Grants:IdeaLab/Permanent IP ban
Project idea[edit]
What is the problem you're trying to solve?[edit]
Users that are aggressively harassing others.
What is your solution?[edit]
They should get permanent IP bans so they can't create new accounts or edit. Any other user/admin/etc unbanning them should get permanent bans as well. Obviously if a different user starts to use the IP there can be an unblock after a period of time, but if the unbanned IP begins to exhibit the same behavior then they can go on a ban again. Any IP logging into that specific user account will have their IP added to the permanently banned IPs.
Project goals[edit]
Stop harassment by aggressive and abusive editors.
Get involved[edit]
Participants[edit]
Endorsements[edit]
- Put a google captcha in the validating form and the IP of the submitter can be banned by google. It is for free. because is efficient and for free Dprigoana (talk) 16:48, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
- To unmask and list/blacklist their ISP's. In the absence of a Computer Licence/Global Internet User Register, this is possibly the best way at stopping spam attacks and threats etc.
- Volunteer OK Sgffjfg (talk) 13:19, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- It looks relatively simple, doable and straightforward, and other site I know also do it this way(TvTropes). Kagakujinjya (talk) 12:31, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- Add special blocking for IPs of the same internet provider and local area range, when editing the same pages during the user block periode, to prevent keyhole farting and sockpuppet activites. When banned, a change of the dynamic IP addess is done by restarting the router. Block IPs and users who are editing the same pages same day during a ban. Log such automatic blocking with secret mark which check user privileged operators can decode or list in assign, only. --Hans Haase (talk)
Oppositions[edit]
I created this section just because there is no other way to point out the flaws of an idea. IP banning "per se" is the lesser evil, anyway it's not a great idea. IP address changes and are assigned randomly (at least in Italy where some providers sell fixed IP) and it happened to me to receive a IP marked as spammer by spam assassin and for a week I wasn't able to send emails! Permanent banning in my opinion is a bad idea. Angelo.Mascaro (how can I sign? There is no button)
I’m opposing the idea too. IP address is not related to a person! Bans based on them are effective short-term measure to slow down ongoing attack, but are both useless long-term and harm innocent people. Only the most newbie users nowadays don’t know how to avoid IP bans. Changing the address is usually requiring one click for anyone who wants to do that. Hence it’s ineffective. Since addresses are not assigned to people, but are shared by them both in temporal axis and in a given time point (NATs, company proxies, …), this is also harmful for random persons. Using IP-address bans as a long-term solution is a whack-a-mole game in which administrator usually hits his friend’s fingers. --Wikimpan (talk) 23:50, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
The feature of permanent IP bans is available; it's up to the wiki sysops and bureaucrats to enforce bans. Would you like to create a more strict policy on talk pages abuse instead, widening the range of what is a bannable offense? Have you brought up this concern with any wikis? --Gryllida 00:37, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- The feature of permanent IP blocks is available, but it should only be used for static IP addresses. Remember we do not control the IP address, the network provider controls it. A permanent block on an IP address that gets reallocated daily has no effect on the person you were trying to block, but can be a pain for others. WereSpielChequers (talk) 20:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm opposing the idea too. In many countries IP are dynamically dedicated, so when we ban IP other person will be banned tomorrow! -- kirilldanshin @ 6:32, 5 June 2016 GMT+3
Opposed. What would we do about university or library IPs with open wifi? No one would be able to edit WP from those IPs sooner or later if there is a total ban. But that means WP would miss out on a lot of considerate and knowledgable editors. ifny (talk) 15:23, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- Our infrastructure should not be reliant upon third-party entities, especially not giant data brokers like Alphabet/Google. There is already a native CAPTCHA system in place for IP editors on high traffic egress points and for account creation. Utilizing Google services makes the project dependent on whims of a for-profit corporation with different motives than our projects. We should not assist Alphabet in building dossiers on our users. WikiMedia system has its own internal blocking facilities under continuous development; no need to rely upon others (but Google or anyone else are welcome to contribute patches upstream to improve this system). --dsprc (talk) 01:34, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- Capchas are fairly good at separating humans from spambots though unfortunately some humans have disabilities that mean they get caught by capchas. Capchas cannot differentiate between a human who harasses and a human who does not. WereSpielChequers (talk) 20:09, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- The idea simply does not work. A lot of countries uses dynamic IP-addresses and in those ban on addresses is next to non-functioning. — Jeblad 09:37, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
Expand your idea[edit]
Would a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation help make your idea happen? You can expand this idea into a grant proposal.