On 6/17/07, Blu Aardvark <jeffrey.latham(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On April 13, 2006, the text of [[Wikipedia:No
open proxies]] was
changed from the descriptive "Users using open or anonymous proxies
are currently not allowed to edit Wikipedia." to the prescriptive
"Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or
anonymous proxies." The edit was made by User:Pathoschild and the
summary of the change was "Updated policy from the Meta-Wiki".
This was more or less the original version of the policy, which based on
[[m:No open proxies]]. This is also the version that certain groups are
striving to rigorously enforce, and they don't mind hanging a few
adminship nominations out to dry in the process.
It should be noted that [[m:No open proxies]] is an outdated policy. It
went live in 2004, although the meta policy page wasn't created until
2006. Softblocking of proxies was, when the policy was created, not
possible.
Longstanding practice and consensus on the English Wikipedia appear to
support the use of proxies, so long as those proxies are not being used
abusively. The fact that some groups are striving to re-force an
outdated policy onto the English Wikipedia for undisclosed reasons
shouldn't have bearing on the longstanding practice and consensus.
"Undisclosed reasons". LOL! More dark conspiracies, no doubt.
Anyway, back in the real world there was no such practice or consensus
on English Wikipedia; that's just something you've invented. The only
reason proxies weren't all blocked were technical; not all proxies
were known. Certainly all *known* proxies were blocked, and various
technical means were devised from time to time to block all the rest.
Unfortunately, none of them worked very well. It might be instructive
to read Mackensen's comment on the CharlotteWebb RFA.