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@!&…)
". >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.