[Wikipedia-l] exicornt switch

Sun Mar 19 22:58:23 UTC 2006

If they can only create 10 per day, then the sleeper acct's can be
banned as well, and if that's still a problem, there should be some
way to make it so their IP can't edit at all, even with an acct.

Mark

On 19/03/06, - Essjay - <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> So many things to say on this:
>
> 1) AOL has been contacted before, by Wikimedia, by the developers, by AOL
> users, and the response has always been that they simply don't care. AOL
> causes a great deal of problem on en.wikipedia, so getting AOL to cooperate
> has been tried quite a bit.
>
> 2) Bug 550 deals with the issue of allowing users who have accounts to edit
> even if thier IP is blocked. The solution for it is quite simple; it's
> actually three lines of code that can be written by anyone with minor PHP
> skill. It requires the following:
>
> a) that the patch be enabled;
> b) that account creation from blocked IPs be disabled (to prevent the
> vandals from simply creating an account to sidestep the IP block) which to
> my knowledge is already enabled
> c) throttling account creation from IPs to x per day, currently 10 per day.
> This allows legit people to create accounts, but prevents vandals from
> creating 1000 sleeper accounts to use once the IP is blocked.
>
> The devs are aware of the fix, and are not willing to enable it. The exact
> quote was that doing so is a  "very very bad idea." It is thier opinion that
> it will be of no use, that the vandals will just create sleeper accounts and
> evade the blocks. I don't agree, but I'm not a developer either; I defer to
> thier expertise in the matter.
>
> In short, if the only way for AOL to be unblocked is for AOL to cooperate,
> then AOL will be blocked until hell freezes over, because they've never
> shown any interest in doing so. Anyone on AOL will be blocked, whether they
> are logged in or not, and there is no expectation that a change will be
> forthcoming. I doubt anything short of a Board-level order to implement a
> fix to 550 would solve the problem.
>
> Essjay
>
> On 3/19/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The current situation seems to be that all AOL users are blocked
> > pending cooperation from AOL in trying to stop vandalism. This seems
> > like a good approach to me.
> >
> > Existing contributors who already use AOL should be motivated to
> > contact AOL and request that they cooperate, or they can change ISPs,
> > or maybe we can allow people who log in with certain usernames.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 19/03/06, Mark Evans <alberrosidus at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I disagree with Gerard about the approach to use here. To deny
> > > thousands (millions?) of AOL users the right to contribute to
> > > wikimedia projects because of some guy who tried to create a word
> > > called "exicornt switch" would be a mistake. To justify it because we
> > > supposedly receive very little benefit from AOL is typically elitist.
> > > If said user were blanking out whole useful sections of wiktionary or
> > > launching DOS attacks or something else that would affect the end user
> > > (whom I doubt is affected by the addition of nonsense words such as
> > > this), then maybe a temporary block would be in order. Until then, I
> > > think wiktionary editors need to suck it up and delete these pages as
> > > they come along. Wikipedia is great precisely because it strives to
> > > not privilege one group of users over another. Let's keep it that way.
> > >
> > > On 3/19/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > It may be disproportional, but the disruption of this vandal is also
> > > > disproportional to the benefit we get from AOL. There is no other
> > > > method available to prevent this sorry sod somewhat. It would help if
> > > > we could put some bumbs on the road making vandalism less easy. It
> > > > would also help if we could go to the police.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >    GerardM
> > > >
> > > > On 3/19/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > 2006/3/15, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > > > > > Seeing as the user comes from AOL, I can't help but agree.
> > > > >
> > > > > Unless AOL changed it policy recently, I think him being from AOL is
> > a
> > > > > good reason NOT to give a site-wide ban. AOL uses, or at least used
> > to
> > > > > use, variable IP-numbers. Any blocking would thus block other AOL
> > > > > users just as likely as the perpetrator himself. And to block all of
> > > > > AOL for this seems widely disproportional to me..
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > > > > ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> > > > > _______________________________________________
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> >
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>
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