Last modified: 2014-10-21 06:06:47 UTC
We're currently by default blocking Tor (bar users with exemption). This generally goes against our openness
I'm reasonably sure this is a WONTFIX unless there's significant demonstrable countermeasures…
Yeah, we need a better method/protocol to exempt users, but undeploying the current solution to prevent abuse from Tor users is unlikely to be the answer.
A start in the right direction would be allowing existing account holders to edit via Tor while being authenticated (i.e. removing the need for the block exception for Tor users). I doubt that would increase the amount of abuse.
Tor has put out a call to arms: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/call-arms-helping-internet-services-accept-anonymous-users how can we quantify the loss to Wikipedia, and to society at large, from turning away anonymous contributors? Wikipedians say "we have to blacklist all these IP addresses because of trolls" and "Wikipedia is rotting because nobody wants to edit it anymore" in the same breath, and we believe these points are related.
This issue is starting to irritate me a little :)
There is discussion related to this at: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/User_conduct_policies#Open_proxies
Continuing to block edits from users without accounts (I'll refrain from calling those anonymous) still seems necessary. But a proposal might be, * Allow registering accounts from Tor where initially all edits require approval. * After a threshold of approved edits is crossed, the restriction is lifted. * Current accounts can opt into the above by flipping a bool. That may be missing some nuance (or a whole bunch of institutional knowledge) but enumerating the issues may help move the process forward.
Some past discussions related to Tor blocking: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-January/074049.html http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/74864 https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-January/073920.html http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/74580 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/74582 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/74589 https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-June/069860.html https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-December/065345.html http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/66083 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/42767 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/38484 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/18925 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24544
I've expanded on the proposal in comment 7 here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-October/079016.html
