Trust and Safety Product/Decision records/2025-02-04-IPReputation AbuseFilter variables for registered users
Authors
[edit]Status
[edit]- Draft on 2025-02-04
- Now accepted
Reviewers
[edit]Context
[edit]The IPReputation extension is being updated to provide IP reputation AbuseFilter variables for use in Special:AbuseFilter (T354599). The new variables will provide IP reputation information about the IP address being used by an actor, such as a logged-out user, temporary account or permanent account. The variables contain metadata about private data, so these variables need to only be used by and shown to users with the necessary permissions. Deciding who got access to what variables and also to which users was unclear.
Options considered
[edit]We considered various options including:
- Restricting specific IPReputation variables to specific users
- Only granting access to IPReputation variables to CheckUsers
- Granting access to IPReputation variables for temporary accounts to AbuseFilter maintainers, sysops, etc.; and then drop implementing support for registered users until T234155 is solved so that they can be used in CheckUser level AbuseFilters
Decision
[edit]We will implement IPReputation AbuseFilter variables for temporary accounts and anonymous users, using the existing protected variables mechanism.
Implementing these variables to registered users will not happen for now, dependent on the completion of T234155. This is because:
- We wanted to avoid exposing metadata about IP addresses for registered users that could be used to link a user to a real life identity.
- Providing metadata about IP addresses of registered accounts is not something that is done frequently for users which do not have the CheckUser group, and especially to the extent provided by IPReputation variables.
Access to the IPReputation AbuseFilter variables for temporary accounts and anonymous users will be granted to users in the sysop group, and then additionally abuse filter manager group and abuse filter group where these groups exist locally. This should also apply to the equivalent global groups.
Users will not need to check a preference to use or see these variables, but accessing the value of these variables will create a log entry.
Consequences
[edit]- Work to implement IPReputation variables for registered users will not be done until T234155 is completed. If that task is not completed, then the variables for registered users will not be added.
- Work to implement the variables for temporary accounts and anon users is now unblocked and can start.