Topic on Project:Support desk

Hello folks,
A WM project (lingualibre.org) closely connected to Commons via API bumped into API ratelimits. The documentation of this is really limited and dispersed. I added a specific section into API:Upload#Ratelimits, but I encourage you do create the page API:Ratelimit to properly document this dimension :

• list of actions which can be limited
• where to configure ratelimits
• how to see the ratelimits

I collected some information and API link in https://lingualibre.org/wiki/LinguaLibre:User_rights as well, which can be useful for a first draft. I'am not a mediawiki developper, I don't feel legitimate enough to create and write such documentation page on the official mediawiki website. I therefor submit to confirm editors and programmers this issue to consider.

Note, technically lingualibre.org is not a Wikimedia project (but its clearly highly related).

There is some documentation at manual:$wgRateLimits but i agree there should be more/better.

The rate limits on commons are pretty high for uploads for autoconfirmed accounts. It depends a bit on if lingualibre is using the users own account to upload (e.g. via oauth or client side) or of there is a bot account. For non autoconfirmed users there are also ip based limits i think -so if its using oauth and everything comes from lingualibre servers that might be an issue (which is not the intention of ip based limits)

@Bawolff: LL is financed by Wikimedia France. So yes, not WMF but the closest it could be.
Files are uploaded via the user's account on Commons. Commons ratelimit and oath identification apply.
LinguaLibre is designed to speed up recording on client side (browser), so it's not unusual to record 800~1200 audio files, to finally review them and push them to Commons within few minutes. The 380 uploads per 72 minutes ratelimit granted to true new users (groups user and autoconfirmed at 4+ days) is problematic : in the case cited, 420 to 820 files uploads would be declined, and lost if the user close its web browser. The valuable contributors also get discouraged from contributing. Thankfully, now that we identified the issue, we go to request autopatrolled user rights on Commons in order to grant the 999 upload per sec. capability to contributors, and this process has proven fast and easy. We have our hack ! :)
I/we don't exclude requesting an increase of Commons API:Upload's ratelimit for user and autoconfirmed to 999/h, since the Commons ecosystem is evolving thanks to such external helper-apps.

Similar sentiment about the docs has been expressed in phab:T172293#6344271

I started on a draft of that page, but there is a lot missing

@Bawolff @Malyacko @anomie will you be at the Wikimedia Hackathon in Athens later this week ?

I would really like to discuss this issue.

Yes, i'll be there. Happy to discuss in person :)