[WikiEN-l] Repeated blocks -- collateral damage

Wed Oct 26 10:11:19 UTC 2005

Koltwills wrote:

>You have attempted to edit a page, either by clicking the "edit this  page"
>tab or by following a red link.
>Your user name or IP address has been _blocked_
>(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy)   by _David  Gerard_
>(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard) .
>The reason given is:
>Autoblocked because your IP address has  been recently used by
>"_Ugabogaimasuuuukpoopit@!_
>(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ugabogaimasuuuukpoopit@!&action=edit)
".  >The reason given for Ugabogaimasuuuukpoopit@!'s
>block is: "massive  sockpuppetry (A1sdf sockpuppet)".

Yeah. I blocked a sokpuppeteering vandal. Unfortunately, they were
using a pile of AOL IPs, so I spent yesterday answering email (and
trying to get some people to just cut'n'paste the error message so I
know which username to look for!) and undoing blocks on the IPs.

>This hasn't happened for a couple of weeks, but it happens frequently  enough
>-- often three and four times a week:  I get blocked as the  result of
>someone else's conduct.  When I try to edit, I get the  "User is
blocked" message --
>but the I.P. address is never my  own.
>How does this happen?

AOL runs what is effectively a massive internal anonymising proxy. Any
individual *page view* might come from a different IP.

A page explaining it technically is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dealing_with_AOL_vandals

Someone's called it "super-dynamic proxying", which is a pretty good
way to put it.

>How does this happen?  Is there something I or someone else can  do to
>prevent it from occurring again?

Excluding AOL ranges from the autoblocker might be an idea, or setting
the duration to be very short for those IPs.

In the meantime, I apologise profusely for the trouble, even though it
will probably happen again and again and again and ...

- d.