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@lists.wikimedia.org and mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org and foundation-l@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..