On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 22:06:20 +0100, Allan Crossman a.crossman@blueyonder.co.uk gave utterance to the following:
Hrmm. I thought part of the joy of IP blocks was that vandal user accounts can't come in from that IP either. I've used this at least once to ban a logged-in vandal.
If a user on the same IP continues the pattern of vandalism, surely we would ban that user?
Why make life difficult? If we actually know a vandal's IP address, why allow him to use it with all the 30 accounts he's already created?
The point is that for most of the world, IP addresses are dynamically assigned, changing each time you dial in via modem. The whole point of making IP blocks short-lived is to avoid the scenario where vandal is blocked, goes off the internet, and a legitimate user dials in to the same ISP and gets the same IP number (coincidence, maybe, but it does happen, and will happen more often once blocking becomes easier).
The legitimate user deserves the right to use wikipedia. If the user who logs in vandalises wikipedia, then they should be blocked by username.