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

[jayjg]

On 6/18/07, zetawoof <zetawoof at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

I think it could be both; one could have different sockpuppets using
different TOR exit nodes, alongside a real IP account.