanks. So it’s just bots all the way down?

(I suppose that makes sense. Surely no human ever thought it was a good idea to categorize all the pictures by/of/about/for people who at some unrelated time died in Toronto, right?)

[Elinruby]

Not sure if this is the result of vandalism or just some Wikidata fuckery beyond my comprehension, but since 2019, the Commons category Reliefs in the Temple of Seti I has been a subcategory of Deaths in Toronto.

The latter. At one point in time, a bot added that Commons category to the Wikidata item for Amice Calverley (T-H-L), an Egyptologist who drew and photographed those reliefs (and who died in Toronto). Then another bot added a Wikidata infobox with her information to Commons, and later a user added the Deaths in Toronto category via an automated process. The Wikidata item has since been fixed and the infobox was removed from Commons, but the category was left behind.

Thanks. So it’s just bots all the way down?

(I suppose that makes sense. Surely no human ever thought it was a good idea to categorize all the pictures by/of/about/for people who at some unrelated time died in Toronto, right?)

Clearly you don't follow the notice boards much

[The Blue Newt]

Take a gander at Charles Steele von Stade (T-H-L), who someone calling themselves Charvex (T-C-L) decided was actually South African. diff

Might just be ordinary idiocy, of course.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Take a gander at Charles Steele von Stade (T-H-L), who someone calling themselves Charvex (T-C-L) decided was actually South African. diff

The categories still need fixing.
Hi Yngavadottir. Hope you are well. :)

[Pelican]

From March 8-10, 2024, Rialto will play host to AmatoCon, a three day executive development program, featuring top names in business, entertainment, and education. Fine dining is included.

This edit has been in the article for two months now. AmatoCon was not a real business conference, of course. Rather, it was an in-universe event of the On Cinema (T-H-L) web series by Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington, which is as obscure and inaccessible as it is rewarding. This particular event served as both setting and hook of the 11th Annual On Cinema Oscar Special, which in my opinion was among the best they've done so far.

For those interested, this video is a pretty good starting point for anyone wanting to wrap their head around the whole deal:

[Kraken]

If you were to replace the entire contents of the Wikipedia article Feminism (T-H-L) with three words.......

feminism iz gay

......how long do you think it would go undetected?

Don't cheat. Have an educated guess.

The answer is 22 minutes.

Replaced by Confluencerist (T-C-L) at 07:51

Restored by Fram (T-C-L) at 08:13

Feminism is a 200kb article which attracts nearly 3,000 page views views day and apparently appears on nearly 1,500 user's watch lists. It is both a Level 3 Vital Article and has a Good Article rating.

So on its face, especially given the fact there is an automated edit summary "Replaced content with 'feminism iz gay'", that seems like an awfully long time even if only relying on the traditional methods of recent changes and watchlists to detect and revert this edit.

Which appears to have been the case. I'm curious as to why such a large blanking, and replacement with content that features a word commonly associated with vandalism and a slang word that is similarly highly likely to be vandalism, seems not to have been picked up by the numerous edit filters that are meant to prevent such edits from even happening, or other automation that is meant to automatically revert it when it does.

I guess it could be time of day, that day being a Wednesday. But it doesn't seem to be all that great an explanation. There should be plenty of Brits checking in as their first act of a morning. It's just after lunch in India. It's the end of the working day in Australia. And it's even only ten to midnight in Feminism Central, the west coast of America.

Perhaps it was because it was National Banana Day?

[Randy from Boise]

If you were to replace the entire contents of the Wikipedia article Feminism (T-H-L) with three words.......

feminism iz gay

......how long do you think it would go undetected?

Don't cheat. Have an educated guess.

I would have guessed 22 seconds.

t

[rnu]

If you were to replace the entire contents of the Wikipedia article Feminism (T-H-L) with three words.......

feminism iz gay

......how long do you think it would go undetected?

Don't cheat. Have an educated guess.

The answer is 22 minutes.

Replaced by Confluencerist (T-C-L) at 07:51

Restored by Fram (T-C-L) at 08:13

Feminism is a 200kb article which attracts nearly 3,000 page views views day and apparently appears on nearly 1,500 user's watch lists. It is both a Level 3 Vital Article and has a Good Article rating.

So on its face, especially given the fact there is an automated edit summary "Replaced content with 'feminism iz gay'", that seems like an awfully long time even if only relying on the traditional methods of recent changes and watchlists to detect and revert this edit.

Which appears to have been the case. I'm curious as to why such a large blanking, and replacement with content that features a word commonly associated with vandalism and a slang word that is similarly highly likely to be vandalism, seems not to have been picked up by the numerous edit filters that are meant to prevent such edits from even happening, or other automation that is meant to automatically revert it when it does.

I guess it could be time of day, that day being a Wednesday. But it doesn't seem to be all that great an explanation. There should be plenty of Brits checking in as their first act of a morning. It's just after lunch in India. It's the end of the working day in Australia. And it's even only ten to midnight in Feminism Central, the west coast of America.

Perhaps it was because it was National Banana Day?

Would be interesting to see how many of those 1,500 users who have the article on their watch list are active and how many of those were active at the time the vandalism happened.