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

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 stewardswikimedia.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

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/Tks4Fish

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global_permissions#Requests_for_global_IP_block_exemption

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking