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" <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 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 > 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 process for our > editors to pre-emptively be added to this IP block exemption list ? Or what ? > I do not know what's the strategy to fix that. But there is a problem. Who > should that problem be addressed to ? Who has solutions ? > Flo > > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies > > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/Tks4Fish > [3] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global_permissions#Requests_for_global_IP_block_exemption > > [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/No_open_proxies/Unfair_blocking > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/UU76SJ5LZI5MA5F3WC3NSY4UMGDQTGXR/ > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > _______________________________________________ > 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 > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/DURG34YMOUDJZTAMY43W3QT4XOCEZTRZ/ > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________ 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 Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/X7LZPUAXNCZB2OCR7T66XP6QQCCYKPNN/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
