I should have made a finer distinction, i admit, the user will not be punished, nor should they be, but open proxies, when known, are blocked. Against the rules seemed the best way to phrase it :) it's an artifact of language, not a policy misunderstanding :)
On 9/27/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/27/07, Brock Weller brock.weller@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
But i don't use it on the pedia. Because it's not allowed. That's the rules as they are now. You know this, i know this.
It isn't against the rules to use open proxies with English Wikipedia, nor even against them to edit from open proxies. Rather, the standing and well justified practice is to block them when we find them because they are used for trouble.
The distinction is subtle but important.
If there existed an open proxy which was an attractive tool for abuse we wouldn't block it. No such beast exists yet, but they are possible.
For example, http://www.lunkwill.org/src/nym/Readme proposes a system which would allow us to give people tokens whenever they donate over a threshold amount to us or perhaps other participating non-profits. The token could be used to enable tor editing from a single account. This way creating vandal accounts would cost $25 (or whatever) each. Probably a reasonable enough solution, and the pseudoanomity of the user is strongly preserved.
Or another example, http://petworkshop.org/2007/papers/PET2007_preproc_Nymble.pdf uses many of the same cryptographic constructs as above but creates a system where we could block IPs without ever being able to tell exactly what they were.
Now that armedblowfish is rate limited perhaps he'll have some time to work on developing the software needed to make one these into reasonable options.
But regardless, this is being dragged off topic.
If it's that off-topic then don't reply on list. ;)
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