On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
The problem isn't straight up vandalism (IPBE is no help there -- the account'd get swiftly blocked) but socking. POV warriors know how to misuse proxies and anonymity to multiply "their" consensus, and having IPBE and editing through any sort of anonimizing proxy (including TOR) defeats what little means checkuser have to curb socking.
I understand. Wikimedia's current abuse prevention strategies rely on limits to user privacy being maintained, and any technical solution that attempts to broaden access for Tor users is unlikely to be successful at any significant scale unless this changes, no matter how clever a solution it is.
The Board or global community could decide that protecting users' right to anonymity is more important than having abuse prevention tools relying on IP disclosure, but in the absence of such a Board-level decision or community-wide vote, I don't think the situation relative to Tor users will change. My personal view is that we should transition away from tools relying on IP disclosure, given the global state of Internet surveillance and censorship which makes tools like Tor necessary.
Erik