Are there figures proving that closing Tor/open proxy access significantly reduced the amount of vandalism/sock pupetting in the long term? Versus just making the unwanted users switch to another way of achieving their goal?
Sure, Tor traffic will have a high correlation with unwanted activity, but that doesn't mean the people who've been shut off by Tor being blocked aren't still here doing the same thing, using IPs that we can't as easily pinpoint. If anything, it's an escalation and it invites them to be more creative about their vandalism, which would make them harder to catch.
I know that there's a limit to how far unwatned users go when you block them, though, at some point they run out of ideas and give up. Which is why I wonder if Tor blocking was that last step that made them go away or if it wasn't.
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 4:14 PM, Derric Atzrott < datzrott@alizeepathology.com> wrote:
Hey, Overall you are suggesting that WMF changes the policy about anonymity
and
accept anonymous users. In my view it's not a technical thing and it
should
be brought up in wikimedia-l.
I agree, it's a matter of consensus which is definitely beyond any technical discussion.
Fair, I had thought that the decision to make the block had primarily been made by us in the technical community as I imagine the average editor knows little to nothing about Tor or other anonymising services.
I'll bring up the topic in another venue.
Some previous discussions on wikitech-l:
Thank you for that list Sumana. I'll give it a look over and might continue to use this thread for anything that comes up from that that does seem appropriate for this list. Based on the number of times this has come up, it does at least appear there is at least some merit to discussing it, or aspects of it, on this list.
Thank you, Derric Atzrott
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