Wikipedia:AF

Because even the smallest mistake in editing a filter can disrupt the encyclopedia, only editors who have the required good judgment and technical proficiency are permitted to configure filters. This page does not discuss technical issues concerning the feature; technical information relating to the operation of the edit filter can be found at .

There are currently edit filter managers.

Edit filters are mainly used to identify and mitigate harmful edits by comparing edits with filtering criteria that address patterns of harmful editing. Filters are created and configured by edit filter managers, but they can be requested by any editor.

When an edit that is being saved "triggers" an active filter, the effect depends on a setting associated with that particular filter:

Except in urgent situations, new edit filters should generally be tested without any actions specified (simply enabled) until a good number of edits have been logged and checked before being implemented in "warn" or "disallow" modes. If the filter is receiving more than a very small percentage of false positives it should usually not be placed in 'disallow' mode. If a filter is designed to catch good faith edits it should not be placed in disallow mode without an appropriate consensus.

Edit filter managers should be familiar with alternatives that might be more appropriate in a given situation. For example, problems on a single page might be better served with page protection, and problems with page titles or link spam may find the title blacklist and spam blacklist more effective respectively. Because edit filters check every edit in some way, filters that are tripped only rarely are discouraged.

Edit filters should only be set to disallow to prevent edits that substantially all good-faith editors would agree are undesirable, or where a clear consensus has been reached that a specific type of edit should not be allowed. Any doubts regarding setting a filter to disallow should be discussed with other edit filter managers.

Except in urgent situations, new edit filters must not be set to disallow without thorough testing and a notice at the noticeboard to give other edit filter managers and the community time to review the filter for technical accuracy and necessity. In urgent situations, the notice may be made after-the-fact. Prior to and during the review of an edit filter which is set to "disallow" due to an emergency, the editor placing the edit filter is responsible for seeing that the logs are regularly monitored and false positives are minimized. Editors should avoid altering filters in modes other than log-only without some form of testing.

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