On the topic of Skyring... I think I've had my IP address blocked too many times because it is dynamically allocated to me by Agile and someone using that IP before me has vandalised WP. It used to be frustrating to always have to email the admin to get unblocked. Now I worked out a new method though. I simply reset the internet connection and the IP gets changed quickly, so I'm sure it's no difficulty for Skyring to do the same. I remember once asking Internode (Agile) if they'd do anything about someone using a specific IP to misbehave on Wikipedia. They said not without a request (or subpoena) from local police! If Wikipedia wants to rule with an iron fist then it would have to make agreements with local authorities. But I don't think this would really be a good thing for Wikipedia in the end. I'm certain their are other approaches to managing bad faith edits. The problem seems to actually be the use short term sockpuppets by experienced vandals. I'm not sure if I like the idea that one of us suggested (that users gain "experience points" like in a MUD) because it is just another way for newbies to be discriminated against even for good faith edits. But perhaps a "edit faith quality level" could be maintained for each user and it would take only say 5 days with at least 5 good faith edits or 50 good faith edits for a new user to be ramped up to 100%. Presumably it would be easy to profile the behaviour of an experienced user who creates a sockpuppet vs an inexperienced user who creates a new account for the first time. And based on matching this profile, the software would delay the increase of "edit faith level". This might delay legitimate good faith sockpuppets for a few more days or so before their "faith quality level" would reach 100%, but would help keep control on shortterm sockpuppets created specifically to be used for bad faith edits. Lisa Anthony wrote: