[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

A year later... This is a call for possible collaboration on info/skill-share if not more in relation to Wikimedia and DNS. On the same weekend of Wikimedia Hackathon 2023, there is also a DNS focused hackathon in Rotterdam with open call for proposals.

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I just got in touch with RIPE.net folx who have a conference now in Berlin and they seem to be interested in helping. John would be in a good position as former RIPE now WMF staff to evaluate this and follow up. Best wishes - Z. Blace On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:05 PM Florence Devouard wrote: >

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I have not further commented because I did not feel I could help further at this point. But I wanted to point out that the issue is still on my "concerns" list :) I am looking forward to read your findings when process is completed. Flo Le 12/05/2022 à 01:02, Niharika Kohli a écrit : Hi

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hi Butch, Thanks for your suggestions. On our end, the Wikimedia Foundation Product department is currently undertaking stakeholder discussions in all the areas you mentioned to understand the problem from all different perspectives. As we go through this process we are also looking at potential

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hello Everyone, Let me suggest three things: 1. For Outreach events, campaigns, GLAM events that conduct new user training and editathons, the Foundation Programs Team (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns/Foundation_Programs_Team) should proactively coordinate with event organizers

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Paulo, you're right — I'm sorry, I shouldn't use "anonymous" to describe unregistered editing. I misspoke on that. Danny ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at:

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hi, can I help? > On May 3, 2022, at 8:25 AM, Peter Southwood > wrote: > > And who will do all this tedious work? Cheers, Peter >   <> > From: g...@tiscali.it [mailto:g...@tiscali.it > ] > Sent: 01 May 2022 20:01 > To:

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

And who will do all this tedious work? Cheers, Peter From: g...@tiscali.it [mailto:g...@tiscali.it] Sent: 01 May 2022 20:01 To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Open proxies and IP blocking Another somewhat obvious solution: instead, or before, of blocking, make the

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

"*if a wiki chooses to block all unregistered edits (...) w**ould we still need to auto-block open proxies, if there was no more anonymous editing at all?*" Please don't use the term "anonymous" to refer to IP edits, which are anything but anonymous. The only edits with a minimum level of

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

In practical terms the only working point for category #1 is the last one, which is already done *in theory*. Yes, proxying systems from countries affected by such problems can generally be exploited from elsewhere. About category #2 the first point is great, but it needs a committed development

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I've been getting really helpful replies both here and in the Meta discussion, thank you very much. I'm going to summarize what I'm seeing so far, and ask some new questions. One thing that's come up is that there are many kinds of good-faith people who experience collateral damage from the

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 11:27 AM wrote: > > We don't have the capacity to handle a big bulk increase in pending > changes as proposed by gbfv on en-wiki and presumably others as well - and > making very short-length blocks on proxies would require a major increase > in Steward time, which a

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Gabriele, indicated we shouldn't use the current methodology unless they have very good alternatives - but the same applies to stopping it. We don't have the capacity to handle a big bulk increase in pending changes as proposed by gbfv on en-wiki and presumably others as well - and making

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Thanks for spending time on this issue Danny. Rather than discussing the value of blocking open proxies, it is worth focusing on the use case and justification for ensuring that users with reasons to protect themselves when adding content to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects can be provided

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Gbfv, this would be good in theory except it's not scalable, and furthermore the English Wikipedia community has not been a fan of pending changes as implemented by https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs . The thing with open proxy blocks in general is that many are made in direct

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Btw a general observation about something which seems to be neglected in general discourse: legal accountability. Wikimedia is not Wikileaks, we protect users as soon as they contribute in good faith to the project and a certain level of liability should be present. It is quite a complex and

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I agree with the problem. There's also an issue where a lot of wikis are duplicating these IP blocks (eg enwiki also blocks open proxies locally), so having global-IPBE will not let people edit these local projects. They would have to get local IPBE on each project with local open-proxy blocks, as

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 11:25 AM Steven Walling wrote: > On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 12:37 AM effe iets anders < > effeietsand...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> This family of methods risks a two class community, but I'm not sure if >> that is worse than the current situation. I'm not sure what would be the

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 12:37 AM effe iets anders wrote: > Hi Danny, > > this is great thinking. There's one more angle that I'd like to offer, but > it would come with plenty of risks and downsides, so I'm not sure if it is > actually viable (I guess it falls in the 'mitigate harm' category).

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

With Wikipedia Zero we were able to filter the users using that program with a flag similar to the one you propose, and then monitor them and make informed decisions based on the quality of the editions. I suppose something similar could be done with OPs too. That would really be a relief. It

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Den lör 30 apr. 2022 kl 09:37 skrev effe iets anders < effeietsand...@gmail.com>: > Hi Danny, > > this is great thinking. There's one more angle that I'd like to offer, but > it would come with plenty of risks and downsides, so I'm not sure if it is > actually viable (I guess it falls in the

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hi Danny, this is great thinking. There's one more angle that I'd like to offer, but it would come with plenty of risks and downsides, so I'm not sure if it is actually viable (I guess it falls in the 'mitigate harm' category). But just to put it out there: One of the main reasons that we block

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

(cross-posted from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking#Help_from_WMF) Hi folks, I'm DannyH from the Wikimedia Foundation. I manage the product teams that build Contributor Tools -- Community Tech, Campaigns, CheckUser improvements and sockpuppet detection,

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Suggestions to resolve open proxies and IP block issues. - Building bots/ tools or features, when a user logs in from an open proxy. A notification pops up stating “ You have login from an open proxy. Kindly click on this link to enter your username,password and IP address. - If Username is

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Thanks Mario - indeed it seems to be a bit random, maybe there was an update recently- on Hungarian Wikipedia as an anon I today see an edit button but then it tells me I am blocked (it doesn't give any real explanations, but at least the link to contact the stewards goes directly to the contact

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hello Ok, so viewing the IP is necessary. I added the barebone proposition on the meta page for futher refining. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking#On-wiki_feature If anyone can edit the description to make it clearer, it would be great Since you indicated

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 11:14 AM Peter Southwood < peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote: > “the block message only shows up when I try to save the page” > Block messages generally appear when opening the editor. However, support is lacking in some cases for mobile web and apps [1]. There may be

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

...@gmail.com] Sent: 20 April 2022 21:59 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking Beyond the mentioned countries, this is also affecting those who have opted in to Apple’s Private Relay, which I expect will be somewhat popular/default once out of beta status

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Sat, 23 Apr 2022 at 21:45, Vi to wrote: > "lack of infrastructure" and lack of "current volunteers" weren't > addressed in your email at all, given that you're relying upon wrong > premises by assuming checkusers' bad faith and non-existing practices. > > The paragraph that starts with "If

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

"lack of infrastructure" and lack of "current volunteers" weren't addressed in your email at all, given that you're relying upon wrong premises by assuming checkusers' bad faith and non-existing practices. Vito Il giorno sab 23 apr 2022 alle ore 19:58 Lane Chance ha scritto: > > On Sat, 23 Apr

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Sat, 23 Apr 2022 at 15:17, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hi Lane, > > I would appreciate if you could take the time to learn about an issue > before holding strong, accusatory opinions about it. > Maybe reading the facts in my email would be a good

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I was personally hit by an open proxy when I was on holidays last year (South Tirol, Italy, for the record). I could edit the four projects where I am administrator, but I could not edit five other projects where I update the image of the day. (In fact, I could not edit Meta either except for my

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hi Lane, I would appreciate if you could take the time to learn about an issue before holding strong, accusatory opinions about it. gIPBE is granted to people in China and other areas where they want to use proxies for security reasons. A significant portion of current gIPBEs are for people in

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

"Granting IPBE by default to [...extendedconfirmed]/etc. users is not feasible." Granting IPBE to large groups of good faith editors is feasible, such as entire classes of people during editathons, all registered accounts joining a virtual conference, or everyone with more than 1,000 edits on

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

It would result in every block effectively being anon-only, and it would also make CU next to useless. Granting IPBE by default to autoconfirmed/extendedconfirmed/etc. users is not feasible. User:Vermont on Wikimedia projects

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Please, replace "block anonymous access" with "block unregistered access". That extremely wrong, nocive, but generalized Wikimedia habit of calling IP access "anonymous", when they are anything but anonymous, is so pervasive in the wikiverse that I still fall for it sometimes.  Paulo Santos

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

"*Firstly, unblock IPs that geolocate to countries where we lack contributors.Yes we will get more vandalism in those countries, but far far less than if we also unblocked all IPs in countries where we have lots of editors.*" -> That's not as simple as that, as the whole Wikipedia Zero Angola

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I'm skeptical about solution #1 (we lack candidates rather than roles) and #3 (without actual data is not possible to find the best solution, yesterday alone I think I wrote 30 times through VRTS "hey, you forgot to turn this VPN off"). Instead, I wholeheartedly endorse improving blocking

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hi Flo. Viewing the IP address involved is necessary. There's a reason why Stewards and CheckUsers are generally the ones involved in handling IPBE requests. There's differences between people trying to use open proxies to edit through the Great Firewall of China, people caught in IPv4 blocks

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Thank you so much Rae. Reading some emails it seems that stewards spend their days trying blocking random people. Vito Il giorno ven 22 apr 2022 alle ore 13:32 Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> ha scritto: > Hi all, > > About unblocking IPs that geolocate to Africa,

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

All of these suggestions sound good. Reducing the current intimidating wall of text should be very high on the priority list. Another thing I'd suggest experimenting with is reducing the use of preemptive IP blocks, simply because an IP was identified as a potentially problematic proxy, and

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Den fre 22 apr. 2022 kl 14:43 skrev Florence Devouard : > I have read all the comments and discussed privately with a few people. > > There are some elements of answers that are purely in the hands of > stewards, they have to discuss and find common grounds, in particular to > implementing

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I have read all the comments and discussed privately with a few people. There are some elements of answers that are purely in the hands of stewards, they have to discuss and find common grounds, in particular to implementing blocks, so that they limit damage on good people, whilst preserving

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hi all, About unblocking IPs that geolocate to Africa, it’s not as though the blocked IPs are random. The problem with these affected ISPs are that they have many users on the same IP address. They aren’t traditional proxies (and traditional proxies will not be unblocked, that isn’t the issue

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Yesterday I was on a conference call that included several Nigerian Wikipedians, I was surprised at how much of their problems editing Wikipedia were over blocks. The English language Wikipedia doesn't have an overall problem with editing numbers, nearly eight years on, editing volumes are still

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

IPBE for autoconfirmed is a local matter, it would imply that any block (TOR included) will, in practice, almost turn into anon-only. Expiration is an option, as for any global group. Vito Il giorno gio 21 apr 2022 alle ore 19:51 Nathan ha scritto: > How significant is the risk in just

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

How significant is the risk in just granting autoconfirmed (or similar) users IPBE by default? Why does IPBE expire anyway? On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:50 AM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hi, > > Thanks for raising the topic. Being a steward for 14+ years,

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Good point Martin :) I will continue the discussion there. But one more note as I do: I think 'blocking' as a concept is now the wrong solution in 100% of cases. Once it made sense as a stopgap. But now we have machine models that can effectively help classify contributions based on their

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hi, Thanks for raising the topic. Being a steward for 14+ years, I've followed closely the evolution of that problem. “When I noticed that range blocks caused more harm than good (countless mails to stewards), I started to reduce the length of any such block (if necessary at all; I check

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

It should usually be global. These days, people often need to edit a Wikipedia or a Wikisource or some other wiki in their language, and maybe in another language, and Wikidata, and Commons, and sometimes more wikis. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 11:32 AM Lane Chance wrote: > A 'liberalization' of IPBE can easily be enabled by allowing WMF > funded projects to add this group to any participants that request it I think it makes sense to quickly grant temporary (e.g. 6 months) GIPBE + IPBE to every participant in

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 12:32 PM K. Peachey wrote: > > Is there any reason we are creating multiple blocks, which is causing > multiple rows created in the backend? > I'm not aware of the number of rows in the backend being currently a problem here. There's a few logistic reasons to do it this

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Thu, 21 Apr 2022 at 07:42, Mario Gómez wrote: > … > These blocks from English Wikipedia are now also imported to Spanish > Wikipedia, as well as global blocks (the ones by Tks4Fish). The blocking > system has received some tuning over time to decrease the number of affected > users, but

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

A 'liberalization' of IPBE can easily be enabled by allowing WMF funded projects to add this group to any participants that request it, or even all participants in some editathons given the benefits of editing from shared wifi or through a proxy in some countries where editing Wikipedia may have

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

My 2 cents in this telegraph short email #1 it is a common situation in Bosnia and Croatia, likely in other CEE countries of CEE where providers are 'cheap' with IP addresses. I know an amazingly constructive and dedicated, but not proactive editor who failed to get unblocked on EN, as he could

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 12:53 AM Samuel Klein wrote: > > +++. We are raising these barriers to [apparently] try to stave off > vandalism and spam. But hard security like this can put an end to the > projects, for good. There is no more definitive end than one that seems > mandated from

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 5:24 PM Risker wrote: > > I'm less concerned about the "protected page" issue raised by SJ. There > are generally good reasons why those pages are protected. They have either > been the long- or short-term target of repeated vandalism (e.g., > biographical articles of

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Those who have been around since the "early days" may remember the nearly-routine blocks of AOL proxies on English Wikipedia, which were completely ineffective in blocking vandals (they got issued a new IP in seconds) and impeded good users. It took a long time to persuade admins and checkusers

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Thanks for mentioning this Florence. It's affected me lately too. I'm not sure the Wikipedia we love is still accessible as a project to most of the world, including most of us. -- Blocking mobile users: I was blocked from editing on mobile twice in the past two weeks. No solution I could find

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Exactly, cgNAT is a pain. I think we should shorten global block, and turn them into soft blocks for countries where carrier-grade NATs are in use. Then, I don't expect to be hard to tell legit users apart from abusers. Vito Il giorno mer 20 apr 2022 alle ore 23:42 Mario Gómez ha scritto: >

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Hello Florence, Thank you for bringing this up and collecting all this feedback. Here's the announcement of the new P2P proxy blocks on English Wikipedia, it includes information about the origin of the blocks for this particular proxy service:

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

FYI, I've moved this page to the "talk" namespace. Anyway, I've notice this specific kind of proxy block has too many collaterals, so I planned to rise the issue with fellow stewards next weekend. Those blocks will probably end up being handled differently. Vito Il giorno mer 20 apr 2022 alle

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Also relevant: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-trivial-inconveniences We would do well to remember that it was the incredibly low barrier to entry that was the key to Wikipedia's early success. I expect that even IF there's some legitimate (perhaps not unreasonably

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 1:04 PM Benjamin Ikuta wrote: > > > I've always thought this justification fraught with bias. > > Vandalism is highly visible: you can point to it and say it's a problem. > And it's true! > > But the *lack* of contributions is of course, by nature, invisible. > This 100%

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I've always thought this justification fraught with bias. Vandalism is highly visible: you can point to it and say it's a problem. And it's true! But the *lack* of contributions is of course, by nature, invisible. On Apr 20, 2022, at 2:33 PM, "Amir E. Aharoni" wrote: > I don't have a

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Beyond the mentioned countries, this is also affecting those who have opted in to Apple’s Private Relay, which I expect will be somewhat popular/default once out of beta status. I myself am unable to edit for example - and half the time I am not bothered to workaround the issue and just give up

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

Yes, it's getting frequent and not only from people in Africa. I ended up to trouble-shoot these problems by mails or direct messaging on Facebook more and and more frequently, maybe with simple users who just know me or have my contact. Sometimes it looks like sharing the duties of a sysop

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I absolutely concur with Flo. Though I've not followed the recent developments Flo tells about, in the last years this problem has been getting increasingly worse. And despite dozens of alerts in many public channels, including personally to stewards, nothing seems to have been done to fix this.

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 11:21 AM Florence Devouard wrote: > > Short version : We need to find solutions to avoid so many africans being > globally IP blocked due to our No Open Proxies policy. > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking > This matches up with my

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

I don't have a solution, but I just wanted to confirm that I agree fully with the description of the problem. I hear that this happens to people from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and some other countries almost every day. The first time I heard about it was actually around 2018 or so, but during the