Also relevant:
<https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-trivial-inconveniences>
We would do well to remember that it was the incredibly low barrier to
entry that was the key to Wikipedia's early success.
I expect that even IF there's some legitimate (perhaps not unreasonably
difficult, even!) way around the block, it will still discourage editing to
a significant, but hard to measure, degree.
On Apr 20, 2022, at 3:59 PM, Bence Damokos <bdamokos(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Beyond the mentioned countries, this is also affecting those who have
opted in to Apple’s Private Relay, which I expect will be somewhat
popular/default once out of beta status. I myself am unable to edit for
example - and half the time I am not bothered to workaround the issue and
just give up the edit.
Also, annoyingly, the block message only shows up when I try to save the
page (at least on mobile), not when I start the edit, again, leading to
unnecessary frustration.
Best regards,
Bence
On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 20:42, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
<wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Yes, it's getting frequent and not only from
people in Africa.
I ended up to trouble-shoot these problems by mails or direct messaging
on Facebook more and and more frequently, maybe with simple users who just
know me or have my contact. Sometimes it looks like sharing the duties of a
sysop or a steward with no power.
It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated
exactly, but you just get the feeling that some users really care a lot
about this policy and you just have to deal with the consequences, no
matter how time-consuming it's getting.
A.M.
Il mercoledì 20 aprile 2022, 20:34:36 CEST, Amir E. Aharoni <
<amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il>amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> ha scritto:
I don't have a solution, but I just wanted to confirm that I agree fully
with the description of the problem. I hear that this happens to people
from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and some other countries almost every day.
The first time I heard about it was actually around 2018 or so, but
during the last year it has become unbearably frequent.
A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this
several times, and they always say something like "we know that this
affects certain countries badly, and we know that the technology has
changed since the mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies
because it would immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis".
I'm sure they mean well, but this is not sustainable.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
<http://aharoni.wordpress.com>http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת Florence Devouard <
<fdevouard@gmail.com>fdevouard@gmail.com>:
Hello friends
Short version : We need to find solutions to avoid so many africans
being globally IP blocked due to our No Open Proxies policy.
*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking>https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking>*
Long version :
I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
the past couple of weeks/months.
Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
policy [1]
In particular africans.
In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta
and all other Wikimedia projects.
According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
(including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent
proxies should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is
likely the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically
reassigned, or the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be
unblocked.
According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
I repeat -----> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
proxy with the IP block exempt flag <------ it is not illegal to edit using
an open proxy
Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
New editors just as old timers.
Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
regular occurence.
There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
Several complaints per week.
*This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly
taking place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our
strategy for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
blocked, it is recommended
- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)] <http://wikimedia.org>
wikimedia.org.
- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and
is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
So...
Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
IP block exemption list.
Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
As a consequence, most editors concerned with those global blocks...
stay blocked several days.
We do not know know why the situation has rapidly got worse recently.
But it got worse. And the reports are spilling all over.
We started collecting negative experiences on this page [4].
Please note that people who added their names here are not random
newbies. They are known and respected members of our community, often
leaders of activities and/or representant of their usergroups, who are
confronted to this situation on a REGULAR basis.
I do not know how this can be fixed. Should we slow down open proxy
blocking ? Should we add a mecanism and process for an easier and quicker
IP block exemption process post-blocking ? Should we improve a process for
our editors to pre-emptively be added to this IP block exemption list ? Or
what ? I do not know what's the strategy to fix that. But there is a
problem. Who should that problem be addressed to ? Who has solutions ?
Flo
[1] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies
[2] <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/Tks4Fish>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/Tks4Fish
[3]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global_permissions#Requests_for_global_IP_block_exemption>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global_permissions#Request…
*[4]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking>https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking>*
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--
-- Bence Damokos Sent from Gmail Mobile
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