Earlier: "...In 2002, before the change of
software, the ip
information was visible even when users were identified under a
pseudonym. The information could be visible when people were just
moving the mouse's pointer over the name of the user... When the
software was upgraded, this option disappeared, and the ip data of
registered users became *private* data... I would like to know if that
disappearance was discussed at that time and if it was on purpose that
ip data of logged in people became *private* data..."
Peter Blaise responds: Web servers can keep logs of IP connections, here
a recent line from mine:
X:\www\apache2\logs\access.log 3,784 KB 2007-11-07 10-32 am ...
. . .
10.113.9.106 - - [12/Dec/2007:10:51:34 -0500] "GET
/mediawiki/index.php/Special:Search?search=%2B400+ITU+-1200+-substitute&
fulltext=Search HTTP/1.1" 200 11926
. . .
What's the reason, again, to spend the time to universally empower
browsing end users to ID IPs?
Earlier: "...I can not help thinking that the
rather ugly atmosphere
that developed on enwiki is largely due to the very large
and
uncontrolled use of ... tool[s] by a minority... When one gives
specific tools to a person, that's creates a power lever which may be
used to grab bits of power. Which is more or less what is happening,
much to the dismay of those who do not have that power..."
Peter Blaise responds: Ahh, I see where you're going. Agreed. Which is
why I advocate that an admin never use admin tools to resolve their own
conflicts, and why banning/blocking et cetera be banned, and a
moderation system be developed to handle the transom between the
community on one side, and spam/vandalism/off-topic-contributions on the
other, instead of banning.
Earlier: "...Other options ?..."
Earlier: "...Unblocking Tor and anonymizing proxies, thereby making
checkuser
relatively useless..."
Peter Blaise responds: Agreed. Anonymity is anonymity. If you want an
audit trail on contributions, see
http://www.citizendium.com/
Earlier: "...Though maybe we're talking about
it on the wrong list..."
Peter Blaise responds: Does someone want to cross post this dialog to
wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org and mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org and
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org to connect them with this thread?
Earlier: "...I am tired of long trolls on other
lists :-)..."
Peter Blaise responds: As Ajahn Amaro said: "Have you ever noticed how
we're never traffic?" So, you don't think YOU'RE ever perceived as a
troll, then, eh? Hahahahah. Anyway, that's what the delete key and
scroll down arrow keys are for on your keyboard - so you can participate
in an intact community and still exert your own (self) control to pay
attention to the things that interest you, and skip the things that
interest others more so than they interest you. This is apparently a
significantly insurmountable lesson for some of us to learn - to merely,
graciously, patiently, tolerantly, acceptingly, with equivalent
consideration, skip things that interest others more so than they
interest us, and not call people trolls, not call for banning, deletion,
and so on..