Wikipedia talk:Restrictions on Anonymous Editing from Shared IPs

The discussion regarding the former text of this policy, Wikipedia:Prohibit AOL users from editing has been archived and moved to Wikipedia talk:Restrictions on Anonymous Editing from Shared IPs/AOL Prohibition as the discussion was not relevant to the current text of the policy. If you feel a matter discussed on that page needs to be discussed further, please bring it up on the current discussion page.

Thank you! Doesn't anyone ever learn not to vote on everything?--HereToHelp 12:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments

The text of the proposal has now changed quite substantially from its previous version. Seventeen users voiced support for the precious version while eleven commented that they did not support the policy. The suggestions from that discussion have now been incorporated into the current proposal; however, it is still requested that you comment on what you do / do not approve of within the proposal, as well as if you would support or oppose a policy to this effect. Please make suggestions for improvement as well as arguments for and against the proposal. Thanks. AmiDaniel (Talk) 06:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes but AOL users already have problems being blocked all the time but now they can't edit without registering too. Also the amount of people beings unfairly blocked will actually increase since admins will give blocked vandals. But because they can't tell that they are AOL users they will give them higher blocks which will harm the user since the autoblocker will block all users with use that IP address. Even if AOL users register like you suggest they can still be blocked which will still get other AOL users autoblocked. But this policy would make it so admins can't figure out who has AOL addresses and thus could block them for months. That could potentially autoblock an AOL address indefinitely. Jedi6-(need help?) 06:25, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia's founding policy is being an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If this proposal happens then that will not be true. Jedi6-(need help?) 06:25, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

First, its already not true - banned users can't edit, blocked users can't edit, new users can't edit certain pages. Second, I'm fine with it not being true. More than fine, actually. Dealing with AOL vandalism wastes countless hours that could be going towards making this a better reference tool. We are building an encyclopedia, not conducting a social experiment. People can get over it and create a free log-in if they want to edit. I support requiring user accounts for all edits, especially anyone from AOL. Johntex\^talk 06:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, IPs cannot edit semiprotected pages, create new pages, or move pages, and new users also cannot move pages. The rules were bent in those cases as it was necessary to prevent vandalism and other abuse. This proposed policy sets in place a similar restriction to prevent confusion and biting the newcomers, as well as vandalism. And it further ensures that we will know who made what contributions to mainspace articles so that others can contact them and be sure they are talking to the correct editor. AmiDaniel (Talk) 07:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This is somewhat different to blocking all anonymous contributions by these users. It undermines the whole value of allowing anyone to edit - that is, for anyone to be able to casually add information that past editors did not know, and other forms of moving the gradual evolution of the encyclopedia forward. Is there any evidence that shared IP users contribute more vandalism than copyediting and typo fixes? BigBlueFish 14:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jedi6's second comment. I haven't seen enough drastic vandalism from AOL IPs to think that this is policy would really be necessary. Whatever vandalism AOLers commit can be easily handled by people on RC patrol or by Tawkerbot2. It's not bad enough that we need to go against the fundamental principle of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Hbackman 06:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The real issue is not about the amount of vandalism coming from these accounts, as vandalism is readily reverted within minutes. The issue here is biting the newcomers, unnecessary blocking of legitimate users for actions they did not commit, and the inability to contact users from shared IPs. I'm sure many users who frequently revert vandalism have run into situations like this, where a new user was confused and angered by vandalism warnings not intended for him, but nonetheless left on his talk page, and whenever an AOL user commits mass vandalism from a variety of AOL proxies, the entire range of IPs is typically blocked, leaving potentially thousands of users unable to edit. With this policy, individual users will be blocked for their actions, rather than a variety of "good" editors. AmiDaniel (Talk) 07:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

But that’s the problem individual users will still be blocked. When a registered user is blocked all IPS they recently used get automatically blocked by the Wikipedia software. This will actually increase the amount of users getting blocked since all IPs used by the vandal will get blocked, instead of just the one IP for anons. Also since a administrator can't tell if a user uses AOl. So if that user is blocked for indefinite then the corresponding AOL IPs will be blocked for a long time. See Wikipedia:Autoblock for more information. Jedi6-(need help?) 07:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you think that it won't frustrate users to be told that they have to sign up first? *shrugs* I see the pros and cons for both sides, but I tend to think that the pros are a little stronger and the cons a little weaker for not blocking AOL IPs. Hbackman 07:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This goes against one of the Foundation issues: the "Ability of anyone to edit articles without registering". Simply un-wiki, and not necessary. Agree with Jedi6, there just is just too much collateral damage and not enough provocation.--HereToHelp 12:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Strongly disagree with new version of proposal. The fact is that the majority of edits from anons are useful. Furthermore, this will simply encourage vandals to register which is bad. As of now, we have an easy was to check for vandalism- if an edit came from an IP, it is more likely to be vandalism. If many more trivial vandals start registering we will lose that advantage. Whether or not this conflicts with the wiki principles, this is a bad idea. And one other bad thing would come of this: we would probably lose our amazing vandal fighter and all around editor User:68.39.174.238 (who for his own reasons that I don't know, refuses to get an account). (Incidentally, as far as I am aware, he is the only anon with barnstars).) JoshuaZ 13:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I also disagree, as per JoshuaZ. CheekyMonkey 12:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

JoshuaZ, it seems to me you are trying to have it both ways. You said "The fact is that the majority of edits from anons are useful. Furthermore, this will simply encourage vandals to register which is bad. As of now, we have an easy was to check for vandalism- if an edit came from an IP, it is more likely to be vandalism." If the majority of edits from anons are useful, then why give them special attential for vandalism? Also, this proposal does not propose all anons should edit - just those from dynamic IP's. User:68.39.174.238 would be unaffected. Johntex\^talk 14:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you block an ISP or you have to block their IP addresses? Because if you can block the ISP when the users aren't logged in it would be a pretty useful tool without even thinking about blocking IPs that could be used by other users. 132.204.207.108 13:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I struck out my point about 68.*, thanks for correcting me on that matter. As to the other point, the fact is that is that anons are more likely (by at least an order of magnitude) to make vandal or heavy POV edits than registered users(this is especially true for heavily vandalized articles, like Evolution and Abortion). However, the majority of edits that come from anons are still useful and productive. So although it makes sense to look over anon edits, overall their presence is productive. JoshuaZ 14:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

JoshuaZ, thanks for clarifying your thoughts on the rates of vandalism for anonymous accounts. Johntex\^talk 16:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JoshuaZ, the point I made on the closed proposal was when I clicked "Random Article" yesterday, this is the page history and about 80% of the contributions are IPs, and only a couple of them bad. Teke 02:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, most vandalism is IP edits to particular articles - politics, celebrities, controversial issues - which makes it easy to spot. I've only done a little RC patrol, but you quickly see that IP edits to George W. Bush and Homosexuality are likely to be junk, but those to something like Sodium borohydride are rather unlikely to be. I'd suggest blocking edits by shared IPs to some pages only, but this creates some kind of semi-demi-protect, which is getting silly. -- Mithent 10:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments and do not support this proposal. It has too much collateral damage.(sp?) E need to start looking at other ways of fighting vandalism besides blocking and warning. I'm not saying it's going to be easy just that blocking a huge whack of users isn't right if there is a chance of another way. I hope that makes sense.... Question: My schools IP's are all blocked. When I try to log in to edit I am still not able to edit. Would this be fixed?? Flying Canuck 14:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course, there is a rational way to resolve this issue of alleged collateral damage: it's called a programming change and it is not rocket science. Basically, the programming equivalent for the login script would be (I'm making up the names, because it's irrelevant what the field or step names are): "Iflogin=true, goto (do) checkuser, ifcheckuser=allowed, allow login, ifcheckuser=banned, do not allow login" (some refinements for partial bans would be necessary, but they too are easy), no IP verification for login with alias, no inconvenience. Users who decline to get an alias, but who register a static IP would pass through a similar process. (Note: the process used for sockchecks could still be a substep, to be used when required.)

Furthermore, I disagree that anons often perform valuable edits, I would say that their rate is less than 50%, and on controversial articles, less than 10%.

Additionally, I do not see how asking people to register negates the "an Encyclopedia that anyone can edit" bit. Registration of an alias or static ip is an easy process that is required on virtually every other on-line site on which one can post.

Essentially, there are no free lunches in the real world -- allowing what really has been a free lunch (or snack at least) on Wikipedia has been a noble experiment, an act of the utmost good faith that has outlived its usefulness for the reasons stated in this proposal. •Jim62sch• 16:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Some anons who make productive edits may be unwilling to register for various reasons (I have come across a couple of cases like this, though I can't recall the exact IPs). If the policy tries to force some people to register when they really don't want to, and if they therefore don't edit because of that, we are in fact excluding people from editing. I admit that that will only affect a very small number of people in real life; I'm not trying to argue that the practical issues are a problem so much as I'm trying to say that this would go against the spirit of a fundamental Wikipedian policy. (I think that Batmanand expresses about the same thing as I'm trying to say, only much more coherently, in a comment just a little below this one.)

One of the things I love about Wikipedia is that it's so idealistic. We allow "free lunches" here, unlike the real world, because we trust that the majority of people will edit constructively. I think that that trust hasn't been violated to an extent that makes blocking of dynamic IPs necessary.

Hbackman 23:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal only insofar as it relates to AOL. While I agree that this could prevent some legitimate users from editing without registering, the fact is that it's plain for anyone to see that we get a VAST amount of vandalism from AOL IPs, far more than we get helpful edits, many would say, and do to AOL's dynamic IP allocation, we really have few options to deal with it as of right now. --InShaneee 16:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• My two cents: I can never support a proposal that fundamentally changes the foundation issue of access to (nearly) all, even anons, to editing. Blocking is a minor change, semi-protection applies to only a few articles. This would be too much, though. To stop innocents from ever editing the article namespace - not just for a short while whilst a temporary block is in place - is a bridge far too far. However, if the foundation issues were to be resolved, a proposal of this nature would be the most sensible way of restricting IP anons. Batmanand | Talk 18:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• And so the slippery slope begins - first it was semi-protection on "very few pages", now we have an ill thought out proposal to permanently ban a whole swathe of IP ranges from the main space. Vandalism falls into two categories; juvenile "I was ere, f*** u", which tawkerbot is starting to get a good record on immediately reverting, and the more nefarious well thought out edits (either as part of a POV edit war, squid crap or other types of purposeful edits). The former is non-serious and the latter is generally conducted by individuals who are not going to be bothered about a shared IP ban (no doubt find themselves another IP to bounce off). This proposal (if implemented) would do 5 things:

1. Create a precedence for *any* shared IP to be main space blocked if the vandalism coming from it rises above some non-defined threshold.
2. Make little difference to persistent nefarious vandals who are unlikely to be deterred by such blocks.
3. Block legitimate users from shared anon IP's who are making constructive edits
4. Encourage vandals to sign up for account after account, creating nothing but a larger and larger list of blocked "5 edits then gone" dead accounts. This can happily be seen at the moment with the fact that only registered users can create pages, so there are literally thousands of dead accounts created for no purpose other than to allow creation of a single vanity or spam article.
5. Force WP further down the slippery slope, this policy would still allow non-mainspace edits, so when the petty vandals move on to help or talk space vandalising should we just block them from there as well?

This proposal is the second rung on the ladder to "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia registered users can edit", and as someone who does a bit of RC patrolling, I fail to see what real difference it will make other than turning away good editors based on a discrimination of how they wish to contribute. What would make far more sense is if some solutions were built in at the mediawiki level. For example a 5 or 10 minutes "cooling off period" before shared IP contributions were actually moved into the mainspace. There could be a "Recent Edits" page similar to RC, where the "diff" of each submitted edit was shown and could (if vandalism) be "reverted" before it even reached the viewing public. That way vandals (especially the school type) would quickly get bored as the immediacy of their work would no longer be there, but genuine edits would still get through. There are many possible avenues to solve the vandalism problems, and I am afraid I can never support "banning everyone in sight for all time" if some bad apples from the same shared IP's are causing a few problems. SFC9394 11:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

There have been several proposals to make changes at the MediaWiki level. The most widely supported was probably a proposal to create a new blocking method that only blocks anonymous users, but not registered users from the same IP. Unfortunately, the developers do not seem interested in implementing this. The problem with MediaWiki solutions is that no matter how much support there is from the community, implementation still depends on the whims of the developers. This seems like a reasonable solution we could implement in the meantime. Perhaps if we implemented this it would encourage the developers to give us an alternate solution. Kaldari 15:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Why not try the proposed restrictions for a period of a month or so and see what the results are?? If the result is a serious downturn in vandalism then go for it, if this creates a lot of noise without a serious reduction in vandalism then condsider other approaches?? FabreFaction 14:03 22nd April 2006 (BST)

I agree with FabreFaction on this one. We can discuss this matter forever if we like, but we won't have anything conclusive to consider before we've tried this new policy out. As a matter of fact, I don't at all support the openness of today. In theory, anyone can get an email account somewhere in a few moments, and that's all you need to register an account of your own here at Wikipedia. And to register is not that complicated. You need to dream up a username for yourself, a password, and enter those along with your email address. That's about it. Do we really need to make it simplier than that? My view on this is that the registration of today won't deter those who honestly like to contribute to Wikipedia, only those who for some reason like to kill some time by ruining others work. (Most of my edits are made in order to fight vandalism.) Why should we make it easy for them? Anyway, this proposal feels like a fairly good compromise to me. Let's try it out for some time. /Magore 15:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Collateral Damage

How do we purport to prevent collateral damage from blocking such a large range of IP addresses? -- Wizardry Dragon 16:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• I think it is a very good idea to look for ways to limit collateral damage. I have a specific question about this proposal and the auto-block. As I read the information on auto-blocking, if someone from AOL has a username, and that person is blocked, then collateral damage occurs. We have that situation already because some AOL users have accounts. This policy does not change that fact. Johntex\^talk 16:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Ultimately not every single address in the AOL IP allocation blocks is going to be an AOL user as well. phpBB had a case of widespread 'collateral damage' when they banned AOL users from their support forums as a result of vandalism some time ago. -- Wizardry Dragon 20:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

As it seems that the main reason so many object to the proposal is collateral damage, I thought I'd provide my thoughts on the matter. I erroneously had not considered autoblocking when I drafted the original arguments on behalf of this proposal, assuming that a method was already in place to block accounts without blocking IPs, and now that I consider it, I agree that this proposal may not significantly cut down on the collateral damage created by our current policies; however, I fail to understand how this policy will increase collateral damage. Clearly, in order for this policy to implemented, there will have to be developmental changes to the wiki software to prohibit anons from shared IPs to edit in the mainspace; thus, I don't see why a change in our current method of blocking would be particularly difficult. If anything, a simple fix would be that when an admin goes to block a user, it checks the user's IP, and if it's on the "Shared IPs" list, it would prompt the admin to use caution in blocking the account. I'm not a dev but I cannot imagine that this would particularly difficult to do, and I am actually shocked that such functionality has not been implemented already.

Furthermore, part of the reason that AOL etc. accounts are blocked is because not one, but two or three or four users vandalize from the IP within a short period of time, and as the warnings stack up and there is no way to distinguish between the vandals and the "good" users, the IP gets blocked. By requiring shared anons to register, we can then be sure of who vandalized what, and the number of vandalism attributed to individual accounts would be significantly lower than is attributed to the IP as a whole; thus the odds that an IP would be blocked are significantly lower. Also, compared to the number of anon vandals, the number of registered vandals is significantly low, and I believe that when a user registers for an account s/he will be less likely to vandalize; thus, the vandalism from individual users decreases further, as does the risk of collateral damage as well.

Frankly I wish the vandalism issue would not become the central argument on this proposal (though I do feel it somewhat important to discuss), as I feel this proposal has relatively little to do with vandalism and significantly more to do with not scaring away valuable AOL contributors. The main aim of this policy is to prevent Joe from erroneously receiving Bob's messages while Bob is off receiving messages intended for Dave. That's my problem with Shared IPs, not the degree of vandalism coming from them, as vandalism is not particularly difficult to revert and rarely goes unnoticed. AmiDaniel (Talk) 01:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

There are several problems with your statements

1. Administrators can't check a user's IP address. The only way IP addresses are checked is with a checkuser which isn't used for vandalism
2. AOL addresses are blocked because of the actions of one user not several
3. Forcing AOL users to sign up will just make them make many sockpuppets and they will still vandalize
4. If your goal is to just stop AOL users from receiving the wrong messages you have a better chance to just develop a policy that AOL user pages get blanked every so often or a policy that admins shouldn't leave many warnings on AOL talk pages. But even this idea would be hard to implement. I understand what you are trying to do but I don't think it is feasible at this time.

Jedi6-(need help?) 02:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

After reading the below remarks about Wiktionary's approach to this problem, I feel it may be more feasible at this time (meaning this proposal will yet again be scrapped); however, I'll respond to this anyway.

1. Admins can't use CheckUser, but (as I understand it) the MediaWiki software can internally access the checkuser functionality. I'm not asking that admins run a checkuser on every user they block, but rather that MediaWiki automatically check the ip address of the user against the list of shared IPs.
2. I feel that with our current policies this is completely impossible to verify. I believe that, in many cases, a series of users simultaneously connected to an AOL proxy make test edits that appear to be vandalism from one user (though no one can know for sure) and that this then results in their being blocked. I do accept your point as entirely valid though.
3. Again, I disagree. Most vandals from shared IPs are not "serious" vandals (not serious enough to create a mass of sockpuppets), but rather there are simply so many users connected through them that they appear to be one very determined vandal. The risk that AOL users would create multiple sockpuppets is no greater than that of non-AOL users.
4. Even if the talk pages are blanked, AOL users switch IPs every time they log in; thus, the intended user will nonetheless not receive the message. I would in any case adamantly oppose a policy to automatic blank warnings from talk pages.

As I said above, I'm leaning more toward the idea Wiktionary had, but thank you for the input. AmiDaniel (Talk) 02:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

See WK

Why don't we try this, it looks simple:

"Due to repeated vandalism from some AOL users, Wiktionary requires that editors from AOL use https, a secure protocol that reveals the visitor's true IP address. The switch can be made by visiting this link. We hope this will be a happy medium between the extremes of cleaning up large amounts of vandalism and having to block all AOL subscribers from editing." Found in Wiktionary. --DLL 19:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I should say also this : WP is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, as a public park is a park where anyone can tread - provided he's not in prison.

There are vandals in parks, there are cops also : is the damage so great ; is WP public or private, who makes the choice ? --DLL

And this : our problem is success. Plenty of articles are duplicated on the Internet. I would suppose there is less vandalism, say, in the Slovenian WP. --DLL

This seems like a reasonable compromise, although it still worries me that its more effort than the minimal amount that just goes into clicking "edit" I think that is a major part of the appeal of it to the anon users, and then we suck them in. If we increase the effort to get their first hit, they are less likely to follow through and edit and/or later become registered users. JoshuaZ 20:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like an interesting compromise. How much effort does an AOL user have to expend in order to use this protocol? Hbackman 00:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm a little worried, it isn't much effort, but its a level of effort that is possibly beyond most AOL users. Keep in mind the unfortunately accurate stereotype of AOL users(Just be thankful that the webtv users haven't discovered Wikipedia yet...*shudder*) JoshuaZ 01:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

If we provided clear, explicit instructions, maybe...? Hbackman 01:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like an excellent compromise to me. Possibly time to kill yet another rendition of this proposal? I think if we are willing to take the effort in making it easy for AOL anons to understand, this may be a very reasonable compromise. Perhaps, when a shared IP user clicks on edit, it would say "click this link to connect to the secure server and edit the page"--even an AOL user could understand that. As I've said before, my issue with Shared IPs is the impossibility in contacting the correct user about his/her contributions, not vandalism or prejudice against IPs (I really should take down my userbox, as I don't agree with it). Thanks for the tip! AmiDaniel (Talk) 01:52, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

This would also presumably allow us to block them like any other users, yes? It’s an excellent solution. JoshuaZ 02:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this stops AOL users from changing IPs every few minutes but I don't think it stops them from changing when they log on/off. Jedi6-(need help?) 02:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

We run into this problem with some other dynamic IPs anyway, don't we? I think that at least this would make life easier, and if we can go by the typical AOL-user stereotype many of them probably won't even realize that logging off and then on again will allow them to evade the block. Hbackman 03:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there any way of finding that out? Is anyone here connected through AOL and willing to test this a bit? AmiDaniel (Talk) 02:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm checking it now Jedi6-(need help?) 02:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Secure connections do increase the server load, I don't know if it's enough to matter to the developers, but I'm sure enwiki gets more traffic than wiktionary, and there is some cost involved. - cohesion 08:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that the ban should help. I know at my school there are people who go onto Wiki and then just mess it up. If people want to really make an edit, they should make an account, not just edit random stuff poorly "because I'm bored".

No

No. If you are going to have an encyclopedia anyone can edit, then you have to expect some vandalism. --Osbus 20:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Define "some" :) Kaldari 21:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, you are clever, but what I meant, actually I don't know what I meant. How do you tell what's a shared IP though? --Osbus 14:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Nvm, my question was answered later down in the page. --Osbus 14:39, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

If you are going to have an encyclopedia anyone can edit, then everyone must be able to register. Since everyone can register, then everyone can edit. There is no problem with this policy. LegalSwoop 04:16, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Some IPs are permanently blocked, IIRC...

Maybe I'm going against my own position with this, but I think that it's worth bringing up to perhaps inform the discussion.

We currently do permanently block a certain type of IP -- I can't remember the name of it right now, unfortunately -- zombie IP, maybe? I don't really know the details of what that kind of IP is and why we permablock IPs of that nature when we find them. If anyone knows what I'm talking about enough to give us better information than I can provide ;) I think that it would be interesting to discuss how and why this type of IP is different from and/or similar to the type of dynamic IPs that this policy proposes to permablock. Looking at an analogous case like this, and deciding how analogous it truly is to the current issue, might be useful in thinking about this policy.

Hbackman 00:10, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

There called open proxies. Open proxies are essentially IP addresses that have been "opened", usually by hackers, to allow many users to use an IP address at once. This is usually done without the knowledge of the legal user. More information can be found at Wikipedia:No open proxies. Also there really isn't any connection between that policy and this proposed one. Jedi6-(need help?) 00:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Hbackman 01:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Policy Move

Flcelloguy recently moved the policy to Wikipedia:Restrictions on Anonymous Editing from Shared IPs/AOL Prohibition to coincide with an inactive and archived discussion about a former rendition of this policy. Can someone tell me why? All links to the policy now hide this discussion page as all users are redirected to an archive. I really don't appreciate that this was done (even by an admin) without discussing it first. AmiDaniel (Talk) 03:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Please see your talk page; it was a simple mistake, assuming that someone had moved the talk page without moving the policy page, leaving behind a red "project page" tab. With all the talk of renaming the proposal and the fact that the talk page move location did not look like an archive, I did not realize that that page was an archive. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:11, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

No problem--I figured it was something along those lines; I'm just megastressed at the moment, thus my shortness with you. I apologize, and thank you for moving it back. AmiDaniel (Talk) 04:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

See also

Wikipedia:Advice to AOL users, which is linked to from MediaWiki:Blockedtext. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Motion to Reject this Proposal

The problems with this proposal--possible collateral damage, possible violation of a foundation issue--seem to outweigh the benefits of it, and I personally believe that pursuing the Wiktionary solution--to require all shared IP users to access the site via https in order to edit--seems to make a lot more sense. I believe that by requiring AOL proxy anons to connect to a secure server to edit we will be able to ensure that messages are received by the intended user, to cut down on the current problem of collateral damage, to cut down on the degree of vandalism resulting from AOL proxies, and to protect the ability of any user to edit without registering. My only question is: How do we implement this change? According to article Wikipedia:Advice to AOL users, "There have also been plans to modify the MediaWiki software so that AOL users would automatically be made to bypass the proxy system using https. This feature is currently still at an early stage, but it may be enabled some time in the future." (Note: this statement has been present in the article since 15 Apr 06.) I was unaware of such plans, but if this is the case, I feel we may need to do nothing but sit around waiting for the devs to do this, unless we would like to propose that this be extended beyond AOL to incorporate all ISPs that connect through shared proxies. If there is not already a plan to implement the https mandate, then I feel we should draft a proposal requesting that all anon users connected through shared proxies be required to connect through the https server before editing. In any case, I feel that the current proposal is unnecessary and would vote to reject it. Your thoughts? AmiDaniel (Talk) 20:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I think your VandalProof tool can speak for itself on the good contributions of IPs. So far I've found about one in ten IP edits to be questionable, 1:20 to be vandalism. Teke 06:28, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I totally agree--anons are not the evil they're made out to be. Yet you still have to accept that, though only 1:20 IPs is a vandal, about 8:10 (or maybe even greater) cases of vandalism are IPs (which VP's VandalismLog confirms as well). I've actually been quite amazed lately though--is it just me, or does it seem like vandalism has been slowing down at remarkable rates? It seems like formerly about 5:20 edits was vandalism, now it's more like 1:40... or maybe I just haven't been looking as hard lol. AmiDaniel (Talk) 06:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

See [1] and replies. Tim Starling definitely seems to be the person to talk to about this. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I posted a message on the Village Pump, where Tim Starling and others are likely to see it. I'll consider posting him a message too though. AmiDaniel (Talk) 21:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, I too am starting to realize that this proposal is going to be unsuccessful and will cause too much collateral damage. Therefore, I have decided to reject this proposal as well. Funnybunny (^talk/_{Vote for this policy}) 01:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

How do we know whether it's a shared IP or not?

Okay, we can say that many of the IP addresses that are shared are going to be obvious, but

• Who is going to enter these ranges in?
• Who is going to verify this?

It's a nice proposal, but I feel it's completely unworkable. Inevitably, vandals are going to slip through the cracks. Lankiveil 04:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC).

You can't tell completely, but a lot of times Whois will give sufficient information. --Nlu (talk) 05:51, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Universities

I disagree with this proposal for one reason. Universities. A significant number operate through shared IP addresses. Yet, they are major sources of quality improvements. I agree that vandalism is a significant problem, but I think banning those IPs with problems is a better way to go than to ban all shared IP addresses. --Midnighttonight 05:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

This form of banning forces people to sign up, thus somewhat deterring kids in schools from using wikipedia as entertainment when in study hall. Kukini 06:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Nobody has every suggested that we should "ban all shared IP addresses". People are talking about if/when registration should be required for people using shared IPs. --Rob 21:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I also disagree with this proposal, for the same reason as Midnighttonight. Idril 13:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Technically, the connection from my apartment is a shared IP, because it is owned by my university. However, for the next few years, it is my IP alone. What if I want to edit anonymously, for whatever reason? I am effectively blocked, even though my IP isn't really being shared. So this proposal seems to hinge on whether or not I am allowed to edit anonymously... unless we're going to eliminate anonymous editing altogether, I don't think this policy is a good idea. ~MDD4696 16:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Even as a vandalism fighter I also must disagree with this proposal. I think it will significantly deter academics and students from editing Wikipedia. Yes they can sign up, but how many of us started with a couple anonymous edits? I know I did. -- CopperMurdoch 04:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Is it technically possible?

It seems that one of the current problems with Wikipedia:No open proxies is that it's still not techically possible to only allow registered users to post through anonymous proxies. From the talk page:

There's a feature request for the ability to block IPs without affecting registered users, but that's currently not possible. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 03:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

So, if it's not possible to do that for proxies, how could it be possible for shared IPs ?

By the way, as a user in Mainland China, I already do resent the lack of a "proxies not allowed except if you're registered" method.

(I agree that there's an argument that anonymous proxies would be exploited by vandals in such a case, they'd just have to create new accounts. However, I don't think this is the reason why there's no such feature - the problem is purely technical) Flammifer 08:20, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Support

I support this potential policy, as long as we change the Wikipedia tagline from "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit" to "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit as long as you plug yourself into our bureaucracy and fill out a form that you might not be able to find." zafiroblue05 | Talk 20:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• Hey, I already used that line on the first proposal :-P Teke 04:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

That sure would be a very long tagline. Funnybunny (^talk/_{Vote for this policy}) 20:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's a lot of white space in the middle of the header. I'm sure we could fit it in, no? ;) zafiroblue05 | Talk 00:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Block Anon Editing

As someone said before, the policy we need is to block all anonymous editing. I support this proposal as a step in the right direction.

We need to step outside and listen to what the world is saying about Wikipedia. Generally there is far too much vandalism, and far too much unreliable junk. If you are an experienced user, vandalism is something you get used to, and becomes a minor irritant; if you are new user who doesn't know how to revert (for instance) it is a major pain in the neck.

I cannot see how forcing editors to register prevents anyone from contributing - except for those edits that should be prevented!

Let's get our house in order. AndrewRT 20:49, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• I agree completely. Anonymous editing allows for all sorts of spamming, self-promotion, vandalism, and games. What large site doesn't require registration? Problems will only get worse, not better, if allowing anonymous edits continues.Jeff Fenstermacher 23:19, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• That's the most backward thinking I've heard in a long time, and I've heard some pretty backwards thinking. It goes againt the spirit of Wikipedia, as well as the GFDL and Creative Commons licenses to prevent people from editing aribtrarily. -- Wizardry Dragon 23:46, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• Registering hardly prevents people from editing. If one can get to a place in life where she (1) has a computer, (2) internet connection, and (3) relevant knowledge to contribute to Wikipedia, then actually registering, an amazingly painless step on Wikipedia, could hardly be said to prevent someone from editing. It's not an arbitrary bar: if one were to do a statistical study, one would easily find that the vast majority of vandalism comes from anonymous users. In addition, I would suspect that, on balance, the quality of information provided by logged-in users exceeds the quality of information provided by those not logged in. Whereas allowing anonymous editing might have been preferable in the past when articles were few and Wikipedia was relatively unknown, now over a million articles exist and Wikipedia is one of the most trafficked site on the internet. Such a changed position puts Wikipedia in the position to change its policy on anonymous editing. Therefore, I agree with the policy proposed as a step in the right direction. LegalSwoop 04:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

• Agree. LegalSwoop 04:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would help. I usually patrol Special:NewPages and after the rule that only registered users can create new pages we've seen a lot of people registering just to create new vandalism pages or with irrelevent content. I'm against this policy because first of all it probably wouldn't help, and when you're using the vandlism tools it is a lot easier just to check the edits from anoms, than having to check every edit! Snailwalker | talk 14:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

They already block I.Ps on Mediawiki. The Republican 00:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Lots of People

Do we know how many people there are that have shared IP addresses? I thought there were a hell of a lot and until IPv6 comes in the number is only going to increase. This policy seems far too expansive.

I am stupid

Why are anonymous contributions important again?

It takes all of about three seconds to register. You don't even need an email address. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Profundity06 (talk • contribs)

1) It depends of your connection speed. It can take longer :)

2) Registering isn't just the physical process of clicking on the button, and filling in the forms. There's also the question of choosing your user name. What if you don't want to associate your real name (or a pseudonym you regularly use elsewhere) with your wikipedia edits, and you don't feel like thinking up a permanent name just right now (thinking you might come up with a cleverer one later on). Should you create a "use once, then throw away" user name? How is that better than anonymous editing?

Sounds silly, but it's probably a reason why if anonymous edits were banned, some valuable contributors may choose to not edit rather than regster.

3)What if you're on different computers a lot (say you're traveling, or you're in a university) - and don't want to have Yet Another Username And Password To Remember? ('specially if you want them to be different from the ones you use elsewhere) Flammifer 14:45, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean to disparage these reasons, but I do think they pale in comparison to the amount of benefit it would bring if everyone had to log-in. It is so much nicer to have confident that when you leave a message for User:A, it will be User:A who gets the message and replies to you, vs User:next-guy-to-come-along-and-use-the-same-IP. Johntex\^talk 20:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Another consideration is that vandalism distracts from productive editing even when most of the actual reverting is done by the bots and/or the RC patrol. You still have to review your Watchlist's History to understand what has happened and that can be time consuming when you are watching hundreds of articles. Sometimes a well meaning editor will manually revert a vandal, but zap only one out of 2-3+ bad edits and then good edits pile up on top of bad edits and it can get messy. Just a couple of weeks ago I had to rebuild a whole section from its fragments scattered across 5 or 6 versions. Ahasuerus 23:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Abolish anonymous users. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:24, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I am sure we are not the first group of editors to have thought about the problem :) but it would appear that the it is getting worse as Wikipedia gets larger and more popular. The more articles you have created/edited --> the more articles you have on your Watchlist --> the more time you spend policing it --> the less time you have to contribute new content --> frustration sets in --> eventually you give up and leave. I guess time will tell if the underlying model is sustainable. And even if it goes up in flames, well, it's not like the contents will be lost :) Ahasuerus 00:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Related issue: Central registration

I think one issue to address before any further restrictions on anons is done, is the need from central registration for all Wikipedias (e.g. diferent languages). When I go to another language to add a simple inter-wiki link, or make another trivial edit, it's a major pain to register for every separate language. So, before we force anybody to register, we should allow people to register just once, and not repeatedly. We should wish to encouarge more "inter language" editing, not less. I know that's something planned for eventually, but until it happens, it's probably best not to make any new registration requirements (as much as I would like like them). --Rob 22:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. Almost all anon edits that I encounter when maintaining my 600+ article watchlist fall under one of four categories:

1. Vandalism/blanking/general immaturity (80%)
2. Interwiki additions from other Wikis (10%)
3. Spelling corrections from drive-by anon users (5%)
4. Substantive contributions by anon users (5%)

If we could have a single logon system across all Wikis, I would feel much better about enforcing some form of registration policy. Ahasuerus 23:12, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this is what you're looking for. Prodego ^talk 12:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Alternative suggestion

My impression here is that the proposal is to pre-emptively block all anonymous shared edits. This may allow innocent people sharing the IP not to be blocked but it'll also force many more innocent users to register when they didn't have to before. Couldn't the blocking of anonymous editing be used as an alternative to outright blocking of IPs, whereby users then can't even register? That seems to be the problem now. The vandalism problem is not bad enough to justify this kind of pre-emptive action, particularly given the philosophy behind the project that has brought it so much success. BigBlueFish 14:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)