[OSM-talk] Editing wiki asks for confirmation code?

[stevea]

On Jul 26, 2020, at 12:12 PM, Skyler Hawthorne <osm at dead10ck.com> wrote:
> On July 26, 2020 14:56:39 stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:
>> I speculate (a bit, though I am a seasoned software quality assurance analyst), but I lean heavily towards Skyler's specific environment of a OnePlus mobile device running OxygenOS 10 and regardless of whether he uses Firefox or Chrome.  What I find curious is that I asked Skyler whether to edit wiki, he chose "Edit" or "Edit Source" and he said "Neither, I clicked the Pencil icon."  That strongly seems like something either his OS or browser is "doing" (javascript somewhere?) and appears to get us closer to finding the code-path where the "Confirmation code" dialog is thrown.
> 
> As a software engineer, my intuition would incline me to doubt this has anything to do with my OS. OSs don't tend to directly manipulate your web traffic in such a way that could lead to breaking functionality in web apps (analytics, of course, are a different matter). As for "edit" vs "edit source", you can see for yourself that neither of those are an option on the mobile site.
and
> These screenshots are from the latest version of Firefox for Android, although the same thing happens in Chrome and Brave as well.

Right, knowledge of your OS source simply better informs the browser (environment) being used in the erring environment.  In a desktop / laptop / non-mobile environment (let's say macOS / Windows / Linux, running Firefox on any of those is a fair comparison), our wiki pages present "Edit" and "Edit Source" choices, provided you are credentialed on with a valid wiki.osm.org login/pw.  But instead, your environment (OxygenOS 10 running Firefox) presents this "Pencil icon."  Somewhere (likely wiki.osm.org) there is likely javascript (probably informed by a UserAgent string of "Firefox — OxygenOS") which is responsible for (instead) presenting the "Pencil" icon (to initiate editing) along with a subsequent code-path in the javascript of the wiki site presenting what we now understand (or strongly believe) is a broken CAPTCHA, manifesting as a "Confirmation code" dialog.  That's what's broken, I (we) strongly suspect.

It took a few of us to get there, but I think we have, and those responsible for the fix are now better informed to do so.  Good sleuthing all around everybody, my guess is that the "mobile environment" for editing on wiki.osm.org will improve and this will eventually vanish as the defect you experienced.  A bit of "more-public" QA, but QA (even good QA) nonetheless!

SteveA