[WikiEN-l] blocking problem

[Andrew Gray]

On 17/03/06, joshuaadamf at aol.com <joshuaadamf at aol.com> wrote:
> I have been falsely accused of vandalizing Wikipedia pages since
> October 2005. Many of the complaints I see on my user talk page deal
> with me editing pages that I have never even seen before. I do not know
> what is going on, but I do find it incredibly unfair that I am
> restricted from editing on Wikipedia because of something that possibly
> someone else might have done.

I see you're writing from an America Online address. Users of America
Online have an IP address that is shared by many other subscribers;
that is, it looks like a large group of people all coming from the
same computer. Since Wikipedia is a site that anyone can edit,
sometimes people make inappropriate edits, and in that case other
editors need to leave messages for them. Unfortunately, because you
share that IP address, you will also see that comment, as we cannot
single out that one user to receive the message.

Because of this problem, we put a notice on the talk page to explain
that messages may refer to other users. If the message does not apply
to you, then you can simply ignore the comment.

If you do not wish to see these misdirected messages you may wish to
make an account, even if you never use it for editing. This will give
you a personal talk page and will prevent such misdirected messages.
You can create an account at:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin>.

You don't need to log in to edit, but creating an account gives you
more options and helps you keep track of your contributions.

You do not need to enter any personal information to make an account,
although you do have to have cookies enabled. If you select the
"Remember me" option on logging in, you will be logged in
automatically each time you visit the site.

I'm sorry that you were inconvenienced by this problem, and hope you
continue using Wikipedia. You can learn more about our site and how it
works at the Introduction page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction

You may also find the tutorial useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

Thanks for your interest and I hope you join us.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk