Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Soft blocking AOL

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Abusive IP Addresses

About a 10 days ago, I've been involved with a number of changing IPs (of presumably the same person) vandalizing a specific pages (see:

Terri McGuinty, and the usertalk pages of users who have reverted him), and making various unacceptable, offensive personal attacks
. Although this thread is a bit late, I'm still curious as to knowing where this is coming from (or if it's a sock of a banned user). Below is a list of a couple IPs:

  1. 172.162.230.29
  2. 172.165.22.153
  3. 172.162.99.87
  4. 172.129.120.152
  5. 172.162.178.215
  6. 172.129.59.23
  7. 172.163.124.213
  8. 172.162.104.24
  9. 172.130.54.30
  10. 172.163.87.138
  11. 172.129.47.169
  12. 172.129.111.44
  13. 172.162.78.47
  14. 172.162.178.113
  15. 172.162.112.90
  16. 172.131.44.221
  17. 172.130.68.183
  18. 172.165.157.118
  19. 172.130.36.131

The contribs of the IPs above are comepletely unacceptable, and I think we should take action before a now IP appears. (last appeared 03:28, 29 January 2010) Thanks. Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This vandal has been going for more than three years, sometimes called the 172 vandal. Blocks should be for six hours with talk page disabled; pages semi-protected when he or she has latched onto them. Good luck with the AOL abuse report. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any possible action we can take, other than what we've already done, to prevent further damage? Does anyone know if it's multiple people, or a single person? Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's a single person with an obsession with certain Canadian political activists. If you look carefully at the early edits you can see there's probably something personal going on. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since he seems to be targeting specific pages, the only real option would probably be SP; there's no way to block a range like that except one by one. HalfShadow 22:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is this single person a banned/indef blocked user, by any chance? Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They are who they are. I think I've personally blocked them over 100 times. Banned? Yes. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, if those are proxy IPs, they can be banned permanently, which would make life a bit more difficult for other sockpuppets... HalfShadow 22:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More IPs used by this guy can be seen at the history page of Justin Trudeau, and July 2008 sections of Pierre Trudeau's page history.Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's one of the earlier edits. He or she comes and goes. Semi-protection is the best solution IMO. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think semi protection is the way to go, though. After a series of semi protections, then it usually gets elevated to indefinite semi-protection . I dislike indef semi-protection, some IPs may have something useful to contribute to the articles that this person has vandalized. Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I meant semi-protection is probably the only option, unless someone can make an abuse report stick. We could try an abuse filter, but the edits are probably too varied and sporadic, and the vandal just moves onto other topics like Canadian Tire or Microscope. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to hear some more comments from other admins about this situation. The problematic editing of this user is just inexcusable. Connormah (talk | contribs) 22:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you also solicit opinions from User:CJCurrie, User:JForget, User:CambridgeBayWeather, and some of the other admins who deal with user regularly. -- zzuuzz (talk) 23:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I reviewed the diffs provided in hopes of being able to create a filter. I see nothing to latch on to to enable the creation of an abuse filter, unfortunately. The edits are far too varied and any attempt to lock something down would likely cause him to try something else. I see no potential implementation for a good filter, unfortunately. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I am not an admin, I have had quite a few run ins with this IP and was asked to comment here. It seems the only way to deal with this issue is semi protection, as far as I can tell. Dbrodbeck (talk) 01:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Go check out
WP:ABUSE or filed abuse reports at this time. Good luck. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 02:40, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Revert, block and if necessary semi-protect, but for no more than two or three days. There's too much good work by IPs to semi-protect for long. something lame from CBW 04:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, but once the pages are unprotected, the said vandal returns, then the protection usually gets raised to indef. (see Justin Trudeau). Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:34, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RFC for 172

Given that 172 has been vandalising for such a long time, can we start a user RFC on them? At the end of the day, if AOL abuse doesn't want to get involved, then we might need to do a range block on all AOL IPs, but allow editors logging in from this range to create and edit from their accounts. What do people think? -

talk 05:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

RFCs are entirely useless anyway, and completely redundant in a case like this. Long-term abuse of this nature is self-evidently bad for the project, is self-evidently known as such to the abuser, and should simply be dealt with minus the usual Wikipedian hand-wringing and endless useless discussion. Rangeblock as possible, keep an eye out for more abuse, see if someone smart can write an abuse filter. AOL is singularly unresponsive to abuse of their TOS, so you're on a hiding to nothing there. → ROUX ₪ 16:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I'm not mistaken, I think the IPs change every so often, and I have seen a 172 IP actually make a good faith edit. We can't let this go on for much longer, this guy just wastes our time, and is just plain disruptive. Connormah (talk | contribs) 23:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I rather think that if we blocked the entirety of AOL for anonymous editing are referred them to their helpdesk they might respond to our abuse complaint. Wikipedia has a fair amount more muscle that it can flex these days :-) -
talk 04:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Any other outside opinions anyone can offer on the above proposed action? It may seem a bit harsh, but it may be the only thing to get AOL to respond. Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me, the vast majority of AOL users are mentally lacking up to and including brain-damaged; that's why they use AOL. HalfShadow 20:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. AOL is a net negative. JBsupreme (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is getting to be a bit ridiculous. Connormah (talk | contribs) 02:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the love of God, lets block the whole of AOL and get it over with. It's late in the US, so we should have a good 4 hours or so before someone else unblocks the lot, files an ArbCom and demands the blocking admin be desysopped. Personally, I see little good ever come from AOL IPs and if their Abuse team won't deal with their subscribers using AOL resources to vandalize Wikipedia then maybe they've lost the privilege. A total block may just wake them up to their negligence, too.
<>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Block the whole AOL. GoodDay (talk) 02:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AOL block proposal

Per Tbsdy's suggestion above (including detals above), I propose a complete soft block of AOL (allowing registered accounts to edit) until such time as their Abuse team adequately acknowledges and deals with the rampant and egregious vandalism from at least one of their users that has been going on here for years. This abuse of privileges by 172 and playing whack-a-mole cannot be tolerated any longer.

<>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Look at the page histories of Dalton McGuinty, Justin Trudeau, [Pierre Trudeau]], etc. Most, if not all 172 have been used by a longterm banned AOL user to attack pages. Once one IP is blocked, he moves to another. People who warn him are subsequently personally attacked. Pages attacked by this malicious vandal have had to been semi-protected, some indef (Justin Trudeau). I think we have enough evidence that this vandal is a definate disruption to this project, and we cannot tolerate it any longer. Connormah (talk | contribs) 16:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The behaviors of one particular editor in one particular subset of articles is not indicative of the vandalism vs. constructive editing coming from an entire ISP over the entire range of Wikipedia articles. The page histories of a small handful of problem pages is insufficient to warrant a broad scale blocking of this nature. Shereth 16:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Last I checked, AOL was not an open proxy service but an internet service provider. Their proxies might be open and that might be a problem but that does not mean that AOL is an open proxy. It's an ISP and many people use it and those people will be affected by such a block without ever knowing why. No matter what misuse happens, AOL will not cease to be an ISP and as such can't be treated like a open proxy service. Regards SoWhy 18:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's not our problem. The point is, AOL IPs are effectively unblockable unless you feel like playing whack-a-mole four million-plus times. HalfShadow 18:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think we can play whack-a-mole that often. We'd need a /10, which I don't think is possible. -- Bfigura (talk) 18:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If a suitable, or even partially workable, abuse filter can be devised I would prefer that option to what would certainly be a good deal of collateral damage. With all due respect to the editors here who have expressed objection with regard to punishing the many for the acts of one (or a few); it is AOL that, at the end of the day, must be held responsible for abuse of their TOS. Tiderolls 00:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm striking my !vote as it appears AOL has not been made aware of the situation. Attempts should be made, in my opinion, to make the ISP aware of the circumstances. Tiderolls 16:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is getting out of hand. It needs to stop. -FASTILY (TALK) 00:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support) If AOL will not enforce their terms of service, then we have every right to bar access to them until they start doing so. At the end of the day, it's not just one user misbehaving, it's the ISP's total and utter indifference to abuse reports, and that's something a lot of these users opposing aren't getting. Yes, there will be a lot of collateral, but if an ISP is an accomplice to a long-term vandal, we've got little other choice than to deny access. —Jeremy (v^_^v Boribori!) 00:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support — as per most support comments, AOL needs to take an active role in reducing abuses perpetrated through their ISP. When they start getting angry calls from people asking why AOL has been blocked from Wikipedia, they may start to take notice and actually do something helpful; this isn't arbitrary or vindictive, it's just a long time coming. And in addition, there is the possibility that if this makes a bit of a stir, other ISPs, retailers, schools, etc. may take notice and proactively attempt to reduce abuses, lest they suffer the same fate. DKqwerty (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose - We don't ban entire ISPs. Even if you semi-protected a thousand pages indefinitely; that's 0.3% of our total content. AOL still has 5 million dial-up subscribers. Sorry, but I'm not agreeing to the blocking of that many people (not just IPs) just so that one particular vandal can be stopped. Just stick with semi-protection and the abuse filter. It might be a nuisance, but I gather so would losing quite a sizable number of IP editors. Or do they not matter anymore? NW (Talk) 00:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not that one vandal's provoking this discussion, it's the ISP's cramming peanut butter in its ears. I doubt we would be having this discussion if AOL gave us any indication they were listening to abuse reports. —Jeremy (v^_^v Boribori!) 00:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The indef semi-protections aren't always good, though, as IPs aren't always bad. Indef semi-protection for just one IP's vandalism just doesn't seem right. These vandals is going a bit out of whack, and frankly, I'm tired of dealing with him. Connormah (talk | contribs) 00:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • So they are ignoring us. Big deal. It's not like we have to say "your mother was mean to me, so we're picking up our toys and going home, and your 5 million brothers and sisters can forget about playing with me too." Plus, if I had to choose between semi-protecting 1000 articles and blocking a /10 range, it would be pretty easy for me to decide which one I would do. If someone wants to generate a list of commonly hit articles, just drop it on a subpage somewhere and I'll semi-protect them all. NW (Talk) 00:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have to agree 100% with NuclearWarfare that semi-protecting 1000 articles is far better than blocking edits from a gazillion AOL users. — Kralizec! (talk) 01:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • But semi-protecting any number of articles doesn't actually deal with the problem; this or these editor(s) will simply find other pages to vandalize and other users to harass. Which is indeed the problem specified in the initial suggestion, we're all left playing Whack-a-Mole. Unless the problem is addressed by AOL, semi-protecting 100, 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 articles addresses the symptoms, not the disease. DKqwerty (talk) 01:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A "disease"? It's one vandal. It isn't the end of the world.
    trivially simple to semi-protect all articles involved in batches. NW (Talk) 01:38, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
    ]

*Pages shouldn't be protected preemptively, though, and I have faith that at least one good faith IP contributor would come along, only to find that the article is protected. We've been doing this for quite some time now, yes he still continues to do this. Connormah (talk | contribs) 01:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • And you don't think there might be some good faith contributors that will be prevented from editing by blocking 5 million internet users? Mr.Z-man 01:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • This really sums up the issue: do we prevent all anonymous editing from a massive ISP across the whole encyclopaedia, or prevent a relatively small amount of anonymous editing to a very small number of articles. Of course we'd rather do neither, but look at it on balance. -- zzuuzz (talk) 02:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Frankly, that's the point. Blocking so many users will cause them to contact AOL about it, which will hopefully prompt AOL to act in a tangible way. DKqwerty (talk) 02:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Again I ask what efforts have actually been made to complain to AOL. -- zzuuzz (talk) 02:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The one vandal looks like a world-class pain, but blocking anonymous editing on a huge range is an overreaction, and there appear to be no hard numbers on the number of good-faith contributors we would block to catch this one guy - that is, the people proposing and supporting this have done so without even considering such hard numbers. If it's feasible to implement an edit filter that catches this crap, that's another matter, and I would be tentatively in favor of it. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No way. Blocking five million Internet users to combat a handful of vandals is nonsensical. There's clearly a deeper problem regarding anonymous editing that needs to be addressed; MediaWiki needs to better cope with the fact that IP addresses rarely map one-to-one with people. Blocking AOL doesn't solve this core issue. Fran Rogers (talk) 00:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting point: is there anything MediaWiki could be doing to help itself? I imagine most (if not all) less-extreme avenues have been pursued? DKqwerty (talk) 01:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - No, we don't block entire ISPs because of a few vandals on dynamic IPs. That is a completely disproportionate response. Semiprotect the articles, set up an
    EditFilter, and revert the vandalism. But blocking an ISP with 5 million users over some simple vandalism and calling users "retards," no, that's just ridiculous. The reason that AOL hasn't done anything is probably because simple vandalism is not actually against their TOS, so there's nothing they can do. Mr.Z-man 00:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Oppose. Although this type of action not quite out of the question on principle, a decision that would cause such drastic collateral damage should only be contemplated as an absolute last resort. That means meticulous documentation of numerous abuse reports to the AOL team in response to abuse of the most serious sort--the type where law enforcement ought to be involved. If and only if law enforcement is cooperating but AOL isn't, then there's a basis for this type of discussion. Millions of people would be affected; the press would ask questions. One had better be completely prepared to answer those questions in a compelling way, and pursue such a thing only if the need outweighs possibly losing large numbers of constructive contributors. Durova409 01:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support wholeheartedly, it's time to wake the people up over there. GoodDay (talk) 02:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The per page block feature [2] if implemented would solve this problem. Sole Soul (talk) 03:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support if there's no other way to wake them up...which there doesn't seem to be. Perhaps as an alternative someone could make contact with the media and see if they will run a story on this; companies are generally afraid of bad publicity. Ks0stm (T•C•G) 04:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:SNOW regarding the media caring. — DKqwerty (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]
  • Support. The situation is unfortunate, but our goal is to build an encyclopedia, not build the world's most advanced antivandalism heuristic database. Asking AOL users to register and continue editing is a small price to pay for saving some portion of the time, energy, and resources currently wasted on this vandalism. I hope, and suspect, it might lead to a more significant level of awareness of this situation on the part of AOL, which might well ultimately help ensure this problem is dealt with once and for all. jæs (talk) 05:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support based on the tremendous amount of time wasted dealing with these folks, and based on AOL's apparent lack of care for addressing reports of these problem users. — Huntster (t @ c) 08:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. ╟─TreasuryTag►constablewick─╢ 09:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I've had abuse problems with AOL users (as an operator on other online communities) in the past, and AOL has in my experience proven most unhelpful. The only time a troublesome user would go away was due to that user's own volition (be it getting bored, not paying the bills, dying...). Block it; if AOL wakes up, great, if they don't, abuse problem solved. I doubt that there would be much of a public backlash to such an action, as the block only stops users on that service from editing, not reading; there could be no allegations of censorship, denial of information/education, or other such nonsense. SMC (talk) 14:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Procedural oppose until a proper investigation and examination of alternatives has been conducted. Cenarium (talk) 14:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support if there is at least some attempt at contacting AOL and informing them of the problem. Frankly I'd be absolutely shocked if they did anything about it, but it can't hurt to try. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose No way. You want to block an ISP with possibly 10 million users as the result of one troll? So much for the encyclopedia anyone can edit. No, just no. Achromatic (talk) 20:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • If we file an abuse request and nothing happens, then yeah. When they do something about the abuse request then sure, why not? -
      talk 22:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]
  • Support Anyone can edit... they just have to log in if they're using an ISP that caters to vandals. Jclemens (talk) 01:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose Really? There is no doubt there is a lot of abuse but the collateral for this is absolutely enormous and ridiculous to even discuss. If this is such a problem then we should soft block ALL ips period and get it over with. Something of that magnitude would obviously require a serious discussion and shift in our mentality as a project. There is no doubt to that AOL can be frustrating since they give their users such a wide range of ip's to use (even though we use their /xff and not the proxy server. But even with those problems there is almost NO plausible reasoning to consider a block of this magnitude. James (T|C) 19:16, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose to fullest extent. It won't work. The logic in this proposal is flawed. If you want to stop IP vandals, the right approach is to disable IP edits. But since it isn't going to happen in foreseeable future, then we should leave this as it is. OhanaUnitedTalk page 07:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No, the logic in the proposal isn't flawed, Ohana, you've misunderstood it (deliberately or not). The logic is not that soft-blocking AOL will prevent all IP vandalism. It is, obviously, that soft-blocking AOL will prevent all IP vandalism from IP-addresses operated from AOL. Is that logic flawed? ╟─TreasuryTag►without portfolio─╢ 07:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course I know blocking AOL IPs won't stop all vandalisms. Do you think I started editing Wikipedia on today? Right now this proposal is showing double standard (AOL vs. others), something that I am not fond with. OhanaUnitedTalk page 08:05, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Way too much collateral. This is, essentially, blocking millions of people access due to the actions of how many? One? Two? A dozen? Millions. How many would be turned away from constructive editing? And why? "...if their Abuse team won't deal with their subscribers using AOL resources to vandalize Wikipedia then maybe they've lost the privilege..." (There has been no attempt to contact AOL's abuse team, apparently). --Swarm(Talk) 22:37, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • ABSOLUTELY oppose. I am an AOL IP editor, and have made a whole bunch of good edits so far: see, for instance, my edits to the article on
    Extermination through labor. This entire proposal to block maybe ten million innocent folks from editing just because of a few serial vandals making trouble is absolutely disgusting and anti-American, and I not only oppose this whole idea, but WILL support any motion to de-sysop the ignoramus who came up with this proposal in the first place. Is he/she too much of a retard to understand the principle of "innocent until proven guilty"? I would support semi-protection, selective blocking, basically any reasonable solution to this situation, but this proposal to block a whole ISP because of a few bad apples is nothing less than blatant stereotyping. Last but not least, it won't even work -- if we're dealing with a really determined vandal, he/she could just change ISP's and vandalize WP to his/her heart's content as before. 24.23.197.43 (talk) 06:58, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    WHOIS says that you're with Comcast and your IP address wouldn't be in the affected range. You do bring up an interesting point, but I think people would notice if he switched ISPs to continue vandalism. And at that point the AOL block could be re-evaluated. Reach Out to the Truth 14:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT (and tentative Support) No idea how many people will read this, but one thing to remember about the proposal that a few seem to be missing is that it's a SOFT block -- people can still create accounts. Yes, it still blocks people who don't want to, but as others said, in a sense AOL is like one big giant proxy, which is disallowed. And as the poster above suggests, IF the vandal switches ISPs, well it'd be MUCH easier to block the person then, now wouldn't it. Now I dunno how much attempt was made to contact AOL about this, but if contact is made, and they ignore it (which I would personally guess to be what happens), then yes, perhaps they SHOULD be blocked, at least as a measure to say "wake up!". Perhaps if possible, an explanation as to WHY could be given to those on AOL trying to edit. "We're sorry, AOL acts like a giant proxy, and some users have used this to get around the proxy rules, causing much vandalism and extra work for editors, etc etc". ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This is a huge overreaction to what is really a minor (albeit, obviously frustrating) problem. Aside form the fact that this is an overreaction, after reading through most of the discussion here I see no indication that anyone has tried to communicate with AOL. I'm trying hard to avoid use of the "L"egal word, but I seriously recommend that someone contact Mike or someone else at WMF before proceeding further with this.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose What are we, SPEWS? Gigs (talk) 19:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Too much collateral damage. --JN466 19:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support with a letter from the Foundation being sent to AOL corporate if possible. The indef rangeblock will likely be short lived as AOL will not want their customers complaining or switching ISPs over Wikipedia, and the abuse will come to an end once and for all. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 16:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It is not Wikipedia that is broken, It is the open-proxy setup of AOL. Let AOL explain/respond to their customers base why they don't want to fix their problem, that would again allow anon.s to edit the wiki. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 14:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Softblocking 256^3 IP addresses and probably even more people just because "at least one of their users" is a vandal is like fighting a mosquito by orbital bombardment. There's huge collateral damage and the intended target will just fly away (that is: use a non-AOL anonymous proxy).I even think it's unlikely AOL will give in to this blackmail. Ever since the
    September That Never Ended they haven't lifted a finger to combat abuse, or at least when the camera's aren't rolling. A stern letter to AOL would be better, but they might have more users than fit in their IP block, making NAT or a proxy server a de facto necessity. Smocking (talk) 05:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Support – This is getting ridiculous. A soft block is warranted. If an AOL user wish to contribute, they can use ACC. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 00:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly a dumb question

But is this even feasible? My impression was that mediawiki only allows blocking of /16's and up. I'm not sure how much of 172.*.*.* is AOL, but assuming you wanted to block the IP's posted above, according to the calculator you'd need to rangeblock 172.128.0.0 /10 (which would hit up to 4194304 users). -- Bfigura (talk) 18:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Possible? Yes. Easy? No. Reasonable? Probably not, but that's being discussed above. It is true that MediaWiki only allows blocks on ranges sized /16 through /31, but it's also true that a /10 could be interpreted and blocked as 64 distinct /16 ranges. That's not to say we should do it -- between the edit filter and the developers, there are probably even better ways to do it -- but as a purely technical concern it can be done. – Luna Santin (talk) 18:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The ranges are even more limited: there are a few /16s around 172.130 and some around 172.163. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The time is fast coming again, for Wikipedia to reconsider mandatory registration for editors. GoodDay (talk) 02:09, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not going to happen. Sorry but that would kill the spirit of the encyclopedia.--
Let's talk 02:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
I think some are misunderstanding here. This would not be permanent, should it happen. Only until AOL finally responds to abuse reports, as someone stated somewhere above. Connormah (talk | contribs) 02:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, it'll wake people up there. GoodDay (talk) 02:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone actually verified that vandalism like this is actually against AOL's terms of service? My guess is that it isn't. Most ISPs aren't going to be willing to kick off a paying customer because they annoyed a few people on a website somewhere. Mr.Z-man 02:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd assume (I may be wrong) that something in the ToS mentions not using AOL to disrupt, or abuse priveleges of other sites. I could very well be 100% wrong, though. Connormah (talk | contribs) 02:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See [3], especially the sections "Your Responsibilites" and "Termination". In particular, "Your Responsibilities" point seven would seem to prohibit using AOL to do anything they have asked you not to use AOL to do. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given "Your Responsibilities", upholding points 2 and 3 would require them to terminate 50% of their users. Another 25-40% must have at least violated point 1 as well, so it's not surprising that AOL wouldn't want to really uphold such terms unless forced to. DKqwerty (talk) 06:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I agree in the abstract. My point is that if they want to act, they have already secured the user's agreement that they can do so for practically anything. — Gavia immer (talk) 15:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As much as having to whack-a-mole this guy is annoying, administrators should not be blocking /10s. If there is a big enough problem that an entire ISP needs to be blocked, we should talk to the devs about it. If they deem it an issue of sufficient weight, I think that getting a call from someone like Wikimedia's CTO would probably carry more weight in AOL's eyes than "some random user", which is how they would likely view any of us. The best solution in my view is definitely not blocking AOL outright (despite the sadistic joy I would get out if it), it is getting AOL to do something this person in real life, i.e. threatening to cut off his interwebs. J.delanoygabsadds 06:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I fully support blocking AOL outright. There are way, way too many serial vandals abusing AOL's excessively dynamic ranges. When you checkuser a /16 (as I just did) and find that ~20-30% of the IPs that have edited within the last three months have block logs, that is way out of hand. However, blocking an entire ISP (especially a prominent one) is FAR more drastic than blocking both houses of the United States Congress and the British Parliament. We should not be dealing with something like this on our own, without at least giving the WMF sufficient notice to form a reasoned and thoughtful reply to the press queries, which WILL come pouring in if we go through with this. J.delanoygabsadds 06:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another for the Sock Pile

  • This was put on this very thread. Someone should block that and add it to the above list (far top). - NeutralHomer • Talk • 06:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, the vandal is running around making edits like so. But we already know they will just get a new AOL IP whenever they wish, so I'm not sure we can even justify blocking the used IPs at all at this point. — Gavia immer (talk) 06:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I blocked 172.162.0.0/16 and 172.130.0.0/16 until past his beddie-bye time. J.delanoygabsadds 06:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's only a matter of time, before Wikipedia adopts mandatory registration, IMHO. GoodDay (talk) 16:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is irrelevant to the issue being discussed here. It might be better to make these suggestions somewhere else. -
talk 17:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Just making a statement. Anybody's free to delete if they think proper. GoodDay (talk) 17:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, but I'm not sure what you hope to bring to this discussion with this comment, given this is about a soft-block on AOL's 172.x range. -
talk 17:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Fair enough. GoodDay (talk) 17:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really need to block all of AOL?

Let's think about this for a moment, AOL has over 30 million members worldwide. Lord knows how much of the majority of Wikipedia is edited by AOL users but I can tell you the number is bigger than the number of people killed in the

Holocaust. All this block will lead to is a chain disaster and is it worth it because some fifteen year old teenager makes a few bad edits? Hell fucking no. The Old Pinball Wizard (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

The problem is that it was not a "few bad edits", but many, many bad edits constantly causing problems, originating from an ISP which does not assign IP addresses in a rational manner. We have tried to get them to fix their shit and we ultimately failed, so we banned AOL. harej 02:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just to let people know, but The Old Pinball Wizard is an indefinitely blocked sockpuppeteer. --Bsadowski1 02:30, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
lol ulterior motives. harej 02:30, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence collection

There have been a number of concerns that we have not gathered quantitative data of the amount of vandalism that AOL anonymous contributors have done to Wikipedia.

I am proposing that we start an evidence subpage at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Soft blocking AOL/Evidence. I haven't started it yet, but if we can get a number of us to trawl through the edit history of the 172.x range, then perhaps we can get some hard data on exactly what has been going on.

What do folks think? -

talk 13:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Are we also interested in collating constructive edits from the whole collection of 172 AOL ranges, or just the problematic edits from this single vandal on the few ranges? The articles linked to above will show the latter. It would then be relevant to compare this ISP to others. -- zzuuzz (talk) 13:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps both? But for now we are most interested in the 172 vandal. -
talk 15:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

AOL abuse report

Another question that I think I need to kick a new thread off for is: what sort of abuse reports have been made to AOL? Does anyone know? And should we be coordinating with the WMF on this one, given the huge entity that is AOL? -

talk 13:19, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

A report by a representative of the WMF seems like a necessary first step. Our actions should be based upon AOL's response. Throwaway85 (talk) 13:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm aware, and I probably know more about our response to this vandal than anyone else, no complaint has been made. -- zzuuzz (talk) 13:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No complaint from the WMF or no complaint at all? Tiderolls 14:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am not aware of any complaint. This vandal has always been relatively easy to deal with with RBI and semi-protection. -- zzuuzz (talk) 15:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, so what is all this about AOL ignoring our abuse reports then? Have any even been filed? NW (Talk) 15:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It appears not! All these years of putting up with this vandal, and nobody's complained to AOL directly? Oh man... How do we get this started? Anyone have any ideas? And who can make the abuse report - any of us? -
talk 15:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Abuse Response is a group that handles things like this but there in a bit of another "rebuilding" mode as we try to build a tool to use etc (though some reports are being processed slowly). I actually think for this report it may be better for any of us to send an email to AOL with a short explanation of the problems we've had and link to this page. That would speak far more then any kind of formally written report would. James (T|C) 19:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
I personally wrote to tosgeneral AT aol DOT com as a newbie when I saw it at
WP:ABUSE. Of course, I only gave them logs of a handful of edits. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 16:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

So, has anyone sent the abuse report to AOL?

<>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 08:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Making some noise

If we report to AOL, and they don't do anything about the abuse, there is an alternative that we can try before we do a soft-block against their IP addresses. But it's going to require a LOT of volunteers.

Basically, my proposal is that we get as many Wikipedians as possible to add a page to their watchlist specifically in relation to the 172 vandal. Every time vandalism occurs, we get the Wikipedians to call their contact number and make as much (polite) noise about this issue as possible. If we could get under a hundred volunteers to do this, then I'm fairly certain that AOL will have to start paying attention.

Thoughts? -

talk 15:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

I can't believe this... but it appears that nobody has ever filed an abuse complaint to AOL. If that's the case, then I think ignore my above idea, as AOL can't do anything until they are actually told about it. Oh brother... nothing was filed? Far out! -
talk 15:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
I will certainly pitch in on watching pages. I do believe evidence needs to be gathered before AOL is approached. Regards Tiderolls 16:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Calculate an impact statement: First, IMHO, you need to determine an "impact statement" as to what percentage of vandalism comes from AOL versus all IP addresses. By focusing on AOL, are we just "straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic"? I have counted numerous IP edits and can advise: some articles are 90% vandalism+revert edits; those articles have only 10% non-vandal edits (until protected). The sinking ship would actually be all IP addresses, where AOL might be only the deck chairs on that ship. That's why the percentage impact of AOL should be calculated first, before "making a mountain out of a mole hill". Also, Wikipedia needs to start purging vandal-edits from the wiki-database(s) which are clogged with vandalism: hence, undoing vandalism must remove the insulting edit-summaries as well (or at least conceal them from view) by having a feature in the MediaWiki software to hide some revisions or history lines. Overall, there are several issues to consider, not just assuming that AOL can fix the major problems, and keep the ship from sinking, unless it can be shown that AOL is the source of most IP vandalism clogging the wiki-servers. I formerly used AOL for years, and I noticed my IP address changed every time I did a login, but my AOL "screen name" was the same login account; so, can AOL even determine who is attacking WP when their AOL IP addresses change so fast? Is it worth the time to file an abuse report, if AOL is only using some deck chairs in the larger problem of IP edits? -Wikid77 (talk) 11:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikid77 makes an excellent summary and statement here. Perhaps it would be a good idea to open a community discussion on these matters. Durova409 18:37, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion is unknown to most of the community: this is a subpage of an ANI discussion which began as a report on a single IP vandal, morphed to a proposal to soft block AOL, which then stalled when a couple of people discovered that the appropriate preliminary legwork hadn't been done. Now it's branching toward a broader consideration of IP vandalism. Which is a reasonable direction for the discussion to go; Village Pump etc. deserve to know. And probably a new page started if this proceeds. Durova409 20:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • No probs, we can easily list this on VP. We've done this before :-) It's currently on centralized discussions though, so isn't this enough?
    talk 21:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • I think the discussion still favour a block, but at the moment we are trying to coordinate on evidence and how to file an abuse report, and by whom. -
    talk 22:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    • While not taking issue with User:Wikid77's proposal in general, I would say that concentrating on AOL in particular would pay dividends if a major amount of vandalsim was being performed by a single (or very few) AOL subscribers. Tiderolls 18:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Filter

There has been some discussion about trying to get a filter together to do this. So let's put some thought into it, instead of just saying "maybe it can be done". Back on the 31st of January I took a cursory look and decided it would be very difficult (and possibly meaningless) to put this filter together. However, reading the discussion since then, some people have identified some interesting patterns. Put simply, any amount of false positives can be considered negligible if the only alternative were to be a block of 172.0.0.0/10. So, one of the options I've seen considered was "Any edits from 172.0.0.0/10 and containing either the word both 'canada' orand 'politics'". This is most certainly feasible (and a very short filter at that). Are there any other proposed conditions? --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 03:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and crafted the filter (290) to see what kind of collateral damage we're talking about here and to judge its performance. Any proposals on it are entirely welcome. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 03:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How about making it apply on the affected articles only for now? Also, is it a tag or block filter? Throwaway85 (talk) 01:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right now it's a "log-only" filter, meaning it does nothing but put an entry into the log. That's because we're still trying to evaluate how well it works. Whether it becomes a tag, warn, disallow, or throttle filter is up to the community. My take on it would have been to make it a disallow filter based on the discussion above. I can certainly make it apply to only the articles specified here instead of the generic condition "Canada" and "politics". --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 16:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, actually, in my opinion it should remain the generic "Canada" and "Politics/Political/Party" condition that I already put in place. This is based on the fact that it's more generic and would be able to handle any additional articles we may have missed but are in the same class. The following articles are already considered by this condition, which were the ones listed here:
I haven't seen any activity from 172 on these pages yetsince creating the filter so I can't verify the filter's working correctly, but it's a fairly simple filter I'm pretty sure it's accurate. Are there any second opinions on whether or not the specific articles should be listed or if it should be something more generic as discussed above? --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 16:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This current filter will probably catch the main targets. There are probably some keywords and edit summaries which one could add, which one would not expect from good-faith contributors from this range, and one should also consider blocking 172s from adding a word like 'Trudeau' to the article about Microscope or Tiny. In fact I would consider adding Trudeau to the current list already. -- zzuuzz (talk) 17:16, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Added "Trudeau" additions to conditions. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 17:25, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If possible, the condition should be articles (as opposed to edits) that contain these words. Sole Soul (talk) 07:17, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is in fact how the filter is crafted. Note that the filter is having a ton of false positives right now because it seems all of the target articles are semi'ed. As a result, right now what it's showing is the collateral damage (which appears to be about 3 edits a day). Thus, that is the collateral against which we need to judge placing this block in effect (and unprotecting the target articles). --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 18:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have disabled the filter now as it will do no good until the pages are unprotected. The experiment showed that we should expect 1-4 false positives a day if we were to leave it in this state. Naturally, these false positives would be avoided by just telling those hitting the filter to register an account. I've disabled the filter purely for performance reasons: While the pages remain protected, there is nothing to gain from enabling the filter. Should anyone feel otherwise, feel free to leave a note. --Shirik ♥♥ 07:58, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Articles affected

List of articles that have been targeted by this vandal. Edit counts refer to all 172.* edits, almost all of them by this vandal. This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it and watching the articles.

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