Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/2008 IWF action/Archive 2

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OK, so this is a partial continuation of a thread on WP:ANI. Can someone with technical skills please explain what is going on at [the above] IP addresses? Both addresses seem to be a source of continuous vandalism when unblocked, and then as soon as they are blocked, a stream of near continuous requests from apparently unrelated people shows up demanding unblock. The first appears to be registered Be/O2/Telefonica and is apparently affecting customers in London, and the secons appears to be registered to Virgin Media and is likewise reportedly affecting many active British users. Can anyone explain WTF is happening? I have never seen this sort of problem before? Are we being had by a troll or group of trolls who are trying to fool us, or is this a genuine technical problem? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 14:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I was aware of User:89.167.221.3, but not of the other ip address. I have released my earlier block an hour early as a result. I haven't got the technical knowledge to be able to offer the solution. I'm surprised that very few people are getting involved with this discussion; I'll mention it at ANI and ask for some more input. StephenBuxton (talk) 15:29, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is a technical problem. Both addresses affect users nationwide -- Gurch (talk) 15:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla:16569 -- Gurch (talk) 15:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I saw the unblock earlier when I blocked 89.167.221.3 and forgot to ask the previous admin what the issue was - totally my fault and obviously any unblock is totally fine. Apologies. Pedro : Chat 15:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

No worries Pedro, I've unblocked the address. StephenBuxton (talk) 16:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Please consider cross-posting at WP:VPT. -- Banjeboi 15:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It is very annoying that some considerable time after this issue was brought to admins' attention, that editors in good standing are still being caught by this. DuncanHill (talk) 16:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we anon block the IP with account creation enabled, that would unfortunately prevent anons from editing, but disable the autoblock. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that won't do any good - they ahve already maxed out on the number of accounts they can create in 24 hours (see a couple of threads up from here). StephenBuxton (talk) 16:22, 5 December 2008 (

Yeah but that would stop newer autoblock from being created. I drafted a block template at User:Lucasbfr/UKBlock. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of the mass blocking. I suggest that for the time being (at least until the issue is resolved) as many people as possible monitor the edits from these addresses, and revert the bad edits. To save time, no need to drop warning notices (that would be pointless anyway). I know it's a balls-aching task, but no one ever said being an admin was easy! I'm up for it - just got to nip out and oick my car up from the garage before it shuts. StephenBuxton (talk) 16:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

My problem is more the tons of users that are now blocked when we block a vandal account :) -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I added a notice directed at admins to both of the IP's talk pages. One of the first things I do when I remove an autoblock is look at the talk page of the IP address, so perhaps having a note there will save time when this happens again. J.delanoy ^gabs _adds 16:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If you block them give them a link to http://stable.toolserver.org/acc/ where they can request an account be created for them. That should solve the soft block problem. Prodego ^talk 16:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The IP continued to vandalize with this edit. This is quite a pickle...¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 17:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If it gets out of hand, just block it anon-only and allow account creation. J.delanoy ^gabs _adds 17:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

And do what Prodego said. J.delanoy ^gabs _adds 17:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Alright I will do so with the blessing of this thread.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 17:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Allowing account creation doesn't help, the IPs already reached their six-attempt limit and there's no way to reverse that -- Gurch (talk) 17:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, the ACC does not work for IP addresses currently blocked on Wikipedia. Users should be directed to email accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org to request an account. 4I7.4I7 17:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

By my reckoning, the number of people affected is likely to be in six figures, so I would respectfully suggest that further blocks might not be a net positive, particularly as account creation is not possible. Brilliantine (talk) 17:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree. I've taken to semi-protecting pages which get repeated vandalism. The Danny Forster article kept geting someone posting a mobile number. I've deleted those edits and semi-protected the page. Back to the User Contribution page.... StephenBuxton (talk) 17:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I note the Virgin one appears to be currently blocked (just for info). Brilliantine (talk) 17:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, That was done by Persian Poet Girl (see above). I must admit that I disagree with the block, but I'm not getting into a wheel war situation. I think though there should be a note on the IP talk page letting them know how they can request an unblock. I'll look into it. StephenBuxton (talk) 18:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

One of you Brits: see comment 1 here: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16569 Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 17:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

done -- Gurch (talk) 17:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Alright. Looks like Brion has taken up the issue at Bugzilla. Hopefully we can get this problem resolved, as NEITHER of the outcomes (allowing rampant vandalism from these IPs or blocking millions of quality users) we have availible seems to be working right now. And for the record, I liked my title better (Island of Great Britain reduced to 2 IP addresses. Chaos Ensues.) to be much more attention grabbing. Whoever changed it to this bland title is a buzzkill :( --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It is important to keep information on the issue accurate both to help with finding the problem and to avoid confusing affected users. I changed the title as it falsely suggested that (a) the whole of the UK was affected and (b) the situation could be described as 'chaos' -- Gurch (talk) 17:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I also changed the email in the makeshift block template from the unblock-en email to the ACC email recommended by 4I7.4I7. It would be confusing to direct the users to two different places :S...¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 17:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm going to be a pain and say that all requests sent to the ACC email are usually redirected to the unblock-en-l email address or the interface. It was decided a number of weeks ago that the email address accounts-en-l was to be used for internal discussion only. Sorry folks. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 18:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, don't worry about that, I've notified the ACC team to handle them. We should be OK. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 18:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I took care of the request backlog and added a box to both IPs with link to account request page rather than our internal mailing list. Thank you to whoever created the note to admins, it was an easy tweak to change it to suit ACC. --Terrillja _talk 19:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I sent an email to Virgin Media. Hopefully, they will be able to shed some light on this. J.delanoy ^gabs _adds 17:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There could be another problem with another IP address from the UK ISP TalkTalk, though I'd appreciate someone else looking at it in case I am mistaken:

62.24.251.240 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

What should be done? There are some messages on my talk page about this here as well as the ip address' talk page. DDStretch (talk) 19:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully the devs can solve bugzilla:16569 soon. Unless the vandalism gets severely out of hand, it's best to avoid blocking as much as possible, Spellcast (talk) 19:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Luckily Talk Talk is slow enough that very few people will even notice if we're lucky. (joke) Brilliantine (talk) 20:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

These problems are not going to go away until the world moves to IPv6, which is enabled by default on Windows Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux alike, but not yet ~~supported in MediaWiki~~ enabled on Wikipedia. In any case, I recommend softblocking with account creation disabled and placing a prominent link to http://stable.toolserver.org/acc/ on the IPs' talk pages. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with IPv6 or non-use thereof. Each of these IP addresses is a transparent proxy, not a NAT. krimpet✽ 05:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see. That does present a problem...the secure server workaround is probably the best option then, even if sone of the ISPs disable that too. Hooray for lack of network neutrality... —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

This isn't related to "net neutrality" either; no traffic discrimination is going on. It's Internet censorship, a completely different beast. krimpet✽ 20:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The ACC Tool is currently designed to reject any request made by an IP Address blocked on enwiki, meaning the acc link will be useless if one of those IPs get softblocked. I have committed a fix to allow IPs to request an account if their block has account creation enabled in r1847, but someone will need to sync the tool with that repository before the change will take effect. FunPika 21:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It appears there may be an additional problem here too, possibly related to this: 212.134.155.210 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). X clamation point 22:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, this is where UK users of certain ISPs (at least UK Online) get proxied trough when a site has been flagged by the UK Internet Watch Foundation http://www.iwf.org.uk At least, i think so, I googled a bit for the IP and found the following postings [1] [2](BIG). It seems wikipedia got flagged for childpornography. The other IP addresses might be the filters of other ISPs. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I hope that's not true. You'd think they'd at least notify the Wikimedia Foundation of such an action -- Gurch (talk) 01:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

From the FAQ "Are site ‘owners’ notified that they have been added to this list?

We do not notify site owners that their websites are on our list."[3]. The list's very limited distribution probably gives them some level of protection against libel cases. suggest confirming what is going on before takeing further action.Geni 09:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Workaround

I am affected by this problem, but not if I use the secure server under [4]. Should we put a prominent notice with this workaround on the talk pages of the affected IPs, or could that cause problems for the secure server? --Hans Adler (talk) 21:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead. We can always take it off if the secure server slows down to a crawl or something. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It already is that slow :D — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 23:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I noted the workaround on User talk:62.30.249.131 (the Virgin Media proxy). If the servers don't slow down and nobody complains that it doesn't work, someone should notify the other talk pages as well. --Hans Adler (talk) 09:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Secure server has been blocked by Opal telecommunications aperantly, it just refuses connections. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 20:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

For the IPs which this workaround works for, could it be mentioned on the you have been banned special template, ideally with a link to take users straight to the page they were about to edit (on the secure server)?--77.99.150.12 (talk) 03:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

A greasemonkey script to switch to ssh for edits & a compiled version for those without greasemonkeys. Its very basic so should work with any browser that allows user javascript (e.g opera). p.s could somebody put links to these somewhere relevant (the info box or the user pages) thank you.

Another possible work around is that transparent proxies usually include the original IP address in the forwarded headers. The wikipedia servers could be modified to use this IP address instead of the proxy server address. This should only be done for known proxy servers such as those in the list at the top of this page. --77.99.150.12 (talk) 08:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Questions that need answers

Are other wikipedia languages affected?
Yes, if this affect this wiki, it will affect other wikis because they will use the same ip addresses. This is a global issue. Might want to see the stewards so they don't global block. Techman224^Talk 00:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it affects other wikis, the news report says it affects the english wikipedia, but hasn't stated that other wikis are affected. Techman224^Talk 03:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Are other wikimedia foundations sites affected ?
See above. Techman224^Talk 00:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Are images still loading ?
If affected people could answer these questions, that might be very helpful if we want to look into this further. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes
Yes
Yes (no reason why they wouldn't be, this problem has nothing to do with images)

-- Gurch (talk) 01:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Good to hear. (It might have been that they blocked upload.wikimedia.org, that's why i asked the image loading question) --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

No (Although I wonder if this is just to do with the small number of users on welsh wikipedia?
Yes
Curiously though, all the images load fine apart from the top 'Wikipedia' image on the [5] page --62.30.249.131 (talk) 17:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean, 'No'? I can see two edits in the Welsh Wikipedia's recent changes that use 62.30.249.131, not whatever the user's real IP address is -- Gurch (talk) 17:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

All of en:Special:Mypage, meta:Special:Mypage, commons:Special:Mypage, wikibooks:Special:Mypage, wikiversity:Special:Mypage, wiktionary:Special:Mypage, wikiquote:Special:Mypage, wikispecies:Special:Mypage, wikinews:Special:Mypage, wikisource:Special:Mypage and even mw:Special:Mypage show 89.167.221.3 for me, which does not match my real IP shown at http://leuksman.com/headers.php. Only wmf:Special:Mypage works normally that I can find. So though traffic goes through the proxy on most Wikimedia sites it seems, only the English Virgin Killer article and image description page is affected. fi:Virgin Killer, ka:Virgin Killer (ალბომი), uk:Virgin Killer and their image description pages for that image work. --89.167.221.3 (talk) 17:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Update but not an update

I've sent some updated information to the XFF project email, but haven't received a response yet. they have the first two AN (or ANI) posts linked, but I would prefer if someone else sent them an email in case mine is ignored or caught in a spam filter. I'll post here when some response comes up. Protonk (talk) 01:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I added a fourth IP to the list. See 212.159.3.234‎ (talk · contribs). The recent unblock request seems to indicate this IP is part of the set... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

They all seem to be in the UK. Very odd. Protonk (talk) 03:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

See above. It looks like some internet watchdog organization has flagged Wikipedia as a child porn site, which requires (by law) UK-based ISPs to filter access through transparent proxies. Thus, from Wikipedia's point of view, it appears that every British ISP is now a single IP address. Bugzilla is working on this, but it seems to be a VERY serious problem... Chaos is ensueing, apparently afterall. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Yikes. That would do it. Protonk (talk) 04:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not 'every single British IP'. I've tried editing/posting from my BT IP address and I have no problems. I can view the Virgin Killer article also. THE GROOVE 19:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I did a WHOIS and pasted the now-standard notices to the talk page of that IP address. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm at a friend's house, with Demon Internet. Their connections to WP are also being filtered, but through Demon's own server - a far more sensible thing than outsourcing it (even if still daft in the first place). Nevertheless, do people want to add 193.195.3.40 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to the list? ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 10:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Added. the wub "?!" 15:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Important issue

Isn't the issue of Wikipedia possibly containing child pornography more worrying? I'm assuming it was a vandalism edit, but what if it wasn't? \ / (⁂) 09:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

About time someone asked this question. Far more important than whether people can edit from IPs or register accounts in my view. Can we have a statement of what exactly is being done about this? Poltair (talk) 09:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if the complaint is about something like the lead image in Lolicon, or one of the images of Nudity#Nudity and children. Actual child pornography does get uploaded occasionally (I'm aware of a dozen instances in the past four years), but it's deleted within minutes, and the uploader banned. --Carnildo (talk) 09:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

While we shouldn't be embarking on a wild goose chase for the image, Carnildo has a point. this image does have somewhat explicit images on the spine of the DVD's/Books. \ / (⁂) 09:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what the images you link to are, as I'm not prepared to look. I know that for sometime I haven't allowed my young children to use Wikipedia because of the grubby images that are presented here as educational under the rallying cry that Wikipedia is not censored. It seems likely that there is a serious issue here that ought not be brushed aside. Poltair (talk) 09:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Nothing on those pages is illegal under UK law as it current stands. There is content on wikipedia that I would expect to start hitting issues (although not actualy by letter of the law illegality) within the next few years. I am not aware of any content on wikipedia (with the posible exception of deleted images) that would cause issues with UK law as it currently stands.Geni 10:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I suspect the image most likely to cause you problems is the one in Virgin Killer.Geni 10:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I tried to collate some guidance on this and links to past discussions at Wikipedia:Image content guidelines. One of the main points I made there was that we rely heavily on Commons to get the image content balance right. I'm still not clear what would happen if an image was kept on Commons, but there was consensus on Wikipedia not to use it. The links to past discussions are on the talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 10:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Important sure, but we need to KNOW, otherwise we will never be able to fix the problem. It would be very good if customers of the affected ISPs could send emails to the abuse@addresses listed in the whois information of these IP addresses. Or even better, if someone could make a call to one of the ISPs.

What is going on? Why is wikipedia transparently proxied trough the above IP addresses.
Is Wikipedia flagged by a watchdog organisation ?
What list has flagged Wikipedia
For what reason were we flagged (or how can we find out)
How do we get off the list. Who should be contacted.

Wikipedia can't do much about this issue, and for legal reasons probably shouldn't attempt to circumvent such a system at this time. That makes it an issue for the UK wikimedians. If one of you would like to do this, then I advice you to contact the foundation first. Any email should probably be CC'ed to Mike Godwin (legal counsel). Please be sensible in all your actions and words. If you are not in contact with the foundation, i would at the very least advise you to discuss any email text to be sent here first. We don't want to turn this into one of those wildly misquoted mediastorms :D. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I have emailed Mike Godwin to draw his attention to this thread. DuncanHill (talk) 10:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Mike Godwin has read this thread, and has emailed me to say

"Wikimedia Foundation hasn't been notified of any attempt to block our content as a result of anything having to do with Internet Watch.

My suggestion is that you contact UK editors generally to determine whether this is nonetheless the case and, if so, to recommend a course of action."

DuncanHill (talk) 12:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Problem is that we have no legal way of aquireing the answer to that question. The internet watch foundation will not admit to an item being on it's list.Geni 13:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

incitement to racial hated. Criminal obscenity are other potential issues. Their phone number is +44 (0) 1223 237 700 but of course that is only usefull during office hours.Geni 13:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

An alternative explanation would be that all major UK providers got directions from a court to record all Wikipedia related traffic, e.g. in connection with harassment or a government leak. Most providers would likely use the same technical methods as for the IWF list. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it. We would likely have heard about that. We also have no evidence of tiscali being affected.Geni 13:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm operating off Tiscali, and if anyone wants to checkuser me to double check I'm working off a standard IP, they are welcome to GTD 14:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

This is most likely down to the UK's bullshit ISP censorship. I am currently connected to Wikipedia via the shared 62.30.249.131 IP address, this is a proxy as my router shows that it is not my actual IP. I can confirm that I cannot access the Virgin Killer page at all, nor can I access Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg.

This is the first I've come across UK wide internet censorship, and I'm shocked. I had no idea until now that like China, we too have built a great firewall - only we keep quiet about ours. I can still access the pages from Wikipedia's https login. This is an absolute farce, I guess I'll have to tip off The Register to start mouthing off about it. - hahnch e n 15:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Not UK wide. As suspected it isn't hitting Tiscali.Geni 15:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I get the following error message from Safari when clicking the Virgin Killer link above "Safari can’t open the page “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer”. The error was: “unknown error” (CFURLErrorDomain:302) Please choose Report Bugs to Apple from the Help menu, note the error number, and describe what you did before you saw this message." DuncanHill (talk) 15:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

So IWF consider that to be an indecent photograph under UK law. Unfortunetly the defintion of indecet is rather hazy. The closest I can find is various posibilities with "depicting erotic posing" being the only one that ould possibly apply.Geni 15:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

My personal view (strictly my personal view) would agree with that assessment. Of course, I feel for the editors who are now on some "this IP address looks at child porn" list, but what can be done? GTD 15:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

On Virgin Media, the Virgin Killer image link simply displays the URL in a monospace font. A letter to IWF would probably be the best thing. Wikipedia is not censored and no-one else should censor it for us. A UK organisation should have no power over us anyway (being US-based). I'll contact the IWF now. An online petition of UK editors might be a good idea too. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 15:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Just because we may or may not consider this excessive censorship does not mean we should sit back and accept the hosting of what some may consider child pornography on the servers. I know this argument isn't really for now, but let's not make this some ideological war over a few questionable images. GTD 16:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You can read the past debate here. The image has a fairly wide degree of distribution. If it was illegal under US or german law we would likely have heard about it. However it's status under UK law is more unclear.Geni 16:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I have emailed the organisation. Text of the email is available on request. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

IWF are unlikely to respond with anything beyond the form "we do not comment on individual cases". We shouldn't as far as they are concerned have any idea what they are blocking. Indeed lets face it is only because of our size, site setup and a fair degree of luck that we do. The fact that we do know is unlikely to change their responce. The foundation will have to deal with this. Private individuals cannot.Geni 16:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

This probably all needs to go to a sub page, no? GTD 16:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably, yeah. And I did end my email with "Please contact me via email with your response or if you have any queries. Should I receive no such response, I shall find other media and continue to contact you regarding this issue until I receive an adequae response (whether it be one with which I agree or not)", so I'll just hound them until they respond. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

<- No, please don't. Stop and think for a moment about the PR implications of a kid, in their own words, "hounding" an organization which is funded by most major UK ISPs and partners with the UK government. We have people that make the big bucks to do this instead; send your concerns to Jay (jwalsh

wikimedia.org) from now on. east718 // talk // email // 17:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Dendodge, please listen to East718. There is no need for us to hound the IWF, let Wikimedia deal with it if it is deemed neccessary. Woody (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

As yet, the Wikimedia Foundation seem to have failed to acknowledge that the problem even exists -- Gurch (talk) 17:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Both Mr Wales (see his talk page) and Mike Godwin (see above and his talk page) are aware of the situation. DuncanHill (talk) 17:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm that both Virgin Killer and Image:Virgin Killer.jpg are both being censored by Be Unlimited -- Gurch (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Accessing the page like this works just fine, however, and accessing the image directly from upload.wikimedia.org also works fine. Proof that censorship does not work -- Gurch (talk) 17:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm that when logged out I end up on User talk:62.30.249.131, using Virgin Media in Cambridge. I'm not willing to check the Virgin Killer image though, given that my doing so will probably be logged. the wub "?!" 17:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Coward-- Gurch (talk) 17:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the image from Virgin Killer and listed Image:Virgin Killer.jpg for deletion -- Gurch (talk) 17:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Why?Geni 17:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Er... do I really need to answer that question? Thanks to that image the entire project has been flagged as a child porn site and ISPs have instated measured that cripple our ability to deal with vandalism. That's more than enough of a reason. It's not even free content, after all... -- Gurch (talk) 17:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia already had quite a selection of issues with UK law. One more is not significant.Geni 17:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

None of the other issues resulted in two pages being censored and the entire project proxied -- Gurch (talk) 17:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

<-Whilst I applaud Gurch for acting (thanks!), I have to partially agree with Geni. The problem with the IWF is that they are a self-appointed bunch of, er, people, who are known to interpret their self-imposed brief very widely. They are known to act without evidence or proper investigation, to threaten people who report child porn for visiting it in the first place and to attempt to censor the internet in the UK by blacklisting sites that have text they object to (no pictures), alledgedly including text critical of the IWF. Kowtowing to them will achieve nothing. But Gurch's motives are right. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 18:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Image up for deletion

That Virgin Killer image is now up for deletion here. rootology (C)(T) 17:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Black Kite speedy closed it citing NOTCENSORED. the wub "?!" 17:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If it was only this image, there might be a possible rationale for removing it. But as I pointed out in the close, if that image can be classed as child pornography, then there are probably a lot more that fit that bill. I don't want to start on such a slippery slope at IFD when this should be dealt with by the WMF. Personally, if this is the only image that's an issue, then removing a single non-free image isn't a problem. Black Kite 18:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

And please don't take it to DRV. We know what the outcome will be there. Wikipedia isn't censored. If this private web proxy group in the UK doesn't like that, it isn't our fault that they have their heads in their asses. Protonk (talk) 18:24, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Prehaps we should ge red of it and end the hastel.--Ernst de 2nd q.u. (talk) 05:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

But why? We include this image because it is the cover of an album. We include it for reasons of objective documentation. We do not include it to titillate. As Black Kite states above, there are many other album covers that are considered controversial, or even illegal, now. Should we delete these because they offend prevailing sensibilities? Further, if we treat album cover art in this manner, why don't we delete representations of renaissance art depicting certain types of nudity? Donatello's David, anyone? Another aspect of this is: if we bow to the whims of UK sensibilities (keep in mind the IWF has no official standing in the UK anyway), should we also delete content deemed offensive in Australia and the US (Janet Jackson's nipples)? How about China? Which governments should we lay down to and which shouldn't we? If we agree to delete art because it falls under sexual censorship in certain countries, should we delete violent imagery (war photography, for example), or art subject to political censorship? --Oldak Quill 14:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In the meantime

Should these addresses be added to MediaWiki:Blockiptext to alert admins to the situation? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes - I think they should. These are very sensitive IPs ATM - more so than Quatar, IMHO. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Done Haven't included the comcom instructions since that shouldn't be necessary, GDonato (talk) 17:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, tried to do it but got an edit conflict :) Are we sure we want to advise blocking anon-only though, I thought we were avoiding blocks altogether? the wub "?!" 17:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I came up with that based on the existing blocks: Personally, I would recommend block with anon only and account creation permitted. Not block is not an option with so many users it will become easy to lose track of vandalism, GDonato (talk) 17:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Permitting account creation does nothing when the account creation attempt limit (6 per day) has already been hit. -- Gurch (talk) 17:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I was just going to say that. Does anyone here have access to the account creation request tool (http://stable.toolserver.org/acc/), and can it cope ok with the demand? If so, that would probably be the best recommendation, at least temporarily. The only issue is that it requires an email address to be given, and some people may not want to. the wub "?!" 17:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It should be able to handle it. I have it permanently open now so I can deal with the requests from the UK. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 17:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I've already sent notifications to the entire ACC team (that have access to the mailing list) alerting people to the issue, and preparing them for the expected floods. The tool has had over 17k requests since it was created, I think it's more than capable of handling it. The question is is the stable toolserver capable? I hope it is. Anyway, we've had backlogs in the hundreds before, so it's not a problem. Our team is a lot bigger now. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 18:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

USA law vs foreign law, again

So, is this UK web nanny service some government agency? Is this a case of foreign law conflicting with the United States law that governs the WMF, ala the recent Peter Tobin debacle? rootology (C)(T) 17:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - actually, I think it's EU-related too - maybe a non-UK European could check it out to see if they're blocked too? Dendodge Talk^Contribs 17:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

No, this is not a part of EU legislation (yet). There's no problems viewing the article from Denmark. -- Wegge (talk) 17:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Read the bloody article: Internet Watch Foundation. They are a charitable organisation given funding from various sources including the ISPs, the UK Government and EU funding. Woody (talk) 17:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah - so it's only EU funding - I get it. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 17:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Wikipedia is governed by US law, which forbids distributing sexually explicit photos of minors. As I understand it, this image violates US law and therefore had best be removed, regardless of anybody's opinion of the rights or wrongs of the situation. If there are doubts about this, I suggest consulting a lawyer. Looie496 (talk) 18:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If this violated US law, don't you think our attorney, Mike Godwin, would have had it taken down? rootology (C)(T) 18:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I emailed Mike a short while ago, and he replied with the comment that the image does not violate US law. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 18:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't see that the image violates any (common law) country's laws. The problem is the hysteria that currently suggests that images of naked children == child porn. It doesn't, and courts have historically recognised that. In Belgium, our royal park in Brussels is filled with statuary of children, angels and nymphs with everything showing, and all about as erotic as dog vomit. But the UK's IWF isn't looking for eroticism, it's looking for images of underage children not wearing much and cares little for the actual context. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 18:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

While the legal status of the image cannot be certian without a court case it probably isn't illegal under US law. The case under UK law is unclear and would depend on how the courts viewed the pose.Geni 18:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I checked the album out - in the UK and UK import it appears to have always been issued with a different cover. Amazon interestingly also only show the alternativer cover, at least to UK addresses and the other versions are shown as "No Image Available'. 81.2.110.250 (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I recall seeing the vinyl album on sale in mainstream UK record shops with the "controversial" cover; and have seen the cover depicted in UK-published books on album art. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Motion to close

I suggest we close this. It's beyond our control, and we now know to exercise caution when dealing with those IP addresses. There's nothing more that can be done here, and we should leave this in the hands of the powers-that-be. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 18:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Leave it open. The percentage of Wikipedia editors affected is very, very large and the issue is not resolved yet. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 18:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

We need to keep it open in case other UK ISP's (i.e. Sky Broadband) follow suit. Just a FYI while trying to access the Virgin Killer page logged in via Virgin Media, I get a blank page and while logged out, I find myself blocked. D.M.N. (talk) 18:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Sky Broadband is already included, since it uses Easynet's LLU network. I wish I'd seen this thread this morning; I spent one and a half hours on the phone to their technical support idiots. Out of the nine (!) people I spoke to, only one knew what a proxy was. FFS. Steve ^{T • C} 19:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you (teaching you to suck eggs here, I know, sorry) log out and get your IP address as WP sees it? We can then consider whether the block is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 18:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I just tried that, Wikipedia sees my IP address as 62.30.249.131. DuncanHill (talk) 18:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I am also blocked when logged out - and none too happy about it. Has whoever blocked IP in the UK informed the Foundations and particularly its PR people? The media are just going to love this. "Wikipedia takes drastic steps to defend kiddie porn". Well you may uphold WP:NOTCENSORED at the expense of PR and associated funding.....Anyway, you'd best let the foundation know.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You seem to assume that the image is universally considered as "kiddie porn". It isn't. It is certainly in very poor taste but it's also meant to be scandalous and, unsurprisingly, it was the center of a small scandal. With the likely exception of conservative media outlets, the headline will read "Wikipedia forced to scramble after IWF blacklisting" but that's not a PR disaster. Wikipedia is already known to be very active in its anti-censorship stance and if the Virgin Killer image is really the sole problem, the IWF will be the ones facing PR problems. They're given a lot of money to perform an important task but you can be sure that blackmailing Wikipedia is going to hurt their credibility with their non-activist funders. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 22:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I assumed nothing of the sort, except that's how the media will spin this.--Scott Mac (Doc) 01:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Which hasn't actually been the case so far. They seem pretty reasonable in recognizing the content (the german article even explains why the image is on the cover of the album), noting the blocking and moving on. Protonk (talk) 03:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

...How about "Prudish nanny organization told to stuff it after declaring a 20 year old album cover to be child pornography" or more like "No press coverage at all for event that wikipedia editors care a lot more about than anyone in the rest of the word does. In other news..."? Protonk (talk) 22:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of the artistic and legal merits of the image (and for the record, I don't think it's "child porn" or even all that offensive), we should be aware of the ramifications of leaving this image up. It leaves the project open to accusations of "they're hosting child porn!", which is not the sort of publicity we want. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 01:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It's far from the only image of a naked child we've got on Wikipedia or Commons. --Carnildo (talk) 01:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

No more than Image:TrangBang.jpg leaves us open to that charge. Protonk (talk) 03:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

(re-indent) Yes it is, but these and other images do make us look a bit foolish sometimes. I've already had the "but doesn't that site have kiddie porn" discussion a few times when discussing Wikipedia with people in the real world. The images may not be illegal, but they might have a negative impact on the way we're seen in the wider world. For a lot of people, WP:NOTCENSORED doesn't hold a lot of weight when images of naked children are the issue. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 03:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC).

Whether or not WP:NOTCENSORED holds weight with people doesn't really matter - the point is that it's an official Wikipedia policy, and I'm not sure that's going to be easily changed. All sorts of kinds of images may make people view us in a negative light, in various parts of the world. Also as noted below, the image is on Amazon, and I don't see them worrying. Mdwh (talk) 03:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The point I'm trying to make is that waving a policy (which I agree with, incidentally) in the face of external criticism is not really going to go a long way towards improving our image to the general public. And when pictures of naked children are concerned, we ought to tread really carefully, because it's easy for someone to twist or misunderstand something, and suddenly a situation like this one begins. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 04:15, 7 December 2008 (UTC).

I see no evidence that the general public have a negative opinion towards Wikipedia over this. It's the Internet Watch Foundation who have done this, who are an independent body that are not representatives of the public. There may likely be as many people who form a negative opinion over the IWF on this matter. Mdwh (talk) 04:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you really think that this image makes us look foolish? As someone pointed out below, the bulk of the article is (rightly so) devoted to commentary and interpretation from reliable sources of the image. It would be foolish of us to have that article and then say "we don't want to show the image these folks are talking about". For that matter (not to be confrontational), can you think of an example where there is an image on wikipedia of a naked minor that does make us look foolish (or might)? Protonk (talk) 03:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

So wait, the image is or isn't a violation of the Sexual Offences Act 2003??--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 04:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Nobody knows, because in 32 years, it's never been tested by a jury, who are the ultimate arbiters of indecency. I can't remember a single album cover that's ever been prosecuted for indecency in the UK. the nearest was Never Mind the Bollocks, which was text only, and that wasn't under child protection laws, and was acquitted anyway. Bizarre that it was Virgin Records run by Richard Branson, who defended the case, when now his Virgin Media are censoring us! --Rodhull andemu 04:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Keeping track of news and press releases

This Google News search might help keep track of which news outlets are covering this (currently being covered in Germany and Austria). I will try and remember to check the BBC news website to see if it makes it there at any stage over the next week. It would be reassuring to have links to somewhere stating that the WMF and its press officer(s) are aware of this. They may not have time to post here, but if they say anything official (such as a press release or other statement), could someone link it from here? Carcharoth (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to ruin your parade, but this isn't big news, and won't get recognized by anything other than tech blogs / publications and such. It's not really notable enough to hit mainstream news. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 17:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I find Kelly Martin's comments over at Wikipedia Review quite insightful - "Not really. Wikipedia isn't particularly interesting to the mainstream media; they don't talk about it unless it intersects some other topic of wider interest. Nobody in the mainstream UK media is going to get all piffled over British ISP blocking access to child porn, because (quite frankly) most of the people in the UK think that they should be doing that sort of thing. It's not newsworthy. It'll be newsworthy when the Home Office gets the access logs and uses them to arrest a child pornographer. And not a moment before." GTD 17:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll wait and see if any of the tabloids in the UK report it. I hope we don't see any sensational headlines in the tabloids about Wikipedia harbouring images of child pornography and other offensive material. The UK tabloids have been using sensational headlines such as the arrest of Damian Green, plastic bags and the Karen Matthews case lately to sell papers. I hope my fears will be unfounded, but we shall have to see how it pans out. --tgheretford (talk) 17:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Mainstream media have covered the issue of Internet censoring before (e.g., [6]) - not all of the UK press is Daily Mail-style OMG-think-of-the-children. Whilst this probably isn't likely to get mainstream regular coverage, columnists may have more leeway to write about it. I don't see any evidence what "most of the people" think - although it's probably true that most people aren't bothered one way or the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdwh (talk • contribs) 17:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The Associated Press is mainstream, or rather it distributes to some of the mainstream press. Also, BBC Radio 4's Today programme is relatively high-profile coverage. See here and our article at Today programme. Despite what Xenu and Kelly Martin said, it seems this is going mainstream. Carcharoth (talk) 21:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

On a side note, Carch, is there somewhere where I can get a live streaming feed from the Today Programme? I'm interested in listening in, but since I live in the United States I would need to use a feed to listen in... -Jéské Couriano ^{(v^_^v)} 06:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Try the "live" link at the top of here. May need extra software. Posting to your talk page and below in a new section. Carcharoth (talk) 07:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Yup, this is The Top Story at the Beeb at the time of writing.[7] However, they don't mention the album's title, so perhaps this search might also be helpful.—Dah31 (talk) 06:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, free speech and heavy-handed police action (I know the IWF aren't the police, but apparently the police were consulted) is topical at the moment in the UK, what with an MP being arrested by the police over leaks from the Home Office (latest from that is here), and several cases of journalists being arrested by the police in cases where the police clearly overstepped the mark and used powers for purposes it shouldn't have been used for. An example is here. And the England libel laws issue (though not strictly relevant here), where people bring libel cases in England because of the laws and judges currently heavily favouring litigants, is covered here. Given all this, it is hardly surprising that an issue like this (internet censorship and child pornography) has arisen in the UK rather than elsewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 17:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Currently showing in the #1 spot on BBC News, so I'd say it's gone past tech and nerdy blogs and hit mainstream. Bleeter (talk) 06:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Google results

When I google Wikipedia, IWF, and child (link), one result is removed from the search. Here is the Chilling Effects entry that the notice links to. Is this relevant to this discussion? Or is it just a coincidence? In any case, I'm going to watch V for Vendetta now. \ / (⁂) 04:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You pasted the first link twice. --NE2 04:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Oops, fixed. \ / (⁂) 05:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think google just removes links and de-indexes domains, right? So if the IWF had forwarded this to them and they acted on it, it would affect the whole project. Protonk (talk) 05:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Most likely the IWF has a policy of notifying Google whenever they add something to their blacklist which they believe to be child pornography. I doubt this is some sort of vendetta as you seem to think, but simply reflective of the way the IWF operates. Nil Einne (talk) 09:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Google UK is on the IWF partner list. They have access to the IWF blacklist, though i'm not sure on their policy of usage. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a heads up, but Google removes search results from websites on the Internet Watch Foundation blacklist, so if the Foundation leaves Wikipedia on this list, then Google *may* removal results to Wikipedia. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 10:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Currently Google results, even for the problematic page including the image discussed above, are not filtered. Black Kite 10:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
- See section just above. Only the image of the Virgin Killer page is censored, the problems are that all other traffic comes trough just a few IP addresses. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of IWF statement

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to tell us anything new, but does confirm a few things. It looks like this story is being picked up by the media. David Gerard and an IWF spokesperson are appearing on BBC Radio 4's Today programme at around 8.20am tomorrow - it ought to make good listening. the wub "?!" 20:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Could someone try and arrange a transcript of what is said? Carcharoth (talk) 20:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"The specific URL (individual webpage) was then added to the list provided to ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their customers from inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child.". What they hell are they trying to prove? That they can send URL lists to ISPs and get big websites like Wikipedia censored? Notice the use of the word 'potentially'. So, even in their statement, they are still unable to prove/disprove the legality of the image under UK law??? Idiots! Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 20:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, it can't be shown to be illegal or legal outside of a court of law, on a case by case basis. If I was found with a copy in my record collection would it be considered the same as if it were in my porn collection? GTD 20:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I guess, but if it's an a encyclopedia, I don't think it should be removed. I hope that, whatever the closing outcome, Wikipedia doesn't submit to this censorship crap. Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 20:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You can tell where the IWF knitting grannies with nothing better to do are coming from when their mission statement includes "child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world"[1], and then they link to a much, much, weaker criterion of "Images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity"[2]; I'd have no complaint if they actually pursued [1], whereas it is extremely moot whether the blocked image is "erotic". The fact that somebody might find it so is irrelevant; some people collect children's clothing catalogues, but that does not make them criminal to possess. They need a better legal adviser, or one at all. --Rodhull andemu 20:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

At the end of the day, the more they try to hide content, the more people see it. "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 20:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

IWF spokesperson: "There shouldn't have been any collateral damage" :D MickMacNee (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I find it ironic that Wikipedia provided them with the opportunity to edit the page, and delete the image! Isn't their goal to remove child porn from the net? Perhaps the blocker didn't know about Wikipedia. (sure will now) \ / (⁂)

Who did the AP call, I wonder (check the bottom). Protonk (talk) 20:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

They said "Wikipedia admins" - I suppose they called up the WMF? Calvin 1998 ^(t·c) 20:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

That's my guess as well. Protonk (talk) 20:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"an official and a Wikipedia volunteer" Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 20:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I've been watching that statement page on the IWF site and it's been updated and amended several times throughout the evening, most notably to add that they blocked a "single URL". Pretzels^Talk! 20:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing they obviously can't count then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg = 2!!! Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 20:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Please be sure to log and document each change (perhaps on a blog). Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Lots of buck passing going on, firstly as stated by Xenu, the ISPs could block individual pages if they want instead of using a third party proxy. Virgin/O2 et al. are blameless as they use the IWF as their filter agency and the IWF used guidelines(p.109) to verify that this a sexual, or indecent, image of a child. We need transparency of some type here, I know the IWF won't publish all of the sites on their list, but they do need to have either an appeals process or submit individual details to each 'offender' under the Data Protection Act and Freedom of Information Act 2000. What of Google, eBay, Amazon, iTunes and online music catalogues? Wiki didn't hold the picture as a piece of porn, it held it as an album cover - just like all of these sites do with Nirvana's Nevermind album.

I'm looking forward to hearing what the Radio 4 interview will highlight, Scott Lyon (talk) 20:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It's odd that to protect people from seeing an image, access to a page is blocked. Would it not have made more sense to block access to the image and its thumbnails instead? It is probably true that on sites that have content of the alleged type, a page containing one image is likely to contain many others. Their procedure here is rather surprising however, when hotlinking images on the net is so common, and as MediaWiki generates image and thumbnails urls predictably. There has obviously been no consideration to the content of the page or the software running the site. How can a staff of 7 analysts lack so much in expertise? --Ticram (talk) 20:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Because it is a blacklisting site. It isn't their job to be discerning or fight for the right of people to see information. It is their job to block sites with actionable images on them. Our perspective on things (that censorship is bad and that valuable content and criticism is important) is not shared by them, necessarily. Our goal is to make a free encyclopedia for everyone. Their goal is to protect people from threats, legitimate or (sometimes) otherwise. We have different starting biases. Protonk (talk) 21:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
- Their job is not to block entire sites, but to block individual urls, as they mention in their press release. That is their way of minimising the collateral damage any blocking of access could cause, but their standard procedure on executing such blocks is entirely flawed when it fails to block access to the objectionable content. --Ticram (talk) 21:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep – I agree they should do their job, but there is a problem with the vetting process. They are effectively operating a ‘greenfield’ vetting process, where each image is considered on the basis of the adjudicator (I assume Police Officer in this case) who evaluates the image against the nominated guidelines to determine if it is potentially illegal.

The problem is that there is no consideration of possible case history taken into consideration. They took no consideration into the easily determinable fact that that the image had been around for 30+ years and therefore there was likelihood that it had previously been vetted in the UK and not found to be illegal. --Savlonn (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It is normal in any consideration of a complaint about any possibly illegal action or subject to ask the question ‘is it likely that this has come up for investigation before, and if so, what was the outcome on the question of legality?’

The remaining question is whether in such cases they should as a principle block an image that may be illegal until such time as they can investigate prior adjudication of the image in question. --Savlonn (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Not all that relevant per se, but as has been mentioned, prior determinations wouldn't matter as the legality would depend on a trial by trial basis GTD 21:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

No disagreement here, Ticram. I don't think they did their job well. But my point was that our view of what an appropriate level of discretion would be will be very different from theirs. Protonk (talk) 21:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it is interesting that the IWF do not appear (from what they have said publicly) to have taken legal advice about whether or not the content in question may be illegal. Police officers (they claim to have consulted one - we don't know who they were or what they said) are not qualified to offer legal advice. DuncanHill (talk) 11:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of Virgin Media statement

So, Virgin simply take IWF's word for it, and have no intention of bothering to check the facts for themselves? DuncanHill (talk) 17:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparently the contract with IWF doesn't allow them to verify the list content (see the IWF page).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark.p.thornton (talk • contribs) 17:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I note also that they refer to "potential offensive material" - no suggestion of illegality. DuncanHill (talk) 17:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I noted that too. Most any porn site and to be honest an awful lot of other sites, from politics to humor, are "potentially offensive". The UK overall has fairly open-to-interpretation obscenity laws, which is probably part of what's causing this problem: I think many ISPs agree to the voluntary IWF monitoring so as to placate a government that may otherwise start requiring some kind of filtering. It worries me. ~ mazca ^t|c 17:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

...and from 26 January, add anything that "potentially" comes under the new "extreme pornography" law to that list. Mdwh (talk) 17:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

That (VM's standpoint) is total nonsense, IMO. They are routing through a server which results in all VM customers connecting to WP by a single IP address, and yet this is WP's fault? If they did not do this then it would be easier to moderate so the block wouldn't be needed. Chavster01 (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

According a comment made by David Gerard on Slashdot "The IWF apparently sought the advice of police before blocking". Just to throw that out there. GTD 17:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

What a shambles. This is reminiscent of the situation in February 2008 when Pakistan blocked YouTube due to a row over the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and brought the site to a halt for around two hours [8]. Wikipedia really is in a difficult position over this, since its server computers are hosted under US law, and unless a court there says that the image is illegal, it is under no obligation to remove it. That said (and I don't want to be accused of running up the white flag here), is it really worth pushing this issue to the limit, knowing the harm that it could cause to Wikipedia? --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, Wikipedia should stand firm. Censorship is bad, whether it happens in China or the UK. AlexTingle (talk) 18:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree that Wikipedia should stand firm. Disagree that censorship is completely bad, but believe that if Wikipedia did allow such a thing, it would complicate Wikipedia's goal of building a *free* encyclopedia. I'm not sure how to react to VirginMedia's statement, but feel somewhat disappointed per DuncanHill. Icy // ♫ 18:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the emphasis there should be on "encyclopedia" - the image is non-free. Mr.Z-man 18:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It would be kind of silly to talk about how controversial the album cover was without at least showing it in the article, though. shoy (reactions) 19:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

What has really worried me here is that the Internet Watch Foundation is that classic British monstrosity, a Quango. It is run by faceless and unelected people, whose decisions are unaccountable and extremely hard to challenge. I would support a temporary removal of the Virgin Killer image from Wikipedia until a proper court of law in the US and the UK ruled on the legality of the content. I don't give a hoot for the opinion of a quango. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Wrong way round. We would be admitting there's an issue by removing the image and pre-judging that issue to boot. And it's actually a charity, not a quango. Quangos are appointed rather than self-selecting volunteers. All the more reason to stand firm. --Rodhull andemu 18:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand you. You claimed (correctly, IMO) that this is an organization that has no interest or motivation in accepting challenges to filters. Then you go on to suggest that we should temporarily delete this image pending some review in a court. How long would such a review take? Would it ever occur? Furthermore, while we comply dutifully and await some review, UK IPs will still be filtered. And since they don't list publicly these "filtered" images, we wouldn't know until after we got them to remove the site from their list (for that item), whether or not it was on there for another list. Someone could put the Blind Faith (album) up on their list and we would never know it until the problem failed to stop after the IWF recognized our deletion of the Virgin Killers image. Protonk (talk) 18:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I accept the above comments. Knowing what lawyers are like, they could string this out indefinitely. However, I would like to know what a proper court of law has to say about this matter. The "stand firm" firm approach also has its risks, including damaging Wikipedia's image in the media and incurring blocks in public libraries etc. It is difficult to know what to recommend here, since all courses of action carry some risks.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

We seem to treat censorship from similar countries (UK, other EU members) differently than censorship from China, Pakistan, Iran, etc. That's not surprising, but we should be mindful of it. In my mind, wikipedia's image as a free encyclopedia would be hampered if they changed content in order to ensure that they would not be filtered in China. Or in Iran. We gain some social standing out of our refusal to bend to requests like that. IT is different when we talk about fighting censorship that stems from a shared social more. We can agree that child pornography is bad. We can also probably agree that literal images of Muhammed are not that big of a deal. It is seductive to ponder just censoring this bit (child images) and not that bit (images of muhammed). I think we should avoid that temptation. The easiest way to avoid it is to stand firm. As for possible media backlash...I don't know. Points above and below have been raised about this but I think the primary response from non-tech media will be "huh" at best. And censoring this image would look foolish to an astute reporter. We would obviously not censor the text about the album cover. So we would be left with an article which is almost completely about a single image but the image would be blanked, redacted or deleted on the grounds that we are adult enough to discuss it but not adult enough to show it. Protonk (talk) 19:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Huh? I don't think everyone agrees the Muhammad images are no big deal, certainly not the thousands of people who complained. Of course we wouldn't censor the text, the image is the only problem, the text is only blocked because the people in charge of the list are mostly incompetent at blocking things correctly, which is why there's so many easy ways to bypass the filter. Mr.Z-man 20:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, we acknowledge the requests to take the image down (for Muhammad) but don't find much of a problem in saying: "No, we will not change our content standards based on some privileged request or some law not applicable to the state of Florida". That is an uncontroversial stance. But we are having a discussion about censoring this image due to private interpretation of a law not applicable to the state of Florida. As for what would be removed should wikipedia choose to self censor, I know we would leave the text. That is the beauty of it. The article would remain, a sober and non-titilating summary of criticism and controversy over an image but we would remove the image under discussion. It would look silly. Protonk (talk) 20:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Am I reading this correctly? Is it Virgin Media essentially saying "As long as Wikipedia hosts images that this random, unregulated organization finds objectionable, with no published criteria, and no means for review, then we will simply ignore the situation, and treat it like someone elses problem?"... Is that a decent paraphrase of the above?!? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I suppose you could say so. Of course, that's from an 'edian's view, and not a non-wikipedian. Icy // ♫ 19:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You are readoning that correctly, but it is a pretty standard PR response. Virgin didn't do it, per se, but they are party to a larger organization that did. It isn't good PR to release a statement saying "we know this is messed up" nor is it good to say "we will fix this" if they don't intend to. Nothing really to get worked up about. Protonk (talk) 19:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

To change the subject slightly: Most mainstream newspapers, magazines etc would have at least some concern about printing the Virgin Killer image. This does not necessarily mean that it is illegal, but there need to be good grounds for showing it. It is also well known that anyone can access Wikipedia at home or in a public library. YouTube would definitely block any video with the Virgin Killer image for violating its Community Guidelines. Were the Virgin Killer image in a book of 1970s album covers, it would be harder to ask for a ban, but an uncensored website does pose some additional problems. I don't want to see the image removed, yet can understand some of the concerns raised.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Virgin Media or any ISP unfortunately can't do anything but obey the IWF given the Sword of Damocles-style Government threats hanging over them to legally compel blocking of CP/filesharing/racist/anything they don't like; atm everything is nice and 'voluntary'! Jw2034 (talk) 17:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Since no one else has, I'd just like to point out, for the benefit of Virgin Media customers making a complaint about disruption to their Internet access, that Virgin sell the Virgin Killer album to UK addresses from their US-hosted CD website (which hosts the allegedly pornographic image) and in their UK high street stores making their ill-thought-out blocking of Wikipedia also somewhat hypocritical.

If the image is, as they seem to allege, unlawful, I'd imagine that a multi-national corporation widely commercially distributing it for entertainment purposes should carry stiffer penalties than an educational charity including a low quality version in a neutral encyclopaedia article detailing the controversy. IANAL but any Virgin customers pursuing a breach-of-contract or similar claim against their ISP may want to consider whether Virgin would have unclean hands in any defence that the image is unlawful. —Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _talk _contrib 04:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Mass trolling by IP User:62.30.249.131 has on othe wiki sites

Archived as probably unrelated. Protonk (talk) 23:37, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This is what happed on thes sites, is it related and why can I still edit most wikipedias with a UK I.P.?-

Czech, Welsh, Bosnian and Afracaans Wikipedias

The IP has no reaced them, but it has reached Welsh and was quickly bocked. [[16]] [[17]]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Tesco.net

My Banbury I.P. address is still down, so Tesco Net is atill bocked. I received an "X-mass x-max T.V." e-mail on the 6th. It tried to get through, but F-Secure said it was a phishing letter and I deleted it. Was this related, a ISP spy bot, or just an ordnery con-mam.--Peter john Lloyd 3rd (talk) 12:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC) --62.30.249.131 (talk) 10:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Unrelated Con-man. --Rodhull andemu 14:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Tesco is strange. Five minutes ago I was unable to edit anonymously, since reconnecting I can edit again. My IP was showing as 62.30.249.131 earlier but now it's back to a normal Tesco IP address.

Same person here, two minutes after editing I came back without reconnecting and am now getting the block message when trying to edit anonymously. It's a bit of a mess. Dayus (talk) 14:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I've been noticing basically the same thing on TalkTalk - last night I logged out to see what the fuss was about (I never usually edit anonymously) and was able to edit freely as I was on a normal TalkTalk address without the proxy. Five minutes later, I visited Wikipedia again and this time I was blocked from anonymous editing. Apparently whatever the function is that links people through the filter proxy isn't entirely reliable. ~ mazca ^t|c 17:17, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Galaxy net

My libary uses Galaxy Net, so I will see if there down on Monday!--62.30.249.131 (talk) 19:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

British Telecom (BT) Not filtering

BT are not filtering, this has been confirmed by a number of BT subscribers attempting to access the image. BT are the pioneers of the original Cleanfeed system and no evidence so far has emerged that they are blocking this.

Ha! Irony! Message from XENU^{complaints? leave me a message!} 16:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

BBC reported in 2004, that "BT's internet customers will be blocked from viewing websites blacklisted by the Internet Watch Foundation" and that "BT does not pretend that this trial will offer a total solution to this problem". I suppose their trial was not successful then! See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3786527.stm. --Ticram (talk) 18:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Um, apparently PlusNet is under BT, and now Plusnet is filtering (according to list of affected IP's) Icy // ♫ 20:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I am with BT and am unable to access the page, so it appears they are least filtering it for some users. SkorponokX (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I confirm this. I have spoken this evening with BT's customer security team based in Hertfordshire, and they have informed me however that "BT do not block anyone." Apparently they believe that its up to the customer to decide what they view. They are investigating this and have assured me a reply will be given by telephone or email within 24 hours. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

How long..?

How long until this mess is sorted?62.30.249.131 (talk) 22:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Our system administrators are working as hard as they can to fix this issue. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 23:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Which means that we honestly can't tell. The current situation is unsustainable, but there's a dearth of alternatives. --Kizor 13:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Huh? If the proxy servers aren't sending XFF headers, there's nothing they can do. This isn't a problem on our end of the tubes. Mr.Z-man 18:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Demon(Thus) business users Not Filtered

As per subject, it appears that filtering only applies to their residential customer base.

Perverts obviously don't have jobs.</sarcasm> --Rodhull andemu 23:15, 7 December 2008 (UTC)