User:Sulfonilklorida/Signpost Opinion1
 Article display preview: | This is a draft of a potential Signpost article, and should not be interpreted as a finished piece. Its content is subject to review by the editorial team and ultimately by JPxG, the editor in chief. Please do not link to this draft as it is unfinished and the URL will change upon publication. If you would like to contribute and are familiar with the requirements of a Signpost article, feel free to be bold in making improvements!
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IP blocks are driving the new users away
Optional: Give a short WP:LEAD-like introduction statement here.
In the early age of Internet, IP block is probably one of the most effective way to ban somebody from accessing some website's feature. Back then, the Internet users are still quite scarce. ISP is giving everyone static IP because there are plenty of them.
But now, as the number of global Internet users skyrocketed, the IP address stock is getting more scarce. ISP is resorting to dynamic IP and NAT to solve this problem. By using this technique, a single IP address could be used and reused by plenty of users at once.
The direct consequence is, we cant really use IP address as a mean to uniquely identify someone on the Internet anymore.
Please don't bite the newcomers[edit]
In the age of dynamic IP and NATs, IP address is actually poor way to identify someone on Internet. I think the important problem that need to be addressed right now is "how to reduce IP blocking false positive".
I've seen a lot of new users, particularly those who interested in joining Wikimedia Movement due to competition event held by local chapter, complaining on why they cant sign up. Their IP address (mostly dynamic IP address behind ISP's NAT) is being blocked due to past's abuse. They complained it directly to the local chapter official, and the official sometimes cant really solve the problem. "It's beyond our scope" they often said. We're this close to "recruit" some new Wikimedia contributors, but then we're kicking them away by this harsh treatment.
Fingerprinting as a solution[edit]
Instead of identifying user by their IP, i think we should look the other, better way. For example : browser fingerprinting. By using browser fingerprint as an identification method, we can solve two problem at once. First, no more collateral damage due to IP blocking. Second, the fingerprint could work as IP masking implementation, since storing and publicly displaying someone's IP could have some legal consequences.
Further research is needed on how to implement our own fingerprinting algorithm. We can always use 3rd party off-the-shelf algorithm, but perhaps we need to design our own algorithm that suits our own unique need. For example, we could improve the algorithm by using AI technique to identify user based on their wiki-editing behavior.
This page is a draft for the next issue of the Signpost. Below is some helpful code that will help you write and format a Signpost draft. If it's blank, you can fill out a template by copy-pasting this in and pressing 'publish changes': {{subst:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Story-preload}}
Images and Galleries
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To put an image in your article, use the following template (link): This will create the file on the right. Keep the 300px in most cases. If writing a 'full width' article, change
Placing (link) will instead create an inline image like below [[File:|300px|center|alt=Placeholder alt text]] CAPTION
To create a gallery, use the following to create |
Quotes
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To insert a framed quote like the one on the right, use this template (link): If writing a 'full width' article, change
To insert a pull quote like
use this template (link):
To insert a long inline quote like
use this template (link): |
Side frames
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Side frames help put content in sidebar vignettes. For instance, this one (link): gives the frame on the right. This is useful when you want to insert non-standard images, quotes, graphs, and the like.
A caption
For example, to insert the {{Graph:Chart}} generated by in a frame, simple put the graph code in to get the framed Graph:Chart on the right. If writing a 'full width' article, change |
Two-column vs full width styles
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If you keep the 'normal' preloaded draft and work from there, you will be using the two-column style. This is perfectly fine in most cases and you don't need to do anything. However, every time you have a However, you can also fine-tune which style is used at which point in an article. To switch from two-column → full width style midway in an article, insert where you want the switch to happen. To switch from full width → two-column style midway in an article, insert where you want the switch to happen. |
Links and such
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By the way, the template that you're reading right now is {{Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue}}. |
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