[Wikipedia-l] exicornt switch

Sun Mar 19 21:50:12 UTC 2006

So many things to say on this:

1) AOL has been contacted before, by Wikimedia, by the developers, by AOL
users, and the response has always been that they simply don't care. AOL
causes a great deal of problem on en.wikipedia, so getting AOL to cooperate
has been tried quite a bit.

2) Bug 550 deals with the issue of allowing users who have accounts to edit
even if thier IP is blocked. The solution for it is quite simple; it's
actually three lines of code that can be written by anyone with minor PHP
skill. It requires the following:

a) that the patch be enabled;
b) that account creation from blocked IPs be disabled (to prevent the
vandals from simply creating an account to sidestep the IP block) which to
my knowledge is already enabled
c) throttling account creation from IPs to x per day, currently 10 per day.
This allows legit people to create accounts, but prevents vandals from
creating 1000 sleeper accounts to use once the IP is blocked.

The devs are aware of the fix, and are not willing to enable it. The exact
quote was that doing so is a  "very very bad idea." It is thier opinion that
it will be of no use, that the vandals will just create sleeper accounts and
evade the blocks. I don't agree, but I'm not a developer either; I defer to
thier expertise in the matter.

In short, if the only way for AOL to be unblocked is for AOL to cooperate,
then AOL will be blocked until hell freezes over, because they've never
shown any interest in doing so. Anyone on AOL will be blocked, whether they
are logged in or not, and there is no expectation that a change will be
forthcoming. I doubt anything short of a Board-level order to implement a
fix to 550 would solve the problem.

Essjay

On 3/19/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The current situation seems to be that all AOL users are blocked
> pending cooperation from AOL in trying to stop vandalism. This seems
> like a good approach to me.
>
> Existing contributors who already use AOL should be motivated to
> contact AOL and request that they cooperate, or they can change ISPs,
> or maybe we can allow people who log in with certain usernames.
>
> Mark
>
> On 19/03/06, Mark Evans <alberrosidus at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I disagree with Gerard about the approach to use here. To deny
> > thousands (millions?) of AOL users the right to contribute to
> > wikimedia projects because of some guy who tried to create a word
> > called "exicornt switch" would be a mistake. To justify it because we
> > supposedly receive very little benefit from AOL is typically elitist.
> > If said user were blanking out whole useful sections of wiktionary or
> > launching DOS attacks or something else that would affect the end user
> > (whom I doubt is affected by the addition of nonsense words such as
> > this), then maybe a temporary block would be in order. Until then, I
> > think wiktionary editors need to suck it up and delete these pages as
> > they come along. Wikipedia is great precisely because it strives to
> > not privilege one group of users over another. Let's keep it that way.
> >
> > On 3/19/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hoi,
> > > It may be disproportional, but the disruption of this vandal is also
> > > disproportional to the benefit we get from AOL. There is no other
> > > method available to prevent this sorry sod somewhat. It would help if
> > > we could put some bumbs on the road making vandalism less easy. It
> > > would also help if we could go to the police.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >    GerardM
> > >
> > > On 3/19/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > 2006/3/15, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > > > > Seeing as the user comes from AOL, I can't help but agree.
> > > >
> > > > Unless AOL changed it policy recently, I think him being from AOL is
> a
> > > > good reason NOT to give a site-wide ban. AOL uses, or at least used
> to
> > > > use, variable IP-numbers. Any blocking would thus block other AOL
> > > > users just as likely as the perpetrator himself. And to block all of
> > > > AOL for this seems widely disproportional to me..
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > > > ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
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> > >
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>
>
> --
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