UDWiki talk:Administration/Vandal Banning/Archive/2012 05

May

User:Iamnotaporpoise

Seems to me that if we don't have a policy or precedent to do so, we shouldn't be banning people. It's fine if we decide that proxy usage should be bannable, but it isn't fair to ban people who couldn't have known it would get them banned at the time (obviously not talking about vandal alts who would be banned anyway).--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 10:54, 1 May 2012 (BST)

Also, has anybody contacted the user to tell them not to use proxies?--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 10:58, 1 May 2012 (BST)

I don't think anyone is talking about banning users using proxies. In cases where proxies are used to vandalize (sockpuppetry is a good example) its ban the proxy, warn the user. I think the current discussion is a push to consider all open proxy use vandalism. Honestly there are very few circumstances that I can think of where an open proxy could be used without the intent to conceal one's true identity. It is a question of whether that alone should be considered bad faith. Its a turbulent subject and if its to go forward in discussion, open proxies should be clearly defined and sysops who are unfamiliar with the differences would do well to stick with the old tried and true policy. ~ _{15:49, 1 May 2012 (UTC)}

Well I used a proxy to access the wiki just the other day when I was having problems with my adblock. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for using proxies which all come down to accessing the wiki when you might not be able to (work, university, school, holidays, etc.) I don't think we should ever be denying users access if they aren't in some way hurting the wiki. Obviously we ban proxies as we learn about them to stop use by bots or vandal sprees, but if somebody just uses one when they need to get around some kind of system block then I don't see why they should be punished for using a device which wasn't already blocked from accessing the wiki.--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 16:49, 1 May 2012 (BST)

Definitely agree. There are numerous legitimate uses for open proxies (including that some browsers default to using them, according to Wikipedia's page), none of which we should be punishing. More often than not, people innocently use them (e.g. forgetting to turn them off after using them) without even realizing that open proxies can be banned. Plus, checkuser is supposed to be reserved for suspicious accounts and suspected/confirmed vandals, rather than every single new account, so a policy along these lines wouldn't even be enforceable on a general basis.

More or less, I don't want to make being a good user a punishable offense, nor do I want the wiki to feel like a police state. That said, if someone wanted to make a policy that doubled the escalation a vandal account received if they were using an open proxy to vandalize (i.e. it'd be like adding a "resisting arrest" charge), I'd go for that. —Aichon— 19:23, 1 May 2012 (BST)

Let's face it, though, the legitimate reasons you've cited are not the norm for proxy use on UDWiki. This wiki is unique from Wikipedia in that users are players in a game in which alt abuse is rampant and probably a good three quarters of the "articles" are group pages or admin pages. If User:Tom adds a comment to discussion, and then User:Jerry uses a proxy to add to that discussion followed by User:Tom again using a different proxy, it would clearly be an attempt at deception. Is that bad faith or good or somewhere in between? Those situations arise all the time and yet the sysop's hands are tied when dealing with it. A sysop could even potentially be brought on misconduct in those situations if he is not careful. I don't know if a new policy can even begin to deal with those problems but I think that was what Axe was trying to get at. ~ _{00:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)}

Axe Hack said "Granted, we never have warned a user for proxy usage before, but since it is against policy, we should reconsider our stance on proxy usage and whether they should be warranted as a punishable offense on UDWiki." He quite clearly isn't talking about weird specialised situations like the one you're talking about. He's literally talking about punishing people for using proxies, whether they're vandalising or not. That should never be vandalism alone. Vandalism is vandalism and tacking on extra punishments for it is something we'd need to discuss with the community at PD. In terms of just punishing them for how they access the sight that will never be acceptable in my view.--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 00:17, 2 May 2012 (BST)

He brought two cases to A/VB; one for Iamnotaporpoise and one for Iamnotatomatoe. Certainly, it was exactly the situation I explained that has opened this discussion. Its less important how users are acessing the wiki but rather why. Call it proxy abuse vs proxy use. ~ _{00:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)}

In your Tom and Jerry example, it would be clear bad faith, so no hands are tied. And I don't know if I agree or disagree with your assertion that benign usage is not the norm. Considering we pretty much only take note of proxies when they're used to vandalize, it wouldn't surprise me if a decent number of regular folks use them without drawing attention. As for Axe's cases, I haven't seen any evidence of bad faith on either of their parts (nor of the accounts even interacting with each other), so I fail to see how they resemble "exactly the situation [you] explained" in any way. I do agree with your statement that it's more important why the user is accessing the wiki, which is why I suggested additional consequences for those vandalizing rather than punishing the ones doing no harm. I also love the distinction you're drawing between abuse and use. —Aichon— 01:19, 2 May 2012 (BST)

I should probably stop speaking as to why Axe brought upnthese cases. That's not really the point I wanted to make and its not really my place anyway. There are some unique proxy abuse problems I encountered as a sysop. Ban evasion comes up more often, truly. It would probably be good if the sysops had a good proxy abuse policy to supplement the existing policy. Had Corn or any other of the sneakier vandal alts used known open proxy IPs, we'd have had severly less drama I think. ~ _{02:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)}

If we could just get Kevan to enforce the existing policy's use of Wikimedia's proxy blacklist, I imagine a lot of our headaches would go away. ;) —Aichon— 02:51, 2 May 2012 (BST)

Sometimes it's as simple as wanting to keep an alt on the wiki concealed from the sysop's eye, not cause you're cheating, playing any harm or anything, just cause you don't want them to be associated with each other. I'm not saying I agree with the principle of it or anything but I don't agree with linking "proxy usage" with "ban evasion/alt abusing" 100% of the time, even if that's why proxies are primarily abused D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 00:38, 2 May 2012 (BST)

I should be clear that I don't agree with it either. No to ad hoc vandalism for proxy use. Yes, come up with a proxy abuse policy. ~ _{02:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)}