Trust and Safety Product/Global User Contributions

Group:	Trust and Safety Product
Start:	2024-01
Updates:	Updates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T349901

When IP addresses are replaced by temporary accounts, the old Global User Contributions (GUC) tool will no longer work for IP addresses. This is because GUC is a tool dependent on IP addresses being public. However, with the introduction of temporary accounts, IP addresses will be accessible to a limited number of users.

Cross-wiki patrollers rely heavily on guc to resolve cross-wiki vandalism and abuse. In order to continue to ensure that their needs are supported, the Trust and Safety Product team is actively building a new Global User Contributions tool, so that cross-wiki patrollers can continue to patrol effectively.

Problem and solution

Cross-wiki patrollers (such as Stewards and global admins) rely on Global User Contributions to resolve cross-wiki vandalism and abuse. We talked to users of GUC in order to understand how they use the tool and tested a prototype with a number of stewards. Read the results of user testing.

The new tool will provide feature parity with the old Global User Contributions GUC tool.

Timeline

January–April 2024: User testing. Status: Complete
May 2024: Engineering work starts. Status: Complete
October 2024: Release first version of Special:GlobalUserContributions. Status: Complete
January 2025: Complete all feature requirements

Product requirements

User stories

As a cross-wiki patroller with permission to view IP addresses, I want to continue to see contributions made by single IPs, IP ranges, temporary accounts, and registered accounts across all wikis, so that I can patrol effectively.
As a user without permission to view IP addresses, I want to be able to see contributions for registered and temporary accounts, so I can patrol effectively.

Assumptions

The majority of cross-wiki patrollers access patrolling tools like CheckUser on desktop rather than mobile, therefore we assume that the same applies to GUC. However we will still support a mobile UX.
Stewards and global admins will be able to use the new GUC tool.
Users who meet the IP viewing threshold will be able to use the new GUC tool.
Users can easily discover the new tool via a special page/extension.

Success metrics

Cross-wiki patrolling using GUC continues unaffected by the rollout of temporary accounts.
Users are satisfied with using the tool to complete their tasks.
The tool is responsive when used.

Designs

1.1 Search form. Special page showing search fields that enable users to get edits made by a user across all wiki projects. Users can search by username, IP address or IP range. Uses Codex components.
1.2 Search filters. Mockup of namespace and time period filters for GUC special page. Namespace filters by standard namespaces.
2.1 Results table (first tab). Mockup of a special page showing edits made by an IP range across all wikis, in a table of results. Designed to use Codex table. Default pagination UI is TBD.
2.2 Results list (second tab). Mockup of a special page showing edits made by an IP range across all wikis, in a list of results.