[Wikipedia-l] Please let [[special:blockip]] flag AOL proxies

Tue Jul 13 18:48:12 UTC 2004

I understand that, when blocking vandals, blocking addresses
that are actually AOL proxies is worse-than-useless: the
vandal isn't blocked, and legit users will be. I have fallen
afoul of this myself (and emailed apologies to aggrieved
AOL users after unblocking).

So, here is a request: something on special:blockip that
will warn you that you are about to block an AOL proxy (by
IP number), and possibly even not let you do so.

Are all the AOL address ranges easily obtainable? (A simple
query to ARIN, or perhaps emailing and asking AOL?)

- d.