Wikipedia:Abuse response/159.191.12.24

Registry Information
Contact information: OrgName:     Portland Public Schools  Info. Services OrgID:       PPSIS Address:     Portland Public Schools  Information Address:     Services City:        501 N. Dixon St. Portland StateProv:   OR   PostalCode: Country:     US  RTechHandle:  PB474-ARIN RTechName:   Butler  Paul RTechPhone:  1-503-916-3159 RTechEmail:  pbutler@pps.k12.or.us
 * Registered to: Portland Public Schools Information Services
 * WHOIS report

Initial Report
Block log says it all. -- OnPatrol 23:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Abuse Summary

 * Investigated by.


 * This IP address is part of the range 159.191.0.0/16. This entire range is registered to Portland Public Schools Information Services. Hence, all IP addresses that begin with 159.191.x.x are part of this investigation.
 * This individual IP address has been blocked repeatedly to no affect, because of childish vandalism to various articles. Repeated (24 in the past month) warnings have had no affect on the users concerned, neither have any of its 31 blocks since October of 2005. The specific IP address being investigated has made 470 edits, almost all of them mainspace vandalism, however the address has made 12 edits in project-space, 3 in talk-space, 7 in imagespace and 6 in user[_talk] space.
 * Portland Public Schools service 7, 200 children from the ages of 6 to 18, and hence there are a large number of users, and a great deal of collateral damage would be caused by blocking this IP from editing for a great deal of time.
 * As this is a School IP Address, vandalism is of a childish nature. This generally involves insulting those that they know, a fascination with sexual images and activity, and repeated references to homosexuality. The vandalism is not generally aimed at disrupting Wikipedia, rather to receive a reaction in the form of a warning, simply to explore the capability to edit the website, or for gaining notorierity amongst peers.

Examples of vandalism:
 * 1) to Yagan
 * 2) to Semptember 11
 * 3) to R. Kelly
 * 4) to Idiot
 * 5) to Puberty.

Contact Summary

 * Assigned to.

May 14, 2006

 * Began contact. E-mailed intial report at 1:30 UTC, explained situation and that a permanent block may be necessary if vandalism does not cease. Snoutwood (talk) 01:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

May 15, 2006

 * Recieved a reply from Mr. Butler at 14:30 UTC, who forwarded the e-mail to the proper authorities (three other individuals). I e-mailed back at 15:30 UTC thanking him and saying that I eagerly await future correspondence. Snoutwood (talk) 15:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Recieved an e-mail at 18:30 UTC from the man Mr. Butler forwarded the case to. He thanked me for bringing the case to his attention, and asked if a block of the IP, but allowing for registered users, was possible. I responded at 20:00 UTC explaining that currently that wasn't technically feasible, but we could indefinitely block all users as a last resort, if there wasn't anything else we could do about it, and if that's what he wanted. I also said that once the ability to block only IPs and not accounts comes into being that I could switch the block to that. Snoutwood (talk) 20:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

May 17, 2006

 * Recieved an e-mail at 16:15 UTC reqesting an update when IP blocks that don't affect registered users becomes available. He said that their entire Intranet is on this address, and that thus tracking down individuals is different. Asking to be informed of further vandalism, he said that should it continue that we'll unfortunately have to block to IP permanently. Snoutwood (talk) 17:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

May 18, 2006

 * Replied at 17:00 UTC saying that I would keep him updated as he requested. I informed him of the IP's latest vandalisms and subsequent block. Snoutwood (talk) 17:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sent another message at 17:30 UTC providing three names that have been used in the vandalism. Snoutwood (talk) 17:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

May 23, 2006

 * Sent a block and vandalism update at 3:20 UTC. Snoutwood (talk) 03:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

PPS Information Services/PPSnet abuse - an idea
To anyone investigating/concerned about this abuse: I have an idea on one possible solution to this problem; I don't know if it will work. As every student and staff member that uses a school district computer has their own user account, it might be possible for a school administrator to block wikipedia - completely - on for some school-account users. For example, say the student with the school account "xy123456" has been verified as vandalizing wikipedia, not logged in to wikipedia, and doing so from the PPS/IS IP address 159.191.12.24. Instead of blocking that IP, which would affect thousands of students, a PPS admin could block wikipedia on that user's account. Type in www.wikipedia.org and they'd get something saying that page was unavailable. Although it would take slightly more work on both sides, and probably tick off some students, it could solve some problems. Of course, I also don't know if this is possible with our current networking software. It would be tragic if wikipedia had to block all PPS students and staff, just because some people think it's funny to vandalize. 50% of the students at my middle school, if not more, used wikipedia for research; some teachers even recommended it. Lets just hope this problem gets fixed... :( --Kormerant 22:50, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Closing per above. bsmithme   01:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)