[WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

Sun Apr 27 23:51:10 UTC 2003

>From: "sannse" <sannse at delphiforums.com>
>Tim Starling wrote:
> >>I suggest you get a username, if you don't already have one, and tell us
> >>what it is. The development team will be able to override the IP 
>blocking
> >>for you personally. This will allow us to continue to block Michael, and
> >>will also give us an obvious course of action if you turn out to be just
> >>another Michael pseudonym trying to get the previous pseudonyms 
>unblocked.
>
> >>If you're currently an anonymous contributor and you're anxious about
> >>getting a username, keep in mind that users with usernames have much
>better
> >>privacy protection in place than "anonymous" users.
>
>If I remember rightly, daniwo59 at aol.com is User:Danny, a longstanding
>contributor and a sysop

Sorry Danny.

>
>The problem is that a block will stop all users on that IP, logged in or
>not.  The only reason sysops can't block logged in users is that they don't
>know the relevant IP numbers (aside from the policy reasons of course)
>
>I know the cookie idea will hopefully help with banning people like 
>Michael,
>bypassing the need for an IP block - but could it work the other way too?
>I'm not technical so I don't know if this is feasable or not, but could we
>have a "trusted user" cookie.  One that allowed trusted users to skip any
>block on the IP they are using?  It woldn't be needed for most users, but
>would overrule an IP block in cases like Danny's.
>
>Anyway, as I say, I have no idea if this is possible or desirable
>
>Regards,
>
>sannse

I notice this "trusted user cookie" idea has been taken up in a few other 
posts. I don't understand. Why do you need a cookie? All I'm suggesting is a 
single, rather inelegant modification to User.php, i.e. adding the following 
few lines to the top of getBlockedStatus():

if ( $this->mId == 584 ) {
    $this->mBlockedby = 0;
    return;
}

...thereby making Danny unblockable. No cookies required. Of course, if 
Danny goes crazy with the power, or someone hijacks his account, the 
modification can be removed. If we feel the need to make this mechanism more 
general, we can add a "unblockable" flag to the user table, and make it 
something like this:

if ($this->mUnblockable) {
    $this->mBlockedby = 0;
    return;
}

But of course that will require much more work to implement.

-- Tim Starling.

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