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Comment by anthonyIPH | Hacker News Reader

Tried to edit on my mobile (T-Mobile - US) and got this:

  Your IP address has been blocked     from editing Wikipedia.

  Blocked by Xaosflux

  Block will expire in 7 months

Curiosity led me to Xaosflux's Wikipedia page where I see they have been active since 2005 with over 85k edits!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xaosflux

View on HN

I've had the desire to contribute so many times, but each time I was blocked. I don't think Wikipedia accurately measures how much contribution they lose because of the hostile treatment of new editors and what I believe are poorly implemented editing policies. Their policies likely haven't been revised since a decade or more, they should do a survey about it.

in most cases you should be able to create an account and edit even if your IP address or range is blocked

I'm not trying to defend Wikipedia at all costs, but you should also think about how much spam and trolling would happen on their platform if they didn't have these annoying blocks for non-registered users.

I run a pretty simple SaaS with a free tier and the amount of spam that I have to manage is high; I don't want to even imagine how difficult it must be to run a website where anybody can edit pretty much anything.

Typically this just means you have to create an account.

Mobile ips are often blocked because of the sheer amount of spam and they switch so much that its difficult to block individual offenders.

They block logged in users too.

Sometimes yes, but usually not at a mass range level except in extreme circumstances.

The block in this case appears to be this one: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalBlockList?targ...

In that specific case, logged in users are still allowed, however you cannot create new accounts when visiting from that range, so you have to already have an account, or go somewhere else to create one.

The error message blocked users get should link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Advice_to_T-Mobile_I... with more info on how to still edit.

I can never edit Wikipedia when I have private relay enabled unfortunately :(

Well yes, the entire point of a private relay is to make it impossible for websites to be able to distinguish between you and a spammer.

There are exceptions to this policy, but you generally need to have a really good pre-existing reputation to qualify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IP_block_exemption

I mean, I am logged in, I feel like that is pretty strong signal of who I am

When anyone can create a large number of sleeper accounts, it isn't really. Its not like you provided ID when you made your account. So the compromise is that if you accured enough reputation you can ask for an exception.

Unfortunately large IP groups like mobile phones often need to be blocked because it’s the only possible way to constraint anonymous spammers.

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