Help:New filters for edit review/Filtering

This page explains how to get the most out of the new filtering interface. The new Highlighting tools and use of the predictive User Intent and Content Quality filters are described separately.

Basic functions
Clicking in the Active filter display area  or in the  Filter search bar  opens the  Dropdown filter panel, which displays a menu of filtering options.

To find a property
To find edits with a particular filter property, check the box in the filter menu next to that filter. The filter becomes “active,” and a tag for that filter will appear under “Active filters” in the Active Filter Display Area. Unlike previous RC Page filters, which were designed to exclude various properties, the new filters include  the property the filter names. E.g., the “Registered” filter finds edits by registered users.

To exclude a property
To exclude edits with a particular property, leave the filter for that property unchecked and check all the other filters in its group. You’ll notice that the unchecked filters turn slightly gray, to indicate they are inactive. E.g.,  to exclude “Changes by you,” leave that filter unchecked and check “Changes by others”.

To share or save filter settings
You can re-use your filter settings or share them with others by making your tool selections and then copying the page URL. When you click on that URL again or paste it into the address bar, the system will automatically reinstate the desired filters. This will work for mobile browsers as well, even though the “New filters for edit review” beta will not initially be available on mobile.

Understanding filter groups
The filters in are divided into groups of related properties. In most (but not all) groups, the properties are mutually exclusive and collectively cover the entirety of edits: e.g., ”Bot” vs. “Human (not bot)”. When no filters in a group are selected, all filters in that group are active, meaning everything in that group will be included in your results. If all filters in a group are selected, the effect is the same—everything in that group will be included in the results.

Within groups vs. between groups (OR vs. AND)
The logic that governs these filters will be intuitive to many because it’s familiar from popular shopping and other sites. Understanding a bit about how the filters interact with one another, however, may help you to zero in on the results you’re looking for. Specifically, it’s useful to understand that filters interact differently within a group than they do between groups.

Within groups (OR)
Within a filter group, adding more filters to your search broadens the search and returns more results. That’s because filters within a group relate to one another via Boolean OR functions. OR functions broaden the scope of a filter by saying that the results can be this OR that. E.g., within the Experience Level filter group, if you check the Newcomers filter and the Learners filter, your results will include edits by both types of users (Newcomers OR Learners).

Between groups (AND)
By contrast, adding filters from multiple different filter groups to your search narrows the search and returns fewers results. That’s because each filter group relates to the other groups via Boolean AND functions. AND functions narrow search results by imposing additional restrictions.

E.g., take the search just mentioned above, made of filters from the Experience Level group  (Newcomers OR Learners). Adding a filter from the Significance group, “Non-minor edits”, adds a new restriction that narrows the search. As a formula, the logic of your search would now look like this:  Results = Non-minor AND (Newcomers OR Learners). With this formula, results may still be either by a  Newcomer or a Learner, because both filters are in the same group. But all results must be Non-minor.

Useful interface signals
The interface provides useful feedback about your filtering choices. Reading these signals will help you master the tools. Two particular sets of signals are worth mentioning: these tell you when selected filter combinations are in conflict and when a filter has no effect.

Conflict combinations
If you see filter tags in the Active Filter Display Area marked by a red border, it means you’ve selected filters that are in “conflict”, meaning they’re canceling each other out. The system will return no results until you change the settings. A message in the results area tells you what the problem is; you can get even more detail by hovering over the conflicting filter tags.

You won’t see those red tags every time you select filters that produce no results. The conflict signals are reserved for situations where the conflict is a) structural, meaning that the combination will yield no results every time, by definition, and b) hidden, meaning that users probably won’t be able to diagnose the problem themselves. E.g., Content Quality Predictions are not available for Wikidata edits (yet). So if you select the “Wikidata edits” filter and a Content Quality filter such as “May have problems,” the combination is impossible; your filters are in conflict.

No-effect combinations
If you see a filter tag in the Active Filter Display Area that’s grayed out, it means that filter has no effect. This doesn’t really signal a problem; you’re probably getting the results you asked for. But the system is giving you cues about how it works that may help you work more efficiently.

If you see such grayed tags, it means one of three things: Tip: If you don’t know why a filter tag is grayed, try hovering over it with your mouse to get an explanatory tooltip.
 * 1) You’ve selected all the filters in a group. As discussed above, selecting everything in a group is the same as selecting nothing.
 * 2) One filter you’ve selected finds results that are a subset of another selection. E.g., every edit found by the “Very likely have problems” filter would already be included in the results for the  “May have problems” filter. If you choose both, the more selective filter has no effect. (Tip: if you want to be able to identify a subset within a broader group, try Highlighting it.)
 * 3) The filter is not selected but is Highlighted only, in which case you’ll also see a colored dot.