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Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

meta.wikimedia.org

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Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#71

Post by moate »

drivebycomment wrote: post #52
moate wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between this and the T-Mobile IP ban, why not just say "Only registered users can edit pages" and be done with it? When you're blocking millions from unregistered editing, just go full tilt.

Because blocking millions out of billions can still be a reasonable tradeoff, if majority of abuse comes from those millions.

My whole point is "reasonable" is an opinion, and really easy to justify when you're not part of the out-group. The stakes on this (who can edit one website that represents the de-facto knowledge on the internet) are either very high or very low depending on who you ask. The idea that people want to protect that makes sense.

What I feel does not make sense is pretending that you're "open" when you stifle millions of (innocent) people. To show the escalation, there are people who would gladly round up millions out of billions to throw in jail or murder for the sake of the safety of the rest of the group. And it would be reasonable to them because it provides the billions with safety. But I think its extremely reasonable for the millions (and in particular the innocent among them) to complain that "this isn't really the open, free, democratic society you promised and maybe you should admit that at this point".

TL;dr- Let's stop pretending Wikipedia is open to all and isn't about Wikipedians controlling Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#72

Post by kemayo »

horsawlarway wrote: post #67
brigandish wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm regularly blocked from editing because I'm on a VPN. I don't get it, as long as I'm logged in then what's the problem? I'd love to know.

My strong suspicion is that the blocking is done at a different layer. Much easier to simply block posts/puts to certain paths from ip ranges in the ingress layer, before they ever reach the application and are authenticated.

Nah, the blocks happen inside mediawiki. There's nothing technically stopping it from exempting logged in users, just a policy choice.

Basically: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Range_blocks

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#73

Post by Kim_Bruning »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #34
fennecfoxen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that seems to be what the people in charge actually want but are half-assing in the name of optics. Most certainly not. The people in charge actually want it to be open. You are simply watching those ambitions splinter somewhat as they are beset by the crashing waves of the harsh reality that is the Internet.

"Want it to be open" but ban mobile network IP addresses, which basically guarantees people below a certain socioeconomic status can't contribute. Loads of people don't have a desktop/laptop, or even internet service at home - just cell service.

If the concern is socioeconomic status: One could still edit from a library, for instance.

But yeah, the internet has changed over time, and it is not as nice a place as it used to be.

I think it's important that there are still sites where people don't need an account to be able to participate. Wikipedia is one of the last holdouts in the West, and they clearly are having some amount of trouble keeping it 100% that way.

Given that you need to prevent abuse, how would you propose to keep things (more) open?

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#74

Post by [deleted] »

brigandish wrote: post #59
josephcsible wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work because Wikipedia doesn't store your IP forever if you have an account. If they allowed what you described, then you could make a bunch of accounts with your real IP, wait 90 days for the IP you made it from to be forgotten, then vandalize with them all over VPNs, and they couldn't do anything about it other than reactively blocking each account individually.

Then grade accounts by more than one metric. I've my account for years and made plenty of edits but it's treated like some newbie account that may be a bot? Because I value my privacy? I use Britannica for anything that isn't celebrity/pop culture based now, I thought Wikipedia had killed off "proper" dictionaries but they're going in reverse. I enjoy the irony of that.

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#75

Post by oefrha »

josephcsible wrote: post #53
brigandish wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm regularly blocked from editing because I'm on a VPN. I don't get it, as long as I'm logged in then what's the problem? I'd love to know.

That doesn't work because Wikipedia doesn't store your IP forever if you have an account. If they allowed what you described, then you could make a bunch of accounts with your real IP, wait 90 days for the IP you made it from to be forgotten, then vandalize with them all over VPNs, and they couldn't do anything about it other than reactively blocking each account individually.

My decade-old account with thousands of edits and zero vandalization still get hard-blocked behind VPN. I once checked out the exemption process but felt discouraged to make a request (can’t remember why now). It’s pretty stupid.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#77

Post by jhugo »

gnfargbl wrote: post #36
jhugo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK their policy is to block IPs that "obscure individual users". Another commenter quoted: > Communities typically block edits from IP addresses that obscure individual users. Surely they are aware that this is basically all IPs nowadays...? If that's genuinely the policy then it should be almost equivalent to just requiring an account for all edits, so why not just do that?

> Surely they are aware that this is basically all IPs nowadays...? There are indeed many classes of IP address which multiplex large numbers of users (mobile network exits, VPN exits, ISPs with CGNAT, some corporate web filtering systems, shared public wifi, tor, satellite ground station exits, residential proxies, ...). However, claiming that "basically all" IPs are multiplexed is definitely wrong. A home or small…

> However, claiming that "basically all" IPs are multiplexed is definitely wrong. A home or small office broadband line typically gets a dynamic-but-ephemerally-unique IP, same as it always did.

IPs assigned to homes and small offices are still multiplexed. It's just a case of magnitude. (In other words, it's rare for a home or small office to contain just a single person.)

The policy as stated makes no sense, if they intend for it to be something like "more than 5 people per IP" they should just say so.

> The effect of IPv6 on this isn't totally clear to me yet. If anything, as IPv6 deployment among ISPs increases, the trend seems to be for less multiplexing and not more.

FWIW, every ISP I've used in the last ~10 years has delegated me an IPv6 prefix, resulting in each device in the network getting a unique IPv6 address. I've never seen any kind of NAT used in the wild for residential IPv6.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#78

Post by thrwaway348 »

xoa wrote: post #26

Stupid and disappointing. Wikipedia and others should move decisively away from using IP addresses as any form of unique ID and address the actual problem in a way that still preserves the option for useful pseudonymity and participation. The basic issue with moderation is the balance between the time/resource cost of moderation and the time/resource cost of evading it times the quantity of bad actor interest. Like i…

> address the actual problem in a way that still preserves the option for useful pseudonymity and participation

You mean like supporting use of pseudonymous accounts that don't require more than an email to register, just like HN? Wikipedia already does this. It's trivial to sign up with a throwaway email account. No one cares unless you try to abuse or game editing by making sockpuppets to sway debates.

They're also exploring how to mask IPs. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IP_Editing:_Privacy_Enhancem...

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#79

Post by recursive »

xoa wrote: post #26

Stupid and disappointing. Wikipedia and others should move decisively away from using IP addresses as any form of unique ID and address the actual problem in a way that still preserves the option for useful pseudonymity and participation. The basic issue with moderation is the balance between the time/resource cost of moderation and the time/resource cost of evading it times the quantity of bad actor interest. Like i…

> Wikipedia and others should move decisively away from using IP addresses as any form of unique ID

I think they're already there.

> Proxy blocks are not targeted at individuals

There are italics on the original page.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#80

Post by kemayo »

TameAntelope wrote: post #39

I'm finding it a bit hard to follow the structure of this document so forgive me if this is what's being discussed, but wouldn't it make the most sense to block Anonymous editing from Apple Private Relay IP ranges? Once signed in, there is again a way to track the editor, and a way to deal with bad actors.

The link is to the discussion page for some reason, which is a lot harder to follow. The actual article page for this one has a whole summary of the situation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apple_iCloud_Private_Relay
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