IP Düzenleme: Gizliliği Geliştirme ve Kötüye Kullanımı Azaltma/SSS
The basics of temporary accounts
Geçici hesap nedir?
Bir kayıtlı hesaba giriş yapmadan Wikipedia veya Wikimedia Vakfı tarafından barındırılan diğer sitelerde bir düzenleme yayınladığınızda, sizin için bir Special:MyLanguage/Help:Temporary accounts geçici hesap oluşturulacaktır. Bu hesaba otomatik olarak bir kullanıcı adı verilir. Hesap oluşturulduğunda tarayıcınızda bir çerez ayarlanacaktır. Bu kullanıcı adı, IP adresiniz değişse bile tarafınızca yapılan tüm değişiklikleri size atfetmek için kullanılacak. Geçici hesap ile, IP adresiniz yalnızca güncellenen Gizlilik Politikasında belirtildiği üzere yetkili personel ve topluluk üyeleri tarafından görüntülenebilecek.
How do temporary accounts work?
- Geçici hesapların adları şu şekilde oluşturulur:
~2026-12345-6(bir yaklaşık işareti (~), oluşturulduğu yıl, tire, otomatik olarak atanmış bir sayı). Kullanıcılar, geçici hesaplarının adını seçemez veya değiştiremez. - Oluşturulma tarihinden itibaren 90 gün sonra, geçici hesaplar otomatik olarak sona erecektir. Edits made will still be tracked by page histories and logs, and the talk page of the temporary account will also remain available. However, the user will no longer be able to use that account or receive notifications for messages posted on its talk page.
- Kullanıcının sonraki katkıları yeni bir geçici hesaba atanacaktır. Eski hesap devre dışı kalacak ve onu muhafaza edemeyecek veya giriş yapamayacaksınız. It will be permanently inactive. The only indication the account has expired is it is no longer used. There is no flag or message indicating whether a temporary account has expired or not.
- Geçici hesaba giriş yapmak imkansızdır. Bu hesaplar için şifre yoktur.
- Aynı aygıt ve tarayıcıdan yapılan tüm değişiklikler, kullandığınız IP adresi değişse bile (örneğin, evde ve bir kafede değişiklik yapıyorsanız) aynı geçici hesaba sayılacak. Bu işlem, size atanmış geçici hesabı hatırlayan bir tarayıcı çerezi yerleştirilmesiyle gerçekleştirilir.
- Geçici hesaplar tarayıcı geçmişi veya açık pencereler gibi değildir. Cihazlar arasında senkronize edilmiş bir tarayıcıya sahipseniz, farklı cihazlarda farklı hesaplara atanırsınız. Bu, tarayıcıların çalışma biçiminden kaynaklanır. Eğer bu konuda endişeleriniz varsa kayıtlı bir hesap oluşturmayı düşünebilirsiniz.
- Geçici hesaplar, oturumunuzu sonlandırma veya tarayıcı çerezlerini temizleme yoluyla istenildiği zaman elle devre dışı bırakılabilir.
Notable aspects of temporary accounts
- Geçici hesaplar, kayıtlı hesaplardan farklıdır. Bunlar kısa ömürlüdür ve sınırlı özellikler sunar. Geçici hesaplar için, normal değişiklikler sırasında topladığımız verilerden başka herhangi bir ek veri toplamıyoruz.[açıklama gerekli]
- Geçici hesaplar, kayıtlı kullanıcılara açık özelliklerin tümüne erişemezler. Commons'a resim yüklemek gibi bazı eylemler, sadece kayıtlı hesaba sahip kullanıcılar tarafından gerçekleştirilebilir.
- Geçici hesapların kendi kullanıcı sayfaları ve kullanıcı mesaj sayfaları vardır, ancak bu tür hesaplar sona erdiğinde, o hesabı kullanan kişiye oraya mesaj göndererek artık ulaşılamaz. Genel olarak, bir geçici hesap ile bir sıradan hesap (geçici hesaptan sonra açılmış) bağlantılı olabilir. Ancak olası bağlantı bozukluğu sebebiyle, kimi projelerde bir geçici hesabın kullanım süresinin dolmasından veya kalıcı olarak engellenmesinden sonra kullanıcı sayfasının düzenlenmesine teknik olarak izin verilmemektedir.
- Geçici hesaplar bildirim alabilir ve kullanıcılar kullanıcı mesaj sayfalarında beliren yeni mesaj uyarı bandını görebilirler.
- Geçici hesaplar, kayıtlı kullanıcılardan teşekkür alabilir ancak gönderemezler.
- Geçici hesaplar başka kullanıcıları pingleyebilir ve geri pinglenebilirler.
See also
- Help page for the temporary account holders (temporary users)
- Geçici ve kalıcı hesap türleri arasında botunuzun ya da aracınızın ayrım yapması gerekiyorsa teknik bilgi sayfasına bakın.
The basics of the project
Why are you working on temporary accounts at all?
Primarily, to improve the privacy of logged-out users. In addition, this change will allow us to build better anti-abuse tools.
Our wikis should be safer to edit by default for logged-out editors. Temporary accounts allow people to continue editing the wikis without creating an account, while avoiding publicly tying their edits to their IP address. We believe this is in the best interest of our logged-out editors, who make valuable contributions to the wikis and who may later create accounts and grow our community. Even though the wikis do warn logged-out editors that their IP address will be associated with their edit, many people may not understand what an IP address is, or that it could be used to connect them to other information about them in ways they might not expect.
Additionally, our moderation software and tools rely too heavily on network origin (IP addresses) to identify users and patterns of activity, especially as IP addresses themselves are becoming less stable as identifiers. Temporary accounts allow for more precise interactions with logged-out editors, including more precise blocks, and can help limit how often we unintentionally end up blocking good-faith users who use the same IP addresses as bad-faith users.
Why is a temporary account the right solution to the problem?
There are some hard requirements that led to the design of the temporary accounts. Some of them are of legal, and some are of technical nature:
| What we are facing | What we have decided to do |
|---|---|
| One of the founding principles of our movement is that people should be able to make most simple edits without registering a permanent account. | Temporary accounts will be created automatically (people won't need to create an account themselves). |
| Due to legal requirements, edits on the wikis should be attributed to a user identifier other than IP address. | If temporary accounts are enabled on a wiki, an account is created for a user as soon as they commit their first edit. The user is automatically logged in to this account, which is tied to a randomly generated username. This username is displayed in every situation (except for various functionary tools) where IP addresses would have otherwise been displayed. |
| The identifier that a given not logged-in user's edits are attributed to needs to be stable. Creating a new user for each edit is not an option. Otherwise, there would be a too large rate of new users. | As soon as the temporary account is created, the user is logged in. The cookie has a limited lifetime. Within this duration, if the user decides to make more edits, they are all attributed to the same temporary account. A new one is created if the user decides to log out of the temporary account or otherwise use a different browser. The user retains the same temporary account if they change IP address while using the same device/browser. |
| The MediaWiki software can't be changed too much. We need to limit novelties to let existing features work unmodified. | A temporary account does not break anything in the way user accounts are handled. Apart from the necessary exceptions (such as features that need to be disabled for temporary accounts), most code will continue to work normally. |
See also:
Would banning IP editing be a good alternative?
[Edit Dec 15, 2025: We updated our response here, to more precisely describe the state of research here and WMF’s views.]
We don’t have conclusive data one way or the other.
On two occasions, Wikimedia communities have established a consensus to ban IP editing for articles: Portuguese Wikipedia in October 2020 (still in effect) and Farsi Wikipedia in October 2021 (ended April 2022).
The changes introduced by the Portuguese and Farsi Wikipedias presented opportunities to evaluate the impact that requiring account creation has on editing and moderating activities. We studied the effects on these communities, releasing a report on Farsi Wikipedia’s experience in August 2022, and several reports (first one, second one) on Portuguese Wikipedia’s ongoing experience, with the most recent one in 2025.
The results are a mixed bag, with some evidence indicating reduced moderator burden, and some evidence indicating reduced overall content growth. However, because they were observational studies, we were not able to rely on the kinds of controls and data collection methods used in controlled experiments. In addition, we recognize that Wikimedia communities are unique; features and policies can impact them in different ways.
As a result, we don’t have clear evidence of how important logged-out editing is for the growth and health of volunteer communities. Even so, WMF’s perspective is that logged-out editing is a founding principle for a reason – that Wikipedia and our other projects are built on not caring who you are or where you came from, but inviting you to participate anyway, right away.
That immediate and complete invitation to contribute remains exceptionally rare and surprising on the modern internet. It does come with the risk of more bad-faith editors. But we think it is likely that the ability to edit without creating an account has led to more people trying to edit for the first time, and more people eventually creating accounts, sticking around, and becoming respected editors.
Now that temporary accounts are deployed just about everywhere, we’re working closely with the members of our community who spend their volunteer time fighting abuse to streamline their work. Our goal is to keep the door open to editing without an account, and to make it manageable for communities to deal with abuse that it continues to be the right choice.
Bu değişiklikler benim vikime ne zaman ulaşacak?
Temporary accounts are already available on the following wikis:
- Çekçe Vikiversite, Danca Vikipedi, Farsça Vikisözlük, İboca Vikipedi, İtalyanca Vikisöz, Japonca Vikikitap, Norveççe Bokmål Vikipedi, Rumence Vikipedi, Sırpça Vikipedi, Sırp-Hırvatça Vikipedi, Svahilice Vikipedi, Kantonca Vikipedi (/),
- Azerice Vikipedi, Arapça Vikipedi, Çekçe Vikipedi, Almanca Vikipedi, Farsça Vikipedi, Fransızca Vikipedi, İbranice Vikipedi, Hintçe Vikipedi, Endonezce Vikipedi, Japonca Vikipedi, Korece Vikipedi, Felemenkçe Vikipedi, Lehçe Vikipedi, Portekizce Vikipedi, Türkçe Vikipedi, Ukraynaca Vikipedi, Vietnamca Vikipedi, Çince Vikipedi, MediaWiki ().
- "Other Wikimedia projects" ().
- Most wikis. From this point on, the team defines a list of wikis with temporary accounts not enabled – T402181 ().
- All wikis except one. (/).
See also: T340001.
What if a community wants to keep using IP addresses?
With temporary accounts being introduced on a wiki, displaying IP addresses for subsequent contributions becomes no longer permitted. All communities need to prepare for the change to temporary accounts.
Is the Wikimedia Foundation monitoring the effect of using temporary accounts on the communities?
Yes.
There is a public dashboard for monitoring metrics for the pilot wikis. All these statistics are updated very frequently, for instance, real-time or once every day, to give everyone a good visibility of the actual work of temporary accounts on wikis.
The following specific metrics are publicly available:
Public metrics in detail
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In addition, the Foundation is monitoring some other metrics which for security or privacy reasons are not public. These include data like the number of requests for assistance from CheckUsers. We will periodically share reports about the non-public metrics.
Non-public (guardrail) metrics in detail
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Administrator actions (across all wikis)
Administrator requests
Administrator health
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IP addresses appear in the history of many pages. Will those past uses be modified?
No.
Historical IP addresses that were published on wiki before the switch to temporary accounts will not be modified. The Wikimedia Foundation Legal department has approved this decision.
Does the introduction of temporary accounts reduce the motivation for users to create a registered account?
With temporary accounts users can be notified and thanked for their contribution. This can hopefully drive up their engagement. For example, a user who makes a drive-by edit being thanked with a message on their talk page may realize the opportunity to interact with the community. We want to periodically nudge them to create a registered account. We hope this can help retain them and push them to create accounts that they wouldn't have otherwise.
Will temporary accounts be affected by the global IP blocks? Will users still be assigned temp accounts if they're using a VPN, or will the block prevent that? How will this affect VPN users?
There is no change in this regard. If an IP address or IP range is globally blocked, the rules of the block will dictate whether unregistered users can edit or not. Temporary accounts will be treated the same as IP editors were treated prior to the introduction of temporary accounts. The same applies to VPN users.
Legal details about temporary accounts
What specific legal requirements, regulations or risks are you worried about? Is the Foundation facing legal action? What would happen if we didn't introduce temporary accounts?
We shouldn't provide all the information. We shouldn't publish some details, and we shouldn't disclose why. If we publicly discussed what arguments we can make, or what risks are most likely to result in litigation, we could help someone harm the wikis and the communities.
This answer is based on attorney advice we are choosing to follow.
Can this change be rolled out differently by location?
No.
We protect the privacy of all users to the same standard. This will change across the Wikimedia projects.
If we tell someone their IP address will be published, isn't that enough?
No.
Many people have been confused to see their IP address published. Additionally, even when someone does see the notice, the Foundation has to properly handle their personal data. Publishing the IP addresses of non-logged-in editors falls short of current privacy best practices. Also, it creates risks, including risks to those users.
How does the project affect CC license attribution?
It does not affect it.
The 3.0 license for text on the Wikimedia projects already states that attribution should include "the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable)" (see the license at section 4c). Use of the temporary account names will function equally well as a pseudonym. IP addresses already may vary or be assigned to different people over time, so their use to identify unregistered editors is no different in this respect from the use of temporary account names. Both satisfy the license pseudonym requirement. In addition, our Terms of use section 7 specify that as part of contributing to Wikipedia, editors agree that links to articles (which include article history) are a sufficient method of attribution.
Technical details about temporary accounts
Where can I test it?
- All beta cluster wikis except en-rtl Wikipedia
- test.wikipedia.org
- test2.wikipedia.org
Keep in mind that these are testing wikis. Software there may not work as expected.
In addition, users with advanced permissions may test different features on Patch Demo available on T369637.
Geçici hesabım ne kadar sürer?
Geçici hesabınız, çerez var olduğu sürece çalışacaktır. Şu an için çerez, ilk düzenlemeden bir yıl sonra sona erecek şekilde ayarlandı.
Aşağıda bir geçici hesabın geri döndürülemez şekilde kaybolacağı en yaygın ihtimaller yer almaktadır:
- Tarayıcınızdaki çerezleri temizlemeniz.
- Geçici hesap oluşturulurken kullandığınız tarayıcıdaki profili silmeniz.
- Gizli pencere (özel gezinti) kullanmanız ve ardından pencereyi kapatmanız.
- Çerezin sona ermesi.
Geçici hesabınız kaybolursa, bir sonraki düzenlemenizi yayınladığınızda yeni bir kullanıcı adıyla yeni bir geçici hesap otomatik olarak oluşturulacaktır. Kalıcı bir hesap oluşturmak istiyorsanız, istediğiniz zaman ücretsiz bir kayıtlı hesap oluşturabilirsiniz.
What happens if the software can't set the temporary-account cookie?
If it's not possible to set a cookie, for example the browser is configured to block all cookies, the editor would have their edit saved successfully. However, the temporary account would be a single-use one, and it would be deleted immediately.
I support privacy protections, but why does this involve tracking cookies?
This cookie is not a tracking cookie.
Tracking cookies are used to track your browser history and activities, typically across multiple websites. We are adding a cookie to attribute your editing activities to the same username across multiple IP addresses and multiple websites (all SUL-connected wikis). It is a lot like a tracking cookie, but we’ve chosen not to call it that.
Does the temporary accounts system work the same way across different devices, or is it only reliable in desktop browsers?
Temporary accounts should work equally well on phones, tablets, and desktop devices. A temporary account is tied to both a browser and device. As long as those don't change, the temporary account will persist.
Geçici kullanıcı adı özgün olacak mı?
Yes.
Birçok TKG (Tek Kullanıcı Girişi-Single User Login) bağlantılı vikide Kullanıcı:~2024-12345-67 gibi bir hesap görüyorsanız, bunun aynı hesap olduğundan emin olabilirsiniz.
Why is the year included in the temporary account username?
We decided to include the year in the name so that it is easier to identify newer accounts from older ones. You will also notice expired usernames appear struck out for the same reason.
How many accounts do you expect will be generated? Is there a limit to how high that number can go?
We do not anticipate this to be a problem:
- Temporary account creation is rate limited. This means it's not possible to abuse account creation with automated scripts.
- Because the temporary account usernames are prefixed with the year, at the start of every year the username gets a "reset". This way the username cannot get very long.
Have you considered that the tilde character isn't simply available on keyboards?
Yes, accessing the tilde character (~) is not easy on mobile phone keyboards.
It is available through the symbols menu.
Unfortunately, this is the case for most symbols.
We wanted to minimize renaming existing accounts and avoid characters that could interfere with URLs or hold special meaning.
After assessing many prefix options (see T332805) we chose the tilde.
What if temporary accounts are only enabled on some wikis?
Some wikis have temporary accounts enabled (pilots) and others do not.
Wikis that have temporary accounts enabled display unregistered editors as temporary accounts. On non-temp-accounts wikis they still show up as IP addresses. When the temporary user switches between these wikis they will show up as a temporary account in one wiki and as an IP address in another.
This may create a problem with some features that rely on having a persistent user identity across wikis. If your feature(s) are impacted by this change, please come talk to us on the talk page or through Phabricator.
Deneyimli katılımcı soruları
Hizmetliyim ve aralık blokunu hesaplamam gerekiyor. Geçici hesapların IP adreslerini görebilir miyim?
Wikimedia Vakfı'ndaki belirli personelin yanı sıra, buna kâhyalar, denetçiler, küresel hizmetliler, hizmetliler ve yeterlik kriterlerini karşılayan devriyeler de dahildir.
IP adresleriyle ilişkili gizlilik riskleri vardır ve bunlar sadece etkili devriyelik için bu bilgilere sahip olanaklı olan insanlara görünür olacaktır.
See also:
- Lütfen geçici hesap IP adreslerine erişim yasal politikası ile ilgili SSS'ye bakın.
Yeterlilikleri karşılayan bir hesabım var. IP adreslerini nasıl görebilirim?
Please follow your community's guidelines to request this right from admins and/or bureaucrats and/or stewards (as defined by your community). Özel:Tercihler'e gidin ve katılın.
Bu ayarları açmadan önce, "Geçici Hesap IP Adreslerine Erişim İlkesini" okuyup kabul etmeniz gerekir. Özellikle:Vandalizm, kötüye kullanma, istenmeyen davranış, taciz, rahatsız edici davranış ve Wikimedia Vakfı'nın ya da topluluk ilkelerinin diğer ihlallerinin araştırılması ya da bunlara karşı yaptırım uygulanması için makul ölçüde gerekli olmadıkça, geçici hesap IP adreslerine ilişkin bilgilere erişmemeli, bunları kullanmamalı ya da açığa vurmamalısınız. Bilgileri başkalarıyla paylaşırsanız, bunu nerede ve nasıl yapacağınız konusunda duyarlı olmalısınız ve başkalarının görmesinin artık makul düzeyde gerekli olmadığı durumlarda bilgileri kaldırmalısınız.
Geçici hesap IP'lerine erişimi olan diğer kullanıcılar bu tercihi açtığınızı görebilir.
KAOKVEP'i imzalamam gerekir mi?
You do not have to sign any separate document; you just opt-in, and thereby confirm that you will follow the relevant policies and legal guidelines.
Kamuya açık olmayan kişisel verilere erişim politikası (KAOKVEP), Wikimedia Vakfı'nın denetçiler ve diğer belirli görevlere sahip kişilerin görevleri sırasında elde ettikleri kamuya açık olmayan kişisel verileri nasıl korumaları gerektiğine dair bir yasal politikadır. Gönüllü hizmetlilerin ve devriyelerin KAOKVEP anlaşmasını imzalamasına gerek yoktur. Ancak, yerel vikinizdeki Özel:Tercihler aracılığıyla IP adreslerine erişmek için giriş yapmayı seçmeniz gerekir.
How will editors apply for this new user right?
This is automatically assigned to users who have permissions related to anti-abuse tasks, as defined in the policy. The only step they need to take is to opt-in when it becomes available at their wiki.
Other users need to apply for the right, and administrators or stewards can grant these rights.
The Wikimedia Foundation is not requiring a process equivalent to becoming an admin in the largest communities. Communities may choose to handle these requests via their existing processes, or to set up new pages. For example, the English Wikipedia may choose to take requests at w:Wikipedia:Requests for permissions, and the German-language Wikipedia may choose to handle requests at de:Wikipedia:Rechtevergabe, and the Ukrainian Wikipedia may choose to handle requests at uk:Вікіпедія:Заявки на права патрульного. Very small communities often take similar requests on their village pump.
For "other users" (as they are categorized in the policy), is it possible to bundle this right with an existing group, like patrollers?
No, at least not currently. This is what we announced in May 2025:
- Separation of the new right (
checkuser-temporary-account) out to a new group (Temporary account IP viewers), as opposed to technically attaching it to any existing group (like patroller). We have decided to do this for a few reasons:- Having access to IP addresses carries risk. This right is similar to checkuser. IP addresses are considered personally identifiable information (a kind of personal data). Outside actors who want to access IP addresses will now need to interact with users who have this right. Users with this right should be aware of this, and alert to the possibility of suspicious access requests.
- Good practices for privacy protection. Giving access to users who are trusted but do not need access to carry on their work is not in line with good practices for processing personal data.
- Removal of right. Access to IPs will be logged (example). If any misuse of this right is detected, it can be taken away separately from any other permissions the user may hold. It would be difficult and sometimes also unreasonable to remove the rights unrelated to access to IP addresses.
- You may grant the new right to all users belonging to a certain existing group individually. These users must meet the criteria for Temporary account IP viewers, though.
- For clarity – all this does not affect administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, stewards, and other groups mentioned in the global policy.
We have also documented this decision in Limits to configuration changes.
My community wants to set higher requirements. How do we do that?
Each wiki can set its own process with standards higher than the minimum. Make sure that consensus of your community does not contradict the global policy, and instead, adds requirements of your choice to the global ones.
When will the user right become available? When can we start assigning it?
The user right has already been added to the MediaWiki software. Communities can start giving the right at any time.
The minimum requirements for non-admins are too high
This may occasionally be true, such as when a wiki is newly created. In such cases, contact the stewards.
I'm an admin, but I don't want this user right
You won't be able to see any of this information unless you enable the preference.
I believe that someone is misusing this information
Please report privacy-related concerns to the ombuds commission. To ensure accountability, logs are kept of tool usage and of which users have access to the tool.
Other concerns about potential misuse may be brought to a steward by placing a request on m:Steward requests/Permissions#Removal of access. Stewards are authorized to block a user’s access to IP addresses if they determine that misuse occurred. This will prevent access even if the user would be automatically eligible or has been granted access through a community process.
If someone is blocked, are they able to use this right?
If a user is blocked sitewide, the software won't let them reveal IP addresses. If they have a partial block, they are able to use this right.
Access to IP addresses – moderation workflows and blocking
What happens if a temporary account is associated with multiple IP addresses?
When a user reveals the IP address of a temporary account from a history/log page, in most cases the IP revealed is the one responsible for that specific action. To view a temporary account's editing history, one can use the page Special:IPInfo which is linked from the temporary account's contributions page.
What if a temporary account holder needs to be blocked?
Temporary accounts' IPs will be stored for a period of 90 days. IP addresses can still be blocked. Temporary accounts can also be independently blocked, including global blocks and autoblocks.
Can't an abuser just clear cookies?
Yes, they can. Temporary accounts are not intended to solve any anti-abuse problems.
We know the problem of abusers making edits through a pool of changing IPs while masking browser agent data. This cannot be solved through temporary accounts. This is not a design goal for this project either. Otherwise, we would need to use trusted tokens, disabling anonymous edits, or fingerprinting, all of which are very involved, complicated measures that have significant community and technical considerations.
We have adapted tools to ensure that trusted functionaries can safely and efficiently navigate the bidirectional mappings between temporary accounts within the last 90 days and IPs. However, abuse from a user who clears cookies may become difficult or impossible to detect and mitigate for users without advanced permissions, or if some of the edits involved are more than 90 days old.
If a user clears their browser cookies but continues using the same IP address, will there be any way to connect them back to their previous temporary account?
Especially in shared environments like universities and schools, where multiple unrelated users might be using the same IP, how will the system handle that?
If a user clears their cookies and edits again, they will be granted a new temporary account. This can only happen a maximum of six times per day after which the account creation limit will be reached. Users who have access to view temporary account IP addresses will be able to make the connection between IPs and temporary accounts through the page Special:IPContributions.
Will temporary accounts be covered by the autoblock mechanism?
Otomatik engeller, vandalların ve diğer yüksek riskli kullanıcıları hızlıca yeni hesaplar oluşturarak projelerdeki işleyişi aksatmaya devam etmelerini engeller. Geçici hesaplar için otomatik engeller, kayıtlı kullanıcılar için otomatik engeller ile aynıdır. (IP addresses are not available to the public.)
More information is available in phab:T332231. Temporary accounts can also be blocked via global autoblocks.
How to do moderation work without exposing other users' private data?
We have a few tips, both for community members who can't block other users, and for admins:
- We recommend focusing on asking admins to block temporary accounts instead of asking to block both temporary accounts and IPs. This is because often, it suffices to only block temporary accounts.
- If a temporary account is blocked with autoblocking enabled, the IP they were using will be blocked for 24 hours. If a temporary account user doesn't switch IPs, there isn't a need to block their IP unless the block needs to be longer than 24 hours.
- If a user is using many temporary accounts over multiple IPs, we recommend to also ask to block the IPs. We discourage from writing down the IP addresses themselves as part of the request, though.
- We discourage from linking registered accounts and temporary accounts publicly. It would allow non-CheckUsers establish the registered account IP.
- Some connections may be traced by analyzing public logs. This is a trade-off. We limit access to different logs, but it's not always the best solution.
The current configuration of temporary accounts will make retro-patrolling impossible
Currently, the 90-day period after which the IP address of a temporary account becomes inaccessible seems reasonably long. We have consulted the Stewards on this. If you can demonstrate a need for a longer period, contact us. We are open to extending this period.
In any case, the 90-day limit doesn't apply to behavioral evidence or patterns of editing – these will continue to be visible. The number itself may be changed, and we will be paying attention to your thoughts and evidence of more difficult investigation. It is important to note that for instances of proven long-term abuse behaviors, we can publicly document the IP address for patrolling needs.
Access to IP addresses – documentation
Some communities currently have public pages for documenting the activities of some bad actors, including their IP addresses (e.g., Long-term abuse). Will this documentation still be permitted?
Yes.
The communities should treat the IPs of logged in users and temporary account holders the same on the Long-term abuse list. They may list the IP addresses when necessary, but they should refer to the abusers by their temporary account usernames.
See also:
Can we publicly document the IP addresses used by suspected (but not confirmed) bad actors who are using temporary accounts?
In general, no, but sometimes yes, temporarily.
When possible, patrollers with access to IP addresses should document the temporary account name(s) instead of the IP addresses. The exception is when the IP addresses are necessary for the purpose of protecting the wiki from abusive actions. Necessity should be determined on a case-by-case basis. If a disclosure later becomes unnecessary, then the IP address should be promptly removed.
For example, if a suspected vandal is exonerated during an investigation, then the report showing the user's IP address can be removed through oversight. That way, the IP address is only revealed while it is needed, and then is suppressed later, after it has been shown to not be needed any longer. See the related policy for more information.
When it comes to documenting connections between logged-in and temporary users, non-CheckUser-level evidence, like editing patterns may be documented publicly. Documenting publicly that a temporary account and a regular account are connected based on evidence restricted for CheckUsers would be against the policy, even if IP addresses wouldn't be documented.
If other information about non-logged-in contributors is revealed (such as location, or ISP), then it doesn't matter if the IP address is also published, right?
No. The IP address should not be published.
With temporary accounts, the public information will not be linked to an individual person or device. For example, it will be a city-level location, or a note that an edit was made by someone at a particular university. While this is still information about the user, it's less specific and individual than an IP address. So even though we are making some information available to assist with abuse prevention, we are protecting the privacy of that specific contributor better.
Experienced contributor questions
Where can I test how my advanced permissions work with temporary accounts?
Users with advanced permissions may test different features on Patch Demo available on T369637.
Is there a limitation for creating many temporary accounts from the same IP address?
Yes.
There are limits preventing from creating too many accounts from the same IP address too quickly.
- The current threshold for regular accounts is six per IP address per day (
$wgAccountCreationThrottle). - In addition to that, there is a similar limitation for temporary accounts, which is also six per IP address per day (
$wgTempAccountCreationThrottle). - We have also introduced a limit of one temporary account creation every 10 minutes. (T405565)
These thresholds can be changed if necessary.
We have investigated the ideal thresholds of the limit (T357771). We will check nuanced responses to tripping thresholds, including CAPTCHAs, temporary blocks, calls to create an account, etc. During the entire rollout, we will analyze rate limit trips (T357763). To learn more, see T357776.
With temporary accounts, can we now communicate with unregistered users through their talk pages, and will those messages remain available for 90 days?
Messages on talk pages will not disappear after 90 days. Any conversation and messages left on their talk pages will remain.
Will the issue of warnings being sent out to the wrong person, due to shared IP addresses, be resolved with temporary accounts?
Temporary account holders can receive notifications like mentions, talk page messages or thanks just like any registered account. Since temporary accounts do not change when IPs change, the likelihood that the intended user will see the notification is significantly higher.
What are the functional differences between using a Special:CheckUser on a temporary account, and revealing the IP address?
Unlike Special:CheckUser, using the IP reveal feature only shows you IP address information. This includes the IP address used for a particular edit by a particular temporary account, the last IP address used by a temporary account, all the IP addresses used by a temporary account, or all the temporary accounts edits on a given IP address or IP address range.
Why are there so many temporary accounts with zero edits?
Temporary accounts can exist with zero edits in a few situations. The first is if a temporary account is created on one wiki and then opens a different wiki in the same wiki-farm. Opening another wiki autocreates an account for them on that wiki.
Additionally, temporary accounts are not created at the moment of a successful edit save, but at the moment of any save attempt. AbuseFilter may prevent the edit from being saved. These attempts need to be logged, and in the log, each attempt needs to be assigned to a performer. This is why an account needs to be created.
It's also created when a null edit is made, if there is no abuse filter, spam blacklist or blocked domain hit logs.
What does 'Legacy IP edits' mean, visible in Special:Contributions and related pages?
This refers to edits by anonymous users before temporary accounts were enabled, whose IP addresses are visible in their usernames.
Do temporary accounts see Sitenotice or Anonnotice banners?
Temporary accounts get to see messages from MediaWiki:Sitenotice, and not MediaWiki:Anonnotice.
Are temporary accounts welcomed by Extension:NewUserMessage?
No. Temporary accounts are not registered accounts, and they are not welcomed by NewUserMessage.
Ayrıca bakınız
- Yardım:Geçici hesaplar – a help page for temporary account holders (temporary users)
- [[foundation:Special:MyLanguage/Policy:Access to temporary account IP addresses|Politika:Geçici hesap IP adreslerine erişim – yasal politika]]
- Documentation for developers
- Help:Extension:CheckUser
- Manual:$wgAutoCreateTempUser – to enable this for your own wiki