Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Template:Public IP

Text of this template is

This is a public IP address used in a Kiosk or similar environment.

I question whether this has any value. If someone is vandalizing pages from a public terminal, this message will not stop them from being blocked. -- Netoholic @ 23:51, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This should be on TFD. — Gwalla | Talk 03:09, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Keep, at least the first sentence. anthony (see warning) 14:56, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How does one know if it is a public IP or not? Delete. And if it ends up being kept, remove all but the first sentence. cesarb 14:13, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Are you serious? There are a number of ways to determine that an IP is used in a public kiosk. One of them is to use the public kiosk and check your IP. anthony (see warning) 15:04, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I am serious. Suppose someone not logged in adds that template to his IP's User: page. How are you supposed to check? You don't even know where the supposed public kiosk is. The reverse DNS and whois point to random company, which might or might not be a cybercafé (and its webpage is written in a foreign language, with no pictures). Or maybe the webpage is for something which is obviously not a cybercafé or something similar, but that particular IP happens to be used by a public machine in the lobby.

If you are the one using the kiosk, it's easy to find the IP; however, given the IP, it's not easy to determine if it's really a public machine or not (and to make matters worse, you can find a public machine in the middle of a set of nonpublic ones, you can find a nonpublic machine in the middle of a set of public ones, or you can have a range of IPs with a mix of public and nonpublic machines).

The only way I can imagine it being used is for a logged-in user to add it to his current IP whenever he using a public kiosk. If you trust that user, you can trust the IP belonged to a public kiosk when the template was added to the page.

cesarb 17:26, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)