[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Re: URGENT: blocking open proxies

[Phil Boswell]

"Brion Vibber" wrote in message news:4294D865.4050108 at pobox.com...
> Phil Boswell wrote:
> > Does blocking an open proxy stop logged-in users as well?
> >
> > Sounds like a bug to me: surely this isn't how it's **meant** to happen?
>
> You *do* realize it's trivial to create an account, and that not
> blocking logins would completely nullify any benefit of blocking the IP,
> right?

Not exactly: it would transform the problem of an anonymous user 
hitting-and-running through what I presume would be a series of IP addresses 
into the different problem of a logged-in user who can be blocked 
individually.

OK, so they could create a whole load of them, but in the meantime the 
well-behaved users using that range of IP addresses would still be able to 
gain access to the wiki. And the process of detecting sock-puppets and 
blocking them is well-known...a pain-in-the-fundament but well-known.

Maybe there could be some sort of alarm when a new account is created 
through an IP address known to be a problem?

Is there a log of new accounts? Is it possible for someone **somewhere** to 
note which IP address was used to create an account?

SideNote: I just looked at [[en:Special:Listusers]]. The first 15 entries 
have names which the wiki apparently can't parse since they just show as 
"User:" with no linking. From there up to #225 the names begin with 
punctuation and several are IMNSHO clear candidates for WP:RFC (I'm not 
alone, the first one I checked has been blocked :-). Are there tools for 
clearing this sort of thing up? Also, this page would be more useful if it 
listed, for example, first edit and most recent edit...possibly "blocked" 
status also. Are these data which would be available if someone yelled 
"write it yourself" at me?
-- 
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
PS: Brion, how are you reading this stuff? Your messages always appear in OE 
as attachments :-(