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

[Steve Summit]

zetawoof wrote:
> On 6/17/07, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> 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.

But we don't use checkuser to detect that apparently good-faith
contributors are trolling or sockpuppeting or whatever.  We use
it in an attempt to confirm that apparently bad-faith editors are.