This account is a pseudo-admin-account in purpose of performing blocking open proxies based on the SORBS DNSBL. The name of this account can be configured by editing the system message MediaWiki:Sorbs on this wiki.

In general, blocking on MediaWiki is done for edits only, reading is not affected. If you are blocked, you can still enjoy browsing English Wikiquote.

False positives should be reported to Sorbs.net, so they can be re-scanned and taken off the list.

There is a "graylist" of "partially trusted proxies", that is, of proxies that are trusted to give a true XFF (X-Forwarded-For) Header which tells the server the "real" address of the users. For proxies on that list, blocking is done based on the XFF value instead of the proxies IP.

  • SORBS-based blocking can be switched on and off on a per-wiki basis. This way each commuity can decide for themselves if they want to use it.

Possible exemptions from the blocks

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  • Users logged in as admins
  • Users logged in as non-newcomers
  • Any logged-in user (as of March 31, this is the current state; but vandals can fairly easily get around this, as developers note)
  • Users using proxies on the "graylist", see above section.
  • related bug reports/feature requests: Bugzilla:550, Bugzilla:1779
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