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Policies and guidelines
No open proxies
Shortcut
NOP
WM:NOP
This page provides information about the blocking of open proxies on Meta-Wiki and all other
Wikimedia projects
. Projects may have local policies which go beyond this global policy. It was discussed in February 2004, and the policy page was created in March 2006.
Policy
Publicly available proxies (including paid proxies) may be blocked for any period at any time. While this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies until those are blocked.
Tor
editing, on the other hand, is automatically prevented. No restrictions are placed on
reading
Meta or another Wikimedia project through an open or anonymous proxy.
Non-static
IP addresses
or hosts that are otherwise not permanent proxies should typically be blocked for a shorter period of time, as it is likely the IP address will eventually be transferred or dynamically reassigned, or the open proxy closed. Once closed, the IP address should be unblocked.
Exceptions
Editors can be permitted to edit by way of an open proxy with the
IP block exempt
flag. This is granted on local projects by
administrators
and globally by
stewards
However, many users are known to access through open proxy unknowingly due to the default setting of their browser. Before you apply for the IP block exemption (which may take time and is not guaranteed to be granted), you should check the internet connection preference of your browser and change it to no proxy access.
Global exceptions and appeals
If your IP address has been blocked on all wikis
and you believe this was by mistake, or if you need to use Tor/proxies for valid reasons and can't,
you can contact the stewards. They can remove the global block or grant your account an exemption.
The
recommended way
is to use the
Unblock Ticket Request System
Alternatively, you may privately email stewards
wikimedia.org (
direct contact form
). You can use any language, we'll do our best. Include:
the IP mentioned in the error message you got,
the username you use or would like to use and
the reasons why you think the global block was an error or why you need to use Tor.
It's also possible to use the
Meta-Wiki request page
, if you are able to edit it and don't mind sharing your IP (for global blocks) or your reasons to desire privacy (for Tor usage). Global blocks don't apply to Meta-Wiki.
If your IP
is
an open proxy, it will not be unblocked. It is more likely for an exception to be granted if you provide good reasons to think you won't abuse it; obvious cases are, for instance, users blocked by the Chinese Great Firewall and accounts with substantial past contributions.
If a Tor exception is granted to you, and you don't have an account yet, the steward will also create one for you, and you'll receive a temporary password to your email address.
Please do
not
place a local unblock request on your user talk page, they are reserved for local blocks. Local administrators are unable to remove global blocks, and will simply repeat the general instructions.
Local exceptions
If you are interested in editing only one or a few wikis, you may want to ask for a local exception. Projects with a policy permitting exemptions are listed as examples here:
Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia Commons
English Wikibooks
(you may contact any local sysop or post in
b:en:WB:AA
English Wikipedia
German Wikipedia
Spanish Wikipedia
Persian Wikipedia
French Wikipedia
Russian Wikipedia
Chinese Wikipedia
(please follow the instruction inside
this page
to request via email)
Japanese Wikipedia
Arabic Wikipedia
For other projects, check with their policies or contact a local sysop there.
Rationale
Proxy services change a contributor's internet connection, so that instead of connecting to Wikimedia projects directly, the connection is rerouted through services of the proxy provider.
Although Meta encourages anyone in the world to contribute, such proxies are often exploited for abusive purposes. Because
MediaWiki
(the wiki software) depends on IP addresses for administrator intervention against abuse, open proxies allow users to completely circumvent administrators. The use of scripts or unapproved
bots
allow malicious users to rapidly rotate IP addresses, causing continuous disruption that cannot be stopped by helpless administrators. Several such attacks have occurred on Wikimedia projects, causing heavy disruption and occupying administrators who would otherwise deal with other concerns.
This policy is known to cause difficulty for some editors, who must use open proxies to circumvent
censorship
where they live; a well-known example is the government of the
People's Republic of China
, which sporadically attempts to
prevent the people in China
from reading or editing Wikipedia.
Notes
Error message like this:
Your IP address has been
blocked on all wikis
The block was made by $1.
The reason given is
$2
Start of block: $8
Expiry of block: $6
Your current IP address is $3.
Please include all above details in any queries you make.
If you believe you were blocked by mistake, you can find additional information and instructions in the
Stewards Block Wizard
Error message like this:
Your IP address,
$1
, has been automatically identified as a
Tor
exit node.
Editing through Tor is blocked to prevent abuse.
For additional information and instructions to legitimate users, see the
no open proxies
global policy.
See also
Unfair blocking due to open proxy
Global blocks
Help about being blocked
Diff posts December 2022
WikiProject on open proxies
(obsolete)
Editing with Tor
(obsolete)
Advice to users using Tor
Original discussion:
WikiEn-l: "Anonymous proxies (was Re: Desysop Morwen)"
Tim Starling
on 15 February 2004
WikiEn-l: "Anonymous proxies (was Re: Desysop Morwen)"
Jimmy Wales
on 16 February 2004
WikiEn-l: "Anonymous proxies (was Re: Desysop Morwen)"
Jimmy Wales
on 16 February 2004
Retrieved from "
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