Berean Hunter range-blocks half of Israel

[Poetlister]

Israel displaced something like 3 quarters of the Arab population. There are still plenty of Jews in Germany, would you argue they were not ethnically cleansed there because some remain?

There are now more Arabs in the pre-1967 borders of Israel than there were in 1948. Arabs sit in the Israeli parliament and one was even briefly acting President. That's scarcely ethnic cleansing. You cannot compare that with Germany. Firstly, the Nazi government responsible for the Holocaust is long gone. There are far fewer Jews in Germany than there were before the Nazis, and many (I think the great majority) are recent arrivals from Russia. And you cannot compare what happened in Israel with mass extermination in Auschwitz and similar places.

But to formulate this as a criticism of Wikipedia: all countries except those that refuse to recognise Israel's right to exist accept that Acre is within the boundaries of Israel. So to pretend that it isn't is obviously POV and non-encyclopaedic.

[Eric Corbett]

Generally people don’t join organizations if the orgs mission and vision statements don’t align with their own philosophies. “I had no idea the KKK supports white nationalism” isn’t a statement that anyone is going to buy.

No, but not every member of the Labour party is a Marxist either; there are many reasons why people might choose to join groups.

[Earthy Astringent]

Generally people don’t join organizations if the orgs mission and vision statements don’t align with their own philosophies. “I had no idea the KKK supports white nationalism” isn’t a statement that anyone is going to buy.

No, but not every member of the Labour party is a Marxist either; there are many reasons why people might choose to join groups.

Yes, let me count the benign reasons that people don their hoods. Organizations can and do have “attitudes and opinions” that would be an anathema on a dissenting member.

[Eric Corbett]

Generally people don’t join organizations if the orgs mission and vision statements don’t align with their own philosophies. “I had no idea the KKK supports white nationalism” isn’t a statement that anyone is going to buy.

No, but not every member of the Labour party is a Marxist either; there are many reasons why people might choose to join groups.

Yes, let me count the benign reasons that people don their hoods. Organizations can and do have “attitudes and opinions” that would be an anathema on a dissenting member.

Only if you abuse words like "attitude" or "opinion". An obvious "benign" reason would be for comradeship.

[Earthy Astringent]

Only if you abuse words like "attitude" or "opinion". An obvious "benign" reason would be for comradeship.

Ever hear of mission and vision statements? And in the case of political parties, their opinions are ensconsed In their platform — except in some cases where leadership wish to avoid being called out for boldly and unabashedly documenting their vile stances. But you can ignore their written words. Personnel is policy. When an organization’s leadership is comprised of racists, look at who put them there.

[Eric Corbett]

Only if you abuse words like "attitude" or "opinion". An obvious "benign" reason would be for comradeship.

Ever hear of mission and vision statements? And in the case of political parties, their opinions are ensconsed In their platform — except in some cases where leadership wish to avoid being called out for boldly and unabashedly documenting their vile stances. But you can ignore their written words. Personnel is policy. When an organization’s leadership is comprised of racists, look at who put them there.

If you believe that opinions can be held by anything other than sentient beings then I'm afraid we'll have to agree to differ.

[Icewhiz]

And.... A complaint:
AN:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... unt_either

BH talk:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 7#IP_block

The complainer is an established editor at hewiki (has Interface admin, tens of thousands of edits) complaining on the behalf of another established editor (admin - and unlike enwiki - hewiki admins are on 3 year appointments - need to rego confirmation).

They are complaining on one of the rangeblocks -
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 160.0%2F20

Which is a wide range block of a major ISP (HOTnet - the main ISP for HOT - the only (post unification) cable company in Israel).

[Eric Corbett]

I doubt Berean Hunter is too worried; his obvious aim is to make it impossible for anyone bar himself and his friends to edit Wikipedia.

[Poetlister]

It's pretty daft to block talk page access on a wide range block. What could be the justification for that?

[Osborne]

It's pretty daft to block talk page access on a wide range block. What could be the justification for that?

In short: "I do it, because I CAN."
Long: "I don't care."

[Icewhiz]

It's pretty daft to block talk page access on a wide range block. What could be the justification for that?

Policy wise? None. Yaniv wasn't known for BLP violations in his talk messages - he mostly reverts vandalism + pushes his POV - but nothing that needs a revdel. The socks don't request unblocks either (and that doesn't explain yanking the range's talk page access).

However - there is one great reason - it sure does cut down the number of complaints!

A normal IP or novice editor might, maybe, might do a talk page unblock. If that's blocked? Likely to walk away if they aren't a dedicated sock.

Look what it took here to lodge a complaint - one hewiki admin (tens of thousands of edits) being blocked (probably had his home (or work? less likely) get an allocation in the dynamic range - and he got another quasi-admin (tends of thousands of edits, interface admin, and he's got "cred" on hewiki) to complain at AN (and even then - got sent to BH's talk page).

So - if you want to get away with it and cut down the hassle of possible complaints, unblock requests, and so on - cutting talk page access is the easiest thing to do.

CUs on enwiki are way-way overpowered - lots of power, lots of discretion, and no effective outside oversight (ARBCOM has deemed normal admins can't step in... And ARBCOM itself is mostly technically incompetent - so the CU team really rides roughshod over them most of time).

On other wikis - CUing someone is a big deal. On hewiki - CUs do it all the time, without batting an eye lash, and then block on CU evidence (even when it is sketchy - like three Israeli guys on the same ISP (Bezeq) with Firefox editing Israeli football bios (one Arab-Israeli vandal / BLP policy vios - inserting "Muslim" everywhere - and two Jewish editors with normal edits). - Separate case - SuperJew and Eranrabl.

[Ritchie333]

It's pretty daft to block talk page access on a wide range block. What could be the justification for that?

Same reason 50 year old blokes drive 4 litre BMWs. In the outside lane, doing 95.

[Osborne]

Policy wise? None. Yaniv wasn't known for BLP violations in his talk messages - he mostly reverts vandalism + pushes his POV - but nothing that needs a revdel. The socks don't request unblocks either (and that doesn't explain yanking the range's talk page access).

However - there is one great reason - it sure does cut down the number of complaints!
[...]
CUs on enwiki are way-way overpowered - lots of power, lots of discretion, and no effective outside oversight (ARBCOM has deemed normal admins can't step in... And ARBCOM itself is mostly technically incompetent - so the CU team really rides roughshod over them most of time).

I bet this will end up at the Ombuds Comamission, then investigated in an opium induced vision, then forgotten forever.

[Osborne]

It's pretty daft to block talk page access on a wide range block. What could be the justification for that?

Same reason 50 year old blokes drive 4 litre BMWs. In the outside lane, doing 95.

Do you mean death wish?

[Vigilant]

It's pretty daft to block talk page access on a wide range block. What could be the justification for that?

Same reason 50 year old blokes drive 4 litre BMWs. In the outside lane, doing 95.

Pffffft.

One liter is more than enough for me.

[Poetlister]

CUs on enwiki are way-way overpowered - lots of power, lots of discretion, and no effective outside oversight (ARBCOM has deemed normal admins can't step in... And ARBCOM itself is mostly technically incompetent - so the CU team really rides roughshod over them most of time).

Aren't most arbs also CUs?

[Ritchie333]

Pffffft.

One liter is more than enough for me.

I'm guessing you don't need any compensation in the weiner department, then.

[Osborne]

Aren't most arbs also CUs?

All of 'em. It comes with the package, but it's mostly for use in "investigation". Which they don't do, according to BBrox.

[Eric Corbett]

Aren't most arbs also CUs?

All of 'em. It comes with the package, but it's mostly for use in "investigation". Which they don't do, according to BBrox.

Would you be surprised to learn that BBrox is wrong?

[Icewhiz]

Aren't most arbs also CUs?

All of 'em. It comes with the package, but it's mostly for use in "investigation". Which they don't do, according to BBrox.

Would you be surprised to learn that BBrox is wrong?

Most arbs range between clueless, inept, and amateur at CU. It does not mean they don't use it - they do. They are haphazardly able to use it (badly) on deceptively simple (*) cases on their own. But many choose not to keep the CU bit on departure from ARBCOM, and most of them rely on the CU team for anything more than a little bit complex.

(*An IP + User agent match is deceptively simple - while in many cases it is a simple nailing, in the case of large organizational networks (corporate, campus, etc.) - many (1000s) may be going out on the same IP, use the same operating system (corporate wide), and often the same browser (mandate, organizational inertia and tools) - and even if they aren't on the same browser - Firefox/Chrome/MS (edge/ie) - is a very weak hit on the same mandated OS. If such a hit comes up on the same sets of articles that was reached by user behavior (article intersection, support, mannerism, etc.) - it is corroborating evidence. However if (as very often is the case in many SPI cases and even more in random CU blocks) they were reached via "fishing" (hit vs. a known vandal, but hit accounts not linked by behaviour) - it is close to useless... As CUs generally evade scrutiny on enwiki, many CU blocks are of the latter kind.)

[Icewhiz]

Policy wise? None. Yaniv wasn't known for BLP violations in his talk messages - he mostly reverts vandalism + pushes his POV - but nothing that needs a revdel. The socks don't request unblocks either (and that doesn't explain yanking the range's talk page access).

However - there is one great reason - it sure does cut down the number of complaints!
[...]
CUs on enwiki are way-way overpowered - lots of power, lots of discretion, and no effective outside oversight (ARBCOM has deemed normal admins can't step in... And ARBCOM itself is mostly technically incompetent - so the CU team really rides roughshod over them most of time).

I bet this will end up at the Ombuds Comamission, then investigated in an opium induced vision, then forgotten forever.

I think they are supposed to appeal to ARBCOM and/or open a case against Berean Hunter - before jumping to the (pretty useless) ombudsman commission, no?

[Poetlister]

Aren't most arbs also CUs?

All of 'em. It comes with the package, but it's mostly for use in "investigation". Which they don't do, according to BBrox.

Would you be surprised to learn that BBrox is wrong?

I think it's very unlikely that arbs often investigate the actions of a given CU to assess whether he is behaving correctly.

[Eric Corbett]

Aren't most arbs also CUs?

All of 'em. It comes with the package, but it's mostly for use in "investigation". Which they don't do, according to BBrox.

Would you be surprised to learn that BBrox is wrong?

I think it's very unlikely that arbs often investigate the actions of a given CU to assess whether he is behaving correctly.

I think that's very unlikely too, but that wasn't what I meant.

I meant that arbitrators do investigate using CU themselves.

[The Garbage Scow]

The encyclopedia anyone can edit.

Unless you live in Israel, use a VPN (which is recommended by nearly every serious article covering internet secutiry) or you have T-Mobile as your carrier.

This is somehow better than requiring registration to edit and making it too complex to allow it being done en masse by a script. You know, like every other website does.

[Eric Corbett]

The encyclopedia anyone can edit.

Unless you live in Israel, use a VPN (which is recommended by nearly every serious article covering internet secutiry) or you have T-Mobile as your carrier.

This is somehow better than requiring registration to edit and making it too complex to allow it being done en masse by a script. You know, like every other website does.

Yes, it's always seemed strange to me that virtually all VPNs are blocked, when it would be so simple to require some kind of proper registration process.

[Osborne]

The encyclopedia anyone can edit.

Unless you live in Israel, use a VPN (which is recommended by nearly every serious article covering internet secutiry) or you have T-Mobile as your carrier.

This is somehow better than requiring registration to edit and making it too complex to allow it being done en masse by a script. You know, like every other website does.

That's Wikipedia in 2020.

I never understood why admins are given the power to make hard IP blocks (block even registered users) in the first place and without talk-page access? Nonsense.
Block IP editors? Fine. But if a user is registered, they can block the user and account creation if the user spams socks. Blocking for one LTA a half country? Incompetent.

[Poetlister]

Most Wikis that I am aware of require registration. The WMF refuses to do that because "anyone can edit", and then makes it difficult to edit. Go figure!

[Osborne]

Most Wikis that I am aware of require registration. The WMF refuses to do that because "anyone can edit", and then makes it difficult to edit. Go figure!

They have an article about it: Cognitive dissonance (T-H-L), on a larger scale.
"a person [community in this case] holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, values, or participates in an action that goes against one of these three."

[Icewhiz]

I do wonder what percentage of IPv4 space and active IPv6 space is blocked on enwiki. I suspect that with the very light trigger finger, a large proportion of address space is blocked. I am not sure how to technically query this on enwiki, however.

[Poetlister]

I do wonder what percentage of IPv4 space and active IPv6 space is blocked on enwiki. I suspect that with the very light trigger finger, a large proportion of address space is blocked. I am not sure how to technically query this on enwiki, however.

There's a list of range blocks as of 16 July 2019. Some have been in force since 2005. It shouldn't be hard to tot up the size column. SQL seems to be the leader, making umpteen /16 blocks, followed by TonyBallioni.

[Icewhiz]

I do wonder what percentage of IPv4 space and active IPv6 space is blocked on enwiki. I suspect that with the very light trigger finger, a large proportion of address space is blocked. I am not sure how to technically query this on enwiki, however.

There's a list of range blocks as of 16 July 2019. Some have been in force since 2005. It shouldn't be hard to tot up the size column. SQL seems to be the leader, making umpteen /16 blocks, followed by TonyBallioni.

Heh - assuming non-overlapping ranges and only looking at IPv4 (as most of IPv6 is unallocated/unused) - that is 657 million IPv4 addresses blocked - or around 15% of the theoretical (though in practice mostly used) 32-bit address space...

... The encyclopedia anyone can edit, indeed.

[Icewhiz]

Incidentally, Berean Hunter has been AWOL since 2 February and this action:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =938373480 - using a selective block on Cassianto (T-C-L) from all user talk pages for this comment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?di ... #DS_alerts

Why don't you go and pontificate somewhere else? No one is interested in what you have to say. CassiantoTalk 17:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Which is a tad harsh. Followed up with personal attacks against SchroCat (T-C-L) who dared call this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =938801797

And then reverting Serial Number 54129 (T-C-L) who redacted the personal attack:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =938801797
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =938803401

Being a CU is the closest to godhood on enwiki these days. More so than a non-techie Arb (yes, yes, Arbs get CU, but...).

So the plea is languishing on their talk page.

[Eric Corbett]

Let's hope that Berean Hunter remains AWOL forever, along with the rest of his duplicitous checkuser mates.

[Poetlister]

Heh - assuming non-overlapping ranges and only looking at IPv4 (as most of IPv6 is unallocated/unused) - that is 657 million IPv4 addresses blocked - or around 15% of the theoretical (though in practice mostly used) 32-bit address space...

... The encyclopedia anyone can edit, indeed.

Also, some IPs would be of more use than others if unblocked. I have noted before that every public library in London that I have tried has its IP hard blocked. So 15% probably underestimates the proportion of potential editors frustrated by blocks.

[GizzyCatBella]

Icewhiz, you are not having any difficulty with working around that block range. By the way Icewiz, how long are you going to be socking on Wiki?

[Poetlister]

Icewhiz, you are not having any difficulty with working around that block range. By the way Icewiz, how long are you going to be socking on Wiki?

Yes, as he says, it only covers half of Israel. Loads of people on this site sock; he's in good company.

[Ryuichi]

Icewhiz, you are not having any difficulty with working around that block range. By the way Icewiz, how long are you going to be socking on Wiki?

In terms of sock-hours spent, he's barely even reached a centiCirt.

[Ryuichi]

* For sufficiently low values of half.

Having trouble seeing 4094 IP addresses of a /20 as being half of a population of 8.7 million; or even as being unreasonable for a time limited block. What am I missing?

[Poetlister]

* For sufficiently low values of half.

Having trouble seeing 4094 IP addresses of a /20 as being half of a population of 8.7 million; or even as being unreasonable for a time limited block. What am I missing?

[quibble]4096[/quibble].

As I pointed out above, some IPs are more importnt than others. If one of them has a vast number of users, say the Hebrew University, blocking it has a significant impact.

[Ryuichi]

[quibble]4096[/quibble].

There was going to be a quibble either way.

As I pointed out above, some IPs are more importnt than others. If one of them has a vast number of users, say the Hebrew University, blocking it has a significant impact.

That's reasonable. And, amusingly, not only significant impact, but more likelihood to be blocked.

Though, seeing the results produced by WikiEd, inclined to think that universities should be blocked proactively.

[Poetlister]

Though, seeing the results produced by WikiEd, inclined to think that universities should be blocked proactively.

Especially universities that stage lots of edit-a-thons!

[Icewhiz]

* For sufficiently low values of half.

Having trouble seeing 4094 IP addresses of a /20 as being half of a population of 8.7 million; or even as being unreasonable for a time limited block. What am I missing?

6 months, with talk page blocked (for HOT - 2 separate range blocks). 3 years for Triple-C (a normal ISP, not a colo).

Not all IP ranges are equal, e.g. -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6224677.stm
Wikipedia back in the day banned Qatar by blocking just 1 IP (as all traffic went out via that proxy...).

I never said half - it isn't half - but it is a sizeable chunk of Israeli residential. HOT is one of four major residential ISPs. The blocked range is a dynamic range shared by many residential users - and I think is not a 1-1 IP/user alloc (NAT).

[GizzyCatBella]

* For sufficiently low values of half.

Having trouble seeing 4094 IP addresses of a /20 as being half of a population of 8.7 million; or even as being unreasonable for a time limited block. What am I missing?

6 months, with talk page blocked (for HOT - 2 separate range blocks). 3 years for Triple-C (a normal ISP, not a colo).

Not all IP ranges are equal, e.g. -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6224677.stm
Wikipedia back in the day banned Qatar by blocking just 1 IP (as all traffic went out via that proxy...).

I never said half - it isn't half - but it is a sizeable chunk of Israeli residential. HOT is one of four major residential ISPs. The blocked range is a dynamic range shared by many residential users - and I think is not a 1-1 IP/user alloc (NAT).

Icewhiz, you said "Half of Israel" has been blocked right here:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=10939
You titled this post, "Berean Hunter range-blocks half of Israel"
Are you able Icewhiz to write something without lies, falsifications, falsehoods, twists, distortions, tricks and misrepresentations as you did every day on Wikipedia?

[Ryuichi]

Go easy on the 'whiz. The original thread title was indeed Antisemitism rears its ugly head on Wikipedia.

[Ryuichi]

What am I missing?

6 months, with talk page blocked (for HOT - 2 separate range blocks). 3 years for Triple-C (a normal ISP, not a colo).

Three years is excessive. Blocking talk page access is excessive.

But to describe it as antisemitism, I think we'd want to show that is it not part of a broader pattern of excessive blocking.

[Midsize Jake]

Go easy on the 'whiz. The original thread title was indeed Antisemitism rears its ugly head on Wikipedia.

Yes, I'm afraid Mr. Ryuichi is correct, and to some extent that's my bad. The current title was Mr. Beeblebrox's suggestion, and at the time I didn't think the thread would survive anywhere near as long as it has, so I just went ahead and changed it.

We could change it again, of course, but "Berean Hunter range-blocks an indeterminate percentage of Israeli residential IPv4 addresses" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

[Icewhiz]

Are you able Icewhiz to write something without lies, falsifications, falsehoods, twists, distortions, tricks and misrepresentations as you did every day on Wikipedia?

In case you were wondering on GizzyCatBella's idea of truthful account, I just went through her recent contributions, and a disturbing picture emerges. For instance, on Ełk riots (T-H-L):
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =941780081

Crying BLP in relation to Jarosław Kaczyński 's(the PiS party boss) ugly statement on Muslim refugees + removing most of the background and aftermath of the 2017 anti-Muslim riots in Poland (sourced to mainstream newspapers and journal articles who see a connection).

Perhaps even more interesting is Mary Wagner (Canada) (T-H-L) - a far-right anti-abortion activist - a convicted criminal who has spent many years in jail for harassing women at abortion clinics (and repeatedly violation restraining orders / parole conditions preventing such). Here is GizzyCatBella -
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =939881373

Besides making stuff up about sources, take a peek at the "awards" section - where a stunt by a far-right Polish politician in the European parliament who gathered enough signatures from other far-right nut jobs to secure a hopeless Sakharov Prize nomination.... The fairly non-notable "Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal" award is even more interesting. GCB is presenting the award as something legitimate and mainstream... What is she using as a source?

Well - https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/to ... n-activist

Which says:

"Vellacott gave one of his 30 allotted medals to Mary Wagner, whose aggressive actions “counselling” women in abortion clinics have repeatedly landed her behind bars"

Looking at what GCB reverted, one sees that mainstream coverage focused on the controversy of awarding the medal to jailed criminals:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mp-def ... -1.1198998 -

"MP defends giving Queen's Jubilee medal to jailed woman"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tory-i ... -1.1198997 -

"Tory inciting anti-abortion activists to break law, Rae says"

But in GizzyCatBella's version it is presented as some notable award, with no controversy (as opposed to nothing burger award (almost half a million handed out) - that generated controversy due to a particular MP giving a couple of medals to criminals).

One should note that GizzyCatBella's main editorial focus in the past couple of weeks isn't far-right abortion politics or far-right immigration hate mongering - but rather communists. Jewish communists to be precise - an anorak focus on communists with Jewish roots and a Polish background.

It seems GizzyCatBella's account of the truth aligns with a far-right agenda. The picture arising from these edits is crystal clear.

[Midsize Jake]

It seems GizzyCatBella's account of the truth aligns with a far-right agenda. The picture arising from these edits is crystal clear.

Hmm... it could also be a Roman Catholic agenda. If she's Polish, that would make more sense, at least in terms of the percentages.

Anyway, if you two are going to have a little "PvP time," maybe I should split the relevant posts out into a new thread...?

[Icewhiz]

It seems GizzyCatBella's account of the truth aligns with a far-right agenda. The picture arising from these edits is crystal clear.

Hmm... it could also be a Roman Catholic agenda. If she's Polish, that would make more sense, at least in terms of the percentages.

Anyway, if you two are going to have a little "PvP time," maybe I should split the relevant posts out into a new thread...?

Sure, we could split to a thread on GizzyCatBella.

Being anti-abortion may be Catholic. However Catholic does not imply being anti-LGBT, treating immigrants as disease carriers (to the contrary - humanist Catholics in Poland supported welcoming immigrants), Islamophobia, GCB's editing on the Holocaust (turning an anti-Jewish pogrom with Polish perpetrators into a tale of anti-Polish persecution), or her single minded focus on "Jewish communists".

The far-right in Poland is intertwined with hardcore Catholicism (not the humanist kind, but the Catholic equivalent of Pat Robertson and other evangelicals in the US) - as - after all - what made a Pole a Pole (as opposed to identifying as Ukrainian or Belarusian) - was church affiliation (similar to the Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian divide - which is also religion based).

[GizzyCatBella]

It seems GizzyCatBella's account of the truth aligns with a far-right agenda. The picture arising from these edits is crystal clear.

Hmm... it could also be a Roman Catholic agenda. If she's Polish, that would make more sense, at least in terms of the percentages.

Anyway, if you two are going to have a little "PvP time," maybe I should split the relevant posts out into a new thread...?

Jake, please don't bother splitting this. I have no desire to chat with that individual and will not. I'll not even comment on the manipulative jumbles (as usual) he wrote above.
PS
Stop socking Icewhiz as you did here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... ode=source