[WikiEN-l] The real Occam's razor and AGF: stop it before it begins

[zetawoof]

On 6/17/07, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > We have no way to know if she's hiding behind it or using it
> > legitimately, and that's why it is banned.
>
> Not quite.  It's banned (as I understand it) because if editor A
> is editing from 12.345.678.910, and editor B is editing via TOR,
> and B is suspected of being A's sockpuppet, we can't say, "Aha!
> You're using the same IP address as A!"  But it seems to me we
> could note that they're using TOR and block them as a sockpuppet
> on that basis -- *after* they're suspected/accused of being a
> sockpuppet.
>
> The claim that productive contributors can't/shouldn't/mustn't
> use proxies is tenuous at best.

It's for the exact same reason, just in reverse: If an apparently
good-faith contributor is using an anonymizing service like TOR, it's
impossible to detect that they're also trolling (or whatever) from
their actual IP. It also becomes entirely impossible to identify more
subtle forms of disruption such as sockpuppetry.