12 ms·

Wikipedia blocks 26 million users from the UK's largest mobile network operator

13 points by eeblockage 4y ago

xeromal 4y ago
It looks like they're blocked from editing wikipedia articles without an account or am I misunderstanding wikipedia's response? Blocking anonymous editing from a range of IPs to combat malicious editing seems ok in my book since they allow alternative means.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  That's how I read it as well, which would mean the headline above is very clickbaity. Yamla: "You can, however, still edit while logged in with an account."
  - eeblockage 4y ago
    The problem is that all EE users are both blocked from editing and from directly creating an account.
    - xeromal 4y ago
      But they link a process to create an account which I assume is to combat automation.
      - eeblockage 4y ago
        Yes but then you have to wait in a queue for someone to create the account for you. That is, if they don't deny that too. Also they require your email address for this process. It's just more and more barriers when all you want to do is quickly correct some information in an article you read. Very frustrating and counterproductive!
        smcl 4y ago
        So if you're on the go, and you're the type of person who wants to edit wikipedia, you'll be prompted to log in. If you don't have an account you would need to create one which probably involves waiting 'til you're back at home or the office. That's ... not that bad, I imagine they didn't do it randomly but because they had a wave of bad-faith edits from EE users.
        eeblockage 4y ago
        There are over 26 million EE users. Some of them are going to go to Wikipedia and make malicious edits because some people are just like that. But punishing everyone else for it seems like overkill to me.
        smcl 4y ago
        I imagine it takes quite a few for Wikipedia to decide to block them outright ...
    - CharlesW 4y ago
      But they're not blocked from editing — they just need to be logged in. Wikipedia users can use their existing account. New users were given a human-reviewed path for directly creating an account, apparently out of necessity.
  - wizee 4y ago
    Though it sounds like the normal automated account creation flow is also blocked from that ISP. That could be more problematic and discourage editor account creation.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    I thought they were blocked from viewing Wikipedia and this article title was created by the HN user. It's clickbait and the user created his account only 30 mins ago just to post this.
mirages 4y ago
Clickbait title. Can still edit from an account. Only anonymous edits are blocked.
- eeblockage 4y ago
  Creating accounts is blocked too, if you don't have one and you want to make an edit, you have to go through some manual appeal process to request someone creates an account for you.
josephcsible 4y ago
How else should vandals, spammers, etc. be dealt with when their ISP lets them hop at will throughout its entire IP space?
smcl 4y ago
> so I'd have to walk to my local library, almost a mile away, to make an edit Or you'd walk there, set up an account once and edit away to your heart's content.
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denton-scratch 4y ago
Mobile wikipedia editors annoy me. They tend to make mis-spelled edits (it's hard to edit on a mobile, and predictive text also screws things up). And it seems to me that mobile editors tend not to bother with an edit summary. Adding 1,500 characters to an article with no edit summary pisses me off. Especially if the additions are sprinkled all over the article. And especially especially, if the edit also involves removing material. I often see edit summaries of the form "I added information". These often seem to be vandalism. I don't think any developer would add a commit with a message starting with "I ...". If I see such an edit summary, I usually take a closer look.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

13 points by eeblockage 4y ago

It looks like they're blocked from editing wikipedia articles without an account or am I misunderstanding wikipedia's response? Blocking anonymous editing from a range of IPs to combat malicious editing seems ok in my book since they allow alternative means.

CharlesW 4y ago
That's how I read it as well, which would mean the headline above is very clickbaity. Yamla: "You can, however, still edit while logged in with an account."
- eeblockage 4y ago
  The problem is that all EE users are both blocked from editing and from directly creating an account.
  - xeromal 4y ago
    But they link a process to create an account which I assume is to combat automation.
    - eeblockage 4y ago
      Yes but then you have to wait in a queue for someone to create the account for you. That is, if they don't deny that too. Also they require your email address for this process. It's just more and more barriers when all you want to do is quickly correct some information in an article you read. Very frustrating and counterproductive!
      - smcl 4y ago
        So if you're on the go, and you're the type of person who wants to edit wikipedia, you'll be prompted to log in. If you don't have an account you would need to create one which probably involves waiting 'til you're back at home or the office. That's ... not that bad, I imagine they didn't do it randomly but because they had a wave of bad-faith edits from EE users.
        eeblockage 4y ago
        There are over 26 million EE users. Some of them are going to go to Wikipedia and make malicious edits because some people are just like that. But punishing everyone else for it seems like overkill to me.
        smcl 4y ago
        I imagine it takes quite a few for Wikipedia to decide to block them outright ...
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    But they're not blocked from editing — they just need to be logged in. Wikipedia users can use their existing account. New users were given a human-reviewed path for directly creating an account, apparently out of necessity.
- wizee 4y ago
  Though it sounds like the normal automated account creation flow is also blocked from that ISP. That could be more problematic and discourage editor account creation.
- themitigating 4y ago
  I thought they were blocked from viewing Wikipedia and this article title was created by the HN user. It's clickbait and the user created his account only 30 mins ago just to post this.

mirages 4y ago

Clickbait title. Can still edit from an account. Only anonymous edits are blocked.

eeblockage 4y ago
Creating accounts is blocked too, if you don't have one and you want to make an edit, you have to go through some manual appeal process to request someone creates an account for you.

josephcsible 4y ago

How else should vandals, spammers, etc. be dealt with when their ISP lets them hop at will throughout its entire IP space?

smcl 4y ago

> so I'd have to walk to my local library, almost a mile away, to make an edit Or you'd walk there, set up an account once and edit away to your heart's content.

deleted 4y ago

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denton-scratch 4y ago

Mobile wikipedia editors annoy me. They tend to make mis-spelled edits (it's hard to edit on a mobile, and predictive text also screws things up). And it seems to me that mobile editors tend not to bother with an edit summary. Adding 1,500 characters to an article with no edit summary pisses me off. Especially if the additions are sprinkled all over the article. And especially especially, if the edit also involves removing material. I often see edit summaries of the form "I added information". These often seem to be vandalism. I don't think any developer would add a commit with a message starting with "I ...". If I see such an edit summary, I usually take a closer look.

deleted 4y ago
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