I don't see we even need an AC ruling. This is simple vandalism. We block vandals all the time.
I think this is precisely correct. Vandalism of Wikipedia is unauthorised and forbidden; blocks and reverts can be used freely; ISPs can be complained to, etc. An AC ban would serve no additional purpose, beyond making us feel good about our collective selves. In the unlikely event that Wik attempts to return and contribute in a bona fide manner, the AC can issue a year's ban, but otherwise there are other cases we should be looking at.
It would be nice if IPs of logged in edits were made public, as with logged out, as then individuals could take the initiative in contacting ISPs about abuse.
I've unprotected Wik's user and user talk pages, so we can have/link this discussion on Wikipedia proper, which will be good for keeping people informed. As and when the problem stops, they can be reverted and reprotected.
-Martin
Martin Harper wrote:
I think this is precisely correct. Vandalism of Wikipedia is unauthorised and forbidden; blocks and reverts can be used freely; ISPs can be complained to, etc.
(note I'm not being sarcastic here)
Have, in the past, complaints to ISPs (about stuff like this, not death threats, copyvios, or kiddieporn) been effective?
I figure what the vandalbot is doing is perfectly legal, isn't spam, and probably doesn't rise to the level of DOS (particularly the most recent incarnation, which purely adds stuff). I suspect many ISPs would question whether they have the right to terminate a user in such circumstances.
It's taking a lot off effort just hold hold off one (badly written) vandalbot.
I can see the circumstance arise where we might be forced to block a whole ISP, with a message saying something like
Due to abuse from a user of your ISP, we've blocked everyone who uses it from editing wikipedia. We've asked your ISP to block the abusive user, but they've failed to do so. We're sorry that we have to inconvenience legitimate contributors such as yourself, but we feel we have no choice. You could help us by lobbying uncaring.admin@biglazyisp.net, or you could switch to another provider. Here's a list of ISPs that we currently block:
biglazyisp.net biglazyisp.co.uk wejustwantthemoney.de
Yes, this is undoubtedly cutting off our nose, but we may have no other choice.
FIn
Martin Harper wrote:
It would be nice if IPs of logged in edits were made public, as with logged out, as then individuals could take the initiative in contacting ISPs about abuse.
I think so too. I don't mind publishing the IP addresses and log entries of the vandalbot, which is why I made this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AVandalbot_log_entries
Jeronim also made a list of IP addresses being used by Wik:
Wik is using open proxies, so we don't have the originating IP address. I can however obtain log entries from back in May, these should be sufficient for his ISP to identify him. The idea is that the ISP would be able to log the connections from his computer to the proxies, and we can log the connections from the proxies to us, thereby establishing proof of identity. I'm hesitant to publish Wik's IP address from the May logs without proof in advance that he is operating the vandalbot. However I have released this data to a German speaker who wished to complain on our behalf.
-- Tim Starling