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

[Željko Blaće]

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.
https://labs.ripe.net/author/johanna-eriksson/connect-to-port-53-join-the-dns-hackathon-2023/
...

... consider to join forming a proposal
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332971

Best wishes - Z. Blace

On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 6:52 PM Željko Blaće  wrote:
>
> 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:
>>
>> 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 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 technical 
>> solutions that would reduce some of the pain points that have been brought 
>> up both here and on the talk page. There are some existing recommendations 
>> on this mailing list and the meta page that are good starting points for 
>> these discussions.
>> We will be summarizing our findings and sharing them on this list and the 
>> talk page once we have completed this process. If anyone has direct 
>> feedback, my inbox is always open.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 7, 2022 at 9:59 PM  wrote:
>>>
>>> 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 and/or foundation grant 
>>> applicants and offer assistance to link them with administrators to grant 
>>> IP exemptions or account creation / event organizer rights.
>>>
>>> 2. For WMF Movement Communications Team and Foundation Product Development 
>>> Team to conduct stakeholder discussions (end users, event organizers, 
>>> active editors) including this mailing list, talk pages, virtual / video 
>>> conferences and come up with a thorough document summarizing the feedbacks. 
>>> We should not end decisions on Talk pages and mailing list alone.
>>>
>>> 3. For the technology team & tech community to come up with an update on 
>>> the 18 year old IP block policy that is target bad faith editors and 
>>> balancing it with middle to low income communities (Africa, South and 
>>> Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, South America) with shared internet 
>>> infrastructure such as mobile data/ school internet connections.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>>
>>> Butch
>>> Southeast Asia
>>> ___
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: 
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
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>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/AVBXBOXQQY2DXD6LYF5J4F6R2CRQBYTH/
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Niharika
>> Product Manager
>> Anti-Harassment Tools team
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Željko Blaće]

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:

> 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 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 technical solutions that would reduce some of the pain points
> that have been brought up both here and on the talk page. There are some
> existing recommendations on this mailing list and the meta page that are
> good starting points for these discussions.
> We will be summarizing our findings and sharing them on this list and the
> talk page once we have completed this process. If anyone has direct
> feedback, my inbox is always open.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 7, 2022 at 9:59 PM  wrote:
>
>> 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 and/or foundation grant
>> applicants and offer assistance to link them with administrators to grant
>> IP exemptions or account creation / event organizer rights.
>>
>> 2. For WMF Movement Communications Team and Foundation Product
>> Development Team to conduct stakeholder discussions (end users, event
>> organizers, active editors) including this mailing list, talk pages,
>> virtual / video conferences and come up with a thorough document
>> summarizing the feedbacks. We should not end decisions on Talk pages and
>> mailing list alone.
>>
>> 3. For the technology team & tech community to come up with an update on
>> the 18 year old IP block policy that is target bad faith editors and
>> balancing it with middle to low income communities (Africa, South and
>> Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, South America) with shared internet
>> infrastructure such as mobile data/ school internet connections.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Butch
>> Southeast Asia
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/AVBXBOXQQY2DXD6LYF5J4F6R2CRQBYTH/
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>
>
> --
> Niharika
> Product Manager
> Anti-Harassment Tools team
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Florence Devouard]

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 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 technical solutions that would reduce some of the 
pain points that have been brought up both here and on the talk page. 
There are some existing recommendations on this mailing list and the 
meta page that are good starting points for these discussions.
We will be summarizing our findings and sharing them on this list and 
the talk page once we have completed this process. If anyone 
has direct feedback, my inbox is always open.


Thanks!



On Sat, May 7, 2022 at 9:59 PM  wrote:

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 and/or
foundation grant applicants and offer assistance to link them with
administrators to grant IP exemptions or account creation / event
organizer rights.

2. For WMF Movement Communications Team and Foundation Product
Development Team to conduct stakeholder discussions (end users,
event organizers, active editors) including this mailing list,
talk pages, virtual / video conferences and come up with a
thorough document summarizing the feedbacks. We should not end
decisions on Talk pages and mailing list alone.

3. For the technology team & tech community to come up with an
update on the 18 year old IP block policy that is target bad faith
editors and balancing it with middle to low income communities
(Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, South America)
with shared internet infrastructure such as mobile data/ school
internet connections.

Thanks.


Kind regards,

Butch
Southeast Asia
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--
Niharika
Product Manager
Anti-Harassment Tools team
Wikimedia Foundation



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

[Niharika Kohli]

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 technical solutions that would reduce some of the pain points
that have been brought up both here and on the talk page. There are some
existing recommendations on this mailing list and the meta page that are
good starting points for these discussions.
We will be summarizing our findings and sharing them on this list and the
talk page once we have completed this process. If anyone has direct
feedback, my inbox is always open.

Thanks!



On Sat, May 7, 2022 at 9:59 PM  wrote:

> 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 and/or foundation grant
> applicants and offer assistance to link them with administrators to grant
> IP exemptions or account creation / event organizer rights.
>
> 2. For WMF Movement Communications Team and Foundation Product Development
> Team to conduct stakeholder discussions (end users, event organizers,
> active editors) including this mailing list, talk pages, virtual / video
> conferences and come up with a thorough document summarizing the feedbacks.
> We should not end decisions on Talk pages and mailing list alone.
>
> 3. For the technology team & tech community to come up with an update on
> the 18 year old IP block policy that is target bad faith editors and
> balancing it with middle to low income communities (Africa, South and
> Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, South America) with shared internet
> infrastructure such as mobile data/ school internet connections.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Butch
> Southeast Asia
> ___
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>


-- 
Niharika
Product Manager
Anti-Harassment Tools team
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[bustrias]

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 and/or foundation grant applicants 
and offer assistance to link them with administrators to grant IP exemptions or 
account creation / event organizer rights.

2. For WMF Movement Communications Team and Foundation Product Development Team 
to conduct stakeholder discussions (end users, event organizers, active 
editors) including this mailing list, talk pages, virtual / video conferences 
and come up with a thorough document summarizing the feedbacks. We should not 
end decisions on Talk pages and mailing list alone.

3. For the technology team & tech community to come up with an update on the 18 
year old IP block policy that is target bad faith editors and balancing it with 
middle to low income communities (Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Pacific 
Islands, South America) with shared internet infrastructure such as mobile 
data/ school internet connections.

Thanks.


Kind regards,

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

[dhorn]

Paulo, you're right — I'm sorry, I shouldn't use "anonymous" to describe 
unregistered editing. I misspoke on that.

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

[Benjamin Ikuta]

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@lists.wikimedia.org 
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Open proxies and IP blocking
>  
> Another somewhat obvious solution: instead, or before, of blocking, make the 
> edits coming from one of the (too) dangerous IPs go through a reviewal 
> process before getting published; hopefully a very quick one. 
> In theory this would be against the original Wikipedia ideas, but I saw that 
> it's something already practiced in some cases, and anyway blocking seems 
> enormously worse than requiring a review before publication. 
> 
> By the way, I now realized that the current Wikipedia is already very 
> different than what I believed, and it works just because it does *not* 
> really allow anyone to make edits. 
> Before deciding where to go from here I'd suggest you to reflect on what's 
> worse: to forbid anonymity or require reviews; I believe most normal people 
> are more interested in privacy than immediate publication of edits. 
> 
> Kind regards, 
> Gabriele 
>  
>  
> 
>  
> Virus-free. www.avg.com 
> 
>  
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> 
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Peter Southwood]

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 
edits coming from one of the (too) dangerous IPs go through a reviewal process 
before getting published; hopefully a very quick one. 
In theory this would be against the original Wikipedia ideas, but I saw that 
it's something already practiced in some cases, and anyway blocking seems 
enormously worse than requiring a review before publication. 

By the way, I now realized that the current Wikipedia is already very different 
than what I believed, and it works just because it does *not* really allow 
anyone to make edits. 
Before deciding where to go from here I'd suggest you to reflect on what's 
worse: to forbid anonymity or require reviews; I believe most normal people are 
more interested in privacy than immediate publication of edits. 

Kind regards, 
Gabriele 

 


 

 

Virus-free.  

 www.avg.com 

 

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

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

"*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 anonymity are precisely those made
by registered users.
One of the reasons we blocked IP editing on pt.wiki was exactly because
editors using IP addresses were being traced, identified, and harassed.

Best,
Paulo


 escreveu no dia terça, 3/05/2022 à(s) 02:31:

> 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 current practice — people in
> Africa and South/Southeast Asia who are automatically in proxies thanks to
> their ISP (the folks who started the conversation), and also people who
> live in countries where contributors risk harassment or legal action,
> including queer editors who live in countries where queer sexualities are
> criminalized.
>
> Right now, I'm thinking about the different kinds of "pain" involved on
> all sides. Just for the sake of this conversation, I'm using the word
> "pain" to mean something that's frustrating, time-consuming, dangerous,
> obstructive, or otherwise negative. Admins & stewards who spend all of
> their free time trying to block IP-hopping abusers experience "pain", users
> who get doxxed or harassed by IP-hopping abusers experience "pain",
> organizers with editathon participants getting blocked experience "pain",
> editors who are blocked from contributing experience "pain".
>
> So: is this a zero-sum game, where one group's pain relief = another
> group's pain point? Right now, I think the expansion of proxy blocks since
> last year has been reducing the pain for vandal/abuse fighters, which has
> increased the pain for good-faith users (especially in Africa/South Asia).
> For stewards, it may have just shifted the work: less work blocking the
> vandals, but more work granting block exemptions.
>
> If it's a zero-sum game, then we're trying to find an acceptable balance
> among these groups, which is difficult and makes everyone unhappy. I'm
> hoping there are things that we can change in the software that make this
> more of a non-zero-sum game, so that relieving pain for one group doesn't
> increase it for someone else.
>
> The ideas so far break down into two categories: #1) making proxy blocks
> less frequent or more nuanced so that we don't need an unblocking request
> process, and #2) making the unblocking request process easier or more
> efficient. The IPBE process is kind of the pivot point in the problem. From
> a software design perspective, the fact that IPBE even exists is a failure
> state — we're not doing our job properly making a website that anyone can
> edit, if good-faith people are blocked and other good-faith people are
> spending time unblocking them. So the ideal solutions would be focused on
> #1, because if we solve those, #2 doesn't exist anymore.
>
> Here are some of the ideas suggested so far:
>
> Category #1: Making proxy blocks less frequent, or more nuanced
> * Instead of auto-blocking, wait for someone to vandalize before blocking
> that open proxy
> * Tag edits made through open proxies, so that admins can give them more
> scrutiny
> * Throttle edits made through open proxies, to discourage vandals (and
> good-faith people)
> * For Apple's Private Relay, rangeblock the regions where vandalism is
> coming from rather than blocking the whole service
> * Treat ISPs in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia that use
> carrier-grade NAT differently, instead of making them auto-blocked open
> proxies
>
> Category #2: Making the IPBE process easier, or more efficient
> * Make the local/global distinction easier to understand and navigate by
> signaling to users that they've got a local or global block, and guiding
> them in the right direction
> * Let trusted users like campaign organizers submit lists of accounts to
> be automatically exempt (but obviously blockable if those accounts are used
> badly)
>
> Are there other suggestions for either category? What have I missed?
>
> One thing I'm curious about: for the "treat ISPs in Africa/South Asia
> differently" idea — would people in other regions be able to abuse those
> services? Would a bad actor in Europe be able to make edits through an
> unblocked ISP in Ghana?
>
> Also: What happens if the open-proxy block only applies to anon edits, and
> allows edits from people with accounts? I know that the basic answer is
> "then the bad-faith people create accounts, so there's no point" — but does
> that at least reduce the amount of "pain"/damage to a more acceptable
> level?
>
> I'd also like to know what happens if a wiki chooses to block all
> 

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

[Vi to]

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
effort, point 2 a temporary GIPBE can be a good idea.

Vito

Il giorno mar 3 mag 2022 alle ore 03:31  ha scritto:

> 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 current practice — people in
> Africa and South/Southeast Asia who are automatically in proxies thanks to
> their ISP (the folks who started the conversation), and also people who
> live in countries where contributors risk harassment or legal action,
> including queer editors who live in countries where queer sexualities are
> criminalized.
>
> Right now, I'm thinking about the different kinds of "pain" involved on
> all sides. Just for the sake of this conversation, I'm using the word
> "pain" to mean something that's frustrating, time-consuming, dangerous,
> obstructive, or otherwise negative. Admins & stewards who spend all of
> their free time trying to block IP-hopping abusers experience "pain", users
> who get doxxed or harassed by IP-hopping abusers experience "pain",
> organizers with editathon participants getting blocked experience "pain",
> editors who are blocked from contributing experience "pain".
>
> So: is this a zero-sum game, where one group's pain relief = another
> group's pain point? Right now, I think the expansion of proxy blocks since
> last year has been reducing the pain for vandal/abuse fighters, which has
> increased the pain for good-faith users (especially in Africa/South Asia).
> For stewards, it may have just shifted the work: less work blocking the
> vandals, but more work granting block exemptions.
>
> If it's a zero-sum game, then we're trying to find an acceptable balance
> among these groups, which is difficult and makes everyone unhappy. I'm
> hoping there are things that we can change in the software that make this
> more of a non-zero-sum game, so that relieving pain for one group doesn't
> increase it for someone else.
>
> The ideas so far break down into two categories: #1) making proxy blocks
> less frequent or more nuanced so that we don't need an unblocking request
> process, and #2) making the unblocking request process easier or more
> efficient. The IPBE process is kind of the pivot point in the problem. From
> a software design perspective, the fact that IPBE even exists is a failure
> state — we're not doing our job properly making a website that anyone can
> edit, if good-faith people are blocked and other good-faith people are
> spending time unblocking them. So the ideal solutions would be focused on
> #1, because if we solve those, #2 doesn't exist anymore.
>
> Here are some of the ideas suggested so far:
>
> Category #1: Making proxy blocks less frequent, or more nuanced
> * Instead of auto-blocking, wait for someone to vandalize before blocking
> that open proxy
> * Tag edits made through open proxies, so that admins can give them more
> scrutiny
> * Throttle edits made through open proxies, to discourage vandals (and
> good-faith people)
> * For Apple's Private Relay, rangeblock the regions where vandalism is
> coming from rather than blocking the whole service
> * Treat ISPs in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia that use
> carrier-grade NAT differently, instead of making them auto-blocked open
> proxies
>
> Category #2: Making the IPBE process easier, or more efficient
> * Make the local/global distinction easier to understand and navigate by
> signaling to users that they've got a local or global block, and guiding
> them in the right direction
> * Let trusted users like campaign organizers submit lists of accounts to
> be automatically exempt (but obviously blockable if those accounts are used
> badly)
>
> Are there other suggestions for either category? What have I missed?
>
> One thing I'm curious about: for the "treat ISPs in Africa/South Asia
> differently" idea — would people in other regions be able to abuse those
> services? Would a bad actor in Europe be able to make edits through an
> unblocked ISP in Ghana?
>
> Also: What happens if the open-proxy block only applies to anon edits, and
> allows edits from people with accounts? I know that the basic answer is
> "then the bad-faith people create accounts, so there's no point" — but does
> that at least reduce the amount of "pain"/damage to a more acceptable
> level?
>
> I'd also like to know what happens if a wiki chooses to block all
> unregistered edits, like Portuguese WP and Farsi WP are doing right now?
> Would we still need to auto-block open proxies, if there was no more
> 

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

[dhorn]

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 current practice — people in Africa and 
South/Southeast Asia who are automatically in proxies thanks to their ISP (the 
folks who started the conversation), and also people who live in countries 
where contributors risk harassment or legal action, including queer editors who 
live in countries where queer sexualities are criminalized. 

Right now, I'm thinking about the different kinds of "pain" involved on all 
sides. Just for the sake of this conversation, I'm using the word "pain" to 
mean something that's frustrating, time-consuming, dangerous, obstructive, or 
otherwise negative. Admins & stewards who spend all of their free time trying 
to block IP-hopping abusers experience "pain", users who get doxxed or harassed 
by IP-hopping abusers experience "pain", organizers with editathon participants 
getting blocked experience "pain", editors who are blocked from contributing 
experience "pain".

So: is this a zero-sum game, where one group's pain relief = another group's 
pain point? Right now, I think the expansion of proxy blocks since last year 
has been reducing the pain for vandal/abuse fighters, which has increased the 
pain for good-faith users (especially in Africa/South Asia). For stewards, it 
may have just shifted the work: less work blocking the vandals, but more work 
granting block exemptions. 

If it's a zero-sum game, then we're trying to find an acceptable balance among 
these groups, which is difficult and makes everyone unhappy. I'm hoping there 
are things that we can change in the software that make this more of a 
non-zero-sum game, so that relieving pain for one group doesn't increase it for 
someone else. 

The ideas so far break down into two categories: #1) making proxy blocks less 
frequent or more nuanced so that we don't need an unblocking request process, 
and #2) making the unblocking request process easier or more efficient. The 
IPBE process is kind of the pivot point in the problem. From a software design 
perspective, the fact that IPBE even exists is a failure state — we're not 
doing our job properly making a website that anyone can edit, if good-faith 
people are blocked and other good-faith people are spending time unblocking 
them. So the ideal solutions would be focused on #1, because if we solve those, 
#2 doesn't exist anymore. 

Here are some of the ideas suggested so far:

Category #1: Making proxy blocks less frequent, or more nuanced
* Instead of auto-blocking, wait for someone to vandalize before blocking that 
open proxy
* Tag edits made through open proxies, so that admins can give them more 
scrutiny 
* Throttle edits made through open proxies, to discourage vandals (and 
good-faith people)
* For Apple's Private Relay, rangeblock the regions where vandalism is coming 
from rather than blocking the whole service
* Treat ISPs in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia that use carrier-grade 
NAT differently, instead of making them auto-blocked open proxies

Category #2: Making the IPBE process easier, or more efficient
* Make the local/global distinction easier to understand and navigate by 
signaling to users that they've got a local or global block, and guiding them 
in the right direction
* Let trusted users like campaign organizers submit lists of accounts to be 
automatically exempt (but obviously blockable if those accounts are used badly)

Are there other suggestions for either category? What have I missed? 

One thing I'm curious about: for the "treat ISPs in Africa/South Asia 
differently" idea — would people in other regions be able to abuse those 
services? Would a bad actor in Europe be able to make edits through an 
unblocked ISP in Ghana?

Also: What happens if the open-proxy block only applies to anon edits, and 
allows edits from people with accounts? I know that the basic answer is "then 
the bad-faith people create accounts, so there's no point" — but does that at 
least reduce the amount of "pain"/damage to a more acceptable level? 

I'd also like to know what happens if a wiki chooses to block all unregistered 
edits, like Portuguese WP and Farsi WP are doing right now? Would we still need 
to auto-block open proxies, if there was no more anonymous editing at all? I'm 
not suggesting that as a solution right now; I just want to understand what the 
impact would be. 

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas. 

DannyH, aka Danny Horn (WMF)
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Benjamin Lees]

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 quick review of the average  myriad steward
> backlogs indicates is not really a resource in sufficient supply to be
> profligate with.
>

Most of the steward blocks I see are already less than a month, and
sometimes less than a day. (I'm not sure how they're deciding which length
to use.) See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T303774 regarding the
frequency of blocks.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[nosebagbear]

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 very 
short-length blocks on proxies would require a major increase in Steward time, 
which a quick review of the average  myriad steward backlogs indicates is not 
really a resource in sufficient supply to be profligate with. 

Others have proposed using a professional group of employees to either replace 
or outweigh the CU corps. I seriously doubt many projects are going to be happy 
with vastly increasing the amount of blocks implemented by the foundation on 
the basis of evidence that very few can see. 

Vermont has correctly summarised the issues that come with any 
auto-implementation of IPBE. 

But there clearly is a need to act on the growing set of problems, and DannyH's 
list has many good options (and even the not so good options are the ones that 
obviously should be considered to judge the tradeoff threshold). 

If we can smooth the process for Stewards (on their side) to shrink the time 
needed for each action, that's the same effect as having more active stewards. 
That let's us consider options that currently may be a non-starter. We also 
need to smooth the process for requesting unblocks (or even understanding the 
problem). No doubt this is excabated by the "they can't hear you" 
 problems.  

We absolutely need a process for simplifying and clarifying both understanding 
IPBE (global/local) and then requesting it. 

Now, I suspect most "innocent" proxies being added/blocked would probably 
become "harmful" if unblocked (that is, sooner or later they'd be used 
problematically), but that's definitely something that should be tested as we 
expand on blocking proxies just because we know they're proxies.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[WM LGBT]

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 with easy to understand
and reliable methods to do so, even while most open proxies remain
blocked.

The specific use case we have is how to train and advise both new and
existing volunteers editing from African countries or states with laws
that criminalize queer people and who have been subjected to death
threats, threats of reporting them to the police and blackmail,
because they were editing queer and human rights topics regardless of
whether they identify as LGBTQ. Most of our community will agree that
our values of providing open knowledge projects "that anyone can edit"
ought to be a priority over other practical considerations. I'm sure
you can imagine how difficult it is to provide safe and secure events,
or how to advise on ways for non-technical volunteers to keep
themselves safe while relying on mobile connections and public wifi.
An easy and quick way to provide all good faith volunteers the means
to be allowed to create an account, or a legitimate anonymous sock
account if their main account has been connected to their real life
identity, that can edit through open proxies, without having to out
themselves by emailing stewards they don't know, having this logged on
a database or archived group email list that may leak or be targeted
by state actors, or risk messaging local administrators for help who
may themselves be openly hostile against queer content in their
language wikipedia. A reliable process would be welcome as part of a
set of guidelines we or the WMF can provide to volunteers and ask
projects to support that ensure users understand how to protect
themselves.

In recent meetings with our queer volunteers contributing from
locations where being reported to authorities as LGBTQ could result in
imprisonment or a death penalty, tell us that in their personal
networks they know of three times as many Wikimedians that would like
to edit queer content but do not feel safe doing so. Let's at least
document this use case, and provide better solutions than expecting
users to be so brave they are prepared to risk threats of outing or
prosecution to just edit a Wikipedia article in their language and
instead help all contributors to put their personal safety first.

On Sat, 30 Apr 2022 at 01:03,  wrote:
>
> (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, moderator tools on mobile web, and the 
> new incident reporting system.
>
> I've been reading all of these conversations, and I'm concerned about the 
> people on both sides of the issue -- the admins working to keep the projects 
> safe from bad-faith people, and the good-faith people who are being blocked 
> because of someone else's rangeblock, or because they're using default 
> network proxy features that they're not aware of.
>
> This problem is getting attention within the WMF. Foundation folks are really 
> concerned about what we're hearing on Wikimedia-L and in this discussion, 
> especially because there seem to be systemic issues that are specifically 
> making things harder for new users in Africa. I've got the opportunity right 
> now to assign people to make software changes to help solve this problem, 
> which is great. But now I'm trying to figure out what those software changes 
> could be, and I don't have a clear answer yet for what that should be.
>
> So if you don't mind, I'd like to run through what I think the main points 
> are, and a list of possible directions that a solution could take, and then I 
> would love it if you could help me figure this out.
>
> Here's what I understand about the problem:
>
> * Open proxies are a vector for harassment and vandalism. Bad-faith long term 
> abusers use them to disguise their IP and evade detection. The projects 
> automatically block open proxies that they know about, to discourage the 
> bad-faith vandals.
>
> * There's been a big increase in proxy blocks since July 2021 on English 
> Wikipedia (and Oct 2021 on Spanish WP), because ST47ProxyBot has been getting 
> trustworthy outside data to help identify open proxies.
>
> * The use of open proxies on the internet is rising, partly because people 
> are becoming more concerned about their privacy. Apple has introduced iCloud 
> Private Relay, which is disguising people's IP — this is currently in beta, 
> but will probably become the default. Google is working on a similar project. 
> Our system of using IPs to identify block vandals is gradually breaking down, 
> and there will 

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

[Jasper Deng]

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
response to abuse, particularly global blocks. So it would not help much
even if we did have the appetite and will to relax the no open proxies
policy.

On Sun, May 1, 2022 at 5:37 PM  wrote:

> Another somewhat obvious solution: instead, or before, of blocking, make
> the edits coming from one of the (too) dangerous IPs go through a reviewal
> process before getting published; hopefully a very quick one.
> In theory this would be against the original Wikipedia ideas, but I saw
> that it's something already practiced in some cases, and anyway blocking
> seems enormously worse than requiring a review before publication.
>
> By the way, I now realized that the current Wikipedia is already very
> different than what I believed, and it works just because it does *not*
> really allow anyone to make edits.
> Before deciding where to go from here I'd suggest you to reflect on what's
> worse: to forbid anonymity or require reviews; I believe most normal people
> are more interested in privacy than immediate publication of edits.
>
> Kind regards,
> Gabriele
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Vi to]

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 dangerous matter as soon as surely a
"libel case" from a notorious dictatorship is obviously not the same as
posting pedo content.

Today I've found an apparent newbie with very bordeline behavior about
depiction of minors. Guess the kind of IP their edits come from?

Vito

Vito

Il giorno dom 1 mag 2022 alle ore 05:08 proc  ha
scritto:

> 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 well.
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 7:21 PM Florence Devouard 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> 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
>> *
>>
>>
>> Long version :
>>
>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>
>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>> policy [1]
>> In particular africans.
>>
>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
>> all other Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>
>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
>> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
>> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
>> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>>
>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>
>>
>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
>> those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
>> proxy with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using
>> an open proxy
>>
>>
>> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
>> They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>>
>> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
>> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
>> New editors just as old timers.
>> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
>> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
>> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
>> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>>
>> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
>> regular occurence.
>> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
>> Several complaints per week.
>> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
>> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
>> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
>> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
>> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>>
>>
>> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
>> blocked, it is recommended
>>
>>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting 
>> and
>>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>>
>>
>> So...
>> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
>> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
>> IP block exemption list.
>> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
>> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
>> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
>> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>>
>> As a consequence, most editors 

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

[proc]

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 well.

On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 7:21 PM Florence Devouard 
wrote:

> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular occurence.
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
> Several complaints per week.
> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>
>
> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
> blocked, it is recommended
>
>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and
>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>
>
> So...
> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
> IP block exemption list.
> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>
> As a consequence, most editors concerned with those global blocks... stay
> blocked several days.
>
> We do not know know why the situation has rapidly got worse recently. But
> it got worse. And the reports are spilling all over.
>
> We started collecting negative experiences on this page [4].
> Please note that people who added their names here are not random newbies.
> They are known and respected members of our community, often leaders of
> activities and/or representant of their usergroups, who are confronted to
> this situation on a REGULAR basis.
>
> I do not know how this can be fixed. Should we slow down open proxy
> blocking ? Should we add a mecanism and process for an easier and quicker
> IP block exemption process post-blocking ? Should we improve a 

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

[Samuel Klein]

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
>> 'right' path either.
>>
>> A throttle plus flagging proxy edits to admins are really good ideas.
> Creating visibility for functionaries and ways to dial down volume without
> blocking everyone entirely are the right way to allow more openness
> balanced with control.
>

+1.  We already have many classes, not just two, as we flag accounts by
seniority, an important aspect of soft security.
We should always try to limit hard blocks and expand the capacity +
efficiency of reviews and responses after contribution.


> Thanks for hopping in the conversation Danny, glad to know the team is
> thinking on this. The poorly designed way that proxy blocks and requesting
> IPBE are communicated feels like low hanging fruit that the Foundation
> design and product teams could tackle here?
>

Two other ideas:
- Let people who are vouched for by current users in good standing
automatically get IPBE (linked to the vouching account).  Or let current
users create a new account for someone they bouch for, and ask on-wiki on
their behalf for IPBE for that account.  Simple, transparent.
- Make the steps in the block-exemption process and the range of banners +
messages people see when blocked, more browsable and editable by the
community of editors.

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

[Steven Walling]

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). But
> just to put it out there:
>
> One of the main reasons that we block open proxies, is because of
> sockpuppets and block evaders. What if we would somehow expose to admins
> which edits are made by open proxy? That way they can consider the entire
> picture (including a history of good faith edits) before blocking their
> edits. Down the road, that flag could become more nuanced (open proxy vs
> shared connection) but obviously it would have to remain pretty broad
> categories. There are plenty of downsides (WMF would need to keep a
> database of open proxies for one, but it would also share a small piece of
> private information about the user - we could warn them about that as they
> are saving their edit).
>
> If we are afraid primarily for rapid open proxy edits, we could use a
> tactic that is used by some social media tech companies in other settings:
> slow them down when using an identified open proxy. If we build in a 30s
> throttle or even wait time before the edit can be saved, or a 5 minute
> delay before the edit can become visible, that would take the fun out of it
> possibly. Obvious downside is that this is still annoying as hell for good
> faith users, but at least they can now request exceptions on-wiki.
>
> 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
> 'right' path either.
>
> Lodewijk
>

A throttle plus flagging proxy edits to admins are really good ideas.
Creating visibility for functionaries and ways to dial down volume without
blocking everyone entirely are the right way to allow more openness
balanced with control.

Thanks for hopping in the conversation Danny, glad to know the team is
thinking on this. The poorly designed way that proxy blocks and requesting
IPBE are communicated feels like low hanging fruit that the Foundation
design and product teams could tackle here?

On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 5:03 PM  wrote:
>
>> (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, moderator tools on mobile web, and
>> the new incident reporting system.
>>
>> I've been reading all of these conversations, and I'm concerned about the
>> people on both sides of the issue -- the admins working to keep the
>> projects safe from bad-faith people, and the good-faith people who are
>> being blocked because of someone else's rangeblock, or because they're
>> using default network proxy features that they're not aware of.
>>
>> This problem is getting attention within the WMF. Foundation folks are
>> really concerned about what we're hearing on Wikimedia-L and in this
>> discussion, especially because there seem to be systemic issues that are
>> specifically making things harder for new users in Africa. I've got the
>> opportunity right now to assign people to make software changes to help
>> solve this problem, which is great. But now I'm trying to figure out what
>> those software changes could be, and I don't have a clear answer yet for
>> what that should be.
>>
>> So if you don't mind, I'd like to run through what I think the main
>> points are, and a list of possible directions that a solution could take,
>> and then I would love it if you could help me figure this out.
>>
>> Here's what I understand about the problem:
>>
>> * Open proxies are a vector for harassment and vandalism. Bad-faith long
>> term abusers use them to disguise their IP and evade detection. The
>> projects automatically block open proxies that they know about, to
>> discourage the bad-faith vandals.
>>
>> * There's been a big increase in proxy blocks since July 2021 on English
>> Wikipedia (and Oct 2021 on Spanish WP), because ST47ProxyBot has been
>> getting trustworthy outside data to help identify open proxies.
>>
>> * The use of open proxies on the internet is rising, partly because
>> people are becoming more concerned about their privacy. Apple has
>> introduced iCloud Private Relay, which is disguising people's IP — this is
>> currently in beta, but will probably become the default. Google is working
>> on a similar project. Our system of using IPs to identify block vandals is
>> gradually breaking down, and there will probably be a point when IPs just
>> won't be useful anymore.
>>
>> * There are a lot of good-faith users, including first-time contributors,
>> who are getting caught in these blocks. For some people, that's an annoying
>> inconvenience; for many others, 

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

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

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 would make it much easier for those who have access to the
filters to identify sockpuppets and LTAs, possibiliting a much more
intelligent and informed blocking of those accounts, instead of the
randomic mess that happens now. There are some privacy concerns with the
use of that flag, but all of them way more bearable than using bare IP
addresses, or having to expose oneself on the steward mailing list when
trying to request a IPBE for legitimate use.

And legitimate uses for OPs are getting more and more common by the day,
and not only for those living in China, Russia or Venezuela. At this point
most of us who edit from Portugal and Brasil know very well the dire risks
we incur everyday when editing Wikipedia with a known identity, which go
from physical threats and harassment of us and our direct family, to having
to defend ourselves in court on all kind of frivolous causes - which is
just another form of harassment - generally without help from the WMF.

Best,
Paulo

effe iets anders  escreveu no dia sábado,
30/04/2022 à(s) 08:37:

> 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 open proxies, is because of
> sockpuppets and block evaders. What if we would somehow expose to admins
> which edits are made by open proxy? That way they can consider the entire
> picture (including a history of good faith edits) before blocking their
> edits. Down the road, that flag could become more nuanced (open proxy vs
> shared connection) but obviously it would have to remain pretty broad
> categories. There are plenty of downsides (WMF would need to keep a
> database of open proxies for one, but it would also share a small piece of
> private information about the user - we could warn them about that as they
> are saving their edit).
>
> If we are afraid primarily for rapid open proxy edits, we could use a
> tactic that is used by some social media tech companies in other settings:
> slow them down when using an identified open proxy. If we build in a 30s
> throttle or even wait time before the edit can be saved, or a 5 minute
> delay before the edit can become visible, that would take the fun out of it
> possibly. Obvious downside is that this is still annoying as hell for good
> faith users, but at least they can now request exceptions on-wiki.
>
> 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
> 'right' path either.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 5:03 PM  wrote:
>
>> (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, moderator tools on mobile web, and
>> the new incident reporting system.
>>
>> I've been reading all of these conversations, and I'm concerned about the
>> people on both sides of the issue -- the admins working to keep the
>> projects safe from bad-faith people, and the good-faith people who are
>> being blocked because of someone else's rangeblock, or because they're
>> using default network proxy features that they're not aware of.
>>
>> This problem is getting attention within the WMF. Foundation folks are
>> really concerned about what we're hearing on Wikimedia-L and in this
>> discussion, especially because there seem to be systemic issues that are
>> specifically making things harder for new users in Africa. I've got the
>> opportunity right now to assign people to make software changes to help
>> solve this problem, which is great. But now I'm trying to figure out what
>> those software changes could be, and I don't have a clear answer yet for
>> what that should be.
>>
>> So if you don't mind, I'd like to run through what I think the main
>> points are, and a list of possible directions that a solution could take,
>> and then I would love it if you could help me figure this out.
>>
>> Here's what I understand about the problem:
>>
>> * Open proxies are a vector for harassment and vandalism. Bad-faith long
>> term abusers use them to disguise their IP and evade detection. The
>> projects automatically block open proxies that they know about, to
>> discourage the bad-faith vandals.
>>
>> * There's been a big increase in proxy blocks since July 2021 on English
>> Wikipedia (and Oct 2021 

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

[Johan Jönsson]

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 'mitigate harm' category). But
> just to put it out there:
>
> One of the main reasons that we block open proxies, is because of
> sockpuppets and block evaders. What if we would somehow expose to admins
> which edits are made by open proxy? That way they can consider the entire
> picture (including a history of good faith edits) before blocking their
> edits. Down the road, that flag could become more nuanced (open proxy vs
> shared connection) but obviously it would have to remain pretty broad
> categories. There are plenty of downsides (WMF would need to keep a
> database of open proxies for one, but it would also share a small piece of
> private information about the user - we could warn them about that as they
> are saving their edit).
>
> If we are afraid primarily for rapid open proxy edits, we could use a
> tactic that is used by some social media tech companies in other settings:
> slow them down when using an identified open proxy. If we build in a 30s
> throttle or even wait time before the edit can be saved, or a 5 minute
> delay before the edit can become visible, that would take the fun out of it
> possibly. Obvious downside is that this is still annoying as hell for good
> faith users, but at least they can now request exceptions on-wiki.
>
> 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
> 'right' path either.
>

Relevant in this context:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IP_Editing:_Privacy_Enhancement_and_Abuse_Mitigation/IP_Info_feature

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

[effe iets anders]

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 open proxies, is because of
sockpuppets and block evaders. What if we would somehow expose to admins
which edits are made by open proxy? That way they can consider the entire
picture (including a history of good faith edits) before blocking their
edits. Down the road, that flag could become more nuanced (open proxy vs
shared connection) but obviously it would have to remain pretty broad
categories. There are plenty of downsides (WMF would need to keep a
database of open proxies for one, but it would also share a small piece of
private information about the user - we could warn them about that as they
are saving their edit).

If we are afraid primarily for rapid open proxy edits, we could use a
tactic that is used by some social media tech companies in other settings:
slow them down when using an identified open proxy. If we build in a 30s
throttle or even wait time before the edit can be saved, or a 5 minute
delay before the edit can become visible, that would take the fun out of it
possibly. Obvious downside is that this is still annoying as hell for good
faith users, but at least they can now request exceptions on-wiki.

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
'right' path either.

Lodewijk

On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 5:03 PM  wrote:

> (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, moderator tools on mobile web, and
> the new incident reporting system.
>
> I've been reading all of these conversations, and I'm concerned about the
> people on both sides of the issue -- the admins working to keep the
> projects safe from bad-faith people, and the good-faith people who are
> being blocked because of someone else's rangeblock, or because they're
> using default network proxy features that they're not aware of.
>
> This problem is getting attention within the WMF. Foundation folks are
> really concerned about what we're hearing on Wikimedia-L and in this
> discussion, especially because there seem to be systemic issues that are
> specifically making things harder for new users in Africa. I've got the
> opportunity right now to assign people to make software changes to help
> solve this problem, which is great. But now I'm trying to figure out what
> those software changes could be, and I don't have a clear answer yet for
> what that should be.
>
> So if you don't mind, I'd like to run through what I think the main points
> are, and a list of possible directions that a solution could take, and then
> I would love it if you could help me figure this out.
>
> Here's what I understand about the problem:
>
> * Open proxies are a vector for harassment and vandalism. Bad-faith long
> term abusers use them to disguise their IP and evade detection. The
> projects automatically block open proxies that they know about, to
> discourage the bad-faith vandals.
>
> * There's been a big increase in proxy blocks since July 2021 on English
> Wikipedia (and Oct 2021 on Spanish WP), because ST47ProxyBot has been
> getting trustworthy outside data to help identify open proxies.
>
> * The use of open proxies on the internet is rising, partly because people
> are becoming more concerned about their privacy. Apple has introduced
> iCloud Private Relay, which is disguising people's IP — this is currently
> in beta, but will probably become the default. Google is working on a
> similar project. Our system of using IPs to identify block vandals is
> gradually breaking down, and there will probably be a point when IPs just
> won't be useful anymore.
>
> * There are a lot of good-faith users, including first-time contributors,
> who are getting caught in these blocks. For some people, that's an annoying
> inconvenience; for many others, especially brand new people, it drives them
> away completely.
>
> * There appears to be a systemic issue with how some African ISPs deal
> with IP addresses, which is creating a lot of collateral damage in places
> where campaign organizers are trying to introduce new users to wiki
> contribution. I saw one person mention that the problem was especially bad
> in Ghana and Benin.
>
> * The messages that people get when they're blocked are confusing,
> especially for new people. They only get the message after they've made an
> edit and are trying to publish, which is very frustrating.
>
> * The solution for individuals is to request an IP Block Exemption, which

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

[dhorn]

(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, moderator tools on mobile web, and the 
new incident reporting system.

I've been reading all of these conversations, and I'm concerned about the 
people on both sides of the issue -- the admins working to keep the projects 
safe from bad-faith people, and the good-faith people who are being blocked 
because of someone else's rangeblock, or because they're using default network 
proxy features that they're not aware of.

This problem is getting attention within the WMF. Foundation folks are really 
concerned about what we're hearing on Wikimedia-L and in this discussion, 
especially because there seem to be systemic issues that are specifically 
making things harder for new users in Africa. I've got the opportunity right 
now to assign people to make software changes to help solve this problem, which 
is great. But now I'm trying to figure out what those software changes could 
be, and I don't have a clear answer yet for what that should be.

So if you don't mind, I'd like to run through what I think the main points are, 
and a list of possible directions that a solution could take, and then I would 
love it if you could help me figure this out.

Here's what I understand about the problem:

* Open proxies are a vector for harassment and vandalism. Bad-faith long term 
abusers use them to disguise their IP and evade detection. The projects 
automatically block open proxies that they know about, to discourage the 
bad-faith vandals.

* There's been a big increase in proxy blocks since July 2021 on English 
Wikipedia (and Oct 2021 on Spanish WP), because ST47ProxyBot has been getting 
trustworthy outside data to help identify open proxies.

* The use of open proxies on the internet is rising, partly because people are 
becoming more concerned about their privacy. Apple has introduced iCloud 
Private Relay, which is disguising people's IP — this is currently in beta, but 
will probably become the default. Google is working on a similar project. Our 
system of using IPs to identify block vandals is gradually breaking down, and 
there will probably be a point when IPs just won't be useful anymore.

* There are a lot of good-faith users, including first-time contributors, who 
are getting caught in these blocks. For some people, that's an annoying 
inconvenience; for many others, especially brand new people, it drives them 
away completely.

* There appears to be a systemic issue with how some African ISPs deal with IP 
addresses, which is creating a lot of collateral damage in places where 
campaign organizers are trying to introduce new users to wiki contribution. I 
saw one person mention that the problem was especially bad in Ghana and Benin.

* The messages that people get when they're blocked are confusing, especially 
for new people. They only get the message after they've made an edit and are 
trying to publish, which is very frustrating.

* The solution for individuals is to request an IP Block Exemption, which can 
be either local or global, depending on whether the block is local or global. 
The local/global distinction is very confusing for people who are trying to 
make the request, and the whole process is difficult.

* Each request has to be processed by hand, and the system gets backed up. It's 
possible to get unblocked quickly if you know the right person to email, but a 
lot of people just fill out the request, and then wait for who knows how long.

* It's possible for admins/stewards to get overwhelmed by the number of unblock 
requests.

That's a cluster of many different problems, so now I'm trying to figure out 
which problems we could actually make progress on.

Possibilities include:

* Mitigate the harm coming from open proxies, so we don't need to automatically 
block them

* Understand the difference between a "dangerous" open proxy (which bad-faith 
people are actually using) and a more "innocent" proxy (which is just blocked 
because we know it's a proxy), and then treat them differently. (If it's 
possible to make that distinction.)

* Make the messages to good-faith people more helpful and less frustrating

* Make the unblock request process easier/faster/more friendly for the people 
making requests

* Make the unblock request process easier for the people responding, so they 
can process them faster (or involve more people who can help)

* Make it easier for good-faith people to get some kind of automatic exemption

* Make it easier for campaign and editathon organizers to whitelist their 
participants

* Adapt the system better to the reality of African ISPs — figure out what the 
problem is, and treat those ISPs differently

That's a lot, and it's not clear to me what the path forward 

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

[Joris Darlington Quarshie]

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 verified. Access is granted to edit content.
- If username is not verified. Kindly state “ There’s no username as such.
Access denied.
- After editing, thanks for your contribution. Your edit will be reviewed
within (this duration) before its published.
- Username must match with user login entered.
- After reviewing, if there’s no form of vandalism. User receives a
notification “edit from IP address is published”. If there’s a form of
vandalism user receives a notification message “ edit from IP address
contains vandalism content. Therefore user is blocked”.


Kindly note: Please this just an idea that came in mind. If there are
stewards here who will like to go through this and share the feedback with
me I will Ben grateful.
On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 4:08 PM Bence Damokos  wrote:

> 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 form) , on English Wikipedia when logged out I get the edit
> button and block message, whereas if I am logged in I get a locked pencil
> edit button and a nightmare of a block message: it is a wall of text that
> asks me to put something on my talk page, and then instead of linking to my
> talk page, it links to a help page that explains what talk pages are... Or
> alternatively it leads to an unblock request system, but also asks for my
> IP address that I should get by going to an other wikipedia page that
> should load my IP address, but in fact doesn't neither logged in or out...
>
> Anyways, long story short - whoever designed this blocking system and the
> corresponding messages, should try to follow the path it sets to the users
> with the eyes of a newbie (maybe ask an outsider in front of you to see if
> they understand it) and see if they see an opportunity to streamline the
> hell out of it.
>
> Best regards,
> Bence
>
> On Tue, 26 Apr 2022 at 12:32, Mario Gómez  wrote:
>
>> 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 other
>> issues depending on the editor, registered/unregistered, or type of block.
>> Also it is possible that the warning was displayed, but it was easily
>> ignored because of the lack of visibility in some scenarios.
>>
>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mobile_communication_bugs
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Mario
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
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>
> ___
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-- 
Joris Darlington Quarshie
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Bence Damokos]

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 form) , on English Wikipedia when logged out I get the edit
button and block message, whereas if I am logged in I get a locked pencil
edit button and a nightmare of a block message: it is a wall of text that
asks me to put something on my talk page, and then instead of linking to my
talk page, it links to a help page that explains what talk pages are... Or
alternatively it leads to an unblock request system, but also asks for my
IP address that I should get by going to an other wikipedia page that
should load my IP address, but in fact doesn't neither logged in or out...

Anyways, long story short - whoever designed this blocking system and the
corresponding messages, should try to follow the path it sets to the users
with the eyes of a newbie (maybe ask an outsider in front of you to see if
they understand it) and see if they see an opportunity to streamline the
hell out of it.

Best regards,
Bence

On Tue, 26 Apr 2022 at 12:32, Mario Gómez  wrote:

> 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 other
> issues depending on the editor, registered/unregistered, or type of block.
> Also it is possible that the warning was displayed, but it was easily
> ignored because of the lack of visibility in some scenarios.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mobile_communication_bugs
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Florence Devouard]

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 seeing the IP is necessary, I have been wondering on 
steward pool


1) how do you truely evaluate/know of each steward activity or lack 
there of (steward activity). Probably easy to see the fully inactive 
ones (might not be wiki active anymore), or the super active ones. But 
for all those in-between how do you know the level of activity of 
the 40 or so ? I have looked at the past situation and see there are 
only 1-2 people removed for inactivity for most of the past few years. 
It seems a bit surprising to me.


2) Number of stewards has been more or less stable since 2009... the 
highest seem to have been 36. The lowest was 29 stewards in 2011. I am 
not sure how much the job has evolved since inception given the many 
roles added over time. But has the job been easier or more complicated 
since 2009 ? Is the current number of steward sufficient ?


3) I see the number of candidates has been fairly limited over the year. 
With a third to half of candidates rejected. 7 candidates in 2018 (2 
no), 14 candidates in 2019 (7 no), 10 candidates in 2021 (5 no), 7 
candidates in 2022 (2 no). Is this figure considered satisfactory to 
you, or would you be hoping for more good candidates ? Has the 
recruitement process been rather passive (simply posting an announcement 
to call for new candidates) or rather active (actively approaching 
potential candidates).



Flo


Le 22/04/2022 à 15:20, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l a écrit :

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 from CGNAT-using ISPs, people whose residential ranges are 
blocked as p2p proxies, and people who just want to edit with a proxy. 
Often there are rangeblocks with specific circumstances behind it, 
such as usage by LTAs or being a specific type of proxy. Knowing this 
background is necessary.


It would be incredibly helpful if there was a way to send in IPBE 
requests on-wiki and for Stewards to be able to respond to it on-wiki, 
confidentially. Where those affected can input the affected IP address 
and reason, and Stewards can answer the queue there quickly and 
easily. We can handle the quantity of requests if the process is workable.


I'm also wondering who the people discussed with privately are. Your 
suggestion here is one of the most feasible I've seen, and as far as I 
can tell there are very few people asking Stewards directly for input 
on this. I've seen a lot of comments which are misinformed about what 
is happening, why, and what is a feasible fix.


My message on the Meta-Wiki page outlines my views on this. Optimally, 
the WMF would discuss with Stewards ways to create a better system for 
this, and implement it. New problems, old tech.


Best regards,
Rae



User:Vermont  on 
Wikimedia projects
they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter 
)



On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 8:43 AM Florence Devouard 
 wrote:


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 the projects from vandals.

However, the general observation is that the current system to
report an unfair block to stewards and get unblocked by them is
largely broken.
1) process is not simple to understand by the user
2) complicated to implement on the steward side (requires back and
forth discussion, checking legitimacy of request, copy pasting
information etc.)
3) the steward pool of volunteers is limited, whilst the stewards
willing to do that job is even smaller (I heard the VRT queue is
overflowing)
4) the process reveals IP private info
All this creates a bottleneck.

There is one path we could explore, a feature to simplify the
process of "adding legitimate users" to the Global IPblock
exemptions list, in a process inspired from the Global renamers one.
* new functionary role (eg Global IPblock exempters) : populated
by stewards, or people appointed by steward
* interface directly on wiki (bypass of VRT, bypass of copy
pasting between tools)
* a process which would NOT require revealing the IP address to
the functionary (it is sufficient that the system recognise the

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

[Mario Gómez]

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 other
issues depending on the editor, registered/unregistered, or type of block.
Also it is possible that the warning was displayed, but it was easily
ignored because of the lack of visibility in some scenarios.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mobile_communication_bugs

Best,

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

[Peter Southwood]

“the block message only shows up when I try to save the page”

That is just inexcusable. Symbolic of complete indifference to other people’s 
time wasted. Why would a new editor treated like this ever bother to try again? 
 Block message with explanation and alternatives (with links) should come up 
when the person tries to open to edit, and page should not open to edit.

 

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that “anyone” can edit if:

*very long list of conditions that apply…

*list of hoops that you must jump through to get access…

 

Cheers, Peter

 

From: Bence Damokos [mailto:bdamo...@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. I myself am unable to edit for example - and half the time 
I am not bothered to workaround the issue and just give up the edit. 

 

Also, annoyingly, the block message only shows up when I try to save the page 
(at least on mobile), not when I start the edit, again, leading to unnecessary 
frustration.

 

Best regards,

Bence

On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 20:42, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
 wrote:

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 or a 
steward with no power. 

 

It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated exactly, but 
you just get the feeling that some users really care a lot about this policy 
and you just have to deal with the consequences, no matter how time-consuming 
it's getting.

 

A.M.

 

Il mercoledì 20 aprile 2022, 20:34:36 CEST, Amir E. Aharoni 
 ha scritto: 

 

 

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 
last year it has become unbearably frequent.

 

A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this several 
times, and they always say something like "we know that this affects certain 
countries badly, and we know that the technology has changed since the 
mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies because it would 
immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis". I'm sure they mean 
well, but this is not sustainable.


--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore

 

 

‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת ‪Florence Devouard‏ <‪ 
<mailto:fdevou...@gmail.com> fdevou...@gmail.com‏>:

Hello friends

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

 

Long version : 

I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in the 
past couple of weeks/months. 

Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies policy 
[1]
In particular africans.

In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and all 
other Wikimedia projects. 

According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies (including 
paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While this may affect 
legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies 
until those are blocked [...]

Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies 
should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely the 
IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or the 
open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.

According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of 
an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on local projects 
by administrators and globally by stewards. »

 

I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those are 
blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy with the 
IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an open proxy


Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They do 
not understand well what to do when they are blocked.

In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being blocked 
due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing. 
New editors just as old timers.
Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,

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

[Lane Chance]

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 that's inconvenient for volunteer
checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
..." addressed this issue precisely, hence is why I referred to it. You
seem to have been reading a different email.

There were no assumptions about "non-existing practices" and it's not bad
faith to highlight that there are cases of checkusers that misused the
tools and have vanished or left the projects. Perhaps you can answer the
question about how many cases there have been?

Lane


> Vito
>
> Il giorno sab 23 apr 2022 alle ore 19:58 Lane Chance 
> ha scritto:
>
>>
>> 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 starting point. Your
>> response has not refuted any of those facts, in fact as a checkuser you no
>> doubt could confirm exactly how many times in the past checkuser tools have
>> been misused and how they are still open to being misused.
>>
>>
>>> 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 China. The issue here is not people being declined gIPBE,
>>> it’s the sheer amount of people who need it and the lack of infrastructure
>>> for current volunteers to handle those requests.
>>>
>>
>>  Declining was not mentioned and is not the issue. Alternatives for "lack
>> of infrastructure" and lack of "current volunteers" was addressed in my
>> email. Lacking volunteers is not a reason to fail to provide access to new
>> joiners editing in good faith.
>>
>>
>>
>>> What isn’t feasible is automatically giving everyone IPBE, global or
>>> local, as it would make CU next to useless. Anyone intent on abuse could
>>> just flip a VPN on. This isn’t “the convenience of current checkusers”,
>>> this is an indisputable fact. People subject to bans often try to get IPBE
>>> so they can edit on a VPN without concern for that account being found in
>>> relation to previous ones. Any human review is better than mass-granting it
>>> to tens of thousands of accounts. We just need to speed up the time it
>>> takes to do that human review.
>>>
>>>
>> No, it would not "make CU next to useless". If people are contributing as
>> part of editathons or similar, and if 100% of all their contributions are
>> valuable good faith contributions, nothing else should matter. Literally
>> they are not using the account for anything wrong, so why would anyone
>> care? It is not the job of checkusers to be secret police and see all new
>> joiners in bad faith, that is neither useful, nor a good use of volunteer
>> time.
>>
>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Rae
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 04:48 Lane Chance  wrote:
>>>
 "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
 wikidata.

 "also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts
 the convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against
 the safety of new and regular users.

 Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and
 in the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private
 records, despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to
 vanish without any serious consequences.

 Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment
 or harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
 information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
 preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
 competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
 Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
 checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
 service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
 even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
 verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
 lobbyists.

 Lane

 On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
 

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

[Vi to]

"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 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 starting point. Your
> response has not refuted any of those facts, in fact as a checkuser you no
> doubt could confirm exactly how many times in the past checkuser tools have
> been misused and how they are still open to being misused.
>
>
>> 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 China. The issue here is not people being declined gIPBE,
>> it’s the sheer amount of people who need it and the lack of infrastructure
>> for current volunteers to handle those requests.
>>
>
>  Declining was not mentioned and is not the issue. Alternatives for "lack
> of infrastructure" and lack of "current volunteers" was addressed in my
> email. Lacking volunteers is not a reason to fail to provide access to new
> joiners editing in good faith.
>
>
>
>> What isn’t feasible is automatically giving everyone IPBE, global or
>> local, as it would make CU next to useless. Anyone intent on abuse could
>> just flip a VPN on. This isn’t “the convenience of current checkusers”,
>> this is an indisputable fact. People subject to bans often try to get IPBE
>> so they can edit on a VPN without concern for that account being found in
>> relation to previous ones. Any human review is better than mass-granting it
>> to tens of thousands of accounts. We just need to speed up the time it
>> takes to do that human review.
>>
>>
> No, it would not "make CU next to useless". If people are contributing as
> part of editathons or similar, and if 100% of all their contributions are
> valuable good faith contributions, nothing else should matter. Literally
> they are not using the account for anything wrong, so why would anyone
> care? It is not the job of checkusers to be secret police and see all new
> joiners in bad faith, that is neither useful, nor a good use of volunteer
> time.
>
>
>> Regards,
>> Rae
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 04:48 Lane Chance  wrote:
>>
>>> "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 wikidata.
>>>
>>> "also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts
>>> the convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against
>>> the safety of new and regular users.
>>>
>>> Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and
>>> in the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private
>>> records, despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to
>>> vanish without any serious consequences.
>>>
>>> Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment or
>>> harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
>>> information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
>>> preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
>>> competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
>>> Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
>>> checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
>>> service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
>>> even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
>>> verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
>>> lobbyists.
>>>
>>> Lane
>>>
>>> On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
>>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
 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
 they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
 )


 On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM Vi to  wrote:

> 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 

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

[Lane Chance]

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 starting point. Your
response has not refuted any of those facts, in fact as a checkuser you no
doubt could confirm exactly how many times in the past checkuser tools have
been misused and how they are still open to being misused.


> 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 China. The issue here is not people being declined gIPBE,
> it’s the sheer amount of people who need it and the lack of infrastructure
> for current volunteers to handle those requests.
>

 Declining was not mentioned and is not the issue. Alternatives for "lack
of infrastructure" and lack of "current volunteers" was addressed in my
email. Lacking volunteers is not a reason to fail to provide access to new
joiners editing in good faith.



> What isn’t feasible is automatically giving everyone IPBE, global or
> local, as it would make CU next to useless. Anyone intent on abuse could
> just flip a VPN on. This isn’t “the convenience of current checkusers”,
> this is an indisputable fact. People subject to bans often try to get IPBE
> so they can edit on a VPN without concern for that account being found in
> relation to previous ones. Any human review is better than mass-granting it
> to tens of thousands of accounts. We just need to speed up the time it
> takes to do that human review.
>
>
No, it would not "make CU next to useless". If people are contributing as
part of editathons or similar, and if 100% of all their contributions are
valuable good faith contributions, nothing else should matter. Literally
they are not using the account for anything wrong, so why would anyone
care? It is not the job of checkusers to be secret police and see all new
joiners in bad faith, that is neither useful, nor a good use of volunteer
time.


> Regards,
> Rae
>
> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 04:48 Lane Chance  wrote:
>
>> "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 wikidata.
>>
>> "also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts
>> the convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against
>> the safety of new and regular users.
>>
>> Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and
>> in the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private
>> records, despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to
>> vanish without any serious consequences.
>>
>> Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment or
>> harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
>> information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
>> preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
>> competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
>> Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
>> checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
>> service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
>> even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
>> verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
>> lobbyists.
>>
>> Lane
>>
>> On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>>> they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
>>> )
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM Vi to  wrote:
>>>
 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 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

[Yaroslav Blanter]

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
own talk page). On my talk page, I requested an exempt and was quickly
given it; then I requested a global exempt for the remaining couple of days
and was given it as well; I can not really complain about the reaction
speed. However, I am by every definition a trusted user: 500K global edits,
admin flags on four projects, and a global rollback. I guess at least half
of the stewards have seen my username around. It probably would be easier
for everybody if I could get a global IP block exempt for say two or three
years, and then have it renewed assuming I am still active and the account
is not blocked on any project. I am sure we could come up with some
criteria for trusted users, and these can be given long-term exempts. This
would not fully solve the problem, but will take some time off the
stewards' hands.

Best
Yaroslav

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 4:17 PM 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.
>
> 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 China. The issue here is not people being declined gIPBE,
> it’s the sheer amount of people who need it and the lack of infrastructure
> for current volunteers to handle those requests.
>
> What isn’t feasible is automatically giving everyone IPBE, global or
> local, as it would make CU next to useless. Anyone intent on abuse could
> just flip a VPN on. This isn’t “the convenience of current checkusers”,
> this is an indisputable fact. People subject to bans often try to get IPBE
> so they can edit on a VPN without concern for that account being found in
> relation to previous ones. Any human review is better than mass-granting it
> to tens of thousands of accounts. We just need to speed up the time it
> takes to do that human review.
>
> Regards,
> Rae
>
> On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 04:48 Lane Chance  wrote:
>
>> "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 wikidata.
>>
>> "also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts
>> the convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against
>> the safety of new and regular users.
>>
>> Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and
>> in the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private
>> records, despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to
>> vanish without any serious consequences.
>>
>> Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment or
>> harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
>> information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
>> preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
>> competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
>> Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
>> checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
>> service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
>> even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
>> verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
>> lobbyists.
>>
>> Lane
>>
>> On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>>> they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
>>> )
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM Vi to  wrote:
>>>
 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 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] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l]

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 China. The issue here is not people being declined gIPBE,
it’s the sheer amount of people who need it and the lack of infrastructure
for current volunteers to handle those requests.

What isn’t feasible is automatically giving everyone IPBE, global or local,
as it would make CU next to useless. Anyone intent on abuse could just flip
a VPN on. This isn’t “the convenience of current checkusers”, this is an
indisputable fact. People subject to bans often try to get IPBE so they can
edit on a VPN without concern for that account being found in relation to
previous ones. Any human review is better than mass-granting it to tens of
thousands of accounts. We just need to speed up the time it takes to do
that human review.

Regards,
Rae

On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 04:48 Lane Chance  wrote:

> "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 wikidata.
>
> "also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts the
> convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against the
> safety of new and regular users.
>
> Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and in
> the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private records,
> despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to vanish
> without any serious consequences.
>
> Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment or
> harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
> information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
> preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
> competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
> Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
> checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
> service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
> even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
> verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
> lobbyists.
>
> Lane
>
> On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> 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
>> they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
>> )
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM Vi to  wrote:
>>
>>> 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 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, 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 every single range intensively if a
> block would case more harm than good). The situation with OPs is a bit
> different because they obfuscate the original IP address which is pretty
> often needed by checkusers and stewards to stop harm against the projects.
> For that reason, I agree that we cannot give up on OP blocking. The only
> way to get out of these problems are (much!) easier reporting ways, more
> people who can give out exceptions (locally and globally) and check
> outdated OPs and IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give long-term
> users an option to self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x hours 
> for
> such cases like edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would still
> be reported (in order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one
> moment would be solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”
>
> Why the quotation marks? 

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

[Lane Chance]

"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 wikidata.

"also make CU next to useless" is a unverifiable hypothesis which puts the
convenience of current checkusers and the existing practices against the
safety of new and regular users.

Checkusers are not legally accountable for their use of privileges, and in
the past checkusers have been found to have kept their own private records,
despite the agreement not to do it and simply been allowed to vanish
without any serious consequences.

Considering that the risks to some users is prosecution, imprisonment or
harassment by state actors which may be instigated by leaking this
information, simple precautions like GIPBE should be automatic and
preferably unquestioned for some regions or types of editathon or
competition, such as for good faith contributors to the articles about the
Ukraine war or human rights in China. If that's inconvenient for volunteer
checkusers, than it's pretty certain that the WMF can fund an support
service under meaningfully legally enforceable non-disclosure agreements,
even independent of the WMF itself if necessary, to run necessary
verification and ensure that the editors are not just vandals or state
lobbyists.

Lane

On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 20:49, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 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
> they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
> )
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM Vi to  wrote:
>
>> 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 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, 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 every single range intensively if a block would
 case more harm than good). The situation with OPs is a bit different
 because they obfuscate the original IP address which is pretty often needed
 by checkusers and stewards to stop harm against the projects. For that
 reason, I agree that we cannot give up on OP blocking. The only way to get
 out of these problems are (much!) easier reporting ways, more people who
 can give out exceptions (locally and globally) and check outdated OPs and
 IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give long-term users an option to
 self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x hours for such cases like
 edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would still be reported (in
 order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one moment would be
 solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”

 Why the quotation marks? Because I've posted that very same message to
 the metawiki page
 
  and
 understand it as one step towards a solution. In my opinion, it makes way
 more sense to talk publicly about the issue and possible solutions than
 losing good ideas (and there have been some already in this thread!) in the
 wide world of this mailing list. Let's have that conversation onwiki—and I
 also encourage the WMF tech departments to join in that conversation.
 Because we as stewards have reported our problems with the current
 situation multiple times, sought for technical solutions (e.g., better
 reporting tools), indeed did get a better rapport with the WMF teams but
 still are not where we need to be in order to serve both interests
 (openness and protection). Unsurprisingly, also stewards are individuals
 with different opinions and (possible) solutions to that one problem. As
 Vito said, we will once again discuss it and will share our thoughts and
 solutions.

 Best,
 DerHexer (Martin)

 Am Mittwoch, 20. April 2022, 20:19:48 MESZ 

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

[Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l]

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
they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
)


On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:00 PM Vi to  wrote:

> 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 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, 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 every single range intensively if a block would
>>> case more harm than good). The situation with OPs is a bit different
>>> because they obfuscate the original IP address which is pretty often needed
>>> by checkusers and stewards to stop harm against the projects. For that
>>> reason, I agree that we cannot give up on OP blocking. The only way to get
>>> out of these problems are (much!) easier reporting ways, more people who
>>> can give out exceptions (locally and globally) and check outdated OPs and
>>> IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give long-term users an option to
>>> self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x hours for such cases like
>>> edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would still be reported (in
>>> order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one moment would be
>>> solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”
>>>
>>> Why the quotation marks? Because I've posted that very same message to
>>> the metawiki page
>>> 
>>>  and
>>> understand it as one step towards a solution. In my opinion, it makes way
>>> more sense to talk publicly about the issue and possible solutions than
>>> losing good ideas (and there have been some already in this thread!) in the
>>> wide world of this mailing list. Let's have that conversation onwiki—and I
>>> also encourage the WMF tech departments to join in that conversation.
>>> Because we as stewards have reported our problems with the current
>>> situation multiple times, sought for technical solutions (e.g., better
>>> reporting tools), indeed did get a better rapport with the WMF teams but
>>> still are not where we need to be in order to serve both interests
>>> (openness and protection). Unsurprisingly, also stewards are individuals
>>> with different opinions and (possible) solutions to that one problem. As
>>> Vito said, we will once again discuss it and will share our thoughts and
>>> solutions.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> DerHexer (Martin)
>>>
>>> Am Mittwoch, 20. April 2022, 20:19:48 MESZ hat Florence Devouard <
>>> fdevou...@gmail.com> Folgendes geschrieben:
>>>
>>>
>>> Hello friends
>>>
>>> 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
>>> *
>>>
>>>
>>> Long version :
>>>
>>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>>
>>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>>> policy [1]
>>> In particular africans.
>>>
>>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta
>>> and all other Wikimedia projects.
>>>
>>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>>
>>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent
>>> proxies should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is
>>> likely the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically
>>> reassigned, or the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be
>>> unblocked.
>>>
>>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>>
>>>
>>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... 

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

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

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 Perneta  escreveu no dia sexta,
22/04/2022 à(s) 18:50:

>
> "*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 debacle has shown perfectly well - > at some point, the situation
> with piracy and vandalism coming from Angola W0 IPs was so bad that pretty
> much the whole country was hard blocked. I put a number of filters on place
> in order to monitor those editions on wiki.pt, and the result was that
> basically 100% of the editions coming through those IPs - and even accounts
> using them - were either vandalism, piracy or absolutely hopeless newbies
> who had not the least idea how to edit, without any means available to
> teach them - and without the least shred of interest from who was
> coordinating that W0 project in teaching the few goodwilling newbies the
> very basics of edition. This was clearly stated at the time by the WMF
> representative, it would have to be us, volunteers, who had somehow to find
> some way to teach users in Angola entering the projects from their
> cellphones (which is basically hell on earth even to old, seazoned,
> wikiwise rats like me and many others I know) without even access to talk
> pages or alerts or whatever how to edit Wikipedia. The obvious result was
> that shortly after that problem began, pretty much the whole country was
> blocked in a number of projects, including wiki.pt (not covering
> registered users) and Commons, and then, at some point, globally blocked on
> Meta. That was basically the end of the Angola community that had
> been forming before the W0 program started, since, if I recall correctly,
> the few users that existed were generally blocked at the time the global
> block was implemented, and asking for an IP block exception is very far
> from being an easy process, especially if you are using a cell phone, which
> was generally the case over there.
>
> Anyway, IP blocks* per se *are not the problem here. It is perfectly
> possible to block anonymous access, as we do at wiki.pt, and allow (and
> encourage!) registration of new users, allowing for a much productive and
> much less frustrating Wikipedia experience - where newbies can find help in
> many ways, including at the new mentorship program, which works fairly
> well, and actually engage with the community in a productive manner from
> day 1. The problem are those global blocks that do not allow new users to
> register, and often not even registered users if they have not sysop access
> or are not otherwise IP block exempt.
>
> Best,
> Paulo
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

"*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 debacle has shown perfectly well - > at some point, the situation
with piracy and vandalism coming from Angola W0 IPs was so bad that pretty
much the whole country was hard blocked. I put a number of filters on place
in order to monitor those editions on wiki.pt, and the result was that
basically 100% of the editions coming through those IPs - and even accounts
using them - were either vandalism, piracy or absolutely hopeless newbies
who had not the least idea how to edit, without any means available to
teach them - and without the least shred of interest from who was
coordinating that W0 project in teaching the few goodwilling newbies the
very basics of edition. This was clearly stated at the time by the WMF
representative, it would have to be us, volunteers, who had somehow to find
some way to teach users in Angola entering the projects from their
cellphones (which is basically hell on earth even to old, seazoned,
wikiwise rats like me and many others I know) without even access to talk
pages or alerts or whatever how to edit Wikipedia. The obvious result was
that shortly after that problem began, pretty much the whole country was
blocked in a number of projects, including wiki.pt (not covering registered
users) and Commons, and then, at some point, globally blocked on Meta. That
was basically the end of the Angola community that had been forming before
the W0 program started, since, if I recall correctly, the few users that
existed were generally blocked at the time the global block was
implemented, and asking for an IP block exception is very far from being an
easy process, especially if you are using a cell phone, which was generally
the case over there.

Anyway, IP blocks* per se *are not the problem here. It is perfectly
possible to block anonymous access, as we do at wiki.pt, and allow (and
encourage!) registration of new users, allowing for a much productive and
much less frustrating Wikipedia experience - where newbies can find help in
many ways, including at the new mentorship program, which works fairly
well, and actually engage with the community in a productive manner from
day 1. The problem are those global blocks that do not allow new users to
register, and often not even registered users if they have not sysop access
or are not otherwise IP block exempt.

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

[Vi to]

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
messages. I've tried to write down a stub of wizard at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Vituzzu/wizard but I lack
the time to do it). Also I'm quite skeptical about the technical support,
for the issue. This proposal
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022/Admins_and_patrollers/Allow_global_whitelisting_of_IPs_subject_to_global_rangeblocks
has been around since 2014, lack of global block for accounts is already a
meme.

In short, stewards and global patrollers are left alone fighting against
machines (it took ages to improve the NTSAMR spammers situation) and deeply
dedicated trolls (Rgalo and his T-MO block is immensely expensive in terms
of resources) almost by hand.

Vito

Il giorno ven 22 apr 2022 alle ore 14:43 Florence Devouard <
fdevou...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> 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 the projects from vandals.
>
> However, the general observation is that the current system to report an
> unfair block to stewards and get unblocked by them is largely broken.
> 1) process is not simple to understand by the user
> 2) complicated to implement on the steward side (requires back and forth
> discussion, checking legitimacy of request, copy pasting information etc.)
> 3) the steward pool of volunteers is limited, whilst the stewards willing
> to do that job is even smaller (I heard the VRT queue is overflowing)
> 4) the process reveals IP private info
> All this creates a bottleneck.
>
> There is one path we could explore, a feature to simplify the process of
> "adding legitimate users" to the Global IPblock exemptions list, in a
> process inspired from the Global renamers one.
> * new functionary role (eg Global IPblock exempters) : populated by
> stewards, or people appointed by steward
> * interface directly on wiki (bypass of VRT, bypass of copy pasting
> between tools)
> * a process which would NOT require revealing the IP address to the
> functionary (it is sufficient that the system recognise the person is
> blocked in relationship with an Open Proxy/TOR stuff)
> * a process which could provide info to the functionary to very quickly
> assess whether the person is a legitimate editor or not (every person
> fighting vandalism know how to do that... display last contribs... block
> log... number of edits... etc. or simply direct links to those info to
> simplify the functionary job)
> * a process allowing various "unblocking" options, day, weeks, indef
> listing, pretty much as the blocking feature permit, so as to grant indef
> listing to the super trustworthy individuals, and a time limited listing to
> those more questionnable
> * add a checkbox system where requesters can give pre-loaded reasons for
> their asking (edit-a-thons etc.), which will help make the system
> multilingual and language neutral for the functionary (in most cases, no
> need to discuss with the user)
> * add any feature necessary to limit the risk of vandals abusing the
> feature (forced loging before submitting the request, capcha stuff)
>
> In short, simply make the "add to the Global IP block exemption list"
> process fluid with removal of the current bottle neck (stewards), which in
> turn will be able to focus on more important security issues.
>
>
> Is there any reasons why this would technically and socially not work ?
>
> Flo
>
>
> Le 22/04/2022 à 13:25, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l a écrit :
>
> 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 here),
> they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if there would be more
> vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I think it should be done.
>
> “Smart blocking” would be a bad idea. It would take *a lot* of work to
> implement and would be a net harm to our ability to deal with abuse. I am
> strongly opposed to creating this. Also remember to a large extent the
> issue with these IPs isn’t a range, it’s that there’s multiple users on the
> *same* IP.
>
> Regarding IPBE, the issue isn’t that we’re declining requests, it’s that
> we don’t get to them in a timely manner. There are a lot of requests.
>
> I’ve tried to clear up a number of other misconceptions in a comment on
> the Meta-Wiki page as well.
>
> Best 

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

[Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l]

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 from
CGNAT-using ISPs, people whose residential ranges are blocked as p2p
proxies, and people who just want to edit with a proxy. Often there are
rangeblocks with specific circumstances behind it, such as usage by LTAs or
being a specific type of proxy. Knowing this background is necessary.

It would be incredibly helpful if there was a way to send in IPBE requests
on-wiki and for Stewards to be able to respond to it on-wiki,
confidentially. Where those affected can input the affected IP address and
reason, and Stewards can answer the queue there quickly and easily. We can
handle the quantity of requests if the process is workable.

I'm also wondering who the people discussed with privately are. Your
suggestion here is one of the most feasible I've seen, and as far as I can
tell there are very few people asking Stewards directly for input on this.
I've seen a lot of comments which are misinformed about what is happening,
why, and what is a feasible fix.

My message on the Meta-Wiki page outlines my views on this. Optimally, the
WMF would discuss with Stewards ways to create a better system for this,
and implement it. New problems, old tech.

Best regards,
Rae


User:Vermont  on Wikimedia
projects
they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
)


On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 8:43 AM Florence Devouard 
wrote:

> 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 the projects from vandals.
>
> However, the general observation is that the current system to report an
> unfair block to stewards and get unblocked by them is largely broken.
> 1) process is not simple to understand by the user
> 2) complicated to implement on the steward side (requires back and forth
> discussion, checking legitimacy of request, copy pasting information etc.)
> 3) the steward pool of volunteers is limited, whilst the stewards willing
> to do that job is even smaller (I heard the VRT queue is overflowing)
> 4) the process reveals IP private info
> All this creates a bottleneck.
>
> There is one path we could explore, a feature to simplify the process of
> "adding legitimate users" to the Global IPblock exemptions list, in a
> process inspired from the Global renamers one.
> * new functionary role (eg Global IPblock exempters) : populated by
> stewards, or people appointed by steward
> * interface directly on wiki (bypass of VRT, bypass of copy pasting
> between tools)
> * a process which would NOT require revealing the IP address to the
> functionary (it is sufficient that the system recognise the person is
> blocked in relationship with an Open Proxy/TOR stuff)
> * a process which could provide info to the functionary to very quickly
> assess whether the person is a legitimate editor or not (every person
> fighting vandalism know how to do that... display last contribs... block
> log... number of edits... etc. or simply direct links to those info to
> simplify the functionary job)
> * a process allowing various "unblocking" options, day, weeks, indef
> listing, pretty much as the blocking feature permit, so as to grant indef
> listing to the super trustworthy individuals, and a time limited listing to
> those more questionnable
> * add a checkbox system where requesters can give pre-loaded reasons for
> their asking (edit-a-thons etc.), which will help make the system
> multilingual and language neutral for the functionary (in most cases, no
> need to discuss with the user)
> * add any feature necessary to limit the risk of vandals abusing the
> feature (forced loging before submitting the request, capcha stuff)
>
> In short, simply make the "add to the Global IP block exemption list"
> process fluid with removal of the current bottle neck (stewards), which in
> turn will be able to focus on more important security issues.
>
>
> Is there any reasons why this would technically and socially not work ?
>
> Flo
>
>
> Le 22/04/2022 à 13:25, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l a écrit :
>
> 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 here),
> they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if there would be more
> vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I 

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

[Vi to]

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, 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 here),
> they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if there would be more
> vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I think it should be done.
>
> “Smart blocking” would be a bad idea. It would take *a lot* of work to
> implement and would be a net harm to our ability to deal with abuse. I am
> strongly opposed to creating this. Also remember to a large extent the
> issue with these IPs isn’t a range, it’s that there’s multiple users on the
> *same* IP.
>
> Regarding IPBE, the issue isn’t that we’re declining requests, it’s that
> we don’t get to them in a timely manner. There are a lot of requests.
>
> I’ve tried to clear up a number of other misconceptions in a comment on
> the Meta-Wiki page as well.
>
> Best regards,
> Rae
>
> On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 07:03 WereSpielChequers <
> werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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 clearly
>> above the 2014 minima. But we do have huge geographic skews and in
>> particular we badly underrepresent the English speaking parts of Africa in
>> our community and in our Projects. I don't know if other languages have
>> similar issues, but it would not surprise me.
>>
>> I get that lowering our guard overall against IP vandals would increase
>> the workload of  those who'd rather be improving Wikipedia than clearing up
>> after vandals. But there are a couple of things that could fairly easily
>> be done if we  want a more global community.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> Secondly, implement "smart blocking", especially with range bocks. Yes
>> there will still be lots of collateral damage where someone in the same
>> range has the same sort of device/, O/S etc as the person who did the edit
>> that prompted the block. But anyone in the same range who uses a different
>> type of hardware  operating system etc would not be caught by a smart block.
>>
>> Thirdly, especially if we can't do the first two, be more liberal with IP
>> block exemption for accounts in countries where we lack editors and have
>> problems with a limited number of often blocked IPs.
>>
>> WSC
>>
>>>
>>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/CDBOEBW2ZRYHWYBHAYEPOIWZ6YC2WLIK/
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> --
>
> 
> User:Vermont  on Wikimedia
> projects
> they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter
> )
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Amir E. Aharoni]

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 blocking them only if they actually vandalize.

בתאריך יום ו׳, 22 באפר׳ 2022, 15:44, מאת Florence Devouard ‏<
fdevou...@gmail.com>:

> 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 the projects from vandals.
>
> However, the general observation is that the current system to report an
> unfair block to stewards and get unblocked by them is largely broken.
> 1) process is not simple to understand by the user
> 2) complicated to implement on the steward side (requires back and forth
> discussion, checking legitimacy of request, copy pasting information etc.)
> 3) the steward pool of volunteers is limited, whilst the stewards willing
> to do that job is even smaller (I heard the VRT queue is overflowing)
> 4) the process reveals IP private info
> All this creates a bottleneck.
>
> There is one path we could explore, a feature to simplify the process of
> "adding legitimate users" to the Global IPblock exemptions list, in a
> process inspired from the Global renamers one.
> * new functionary role (eg Global IPblock exempters) : populated by
> stewards, or people appointed by steward
> * interface directly on wiki (bypass of VRT, bypass of copy pasting
> between tools)
> * a process which would NOT require revealing the IP address to the
> functionary (it is sufficient that the system recognise the person is
> blocked in relationship with an Open Proxy/TOR stuff)
> * a process which could provide info to the functionary to very quickly
> assess whether the person is a legitimate editor or not (every person
> fighting vandalism know how to do that... display last contribs... block
> log... number of edits... etc. or simply direct links to those info to
> simplify the functionary job)
> * a process allowing various "unblocking" options, day, weeks, indef
> listing, pretty much as the blocking feature permit, so as to grant indef
> listing to the super trustworthy individuals, and a time limited listing to
> those more questionnable
> * add a checkbox system where requesters can give pre-loaded reasons for
> their asking (edit-a-thons etc.), which will help make the system
> multilingual and language neutral for the functionary (in most cases, no
> need to discuss with the user)
> * add any feature necessary to limit the risk of vandals abusing the
> feature (forced loging before submitting the request, capcha stuff)
>
> In short, simply make the "add to the Global IP block exemption list"
> process fluid with removal of the current bottle neck (stewards), which in
> turn will be able to focus on more important security issues.
>
>
> Is there any reasons why this would technically and socially not work ?
>
> Flo
>
>
> Le 22/04/2022 à 13:25, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l a écrit :
>
> 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 here),
> they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if there would be more
> vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I think it should be done.
>
> “Smart blocking” would be a bad idea. It would take *a lot* of work to
> implement and would be a net harm to our ability to deal with abuse. I am
> strongly opposed to creating this. Also remember to a large extent the
> issue with these IPs isn’t a range, it’s that there’s multiple users on the
> *same* IP.
>
> Regarding IPBE, the issue isn’t that we’re declining requests, it’s that
> we don’t get to them in a timely manner. There are a lot of requests.
>
> I’ve tried to clear up a number of other misconceptions in a comment on
> the Meta-Wiki page as well.
>
> Best regards,
> Rae
>
> On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 07:03 WereSpielChequers <
> werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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 clearly
>> above the 2014 minima. But we do have huge geographic skews and in
>> particular we badly underrepresent the English speaking parts of Africa in
>> our community and in our Projects. I don't know if other languages have
>> similar issues, but it would 

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

[Johan Jönsson]

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 blocks, so that they limit damage on good people, whilst
> preserving the projects from vandals.
>
We talk a lot about the process of unblocking, or IP block exceptions,
which is relevant and I don't want to derail from it, but I think we need
to remember that a lot of people will try to make one edit and if it
doesn't work – because they're blocked for reasons they can't understand –
they will never come back again. They are not invested in the wiki they
tried to edit, they are not going to wait or spend time and effort fixing
the issue. If we block a significant amount of internet users in a specific
area, some languages will have real obstacles to attracting new editors.

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

[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 blocks, so that they limit damage on good people, whilst 
preserving the projects from vandals.


However, the general observation is that the current system to report an 
unfair block to stewards and get unblocked by them is largely broken.

1) process is not simple to understand by the user
2) complicated to implement on the steward side (requires back and forth 
discussion, checking legitimacy of request, copy pasting information etc.)
3) the steward pool of volunteers is limited, whilst the stewards 
willing to do that job is even smaller (I heard the VRT queue is 
overflowing)

4) the process reveals IP private info
All this creates a bottleneck.

There is one path we could explore, a feature to simplify the process of 
"adding legitimate users" to the Global IPblock exemptions list, in a 
process inspired from the Global renamers one.
* new functionary role (eg Global IPblock exempters) : populated by 
stewards, or people appointed by steward
* interface directly on wiki (bypass of VRT, bypass of copy pasting 
between tools)
* a process which would NOT require revealing the IP address to the 
functionary (it is sufficient that the system recognise the person is 
blocked in relationship with an Open Proxy/TOR stuff)
* a process which could provide info to the functionary to very quickly 
assess whether the person is a legitimate editor or not (every person 
fighting vandalism know how to do that... display last contribs... block 
log... number of edits... etc. or simply direct links to those info to 
simplify the functionary job)
* a process allowing various "unblocking" options, day, weeks, indef 
listing, pretty much as the blocking feature permit, so as to grant 
indef listing to the super trustworthy individuals, and a time limited 
listing to those more questionnable
* add a checkbox system where requesters can give pre-loaded reasons for 
their asking (edit-a-thons etc.), which will help make the system 
multilingual and language neutral for the functionary (in most cases, no 
need to discuss with the user)
* add any feature necessary to limit the risk of vandals abusing the 
feature (forced loging before submitting the request, capcha stuff)


In short, simply make the "add to the Global IP block exemption list" 
process fluid with removal of the current bottle neck (stewards), which 
in turn will be able to focus on more important security issues.



Is there any reasons why this would technically and socially not work ?

Flo


Le 22/04/2022 à 13:25, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l a écrit :

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 here), they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if 
there would be more vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I think 
it should be done.


“Smart blocking” would be a bad idea. It would take *a lot* of work to 
implement and would be a net harm to our ability to deal with abuse. I 
am strongly opposed to creating this. Also remember to a large extent 
the issue with these IPs isn’t a range, it’s that there’s multiple 
users on the *same* IP.


Regarding IPBE, the issue isn’t that we’re declining requests, it’s 
that we don’t get to them in a timely manner. There are a lot of 
requests.


I’ve tried to clear up a number of other misconceptions in a comment 
on the Meta-Wiki page as well.


Best regards,
Rae

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 07:03 WereSpielChequers 
 wrote:


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 clearly above the 2014 minima. But we do have huge
geographic skews and in particular we badly underrepresent the
English speaking parts of Africa in our community and in our
Projects. I don't know if other languages have similar issues, but
it would not surprise me.

I get that lowering our guard overall against IP vandals would
increase the workload of  those who'd rather be improving
Wikipedia than clearing up after vandals. But there are a couple
of things that could fairly easily be done if we  want a more
global community.

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.

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

[Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l]

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 here),
they’re just poorly managed ISPs. I’m not even sure if there would be more
vandalism from unblocking these ISPs, and I think it should be done.

“Smart blocking” would be a bad idea. It would take *a lot* of work to
implement and would be a net harm to our ability to deal with abuse. I am
strongly opposed to creating this. Also remember to a large extent the
issue with these IPs isn’t a range, it’s that there’s multiple users on the
*same* IP.

Regarding IPBE, the issue isn’t that we’re declining requests, it’s that we
don’t get to them in a timely manner. There are a lot of requests.

I’ve tried to clear up a number of other misconceptions in a comment on the
Meta-Wiki page as well.

Best regards,
Rae

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 07:03 WereSpielChequers 
wrote:

> 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 clearly
> above the 2014 minima. But we do have huge geographic skews and in
> particular we badly underrepresent the English speaking parts of Africa in
> our community and in our Projects. I don't know if other languages have
> similar issues, but it would not surprise me.
>
> I get that lowering our guard overall against IP vandals would increase
> the workload of  those who'd rather be improving Wikipedia than clearing up
> after vandals. But there are a couple of things that could fairly easily
> be done if we  want a more global community.
>
> 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.
>
> Secondly, implement "smart blocking", especially with range bocks. Yes
> there will still be lots of collateral damage where someone in the same
> range has the same sort of device/, O/S etc as the person who did the edit
> that prompted the block. But anyone in the same range who uses a different
> type of hardware  operating system etc would not be caught by a smart block.
>
> Thirdly, especially if we can't do the first two, be more liberal with IP
> block exemption for accounts in countries where we lack editors and have
> problems with a limited number of often blocked IPs.
>
> WSC
>
>>
>> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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projects
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)
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[WereSpielChequers]

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 clearly above the
2014 minima. But we do have huge geographic skews and in particular we
badly underrepresent the English speaking parts of Africa in our community
and in our Projects. I don't know if other languages have similar issues,
but it would not surprise me.

I get that lowering our guard overall against IP vandals would increase the
workload of  those who'd rather be improving Wikipedia than clearing up
after vandals. But there are a couple of things that could fairly easily
be done if we  want a more global community.

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.

Secondly, implement "smart blocking", especially with range bocks. Yes
there will still be lots of collateral damage where someone in the same
range has the same sort of device/, O/S etc as the person who did the edit
that prompted the block. But anyone in the same range who uses a different
type of hardware  operating system etc would not be caught by a smart block.

Thirdly, especially if we can't do the first two, be more liberal with IP
block exemption for accounts in countries where we lack editors and have
problems with a limited number of often blocked IPs.

WSC

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

[Vi to]

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 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, 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 every single range intensively if a block would
>> case more harm than good). The situation with OPs is a bit different
>> because they obfuscate the original IP address which is pretty often needed
>> by checkusers and stewards to stop harm against the projects. For that
>> reason, I agree that we cannot give up on OP blocking. The only way to get
>> out of these problems are (much!) easier reporting ways, more people who
>> can give out exceptions (locally and globally) and check outdated OPs and
>> IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give long-term users an option to
>> self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x hours for such cases like
>> edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would still be reported (in
>> order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one moment would be
>> solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”
>>
>> Why the quotation marks? Because I've posted that very same message to
>> the metawiki page
>> 
>>  and
>> understand it as one step towards a solution. In my opinion, it makes way
>> more sense to talk publicly about the issue and possible solutions than
>> losing good ideas (and there have been some already in this thread!) in the
>> wide world of this mailing list. Let's have that conversation onwiki—and I
>> also encourage the WMF tech departments to join in that conversation.
>> Because we as stewards have reported our problems with the current
>> situation multiple times, sought for technical solutions (e.g., better
>> reporting tools), indeed did get a better rapport with the WMF teams but
>> still are not where we need to be in order to serve both interests
>> (openness and protection). Unsurprisingly, also stewards are individuals
>> with different opinions and (possible) solutions to that one problem. As
>> Vito said, we will once again discuss it and will share our thoughts and
>> solutions.
>>
>> Best,
>> DerHexer (Martin)
>>
>> Am Mittwoch, 20. April 2022, 20:19:48 MESZ hat Florence Devouard <
>> fdevou...@gmail.com> Folgendes geschrieben:
>>
>>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> 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
>> *
>>
>>
>> Long version :
>>
>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>
>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>> policy [1]
>> In particular africans.
>>
>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
>> all other Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>
>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
>> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
>> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
>> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>>
>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>
>>
>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
>> those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
>> proxy with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using
>> an open proxy
>>
>>
>> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
>> They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>>
>> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
>> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
>> New editors just as old timers.
>> 

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

[Nathan]

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, 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 every single range intensively if a block would
> case more harm than good). The situation with OPs is a bit different
> because they obfuscate the original IP address which is pretty often needed
> by checkusers and stewards to stop harm against the projects. For that
> reason, I agree that we cannot give up on OP blocking. The only way to get
> out of these problems are (much!) easier reporting ways, more people who
> can give out exceptions (locally and globally) and check outdated OPs and
> IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give long-term users an option to
> self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x hours for such cases like
> edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would still be reported (in
> order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one moment would be
> solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”
>
> Why the quotation marks? Because I've posted that very same message to the 
> metawiki
> page
> 
>  and
> understand it as one step towards a solution. In my opinion, it makes way
> more sense to talk publicly about the issue and possible solutions than
> losing good ideas (and there have been some already in this thread!) in the
> wide world of this mailing list. Let's have that conversation onwiki—and I
> also encourage the WMF tech departments to join in that conversation.
> Because we as stewards have reported our problems with the current
> situation multiple times, sought for technical solutions (e.g., better
> reporting tools), indeed did get a better rapport with the WMF teams but
> still are not where we need to be in order to serve both interests
> (openness and protection). Unsurprisingly, also stewards are individuals
> with different opinions and (possible) solutions to that one problem. As
> Vito said, we will once again discuss it and will share our thoughts and
> solutions.
>
> Best,
> DerHexer (Martin)
>
> Am Mittwoch, 20. April 2022, 20:19:48 MESZ hat Florence Devouard <
> fdevou...@gmail.com> Folgendes geschrieben:
>
>
> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular 

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

[Samuel Klein]

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 content
rather than their metadata -- so it is always preferable to see what people
are trying to post before deciding how to handle it.  We also edit in a
society, and can easily allow people to approve one another or ping one
another to join our implicit web of trust.

As a bonus, doing this provides a smooth + uniform experience for editors +
editing tools (even if the way their edit is applied changes w/ context),
rather than giving different messages / interfaces based on how suspicious
their ambient network environment is.

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, 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 every single range intensively if a block would
> case more harm than good). The situation with OPs is a bit different
> because they obfuscate the original IP address which is pretty often needed
> by checkusers and stewards to stop harm against the projects. For that
> reason, I agree that we cannot give up on OP blocking. The only way to get
> out of these problems are (much!) easier reporting ways, more people who
> can give out exceptions (locally and globally) and check outdated OPs and
> IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give long-term users an option to
> self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x hours for such cases like
> edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would still be reported (in
> order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one moment would be
> solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”
>
> Why the quotation marks? Because I've posted that very same message to the 
> metawiki
> page
> 
>  and
> understand it as one step towards a solution. In my opinion, it makes way
> more sense to talk publicly about the issue and possible solutions than
> losing good ideas (and there have been some already in this thread!) in the
> wide world of this mailing list. Let's have that conversation onwiki—and I
> also encourage the WMF tech departments to join in that conversation.
> Because we as stewards have reported our problems with the current
> situation multiple times, sought for technical solutions (e.g., better
> reporting tools), indeed did get a better rapport with the WMF teams but
> still are not where we need to be in order to serve both interests
> (openness and protection). Unsurprisingly, also stewards are individuals
> with different opinions and (possible) solutions to that one problem. As
> Vito said, we will once again discuss it and will share our thoughts and
> solutions.
>
> Best,
> DerHexer (Martin)
>
> Am Mittwoch, 20. April 2022, 20:19:48 MESZ hat Florence Devouard <
> fdevou...@gmail.com> Folgendes geschrieben:
>
>
> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not 

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

[DerHexer via Wikimedia-l]

 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 every single range intensively if a block would case more harm 
than good). The situation with OPs is a bit different because they obfuscate 
the original IP address which is pretty often needed by checkusers and stewards 
to stop harm against the projects. For that reason, I agree that we cannot give 
up on OP blocking. The only way to get out of these problems are (much!) easier 
reporting ways, more people who can give out exceptions (locally and globally) 
and check outdated OPs and IPBEs. Maybe it would also make sense to give 
long-term users an option to self-assign an IPBE (e.g.) once per week for x 
hours for such cases like edit-a-thons. Most of their IP addresses used would 
still be reported (in order to prevent abuse) but most problems for that one 
moment would be solved (and users could look for long-term solutions).”
Why the quotation marks? Because I've posted that very same message to the 
metawiki page and understand it as one step towards a solution. In my opinion, 
it makes way more sense to talk publicly about the issue and possible solutions 
than losing good ideas (and there have been some already in this thread!) in 
the wide world of this mailing list. Let's have that conversation onwiki—and I 
also encourage the WMF tech departments to join in that conversation. Because 
we as stewards have reported our problems with the current situation multiple 
times, sought for technical solutions (e.g., better reporting tools), indeed 
did get a better rapport with the WMF teams but still are not where we need to 
be in order to serve both interests (openness and protection). Unsurprisingly, 
also stewards are individuals with different opinions and (possible) solutions 
to that one problem. As Vito said, we will once again discuss it and will share 
our thoughts and solutions.
Best,DerHexer (Martin)
Am Mittwoch, 20. April 2022, 20:19:48 MESZ hat Florence Devouard 
 Folgendes geschrieben:  
 
   
Hello friends
 
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
 

 
 
Long version : 
 
 
I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in the 
past couple of weeks/months. 
 
 
Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies policy 
[1]
 In particular africans.
 
 
In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and all 
other Wikimedia projects. 
 
According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies (including 
paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While this may affect 
legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies 
until those are blocked [...]
 
Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies 
should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely the 
IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or the 
open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
 
According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of 
an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on local projects 
by administrators and globally by stewards. »
 

 
 
I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those are 
blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy with the 
IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an open proxy
 
 

 Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They do 
not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
 
 
 
In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being blocked 
due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing. 
 New editors just as old timers.
 Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups, 
organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives. 
 At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or trainees, 
during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc. 
 
 
 
It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a regular 
occurence. 
 There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week. Several 
complaints per week. 
 This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is disrupting 
activities organized in good faith by good people, activities set-up with our 
donors funds. And the disruption is primarlly taking place in a geographical 
region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy for diversity, equity, 
inclusion blahblahblah). 
 
 

 
 
The open proxy policy page 

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

[Amir E. Aharoni]

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
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬


‫בתאריך יום ה׳, 21 באפר׳ 2022 ב-15:03 מאת ‪Mario Gómez‬‏ <‪
mariogomw...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬

>
> 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 an editathon. I thought this was already
> happening to some degree?
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
>
> ___
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Mario Gómez]

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 an editathon. I thought this was already
happening to some degree?

Best,

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

[Mario Gómez]

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 way. If stress
on the backend becomes a problem, I'm sure we can figure out a solution.

Best,

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

[K. Peachey]

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 it's clear that it's not enough, in particular for some countries 
> like Ghana or Benin. So we need further tuning, or rethink how/when we apply 
> the blocks.
> …
> Best,
>
> Mario

Is there any reason we are creating multiple blocks, which is causing
multiple rows created in the backend?

Surely it would be simpler to manage by just just directly as a global
block in the first place?
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Lane Chance]

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 personal risks.

Editathons in national museums or universities are often hampered, and
new joiners have significant amounts of time wasted when they find out
their edits made in a library of a cafe get rejected and they can
forget editing that day, or told to wait for a month or indefinitely
for a global steward to consider their request. The risks are almost
zero that someone actively contributing to a funded content creation
project would be a vandal. Even if this ever happened, their account
would be sanctioned without it becoming a stewards problem. Keep in
mind that stopping editing from internet cafes or libraries
disproportionately harms poorer people and those editing from
countries without the best technical infrastructure who otherwise have
to try to edit from a mobile phone and may end up paying to edit
rather than using the public free access.

The current system works against the stated values of the community
and causes unnecessary harm. Let's just get on with making adding
newbies to IPBE a normal part of good faith editing, and stop global
stewards and mass IP blocks, being a serious and unnecessary barrier
to good faith editors.

Lane

On Thu, 21 Apr 2022 at 10:04, Željko Blaće  wrote:
>
> 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 not explain as a novice to EN 
> admins in 2015 that he was not a sock puppet . Loss is on our side.
>
> #2 This is a complex (and for outreach mission critical) problem that 
> requires real-time addressing and most likely a dedicated paid professionals 
> (better 4 x 50% across time zones) to take the burden off from voluntary 
> stewards and admins, but also to inform and educate those who could not 
> follow what are common network issues across different regions.
>
> Best, Z.
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Željko Blaće]

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 not explain as a novice to EN
admins in 2015 that he was not a sock puppet . Loss is on our side.

#2 This is a complex (and for outreach mission critical) problem that
requires real-time addressing and most likely a dedicated paid
professionals (better 4 x 50% across time zones) to take the burden off
from voluntary stewards and admins, but also to inform and educate those
who could not follow what are common network issues across different
regions.

Best, Z.
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Open proxies and IP blocking

[Mario Gómez]

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 within.  We need better automation, MLl models, sandboxing,
> and triage to help us *increase* the number of people who can edit, and
> can propose edits to protected pages, while decreasing the amount of
> vandalism and spam that is visible to the world.
>

For the P2P proxy blocks, vandalism was a factor (AFAIK spam wasn't), but I
think the strongest trigger was the amount of harassment, death threats or
other physical harm threats, and doxxing attempts coming out from this
particular proxy service.

I agree that we should increase the number of people who can edit. But we
should also maintain a reasonably safe space for contributors. There are
trade-offs that need to tune at every corner.

For this kind of abuse, we have a toolbox:
- IP blocking
- Page protections
- Edit filters
- Bots and other post-edit analysis tools
- Manual patrolling (assisted with various tools) + reporting to
admins/oversighters/stewards.

Each of them has its own caveats, we should improve them all, and find some
balance in the usage of each tool. IMHO, complete removal of any of these
tools will be harmful to our projects and contributors.

Best,

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

[Steven Walling]

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 controversial people, pages where disruptive
> editing has required the application of Arbcom or other discretionary
> sanctions, articles about today's news or are being discussed in the dark
> corners of social media, articles that have been subject to significant
> disinformation).  In almost all cases, the person trying to edit is
> directed to the talk page.
>

Yes and also at this point, the problem is not that people are generally
unaware that Wikipedia is editable by anyone. Anyway this issue is solvable
by design changes that direct anonymous or new editors to how they can
contribute to protected pages (either by registering or the Talk page as
appropriate). Proxy blocking on the other hand is entirely in the hands of
the community to fix.


>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 18:53, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>
>> 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 to make a new account and
>> leave a comment.  No way to contact the blocking admin w/o logging in,
>> either.
>> -- Permablocked IPs.  A friend told me they were permablocked from WP.
>> looking into it, they were covered by a small IP range that had
>> been blocked for a decade.
>> -- Blocking VPNs, with large unhelpful banners.  I was just on the phone
>> an hour ago w/ someone who maintains another online encyclopedia
>> , and their normal internet access [VPN] was
>> blocked.  It took them a minute to realize they could get access by turning
>> it off.  Then the first three pages they thought to visit were protected
>> against editing. (some time ago, 14%
>>  of
>> pageviews were to protected pages; may have increased since then)
>> -- Getting an IP block exemption for people trying to avoid surveillance
>> is not easy. in theory email-for-access could work, in practice most people
>> who reasonably an exemption may not end up getting one or even hearing
>> back. A softer-security approach would be better.
>>
>> Benjamin writes:
>> > We would do well to remember that it was the incredibly low barrier to
>> entry that was the key to Wikipedia's early success.
>>
>> +++.  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 within.  We need better automation, MLl models, sandboxing,
>> and triage to help us *increase* the number of people who can edit, and
>> can propose edits to protected pages, while decreasing the amount of
>> vandalism and spam that is visible to the world.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 4:22 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 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
>>> difficult, even!) way around the block, it will still discourage editing to
>>> a significant, but hard to measure, degree.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 20, 2022, at 3:59 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
>>>
>>> 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 the edit.
>>>
>>> Also, annoyingly, the block message only shows up when I try to save the
>>> page (at least on mobile), not when I start the edit, again, leading to
>>> unnecessary frustration.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Bence
>>> On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 20:42, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
>>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
 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 or a steward with no power.

 It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated

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

[Risker]

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 to stop those blocks.

I've been a checkuser since 2009, well before global IP blocks became
available in 2011.  I've argued against routinely blocking open proxies
(with the exception of Tor) ever since. There are times when it's entirely
appropriate to block them - there are a few that really are frequented by
bad users and spammers.  But as a routine block, I've never really heard a
good case presented.  There are rarely good reasons to globally block an IP
range; usually, only one or two projects are actually affected by problem
editors (whether logged-in or unregistered).  I know that if I wasn't an
administrator myself, I would be affected by global or local proxy blocks
on a regular basis.  For a long time, I was the main CU on English
Wikipedia that granted local IP block exemption; Enwiki is one of the
projects where global IPBE doesn't work.  I have never found a list of
projects that require local IPBE.

I've been unsuccessful in persuading my own project to liberalize the use
of IPBE, or to decrease the routine (and often automatic) blocking of
"proxies".  Those proxies being blocked include just about every VPN in the
world (including the one I use), as well as huge swaths of IPs that provide
service to African countries and other countries with less-developed
internet access.  It is definitely having an impact on the adequacy of
coverage of topics related to those regions, in my opinion.

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 controversial people, pages where disruptive
editing has required the application of Arbcom or other discretionary
sanctions, articles about today's news or are being discussed in the dark
corners of social media, articles that have been subject to significant
disinformation).  In almost all cases, the person trying to edit is
directed to the talk page.


Risker/Anne


On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 18:53, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> 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 to make a new account and
> leave a comment.  No way to contact the blocking admin w/o logging in,
> either.
> -- Permablocked IPs.  A friend told me they were permablocked from WP.
> looking into it, they were covered by a small IP range that had
> been blocked for a decade.
> -- Blocking VPNs, with large unhelpful banners.  I was just on the phone
> an hour ago w/ someone who maintains another online encyclopedia
> , and their normal internet access [VPN] was
> blocked.  It took them a minute to realize they could get access by turning
> it off.  Then the first three pages they thought to visit were protected
> against editing. (some time ago, 14%
>  of
> pageviews were to protected pages; may have increased since then)
> -- Getting an IP block exemption for people trying to avoid surveillance
> is not easy. in theory email-for-access could work, in practice most people
> who reasonably an exemption may not end up getting one or even hearing
> back. A softer-security approach would be better.
>
> Benjamin writes:
> > We would do well to remember that it was the incredibly low barrier to
> entry that was the key to Wikipedia's early success.
>
> +++.  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 within.  We need better automation, MLl models, sandboxing,
> and triage to help us *increase* the number of people who can edit, and
> can propose edits to protected pages, while decreasing the amount of
> vandalism and spam that is visible to the world.
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 4:22 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> 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
>> difficult, even!) way around the block, it will still discourage editing to
>> a 

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

[Samuel Klein]

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 to make a new account and
leave a comment.  No way to contact the blocking admin w/o logging in,
either.
-- Permablocked IPs.  A friend told me they were permablocked from WP.
looking into it, they were covered by a small IP range that had
been blocked for a decade.
-- Blocking VPNs, with large unhelpful banners.  I was just on the phone an
hour ago w/ someone who maintains another online encyclopedia
, and their normal internet access [VPN] was
blocked.  It took them a minute to realize they could get access by turning
it off.  Then the first three pages they thought to visit were protected
against editing. (some time ago, 14%
 of
pageviews were to protected pages; may have increased since then)
-- Getting an IP block exemption for people trying to avoid surveillance is
not easy. in theory email-for-access could work, in practice most people
who reasonably an exemption may not end up getting one or even hearing
back. A softer-security approach would be better.

Benjamin writes:
> We would do well to remember that it was the incredibly low barrier to
entry that was the key to Wikipedia's early success.

+++.  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 within.  We need better automation, MLl models, sandboxing,
and triage to help us *increase* the number of people who can edit, and can
propose edits to protected pages, while decreasing the amount of vandalism
and spam that is visible to the world.


On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 4:22 PM Benjamin Ikuta 
wrote:

>
>
> 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
> difficult, even!) way around the block, it will still discourage editing to
> a significant, but hard to measure, degree.
>
>
>
> On Apr 20, 2022, at 3:59 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
>
> 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 the edit.
>
> Also, annoyingly, the block message only shows up when I try to save the
> page (at least on mobile), not when I start the edit, again, leading to
> unnecessary frustration.
>
> Best regards,
> Bence
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 20:42, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> 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 or a steward with no power.
>>
>> It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated
>> exactly, but you just get the feeling that some users really care a lot
>> about this policy and you just have to deal with the consequences, no
>> matter how time-consuming it's getting.
>>
>> A.M.
>>
>> Il mercoledì 20 aprile 2022, 20:34:36 CEST, Amir E. Aharoni <
>> amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> ha scritto:
>>
>>
>> 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 last year it has become unbearably frequent.
>>
>> A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this
>> several times, and they always say something like "we know that this
>> affects certain countries badly, and we know that the technology has
>> changed since the mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies
>> because it would immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis".
>> I'm sure they mean well, but this is not sustainable.
>>
>> --
>> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
>> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>> ‪“We're living in pieces,
>> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
>>
>>
>> ‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 

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

[Vi to]

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:

> 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:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive335#Recent_proxy_blocks
>
> 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 it's clear that it's not enough, in particular for some
> countries like Ghana or Benin. So we need further tuning, or rethink
> how/when we apply the blocks.
>
> This is not meant to be a definitive answer, but I hope the additional
> context is useful.
>
> Best,
>
> Mario
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 8:21 PM Florence Devouard 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> 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
>> *
>>
>>
>> Long version :
>>
>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>
>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>> policy [1]
>> In particular africans.
>>
>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
>> all other Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>
>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
>> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
>> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
>> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>>
>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>
>>
>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
>> those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
>> proxy with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using
>> an open proxy
>>
>>
>> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
>> They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>>
>> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
>> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
>> New editors just as old timers.
>> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
>> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
>> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
>> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>>
>> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
>> regular occurence.
>> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
>> Several complaints per week.
>> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
>> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
>> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
>> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
>> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>>
>>
>> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
>> blocked, it is recommended
>>
>>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting 
>> and
>>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>>
>>
>> So...
>> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
>> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
>> IP block exemption list.
>> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
>> look at 

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

[Mario Gómez]

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:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive335#Recent_proxy_blocks

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 it's clear that it's not enough, in particular for some
countries like Ghana or Benin. So we need further tuning, or rethink
how/when we apply the blocks.

This is not meant to be a definitive answer, but I hope the additional
context is useful.

Best,

Mario


On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 8:21 PM Florence Devouard 
wrote:

> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular occurence.
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
> Several complaints per week.
> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>
>
> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
> blocked, it is recommended
>
>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and
>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>
>
> So...
> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
> IP block exemption list.
> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>
> As a consequence, most editors concerned with those global blocks... stay
> blocked several days.
>
> We do not know know why the situation has rapidly got worse recently. But
> it got worse. And the reports are spilling all over.
>
> We 

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

[Vi to]

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 ore 20:21 Florence Devouard <
fdevou...@gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular occurence.
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
> Several complaints per week.
> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>
>
> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
> blocked, it is recommended
>
>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and
>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>
>
> So...
> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
> IP block exemption list.
> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>
> As a consequence, most editors concerned with those global blocks... stay
> blocked several days.
>
> We do not know know why the situation has rapidly got worse recently. But
> it got worse. And the reports are spilling all over.
>
> We started collecting negative experiences on this page [4].
> Please note that people who added their names here are not random newbies.
> They are known and respected members of our community, often leaders of
> activities and/or representant of their usergroups, who are confronted to
> this situation on a REGULAR basis.
>
> I do not know how this can be fixed. Should we slow down open proxy
> blocking ? Should we add a mecanism and process for an easier and quicker
> IP block exemption process post-blocking ? Should we improve a 

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

[Benjamin Ikuta]

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 
difficult, even!) way around the block, it will still discourage editing to a 
significant, but hard to measure, degree. 



On Apr 20, 2022, at 3:59 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:

> 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 the edit. 
> 
> Also, annoyingly, the block message only shows up when I try to save the page 
> (at least on mobile), not when I start the edit, again, leading to 
> unnecessary frustration.
> 
> Best regards,
> Bence
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 20:42, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
>  wrote:
> 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 
> or a steward with no power. 
> 
> It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated exactly, 
> but you just get the feeling that some users really care a lot about this 
> policy and you just have to deal with the consequences, no matter how 
> time-consuming it's getting.
> 
> A.M.
> 
> Il mercoledì 20 aprile 2022, 20:34:36 CEST, Amir E. Aharoni 
>  ha scritto: 
> 
> 
> 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 last year it has become unbearably frequent.
> 
> A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this several 
> times, and they always say something like "we know that this affects certain 
> countries badly, and we know that the technology has changed since the 
> mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies because it would 
> immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis". I'm sure they mean 
> well, but this is not sustainable.
> 
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> “We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
> 
> 
> בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת Florence Devouard ‏ < 
> fdevou...@gmail.com ‏>:
> Hello friends
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> Long version : 
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in the 
> past couple of weeks/months. 
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies 
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and all 
> other Wikimedia projects. 
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies 
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While 
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may 
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies 
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely the 
> IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or the 
> open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by way 
> of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on local 
> projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
> 
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those 
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy 
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an open 
> proxy
> 
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They do 
> not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
> 
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being blocked 
> due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing. 
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups, 
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives. 
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or trainees, 

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

[Steven Walling]

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%

Do we need to start an RFC on Meta to change the proxy policy globally?


>
>
> On Apr 20, 2022, at 2:33 PM, "Amir E. Aharoni" <
> amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
>
> 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 last year it has become unbearably frequent.
>
> A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this
> several times, and they always say something like "we know that this
> affects certain countries badly, and we know that the technology has
> changed since the mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies
> because it would immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis".
> I'm sure they mean well, but this is not sustainable.
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> ‪“We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
>
>
> ‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת ‪Florence Devouard‬‏ <‪
> fdevou...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬
>
>> Hello friends
>>
>> 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
>> *
>>
>>
>> Long version :
>>
>> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
>> the past couple of weeks/months.
>>
>> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
>> policy [1]
>> In particular africans.
>>
>> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
>> all other Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
>> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
>> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
>> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>>
>> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
>> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
>> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
>> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>>
>> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
>> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
>> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>>
>>
>> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until
>> those are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open
>> proxy with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using
>> an open proxy
>>
>>
>> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is.
>> They do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>>
>> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
>> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
>> New editors just as old timers.
>> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
>> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
>> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
>> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>>
>> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
>> regular occurence.
>> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
>> Several complaints per week.
>> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
>> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
>> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
>> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
>> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>>
>>
>> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
>> blocked, it is recommended
>>
>>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)] 
>>wikimedia.org.
>>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor 

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

[Benjamin Ikuta]

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 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 last year it has become unbearably frequent.
> 
> A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this several 
> times, and they always say something like "we know that this affects certain 
> countries badly, and we know that the technology has changed since the 
> mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies because it would 
> immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis". I'm sure they mean 
> well, but this is not sustainable.
> 
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> “We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
> 
> 
> בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת Florence Devouard ‏ < 
> fdevou...@gmail.com ‏>:
> Hello friends
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> Long version : 
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in the 
> past couple of weeks/months. 
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open   Proxies 
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and all 
> other Wikimedia projects. 
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies 
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While 
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may 
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies 
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely the 
> IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or the 
> open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by way 
> of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on local 
> projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
> 
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those 
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy 
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an open 
> proxy
> 
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They do 
> not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
> 
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being blocked 
> due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing. 
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups, 
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives. 
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members   or 
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc. 
> 
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a regular 
> occurence. 
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per   week. 
> Several complaints per week. 
> This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is disrupting 
> activities organized in good faith by good people, activities set-up with our 
> donors funds. And the disruption is primarlly taking place in a geographical 
> region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy for diversity, equity, 
> inclusion blahblahblah). 
> 
> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly 
> blocked, it is recommended
> * to privately email stewardswikimedia.org.
> * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the editor doesn't 
> mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to desire privacy 
> (for Tor usage)).
> * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest contacting 
> User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and is probably 
> the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
> 
> So...
> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or not 
> quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to IP 
> block exemption list. 
> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to look 
> at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a new 

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

[Bence Damokos]

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 the edit.

Also, annoyingly, the block message only shows up when I try to save the
page (at least on mobile), not when I start the edit, again, leading to
unnecessary frustration.

Best regards,
Bence
On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 at 20:42, Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 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 or a steward with no power.
>
> It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated exactly,
> but you just get the feeling that some users really care a lot about this
> policy and you just have to deal with the consequences, no matter how
> time-consuming it's getting.
>
> A.M.
>
> Il mercoledì 20 aprile 2022, 20:34:36 CEST, Amir E. Aharoni <
> amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> ha scritto:
>
>
> 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 last year it has become unbearably frequent.
>
> A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this
> several times, and they always say something like "we know that this
> affects certain countries badly, and we know that the technology has
> changed since the mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies
> because it would immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis".
> I'm sure they mean well, but this is not sustainable.
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> ‪“We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
>
>
> ‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת ‪Florence Devouard‬‏ <‪
> fdevou...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬
>
> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular occurence.
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
> Several complaints per week.
> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
> set-up with our donors funds. 

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

[Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l]

 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 or a 
steward with no power. 

It's getting less and less clear how pros and cons are calculated exactly, but 
you just get the feeling that some users really care a lot about this policy 
and you just have to deal with the consequences, no matter how time-consuming 
it's getting.

A.M.

Il mercoledì 20 aprile 2022, 20:34:36 CEST, Amir E. Aharoni 
 ha scritto:  
 
 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 
last year it has become unbearably frequent.
A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this several 
times, and they always say something like "we know that this affects certain 
countries badly, and we know that the technology has changed since the 
mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies because it would 
immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis". I'm sure they mean 
well, but this is not sustainable.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬

‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת ‪Florence Devouard‬‏ 
<‪fdevou...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬

  
Hello friends
 
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
 

 
 
Long version : 
 
 
I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in the 
past couple of weeks/months. 
 
 
Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies policy 
[1]
 In particular africans.
 
 
In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and all 
other Wikimedia projects. 
 
According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies (including 
paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While this may affect 
legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies 
until those are blocked [...]
 
Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies 
should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely the 
IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or the 
open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
 
According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of 
an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on local projects 
by administrators and globally by stewards. »
 

 
 
I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those are 
blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy with the 
IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an open proxy
 
 

 Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They do 
not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
 
 
 
In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being blocked 
due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing. 
 New editors just as old timers.
 Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups, 
organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives. 
 At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or trainees, 
during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc. 
 
 
 
It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a regular 
occurence. 
 There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week. Several 
complaints per week. 
 This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is disrupting 
activities organized in good faith by good people, activities set-up with our 
donors funds. And the disruption is primarlly taking place in a geographical 
region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy for diversity, equity, 
inclusion blahblahblah). 
 
 

 
 
The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly blocked, 
it is recommended

   - * to privately email stewardswikimedia.org.
   - * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the editor 
doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to desire 
privacy (for Tor usage)).
   - * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest 
contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and is 
probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log   
 
 

 
 
So...
 Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that 

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

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

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. If at all, the proxy blocking
policy (at least empirically) seems to have become even more aggressive
than it used to be.

What are we gaining with all the harassment this policy is causing in many
communities, most of them allegedly a priority for the Wikimedia projects?
Clearly something is broken with that policy, and clearly needs to be
fixed. I've no idea how, as Meta is the most opaque project I know in the
Wikiverse, and by far the most difficult to understand. But this situation
has passed all limits, and needs to be dealt with. With an RFC to put an
end or to fix that policy or whatever other means are available.

Best,
Paulo



Florence Devouard  escreveu no dia quarta, 20/04/2022
à(s) 19:21:

> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular occurence.
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
> Several complaints per week.
> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>
>
> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
> blocked, it is recommended
>
>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and
>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>
>
> So...
> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
> IP block exemption list.
> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>
> As a consequence, most editors concerned with those global blocks... stay
> blocked several days.
>
> We do not know know why 

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

[Sage Ross]

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 observations as well. Over the last couple of
years, it has been increasingly common for new editors to be affected
by range blocks without any understanding of why. We see this
frequently with Wiki Education's student editors, and in most cases,
the editors are not knowingly using a VPN or other non-standard way of
connecting to the internet. In some cases, institutions are now using
VPNs at the network level by default. In other cases, patterns of how
people connect are just shifting so that they are more often assigned
temporary IP addresses that are covered by range blocks.

These kinds of blocks also prevent account creation, which Wiki
Education can easily work around by creating accounts on these user's
behalf (and event organizers using Programs & Events Dashboard
similarly have tools to work around this). But there are certainly
many, many more good faith would-be contributors who are stopped
before they can create an account, and they have no user-friendly
recourse to understand why they are affected by a block or how to work
around it.

My sense is that this is an important problem that merits attention at
the global level.

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

[Amir E. Aharoni]

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 last year it has become unbearably frequent.

A smarter solution is needed. I tried talking to stewards about this
several times, and they always say something like "we know that this
affects certain countries badly, and we know that the technology has
changed since the mid-2000s, but we absolutely cannot allow open proxies
because it would immediately unleash horrible vandalism on all the wikis".
I'm sure they mean well, but this is not sustainable.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬


‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 20 באפר׳ 2022 ב-21:21 מאת ‪Florence Devouard‬‏ <‪
fdevou...@gmail.com‬‏>:‬

> Hello friends
>
> 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
> *
>
>
> Long version :
>
> I'd like to raise attention on an issue, which has been getting worse in
> the past couple of weeks/months.
>
> Increasing number of editors getting blocked due to the No Open Proxies
> policy [1]
> In particular africans.
>
> In February 2004, the decision was made to block open proxies on Meta and
> all other Wikimedia projects.
>
> According to the no open proxies policy : Publicly available proxies
> (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While
> this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may
> freely use proxies until those are blocked [...]
>
> Non-static IP addresses or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies
> should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely
> the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or
> the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
>
> According to the policy page, « the Editors can be permitted to edit by
> way of an open proxy with the IP block exempt flag. This is granted on
> local projects by administrators and globally by stewards. »
>
>
> I repeat -> ... legitimate users... may freely use proxies until those
> are blocked. the Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy
> with the IP block exempt flag <-- it is not illegal to edit using an
> open proxy
>
>
> Most editors though... have no idea whatsoever what an open proxy is. They
> do not understand well what to do when they are blocked.
>
> In the past few weeks, the number of African editors reporting being
> blocked due to open proxy has been VERY significantly increasing.
> New editors just as old timers.
> Unexperienced editors but also staff members, president of usergroups,
> organizers of edit-a-thons and various wikimedia initiatives.
> At home, but also during events organized with usergroup members or
> trainees, during edit-a-thons, photo uploads sessions etc.
>
> It is NOT the occasional highly unlikely situation. This has become a
> regular occurence.
> There are cases and complains every week. Not one complaint per week.
> Several complaints per week.
> *This is irritating. This is offending. This is stressful. This is
> disrupting activities organized in good faith by good people, activities
> set-up with our donors funds. **And the disruption** is primarlly taking
> place in a geographical region supposingly to be nurtured (per our strategy
> for diversity, equity, inclusion blahblahblah). *
>
>
> The open proxy policy page suggests that, should a person be unfairly
> blocked, it is recommended
>
>- * to privately email stewards[image: (_AT_)]wikimedia.org.
>- * or alternatively, to post a request (if able to edit, if the
>editor doesn't mind sharing their IP for global blocks or their reasons to
>desire privacy (for Tor usage)).
>- * the current message displayed to the blocked editor also suggest
>contacting User:Tks4Fish. This editor is involved in vandalism fighting and
>is probably the user blocking open proxies IPs the most. See log
>
>
> So...
> Option 1: contacting stewards : it seems that they are not answering. Or
> not quickly. Or requesting lengthy justifications before adding people to
> IP block exemption list.
> Option 2: posting a request for unblock on meta. For those who want to
> look at the process, I suggest looking at it [3] and think hard about how a
> new editor would feel. This is simply incredibly complicated
> Option 3 : user:TksFish answers... sometimes...
>
> As a consequence, most editors concerned with those global blocks... stay
> blocked several days.
>
> We do not know know why the situation has