We all know the problem. A anonymous user does something stupid and gets blocked.

Users in some countrys and ISP's have all there own personal ip so there is no problem. But many have a dynamic ipadress and some are even obligated to use the proxy of the there ISP.

Some Wikipedias are blocking proxys because the could be used for abuse because the are open proxys.

In all those situations you have many good users who do not have write access, anonynous or not. If you dot have write access it is not easy to ask to be unblocked. The dutch wikipedia has a webbased contact form but there is always a waiting period befor a responds can be given.

Who knows how many users have give up and left the project because of this.

The problem is that the system of blocking is extremely crude. Blocking thousands of ipadress is not the solution. Changing the software so the blocking can be more precise is a solution or at least a big chunk of it.

To change the software you need to know what you are doing. Ofcourse the present system developers have to much work to adress this now otherwise the whould have done it.

At the end of februari there will be the FOSDEM event in Brussels where the Wikimedia foundation will be present. That is a open source developers conference. There is hope there will be found there new volontiers to work on MediaWiki. Maybe then there will be time work on things like bug 550

Bug 550 is a BugZilla request for the creation of a system where registerd users who share a blocked ipadress can still edit.

And also that you can specify of it is allowed to created a new account when you use that blocked ipadress.

You can "vote" for a bug. The idea is that a bug that gets many votes is important for the users and gets because of this a higher priority.

Of it is usefull or not, if you do not have the knowledge to write this function it is all you can do. And it give you the feeling you have done something.

How to vote; - 1) go to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org - 2) A: log in B: Create Account -> enter your emailadress and you name (not a username!) - follow instrictions and log in

- 3) go to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550 or enter in the box "Go to bug" 550 and "go". - 4) read this page - 5) if like this idea click on "Vote for this bug" - 6) You should see the listing of bug 550 under the heading "MediaWiki". You have a box whit a 0 inside. You have 1000 points. Enter a number and click on "change my votes" - 7) you have done some good today or at least you have that feeling. Thank you.

Greetings, Walter