On Mon, 10 Mar 2003 15:55:03 -0500, Daniel Ehrenberg
<name12323(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
please
describe in your own words how you think the current process of
page deletion, page protection and IP banning works. If you name the
right
pages and describe the process correctly, I have no objections to making
you a sysop.
Y'know, this isn't that good a test because I could have just looked it
up. Anyway, IP banning keeps vandals out of wikipedia. When one person
from a consistant IP address keeps vandalizing pages, his IP address is
banned by a sysop.
Daniel, I have posted this a couple of times previously, and
not yet been
challenged on it: I.P. blocking is ineffective against dial up users
and, to a lesser extent, broadband users. Dial up users are assigned a new
IP No. from their I SP's pool each time they reconnect, and seldom receive
the same number twice. As a broadband user, I can change my IP number
simply by cycling up the power on my router.
An IP block should only be used if there is a pattern of abuse from the
same IP No. over a couple of days or longer. Otherwise there is the risk of
blocking innocent users dialing up from the same Internet provider.
Of course, it is possible that Wikipedia has a higher than usual proportion
of users who have a fixed IP numbers because they are connecting from
universities or similar institutions.
--
Richard Grevers