[WikiEN-l] Re: Policy on breaches of bans

Sat Oct 22 19:43:08 UTC 2005

Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> We can't block his IP-range, if understand it he's editing from 
> 203.xxx and 141.xxx. That's 1/128th of the entire internet 
> (approximately)! Anyway, we really shouldn't permablock any IPs. As 
> for dealing with this user, what else can we do? I mean, he is in 
> essence banned for ever (I doubt he'd give up for an entire year,
> just to come back and be a nice, productive member of the wikipedia 
> community). What can we do except to revert and block his socks?

Maybe Telstra would consider switching him to a static IP address, if we
asked really nicely. They might have to hack their administrative system
a bit to do it without billing him for it, but they do have the
technical ability to assign IP addresses to customers. Usually it costs
$10/month extra. Maybe they can bill the Foundation instead, and give
him Internet access for free.

Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Fred,
>> I think we should block the range, making it clear who (real name, 
>> etc) is responsible and let Australia sort it out.
> 
> 
> Gee, that's a good idea!  Why not just block Telstra[0]?  I mean,
> it's only the biggest ISP in the country ...
> 

It's not as bizarre as it might seem, a couple of years ago the whole
Telstra network was blocked from sending mail (by the MAPS RBL), because
they were sheltering spammers. Telstra caved in after a few days. A bit
of googling just now seems to suggest they have a reputation for
protecting badly behaving users. They might pay attention if we, say,
blocked the whole network from both reading and writing... but then
again they might not. Wikipedia isn't quite as big as email yet.

Anyway, most ISPs are interested first and foremost in keeping their
paying customers. That's why I suggest a static IP -- Telstra would get
their money, and hopefully Skyring would stick with them. We could block
him selectively, and he'd then have an incentive to go annoy different
site for a while.

-- Tim Starling