Talk:No open proxies/Archives/2007

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Suggestion

What if a system was set up so that people on proxies could edit, but their changes would not appear until someone reviewed them.(Presumably any logged-in, non-proxy user could do this.) This way proxies could be used by people who had a valid reason for editing through a one but would be totally useless for vandals.

length of proxy blocks

I'd like to suggest language for this policy, to more clearly define suggested action in reply to open proxies.

Current SOP is to indefinitely block suspected open proxies. While effective, this may be a little _too_ effective, as most systems are not permanent proxies.

I'm not really sure what to do about misconfigured Web servers, but I do think some guidance is in order for home IP's.

Specifically, a minimum block of 24 hours capped at a maximum of 7 days, followed by a re-check by someone authorized by the Wikiproject on Open Proxies, seems sensible. This would also minimize inappropriate / accidental blocks caused by the propensity for home users to change IP's.

I want to codify the above paragraph (in different words, natch) into policy, to give some guidance to admins.

Obviously, if the re-check showed the IP as still being an open proxy, I suppose it should be treated the same as an indefinitely misconfigured Web server until someone complains.

Any thoughts?

Adrian 08:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that particular method is scalable. Indefinite blocks are a problem, even if a proxy is insecure over the short term. There is a persistent backlog on most local MetaProject on open proxies chapters, and making every proxy check take a week (or even just 24 hours) would worsen backlogs dramatically. A better solution would be to block for two years; this will prevent abuse and ensure that IP addresses are eventually blocked after they've probably been secured. Proxies that are secured before then can easily be unblocked simply by reporting it for unblocking at any MetaProject chapter.
The MetaProject templates already block 2 years by default, although local templates have not been updated yet. —{admin} Pathoschild 22:02:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Unclear points about this policy page

I have a few question regarding this policy:

  1. Is this policy binding towards all wikimedia projects? Must all wikimedia projects ban open anonymous proxies, or are they only allowed to?
  2. If so, must they be "hardblocked", "softblocked", or is it left for the sysops to decide in each case?

The Transliterator • talk 18:57, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is a Wikimedia Foundation policy that is binding for all projects. All projects are allowed to block open proxies; I suppose strict enforcement of the policy is up to individual communities, but projects that do not do so will be wide open to open proxy-based attacks.
Feel free to block anonymous users and account creation while allowing registered users; this is the default configuration now used by the MetaProject on open proxies, although the local chapters are still using the full block settings. —{admin} Pathoschild 22:53:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Several sysops on the Hebrew Wikipedia have decided to zealously block all open/anonymous proxies in a manner that doesn't allow registered users to edit from them. Is there anything about that that could be done on the Meta level, or is it considered a legitimate action? The Transliterator • talk 15:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the Hebrew community can legitimately decide to enforce this policy that aggressively. I do not necessarily agree with their decision, but I am not a member of the Hebrew community. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 00:05:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It's obviously not a binding policy on the English Wikipedia, at least not at the moment: [1] —Babelfisch 05:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

All wikiprojects

When an open proxy is fined and confirmed, it should be banned on all wikiprojecs, I think. Such open proxies are blocked again on other wikipedias, etc, while this is an unnecessary work, I think. Do you agree with the idea?

See feature request 8707: "Support global (crosswiki) blocking". —{admin} Pathoschild 02:28:27, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, pathoschild, for the useful link Huji 16:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

"Things to note"

Regarding [2]: What this is supposed to mean? It certainly does not clarify any problematic issues with open proxies and seems to just obscure things. What do you mean by "not all open proxies are anonymous" and what is that supposed to clarify? If there exist open proxies that are transparent, it makes no difference on Wikimedia projects because the IP that would be recorded, and the IP that would be blocked in such case, would be the forwarded IP. The person blocking would not know the IP of the transparent proxy, nor would it matter. Why is it "important to note that proxies in general are very common"? It seems instead to make no difference whatsoever for the purpose of Wikimedia projects. If you were adding this to a Wikipedia article on en:Open proxy, it might be more appropriate though it still is not clear verbiage, but here it has no purpose. —Centrx→talk • 00:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

An open proxy is checked through a port scan. (Some find them by checking open-proxy lists, also.) The scan results often show that certain ports on a computer are open, but it doesn't usually check if the proxy is hiding a user's address. Some scanners do, but the scanners on "WP:OP" don't. So, if the administrator relies on the scan only, they may block an innocent user. So that's why I mentioned firewalls. I have also seen a certain administrator on Wikipedia block addresses with a summary of "proxy." One thing I forgot to mention on the page is that some anonymous proxies aren't open. They require you to enter a password. I could also link to a proxy-checker that checks anonymity. To summarize, I put the information there to clarify that proxies are OK, open proxies can be OK, and anonymous proxies are the real problem.--Created Account 05:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
There is no way to check whether most proxies are in fact anonymous, and there is no effective way to continue to block open proxies if it were to be required that administrators be 100% certain that the machine is in fact an anonymous proxy. The number of machines that would show up as open proxies on a scan but that are not anonymous proxies is miniscule if not zero, the fact remains that those proxies would still be secondary machines and not, such as with NAT, the means by which a person can access the Internet; and this has no bearing on what admins on Wikimedia projects should do. There is no reason to make any special considerations to allow for non-anonymous open proxies, and doing so would render the policy ineffective. Aside from that, the text you added does not actually provide any guidance; even if this commentary were especially relevant to this policy, the text there is not. —Centrx→talk • 17:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
No--that's wrong. There are several online anonymous-proxy checkers that I know about ([3] and [4]) and a few freeware programs you can download as well. You mentioned machines showing up as open proxies when they're not, but I wasn't even talking about that. I was talking about open proxies that aren't anonymous and anonymous proxies that aren't open. The posts from Jimbo linked at the bottom of the page are about anonymous proxies. If this policy is based on those posts, then perhaps a ban on openness is uncalled for.--Created Account 08:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
To be more clear, how do you think that an open proxy cannot be anonymous, and how do you think any non-anonymous proxy would ever be caught within this policy? —Centrx→talk • 18:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Whenever you edit through a transparent proxy, your real IP address shows up in the article's history. The proxy pretends that it's not there. As for collateral damage, when someone suspects that a computer is an open proxy, they usually report it to "WP:OP." That computer is then scanned to see if it has any open ports, not if it is anonymous, and most open proxies are transparent. If you left your firewall off and one of a few types of programs on, your computer could even be mistaken for an open proxy by a scanner. Scan a website, and it will also look like an open proxy. Most of the people who dislike open proxies know pretty much nothing about them. They think they're "bad." That's it. Without that section, this page clarifies almost nothing for them.--Created Account 04:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
In practice, blocking a transparent proxy does not actually block anyone from using the proxy, because the source IP address sent to Wikimedia servers is not the open proxy address that is sent with anonymous proxies, and blocking the shown IP address still effectively prevents a transparent-proxy user from editing, so I think in practice the point is moot. If not, what is the purpose of allowing non-anonymous open proxies? For that matter, what is the purpose of an open transparent proxy? Isn't the purpose of an open proxy inherently to edit anonymously through a different IP address? Transparent proxies are used as gateways on a network, but those are not open proxies unless they are somehow misconfigured, right? —Centrx→talk • 19:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If not blocked, don't use elaborate measures...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/11/2320220&from=rss

So, if China isn't blocked, it seems to add yet-another layer of deception; the "Great Firewall" is daily touted as the reason for allowing TOR. Yet, in fact, it seems to be a ruse?

--Connel MacKenzie - wikt 09:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you really think we are so dumb that we would fail to notice if the great firewall blocking wikimedia was a trick? Read this. FunPika 01:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


Prohibited

The current wording of this page is leading to a misunderstanding (at least, I think it's a misunderstanding). The formulation "Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies" is taken -- understandably -- as a user conduct policy, similar to "assume good faith" or "no legal threats." Thus we end up with the syllogism "Action X is a prohibited action; User A has engaged in action X; ergo, User A has wilfully violated a key Wikimedia policy," where action X is editing through an open proxy and user A is usually a candidate for adminship. ... the thing is, as far as I can tell this isn't meant to be a user conduct policy at all; it's not that editing through open proxies is Wrong, it's that allowing open proxies is Wrong.

Therefore I suggest rewording this sentence to something like "Open or anonymous proxies must be blocked whenever they are discovered," to make it clear that this policy binds the project rather than individual users. Thoughts? -- Visviva 18:34, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep, noticed this, too and fixed it. I also fixed the date (although the page refers to some discussion in 2004, the actual page was set up in march 2006, dunno where it came from then...). --84.153.100.180 01:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Please don't change the policy without a wider consensus. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Can you explain why this should be a prescriptive policy? The way I see it, editors aren't causing any harm to Wikimedia by using anonymous proxies. Or if such harm exists, it hasn't been explained here. Rather, as I read it the policy indicates that anonymous proxies must be blocked because of the risk to which the project is exposed by allowing fully anonymous editing. So either the sentence needs to go, or the policy needs to be changed to show why simply using an anonymous proxy is harmful. -- Visviva 12:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
This policy was used in the past to block open proxies but never - at least in the german wikipedia - to accuse people of policy violations just because the use proxies or anonymizers. I even remember an gentle "advice to tor users from china" when they happen to be blocked. As such, the first sentence was misleading and against actual practice in the projects. If you want to change it, please first seek consensus wikimedia wide that using anonymizers is forbidden, it certainly isn't consensus now. --Elian 12:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

editwar

I do think that there is consensus that editwars are bad, though! Effeietsanders 14:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and usually I don't edit war. But as a checkuser of the german Wikipedia, I am not going to accept that the english wikipedia dictates their interpretation of "No open proxies" to all other projects, an interpretation which would lead in its practical application to a serious breach of the checkuser policy. --Elian 14:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Being a checkuser doesn't really give you a special status on whether you are allowed to change the policy or not, just like an enwiki CU status doesn't, for the record. Just don't editwar, and try to talk it out first! That is common practice on I beleive all Wikimedia projects, as well as on Meta. Please respect that. (And that goes for all involved) Effeietsanders 14:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't mention checkuser to gain some special status here but to point out a problem for the checkusers. This page here described for a long time uncontested what is actual practice on Wikimedia projects: "We block open proxies when we discover them". Descriptive policy which reflects actual practice, fine. Now suddenly some people in the English wikipedia interprete this descriptive policy as prescriptive, that it should be a policy violation for users to use open proxies or anonymizers. The only way to enforce this prescriptive policy atm would be for the checkusers to break current checkuser policy (how can you find out that someone is using an anomyizer?). So I rephrased the page to better reflect what is actual practice and consensus. If you really want to punish users who have done nothing wrong except using an anonymizer, set up a poll and ask the whole wikimedia community if they want this and change the checkuser policy to allow random checking users on suspicion of anonymizer use. But don't tell me this is already policy. It is not (and I am not going to block any of the good authors and admins on the german Wikipedia I accidentally discovered using anonymizers while doing checkuser just because a page on meta, one day copied by a user from the english wikipedia, says so). --Elian 14:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
This begs the question, "Who's policy is this?" I can appreciate your understanding that it was copied one day from the English Wikipedia, but at the same time there is a notice on en:wp not to make changes there, because any human changes will be overwritten by a bot when changes are made on meta. It has also been made clear that this is not a Foundation policy. Slim Virgin asserts that the policy should not be changed before there is a consensus, but I can find no place where there was a consensus to adopt it in the first place. There are some positive aspects to the policy, but that does not justify the kind of dishonest policy games that leave people on at least two projects believing that it was duly adopted on the other project in the hopes that no-one will question the origin of the policy. I am seriously concerned about how this policy has been applied on an English admin request, and I am even more concerned about the way in which policies in general are adopted. Eclecticology 08:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I prefer the wording where the policy is aimed at blocking the open proxies, not the people who use them, too. The proxies may need to be blocked to prevent abuse (whether or not this is a good idea is a separate debate), but this shouldn't extend to a punitive policy against anybody who happens to use them while they're open and does not do anything abusive with them. The "punitive" interpretation has already been abused on English Wikipedia for political purposes. Dtobias 15:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, W:En:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CharlotteWebb is probably going to fail because of the wording that used to exist (W:En:User:CharlotteWebb edits with TOR). In fact I doubt that future people who see that RFA will see if this policy has changed and simply oppose due to the old wording. FunPika 16:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
"The 'punitive' interpretation has already been abused on English Wikipedia for political purposes" - yes, quite so. We are trying to prevent users who come to en-WP to damage the project, who typically carry it out using sockpuppet open proxy anonymous IP addresses. Some of these users have unfortunately been promoted now to admin status, making the process of protecting the wiki even harder. The prohibition against open proxies has a good reason - survival of en-WP. Not surprisingly, some of the noisiest defenders of open proxies, perhaps even more than the Chinese user community, are the sockpuppets and trolls themselves. Crum375 16:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Which am I, a sockpuppet or a troll? Dtobias 16:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
You have to explain to me, in which way a user writing featured articles or doing vandal patrol while protecting his identity for fear of political persecution, circumventing censorship or any reason whatsoever by using an anomyizer is damaging the project. I really fail to grasp this. --Elian 17:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Apparently it harms the project because vandals use proxies. FunPika 17:23, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that is the reason why the proxies themselves are blocked, but that does not mean that there is something per se wrong with an individual using an open proxy that does not happen to be blocked. —Centrx→talk • 17:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
How is that relevant to individuals that are not attempting to damage the project? —Centrx→talk • 17:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
It is relevant to any editor who wants the project to still be there in the future, and not be corrupted or destroyed by Trojan and sock admins. Crum375 17:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
...because if we're not with you, we're with the terrorists! Dtobias 19:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Paranoia often leads to hasty conclusions and bad decision-making. You're trying to remedy a social problem with a technical solution. Frankly: in my personal experience, that doesn't work. Gracenotes 20:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}}

Please revert this admin edit. FunPika 22:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Why? You won't make this into a Foundation policy just by reverting the edit that correctly points out that it never was one. Rspeer 22:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
It would seem that now it says that "This Foundation Policy is disputed". FunPika 18:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
It is indeed a Foundation policy; it was explicitly approved by Jimbo Wales, then-chairman of the Board of Trustees along with Tim Shell and Michael Davis[1], and has been enforced as Foundation policy for over four years. (If you believe this interpretation to be incorrect, please ask them to clarify whether this is a Foundation policy or not, or ask the current Board of Trustees to strike it down.) The recently superceded version was disputed, although I hope my rewrite has addressed the concerns raised. Therefore, 'This Foundation policy is disputed'. —{admin} Pathoschild 19:19:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

I've extensively rewritten the page. In particular, I added the rationale and noted that this policy is meant to prevent abuse, not cause difficulties to legitimate users (deliberately). The latter clarification is not a major change, as this is how it has always been applied by the MetaProject on open proxies and most administrators that I'm aware of. Please reread the entire page before commenting. —{admin} Pathoschild 14:04:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

  • I prefer this version . 81.86.194.252 20:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    Why do you prefer it? FunPika 20:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    Mostly because of the text "Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies. Although Meta encourages anyone in the world to contribute, such proxies are often used abusively." and "Open proxies are banned from editing Wikimedia projects." I happen to think anonymous editors using Tor proxies cause much more trouble than the benefits of allowing the tiny minority of anonymous editors using Tor. 81.86.194.252 20:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    The current version says the same; the difference (besides the added rationale) is a note that although open or anonymizing proxies can be blocked on sight, there is nothing wrong with making legitimate use of one until it is found and blocked. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:33:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
    I have the feeling that this IP doesn't want ANY use of open proxies on Wikimedia, legit or not. FunPika 01:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
    Well using Tor with a user account to edit is just about OK. The editor's changes can be tracked to a user account which makes life easier. However the guideline should make sure that edits made without an account and by using Tor is not allowed. I would prefer it if anonymous edits from known Tor IPs were blocked automatically. 81.86.204.18 23:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • As a user from en.wiki, the revised wording has my full and completely support. People have completely missed the point on why this was made a policy. We're trying to stop abuse, not blocking legitimate users. -- Ned Scott 05:53, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I also fully support this policy. It's entirely reasonable; we allow edits that improve Wikipedia, and don't allow those that don't, and we still preventively block OPs. I don't see what problem these enwikians who disagree have with it. --Rory096 19:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
    They only care about the abuse that comes with allowing open proxies. FunPika 20:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Why is the page being edited when it has been protected? ElinorD 00:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    Because this isn't en wikipedia. (Another difference: we can actually trust admins here! ;] ) Gracenotes 02:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
    Meta doesn't have a protection policy. Additionally, I trust Pathoschild not to go wild :P --Iamunknown 03:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I, too, agree with the rewrite. Bucketsofg 23:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The rewrite is something I can live with; more importantly, it seems to be something Wikimedians using open proxies can live with. Gracenotes 21:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with the rewritten version, and find the unnecessarily punitive atmosphere being pushed by certain cliques on English Wikipedia to be disturbing. Dtobias 15:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I fully support the re-write - makes a lot more sense, and hopefully some of the "hard-liners" at enwiki can recognise this. Martinp23 09:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Not intended to catch real editors is fine. May use proxies until found out is not. Why would we have a policy against using proxies unless you want to? JzG 21:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
    That makes sense. I'm also unsure why it would be called a policy if it's just a technical thing about software, that says that proxies may be blocked but you may use them freely until they're blocked. I'm also quite uncomfortable with a policy page being protected and then changed to say what seems to be the opposite of what it used to say. ElinorD 23:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

    This policy is not and was never intended to crusade against anonymizing proxies themselves, but to prevent proxy attacks. It is specifically intended to make it difficult for an abuser to circumvent administrator intervention by using a bot to change IP addresses faster than they can be blocked. This was the original intention (as apparent from the original messages), and has been the historical intention (as apparent by the huge number of blocks against open proxy bots [page deleted]).

    If a legitimate account wants to use anonymizing proxies as they are legitimately intended to be used (ie, circumventing filters or protecting privacy), they are more than welcome to do so. If we block open proxies, it is to stop abuse and not legitimate use— also blocking legitimate use is an unfortunate side-effect, and users should not be deliberately punished for legitimate use. The recent change simply codifies this historically-applied logic.

    If you want to apply a stricter policy on the English Wikipedia, you can do so locally and separately from the Wikimedia policy. (Although, as a Wikipedian, I would strongly oppose such restrictions— despite being a checkuser, if you intend to bring up checkuser needs.) —{admin} Pathoschild 02:00:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

    Of course, things have changed since Starling's statement in Feb 2004. More IP addresses become open anonymizing proxies constantly, and (another problem) more become static again. There is no longer just one type of block: we now have softblocks. With IPv6 coming sometime in the not-ridiculously-distant future, this policy will come damn close to the definition of quixotic. Gracenotes 20:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
    We did try soft-blocking anonymizing proxies a few months ago. Unfortunately, that neutralized the benefits of blocking them— malicious users simply registered hundreds of accounts ahead of time before vandalizing from the open proxies. The change was eventually reverted. That said, this policy does not mention soft blocks because the precise implementation is up to the local community. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:21:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
    It's not supposed to be a "policy against using anonymous proxies", but a policy for closing access from the proxies themselves in order to prevent abuse. It's not supposed to be a punitive policy against somebody who happens to find a proxy open and uses it in a nonabusive way. Dtobias 17:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
    I disagree that the intention was not to block open proxies. I seem to recall Jimbo saying that, while there are legitimate uses for anonymising proxies, editing Wikipedia was not one of them. And I will re-state my view that a policy which says that you may not use open proxies, but then says that you may use open proxies until you are found out, is pretty stupid. TOR nodes need to be hard blocked to prevent abuse. It is much better for all concerned if good editors steer clear of TOR, it weil make it easier for CheckUsers to find and stop abusers like JB196, a serial and prolific proxy abuser. JzG 11:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
    I agree that all anonymizing proxies should be hard-blocked, regardless of whether or not someone is legitimately using them. However, legitimate users should not be punished for legitimately using one until it is found and blocked to prevent abuse. This has nothing to do with abusers like JB196, who are blocked for abuse. —{admin} Pathoschild 14:48:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
    I'm mystified as to where in my above comment I supposedly said that "the intention was not to block open proxies". I specifically said that the intention was to block them because they are subject to abuse. What I also said was that I didn't think the intention was to punish or stigmatize anybody who happens to use them, for a nonabusive purpose, while they happen not to have been blocked (or where the block doesn't stop them, like if they're an admin). It's like, if the policy at a building says that a particular rear entrance door is to be locked from 6 PM to 6 AM (even though the building lobby itself is open to the public 24 hours a day) because of a risk of crime or vandalism coming through that way at night, then that would imply that the security guard should lock the door if he happens to come by and find it unlocked during those hours, but not necessarily that he should take action against somebody who wasn't a criminal or vandal who happened to come in through the door while it was unlocked. Dtobias 15:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the "disputed" note from the modified version, since there appears to be strong consensus in favour. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:10:30, 07 July 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm not happy. I find points made by en:User:Mackensen, en:User:Connel MacKenzie, and en:User:SlimVirgin to be quite compelling. But after people said that it's okay at Meta for pages to be locked and for administrators to make edits, I didn't think there was much point in protesting, and didn't keep looking in here. ElinorD 07:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been banned today, on english wikipedia, after having discovered and installed TOR this morning, in response to a 9th circuit court decision re: warrantless spying on internet use. Coincidentally, I proudly received my very first Barnstar, the Barnstar of Diligence, just a couple of days ago, after having invested countless hours improving a page that was important to me, so as to learn about the political system in my new State, Oregon. I haven't been involved in anything remotely controversial on wikipedia, until now. I found the wikipedia page on TOR, read it, found no warning of any sort therein that might have indicated that use of the software would have this outcome, installed it, and voila...screwed myself out of wikipedia. Pretty bogus. Prior to today, I had never even heard of the 'policy', if it even is one, nor of open proxies, and had no idea of the controversy surrounding this topic, which has apparently been raging for months, no, years. I opened a useraccount here at WM today, in order to participate in the discussion, which I hope has not been closed yet. I can't participate in the discussion at English Wikipedia, because I'm banned. When I tried to post here at WM, earlier, I also got an IP banned notice. I've jumped through some of the hoops asked of me to rescind the ban, but have been unsuccessful so far, so as suggested there, I finally sent an email to Jimbo, requesting special consideration. Neither of the admins who banned me bothered to return my email direct to them, which was also suggested. I am (or was) a regular contributor at English Wikipedia, as User:Duff and I now want to use TOR to help protect my privacy. I would be user:duff here too, for clarity, but that name was taken. Here, I'm arbortender. Also, for what it's worth, I'm posting now through TOR, so if that means I'll be banned here too, again, so be it. I have never used any 'sockpuppet' identity on wikipedia, although a scant few of my posts in the past have gone in under an IP without my realizing that I wasn't logged in yet. I never did one of those extended periods as an IP poster before getting an account, because I wanted an account, and back then, I wasn't afraid of the unconstitutional powers my government has now asserted. Now, I am sure that anything at all is possible.

I've got more important responsibilities than to spend hours hammering out such things as encyclopedic posting policies and debating whether I should be banned, so I'll have to leave that to you folks. If you don't want me and people like me to post because I/we might do something bad, then I'm going to move on to some other project where my efforts will be both fruitful and appreciated, and my efforts at privacy and preservation of essential liberties are respected and accommodated. No sorrow. If you can come up with a way to ban bad stuff from people who aren't logged in, or to ban admin sockpuppetry, those sound like good things. If that means people like me can't contribute, again, so be it. I basically just wanted to ring in as one of the apparently many benign & productive users who will be reluctantly walking away from wikipedia because of this issue. Be well. Good Luck. -Arbortender 07:33, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


Policy Question: Blocking Password Secured Users

I am an occasional contributor to, and registered user of Wikipedia (user:Brett epic). I travel extensively in the developing world, where I use internet cafes to access Wiki. Twice in the past 2 weeks I have been blocked from editing at different internet cafes, after I signed in to my private Wikipedia account, because the proxy address was blocked.

I do understand the need to block proxy computers, even in cases, such as these, in which the vandal has probably long since left Cambodia and will never use this computer again.

But why am I being blocked when I'm signing in with a secure password? What's the point of having a private, secure password issued by Wikipedia if I will still be blocked simply for accessing the internet on a public server? I suspect this problem is particularly big for people from the developing world, who may often have no other way to participate in Wikipedia.

I hope this is the right page to post this question. It seems to be, and it seems from reading the posts that this problem has been discussed already. But I can't say I understand some of the technical aspects of this discussion page. I only know that the way things currently work doesn't make a lot of sense, but is probably particularly likely to penalize registered users from the developing world. Please consider changing your policy to recognize registered users and permit them to edit even when they access Wikipedia from a public server that has been blocked. It would be only fair. Thanks!

Note: I have tried repeatedly for the last 10 minutes to sign with 4 tildes, but from here your system has logged me off (after logging me in) and now won't recognize my username (Brett epic). Four tildes seems to get the proxy address for this hotel wireless network, so I will leave it here.203.189.134.3 01:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

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