Can an active VPN system cause problems with Wikipedia?

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I have heard that someone local to me who uses the Norton VPN has no problems when the VPN is switched off, but when on, a Wikipedia "embargo screen" says whilst Wikipedia can be used for reading, the user is forbidden to edit upon it.

Has anyone any information as to why that might be the case.

 

[signed]

Yes, in cases of abuse IPs are banned from editing, especially those from open proxies and VPN

 

[Crossover]

When connected to a VPN, your traffic to the web passes (proxies) through another server (in this example, Norton's, probably) - that means the public IP address that the web server (Wikipedia in this case) sees is not your own, but that of the VPN server/proxy.

It is likely that the address has been associated with incorrect updates and general nuisance edits, so Wikipedia have decided to block any edits from that IP address (or possibly a range of them)

 

[Harpers Tate]

VPNs are used to conceal location for all sorts of reasons - one of which is so that a malicious entity can evade detection by its IP. Sites that "police" themselves do typically take action against bad actors including but not limited to reporting IPs to industry databases such that they cannot (easily) be used again. Using one's own IP renders repeat activity more or less impossible. So you just change to a VPN, and when that IP gets banned, change to another.

It may be that WikiPedia has decided that VPNs are too risky to allow.