Editing MycoTaxa:Village pump (technical)/Archive 1 (section)

== Technical feasibility of an IP block/range block for a specific article ==

So here's something I just thought of that probably (a) has been asked repeatedly, and (b) is impossible.  Would it be technically possible someday to modify Mediawiki to be able to block a certain IP (or, even more usefully, range block some IP's) from editing a particular article?

I thought of it because someone using IP's in the range 41.242.xxx.xxx think [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Libertarianism&diff=165887280&oldid=165741000 this] is the most hilarious thing they've ever seen, so they've added it to [[Libertarianism]] about 9 times in the last week, using 6 different IP's.  If this continues, no solution is really satisfactory: it seems that rangeblocking would be overreacting, as it would block a big chuck of South Africa from editing; page protection isn't good either, as this particular article gets a lot of good edits from IP addresses; and just watchlisting and continually reverting each time and moving on (what I'm doing now) is getting annoying.

Now, if you could range block ''for just that one article'', (or, put another way, protect the page only from a range of IP addresses) you'd only prevent a large portion of South Africa from editing one article for a while, instead of all 2+ million; not perfect, but damn close.  Obviously this solution doesn't exist now, but my question is, would it be technically feasible to add this feature?  If it's a stupid idea, I'll tuck my tail between my legs and go home; if not, I'll explore Bugzilla for the first time. --[[User:Barneca|barneca]] ([[User_talk:Barneca|talk]]) 00:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

:Well, if you are rangeblocking for just one article, why not protect the page? It will be a little wider in scope, but really who cares, it is one article, and temporary semi-protection. [[User:Prodego|<span style="color:darkgreen;">''Prodego''</span>]] [[User talk:Prodego|<sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk</sup>]] 02:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

::Hi Prodego.  Because I don't want to prevent other IP editors from editing the article.  Right now, when we semi-protect an article, we kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater.  In this particular article, there seems to be a slightly-higher-than-average level of participation from legit IP editors, and the vandalism probably wouldn't rise to the level required for protection at WP:RFPP.  But even when there isn't much legit IP participation, and even when the vandalism is swamping the article, it's always seemed a shame to block all legit IP editors from editing an article because of one jerk on a dynamic IP. --[[User:Barneca|barneca]] ([[User_talk:Barneca|talk]]) 03:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)