Sigh. For the first time (I’m ashamed to say), as I waited to fly out of Brunei, I tried to update Wikivoyage, which is still pretty limited on less-visited places (like the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan). I had some pretty useful information to add on the few cafes open during the month of Ramadan. But the airport IP address was blocked for edits. I couldn’t login with my Wikipedia account. I couldn’t create a new “local” account. I gave up! 🤷🏻♂️ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJjqmumaoAA1oZ6.jpg
When I got home, I tried again. Thanks to Wikimedia’s volunteer “stewards” for helping me investigate this further. It’s worse than I thought. The Foundation has blocked anyone using Virtual Private Networks, including Apple’s Private Relay service, from editing pages — even when logged in 😬 It’s easier to block wiki-vandals if they can’t easily hop from one IP address to another. But it means anyone using a VPN to protect their privacy — including Tor and Private Relay — is collateral damage.
I’m not willing to switch off Private Relay and clear my web browser cookies every time I want to make a small wiki-tweak (and I still had problems doing that while trying to make this single edit). That could leave close to 1bn Apple subscribers having difficulty editing any Wikimedia sites 🫣
There is already some internal Wikimedia debate on this. Ironically, by definition, it excludes those affected, as pointed out by at least one of the talk contributors 😂😢 I was told there are mechanisms for “well-established” Wikimedia accounts to bypass the block, but by definition this won’t work for the vast majority of Internet users. (One study found “Tor users make contributions to Wikipedia that are just as valuable as those made by new and unregistered Wikipedia editors. We also found that Tor users are more likely to engage with certain controversial topics.”)
What a shame. Wikivoyage has a lot of potential, and is very useful for popular destinations. But it’s never going to become a globally-useful resource with so much friction for casual contributors 😢
