User talk:Arthur Rubin/IP list

Who was the root?

Who was the root user? There are far too many IPs listed to assess a personality profile from them. If I know who the initial blocked account was, I can read through their contributions and know the triggers and traits. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Looking through this list of IPs editing Wikipedia, a number of problems reveal themselves.

1. One of the allegations suggested is that this editor (if it is a single editor (see next point)) is evading a block that has been imposed at some point in the past. The IPs in question belong to an ISP that uses dynamic IP addresses. That is: every time the editor logs onto his internet account, his ISP allocate a new IP address. This is quite common and something over which the account holder has absolutely no control. They couldn't get a particular IP address back if they wanted to. Indeed my IP address is also dynamic and if I were follow up this post, it is guaranteed that the IP address will be different. Attempting a geolocate on the IP addresses also proves nothing as you will always get the approximate geographic location of the current user of the IP address (wherever that is but with an artificially introduced error), but only if it is allocated at that time. If the address is not allocated to any user, the geolocate tools return the approximate location of the server that allocates the addresses (which never moves). What it will never do is return the geolocation from which the edits were made unless the IP address is still allocated to the editor at the time the geolocation is requested.
2. Looking at the editing history at the beginning of 2012, and the editing history of later edits, it would appear to me that the editors are not the same editor. At some point your interest seems to have jumped to a completely different person who edits on a broadly different portfolio of articles, though there does appear to be a small overlap (from which you followed the trail). This is reinforced because virtually all the edits made in later months are clearly made in good faith and seek to improve the article in which the edit is made. Examples are: material added with the required reliable references; corrections to typos and incorrect grammar etc. etc. I note that you systematically revert these edits (presumably because you believe that they are made by a previously blocked user - which would be valid if this was genuinely the case). However, you systematically fail to leave an edit summary, which some may believe to be vandalism or at least edit warring (and to be frank, that was my initial impression until I found your linked page).
3. Different IPSs force a new IP address with varying frequencies. All change the IP address every time the customer logs off the connection and then back on. This may happen everytime the customer closes his PC down (i.e. if connected by a PC powered modem), or if the customer has a router, whenever the router is disconnected from the line or rebooted (and sometimes at random times in between). From the frequency with which the IP address changes for (what is clearly) these two editors, it would seem that this ISP (and it does seem to be the same ISP) allocates a fresh IP address as the computer is started up. That being the case, it may well be that the user is totally unaware that each IP address is systematically being blocked in the trail that he leaves as he is unlikely to see the block message appear for what is now no longer the IP address he is using. Most Wikipedia admins will baulk at imposing a range block on dynamic IP addresses because they risk blocking perfectly good editors - though some will do so before checking on what they are doing.

Unless the original blocked editor can be identified and it can be positively established that the later IP addresses in your list are the same editor and it can be established that they are deliberately evading the original block, then your efforts are going nowhere. It may be that your list could be interpreted as harassment of one or more editors which could be grounds for a block in its own right. My advice is either raise an ANI or sockpuppetry report with what you have got or get this page deleted. (Hint: I personally do not believe either will fly with the evidence that you have) 86.150.67.87 (talk) 18:33, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a significant difference in edits; they've changed subject to some extent, but not style or content. And, although a block of the entire metropolitan area of Grand Rapids, Michigan might produce excessive collateral damage, it's true that, in the IP ranges in question, the majority of edits were by this single editor, even before the start of the blocks. As for the root, the earliest edits that I've noticed (not memorialized here), were in the Kalamazoo, Michigan public library, and (after an hour or so delay), residential IPs in a few suburbs of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The library IP was blocked because of (apparently) independent vandalism. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:06, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Even if you can make a case that the editors are different (which I don't think you can), the new editors are imitating the old ones. If you look at my "watch" subpage (referring to edits in 2010 and 2011, with no IPs yet blocked), you'll see no difference in content and little difference in style, only in the choice of articles. There are two types of edit not apparent then; complaints about me on user talk pages, and creation of enormous "to do" lists on their talk page or the talk page of past incarnations. The (blocked) library IP's talk page, and that of other incarnations, was used for writing memos before, but the "to do" list is new. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:15, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe the case is much simpler than that. I (or indeed anyone including the editor(s) concerned) has to make any case that the editors are different. On the fundamental principle that the editor(s) in question are innocent until proven guilty, the onus is on you to prove that they are the same. Can you positively prove that the editor that you are continually reverting and blocking today is the same editor that was originally blocked? Can you positively prove that if it is the same editor that they are deliberately attempting to evade the edit block? Can you positively prove that they are engaging in sockpuppetry, as you repeatedly assert?

• My opinion (for what it is worth) is that the editing pattern is sufficiently different from 2 years ago, that there is little more than good suspicion that they are the same editor - and that is not good enough. The current IPs make generally constructive edits with a few gaffs that number little more than those committed by some genuine good faith editors (and I would by lying if I claimed that I hadn't made one or two myself). By the rules of WP:AGF, the current editor is entitled to the assumption of good faith and not having his good faith edits continually reverted. If you are unable to put up a convincing case now (which I believe to be the case - given that you have not done so) then I believe that you are harassing a good faith editor.
• In my opinion, it is quite likely that the current editor is unaware of any blocks following him around because he does not retain the same IP address long enough to become aware that a previously allocated IP address has been blocked.
• In my opinion, any allegation of sockpuppetry is a non-starter. The editor has no control over the IP address. There is no evidence whatsoever, that the editor (even if they are more than one editor) has used one IP address to deliberately support any point or argument made by another (beyond any reasonable follow up that would still have occured had the IP address not changed).

If you are wondering why I am taking an interest: it is because around 18 months ago, another editor started compiling a list just like yours attempting to allede sockpuppetry for a range of IP addresses, including ones behind edits that I had made and also ones that I had not. It was suspected that the account was a sock of a tendentious editor as he seemed to support that other editors tendentious edits and accused anyone who spoke against him of the same sockpuppetry. There wasn't enough evidence that he was the same person, but his evidence that the IP addreses were the same editor was that they all geolocated to Guildford, Surrey in the UK. Interesting at the time, given that I live about 120 miles away from there. It turns out that British Telecom's IP address server is located in the Guildford telephone exchange primarily because that was the first place in the country that got broadband access, and any non allocated address will always locate to there. He was doing basically what you are doing. As to what happened to the accuser? Following an ANI raised by one of the other editors he accused, he is currently indef blocked for the harassment.

To further undermine your case, I am fairly confident (but not totally confident) that when I type my four tildes to sign this post, that the IP address revealed will be different to the one above. I can't do anything about it, but are you going to start a list of my IP addresses and accuse me of sockpuppetry as well? For the avoidance of doubt, I am (or was) IP 86.150.67.87. --86.171.173.101 (talk) 10:45, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I see no significant difference in edit pattern. If you can describe a difference in edit pattern, please describe it, and post it on WP:ANI to see if anyone thinks it significant. (If WP:ANI is presently semiprotected, which has been known to happen, post on my talk page or this talk page and I'll transfer it.) Per WP:BEANS, I am not going to describe what I see as the edit pattern; I've done so before, and there has been little change, but why take chances.

As for knowledge, I've blocked at least a dozen instances within 3 minutes of their last edit; when I do so, I place the following statement on the talk page:

Anonymous users from this IP address have been blocked temporarily from editing for block evasion. See User:Arthur Rubin/IP list for some others.. If you have a registered Wikipedia username, you may log in and continue to edit. Otherwise, once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.

~~~~.

There has never been a reply by that IP; sometimes there is a reply by a later IP, but it is never constructive or a statement of a difference of identity. The fact that the IP frequently edits a previous IP's talk page suggests that they think they are the same. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 11:19, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

In regard one of your other comments, in the past, when the talk page was notified of problems, the IP frequently changed within 30 minutes, even though the normal run was 2–4 hours. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 11:24, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

There does not appear to be an extant topic at WP:ANI on this subject to which to add any input. I had not tumbled that you were an admin, but if that is the case, it is fair to say that you have a greater duty to ensure that your case is more bullet proof than for the average user. 86.149.79.140 (talk) 13:22, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Who is the original blocked user?

Why was the original user blocked in the first place? Who is he/she? Tony Tan⁹⁸ · talk 08:25, 24 November 2014 (UTC)