I don't do much editing. Occasional spelling corrections and a few
entries on talk pages and what have you. However, a few weeks ago I
found out that I was blocked. This means that not only can't I edit
articles but I can't take part in discussions on talk pages, make
suggestions on the village pump, or even edit my own user page. What
did I do wrong? Absolutely nothing.
It seems that my entire dialup range was banned because of one
butthead called Alberuni who likes to evade bans by creating sock
puppet accounts and apparently the only way to deal with this loser is
by banning any IP address he has access to which also happens to be
any IP address I have access to since we both seem to either share the
same ISP or he uses another ISP that uses the same Level3 Rent-a-pop.
I contacted Jayjg who placed the ban and he unbanned what was then my
current IP address but this only lasted until I hung up. The next time
I connected to the net, I was banned again.
Here's the ban in question...
# 20:32, 26 August 2005, Jayjg blocked 4.153.192.0/19 (expires 20:32,
26 September 2005) (contribs) (massive vandalism from this range from
banned User:Alberuni; we apologise for the inconvenience)
Even though it expires tomorrow I think this sets a bad precedent. Is
it really necessary to block such a large range of IP addresses for a
month to deal with one problem user? There has to be some other way to
deal with trolls that doesn't impact innocent users.
If it turns out that there is no other way to deal with trolls and
vandals then one idea might be to exempt logged in users from such
bans after a "probation period" of let's say 30-90 days. (or upon
request in some cases) This would minimize the impact of broad IP bans
on non-troublemakers but still allow you to catch sock puppet
accounts.
PS. My real name and WP account are the same.