Forum:Vote to disable all anon editing, at least for awhile

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We've had what looks like a credible threat in Forum:Asperger Syndrome is no laughing matter to launch a proxy attack and blank the entire site. If it's possible, I think we ought to consider disabling all anon ip editing to try to prevent this from happening and the time consuming reversion that would be necessary to restore the site.

Relevant except:

"Ahem! I have now received a number of emails and PM's on an Aspie forum agreeing with me. I just had to shoot off a reply to a PM to tell a person to hold off and leave matters to me - because he was going to come in here and blank the whole site! And I know he has a proxy generating program on his computer (which even I don't have). This article is causing quite a stir over there - so I am not alone in this. I'm just the only one at the coal face."

Lousy counter proposals are 1)let the attack occur and spend weeks fixing it, with the knowledge they could do the same thing again at any time, or 2)counter vandalism on the aspie wiki, which would be stupid, unfair, hypocritical, childish and possibly illegal, and therefore is also an excellant idea (sarcasm).

What do the admins think? Keep in mind if there is an attack, I have no idea how you plan to revert 19K plus pages. Better safe than sorry, nu?

--Hrodulf 20:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, ban the bastards I say. I also have a list of non-anonymous accounts that I would like to see banned and one or two Admins. Is this where I should post it? -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

I'd just hate to see people have to put in hours to fix this when we can prevent it from happening altogether. We've been lucky enough to have a warning, I don't know if we want to wait and see if it happens or not before acting to prevent it. --Hrodulf 20:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not so convinced this is going to happen, and we don't like to remove anon editing power, but just in case I suppose we should make sure we have enough people who even know how to do this.---Rev. Isra (talk) 20:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea, so if an attack starts, we can respond fast and minimize the damage. --Hrodulf 20:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

While I've only been casually following the controversy, I'm uneasy about banning IPs unless there's a DOS attack. There may be people with legitimate comments or concerns to share who may not be interested in registering here.--Procopius 20:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If we make some sort of preparation for an attack so we could stop it before it got too big to fix easily, that would be almost as good and less oppressive than a preventative move. I'm just saying we should do something about this. --Hrodulf 20:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Everyone needs to paint themselves white and to prepare to "Duck and Cover" as soon as the siren goes off. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

I wonder, is it possible to make anon users go through a turing test — you know, look at that crappy image and type the letters they see — before submitting. Just adding that during an attack might slow it down immensely, making the situation managable. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 20:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Against preemptive blocking. Isra's captcha idea is good, assuming it can be done (if an attack occurs). —rc (t) 21:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

In all anon-IP's defense, there are a few anonymous people who actually come to this site and fix grammatical and spelling errors on pages (yes, I know, I wouldn't believe it either if I didn't see it with my own eyes on the Recent changes page). --Anyone 21:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The captcha idea is great; I think we already have it for adding external links. If it can be done for ips, I think that will solve the problem completely. Obviously an automatic attack will be hampered by that. --Hrodulf 21:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

For implementing isra's idea ASAP, regardless of whether we ever get an attack.--<<>> 23:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

FOR Isra's idea. It would save trouble down the road.--The One and Only Czar Yah 02:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: I only support adding captchas if there is an attack. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 03:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Just for the anons, isra. Anyone can make an alias to go by at any time to get around it.--<<>> 03:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I know, but I still only support captchas for anon ips, and still only when an attack necessitates it. I've had a lot of friendly IPs spellcheck my articles and I'd hate to overly discourage that. And since the captchas are appearently hard to do on occassion, I think we should hold off until we see a real need. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 03:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I daresay people sometimes overlook the real contributions of IPs sometimes. I know I do - if I see an IP edit an important page I will check for vandalism (and it frequently is such), but if it's some random article my eyes will usually glaze right over it. Once we restrict IPs this way, it's a slippery slope toward exclusively registered editing, which is something I hope we never resort to. —rc (t) 04:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

If we do that, we'll need a better captcha. I flunk it several times before succeeding, typically. --User:Nintendorulez 21:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

For in the interest of defense. Give the non-spammorz warning though in the form of a site announce. --Ж Kalir _{potentially sexier than you} 03:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is unfortunately an issue because of vandals with bots. If people weren't willing to perform mass vandalism, nobody would be talking about putting any restrictions on IP edits. The idiotic few are, as usual, ruining it for everybody else. --Hrodulf 04:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

But nothing has to be ruined for anybody, except possibly on a very short-term basis. Nobody knows if an attack will happen - I'm entirely skeptical myself - and it can be stopped using Isra's method or several similar alternatives. —rc (t) 05:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the captcha idea. --Hrodulf 06:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Do we actually know that there is a way to add captchas for anon edits? I don't want to use it unless we have to, but we should probably find out if it is feasible and how to do it before we need it.---Rev. Isra (talk) 05:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• For. Ok, I've only been hanging out here less than a year, and only really active the last few months, but here's my 0.00002¢: Why such a fuss about blocking the IPs? Sure, some of them make corrections and perform useful tasks, (see it myself everyday,) but if they're coming back on any kind of regular basis, they're probably going to register sooner or later anyway. That's basically what I did, and I probably would've registered right away if it was required. Like some or most of us, I'm involved in a few forums here and there on the web, and all of them require registration to cut down on the spam and vandalism. Why should Uncyc not use an effective method that is pretty ubiquitious the WWW over? It's not like registration costs anything or causes any kind of security risk or other inconvenience to the users. I think the anons do more damage than good, overall, and would happily see them blocked. . . permanently. Registration is no big deal, and if they can't manage to fill out a registration form, they probably can't write worth a damn anyway.  Sir Tooltroll, Esq. CUN • Eh? • Oh! • UnTunes! •• I my cat! 08:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The thing is that 1) a lot of IPs aren't frequent users. They got linked to something, read it, saw an error or thought of an idea, then made a small edit. We shouldn't discourage that. 2) If we blocked anon editing then it would be harder to catch vandals. Right now we know that IPs are suspect, but if we banned them, the vandals and the spammers could still register names without much effort. So allowing anon editing makes it easier on the admins IMO. 3) I know whenever I go to a wiki and don't see the edit tab at the bottom that I don't feel welcome. Sure, one would probably appear if I tried to register, but that doesn't really matter to me. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 19:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is it not surprising that Aspies would threaten such a thing... -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 16:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Sigh... Am I the only one who disagrees here? Strong Against. Ban them when they get here, by all means; hell, if they come in by proxies, then they just help our crusade against them. I'd rather see that guy's idea on what a "funny" article would be, and then we can shoot that down (or not). —Hinoa KUN (talk) 16:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't block until: a) The 'attack' (I doubt he has any allies on this matter) begins and b) Plain ol' rangeblocks aren't effective. --User:Nintendorulez 21:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hell no: strong against. As much as people may claim they hate them, uncyc needs anonymous IPs to edit. I probably wouldn't have started editing here if I'd had to get an account before trying anything out (go on, make the obvious joke). All it takes is few clicks to revert and ban a vandal, I can take 'em. I would only agree to the captcha idea, and only if there actually was a "attack". Until then, we can cope just fine. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 21:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What Spang said. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 22:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What Isra agreed to--The Right Honourable Maj Sir Elvis UmP KUN FIC MDA VFH Bur. CM and bars UGM F@H (Petition) 13:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It sounds to me like it will be humans using proxies, so captchas are irrelevant. I say we wait for this alleged attack to begin (IMHO he's bluffing), rangeblock the IPs used by their "proxy generating programs", and if that isn't enough, then we institute the register-only editing, but leave a kind note to all anon editors saying 'this is only a temporary thing due to an ongoing invasion and mass blanking via proxy, editing will be reenabled in a few days or so'. That way it won't deter new users, as they'll either register or check back in a few days. Seems harmless enough. --User:Nintendorulez 21:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Captchas would prevent vandalbot usage, though. --Hrodulf 22:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

CAPTCHA (likes English Wikipedia)? Yes, I agree, please setup captcha function into all languages of uncyclopedia. There are too many IPs (proxys) of spammers are attacking Thai uncyclopedia !!! -- Love Krittaya 06:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The ConfirmEdit extension has been turned on for th: common: meta: info: and (as far as I know) already exists on all of the Wikia. This will display something like "Editing พูดคุย:หน้าหลัก (section) จาก ไร้สาระนุกรม, สารานุกรมฟรี Your edit includes new URL links; as a protection against automated spam, you'll need to type in the words that appear in this image: (What is this?) 52 + 7 =" whenever anyone adds an external link. Far more effective than SpamBlacklist, as the spammers just keep re-registering new domain names to evade the bans.

The th.uncyclopedia.info server is to be replaced in a week or two, and will be upgraded to MediaWiki 1.11alpha at that time. This will allow pages to be protected even if this page does not exist - useful as spammers often recreate nonsense pages with a trailing / or /index.php/

Blocking all anon-IP edits may solve nothing at all; it's easy enough to register a sockpuppet account and post with that to evade that restriction. ED already tried going that route? The solution for the problems caused by open proxies isn't a rangeblock - it's to find lists of proxies on the web and ban them one-by-one before they're used to cause trouble. Typically, taking each of the addresses that have already been banned from various wikis for spamming, and putting each into a search engine, will cause you to stumble across entire lists of other problem addresses. Ban 'em all, let Charles Babbage sort 'em out... --Carlb 14:06, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Vote Here! NOW!

	Score: -4 angry trolls
Nomination:	Should the Anonymous IPs be banned from editing? or just banned from creating new articles? or not at all?
For Votes: 1	I know this is not a popular opinion, but yeah. I'm particularly against three stuff for IPs: votes, Ban Patrol and new articles. -- herr doktor needsAcell  [scream!] 17:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC) For telling off n00bs for bumping old topics. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 17:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Against Votes: 5	Well... I just feel that people should have the opportunity to contribute in this way, despite the fact there's so many retards, not to mention it could encourage them to create accounts and be dickends anyway D: -- Prof. Olipro KUN (W)Anchor Op Bur. (Harass) 14:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC) Against. I can see both sides to the argument, but I feel its not a path that we should take. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me) 14:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC) ^Wot they both said. RabbiTechno 14:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC) I believe the answer is a blatant, in-your-face NO. --General Insineratehymn 17:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC) Against, though we need policy pages like Ban Patrol s-protected. But I do support Strange on the bumping issue. Oh, and why are we even voting on a six-month old topic anyways? –—Hv (talk) 6/05 17:43
Comments	Uhhh... You do realise this forum topic is almost 6 months old? Why is there a vote here now? • Spang • ☃ • talk • 02:19, 06 May 2007 Uhhh... some user and Carlb just edited it so I obviously wouldn't have realised this >_<... bollocks -- Prof. Olipro KUN (W)Anchor Op Bur. (Harass) 14:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC) This is a never-ending discussion. Several new topics were raised for discussing just the same stuff, and several voting lists as well. I myself proposed no more IP (and less than 7 days n00bs, see how I'm a bigot) votes. Admins, can you just protect this topic, so we all will be free from the temptation of continuing this discussion? -- herr doktor needsAcell  [scream!] 17:46, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• Somebody moved me inside the box when I wasn't particularly serious, and not talking about the same issue. So I crossed myself out again. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 22:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• It's like a trip in the way-back machine. I can't believe I ever thought that haircut was cool. Pompadour? Harumph! --Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 11:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)