Thread:PyroGothNerd/@comment-961279-20151104025331

I'm sending you this message here because it's out of the way and I don't think the vandal we have in common knows about it yet. That person has had many accounts. The reason why he has been able to stick around so long is that he knows how to use a proxy server. Basically, it changes the IP address you're editing from because you're making the connection through that server, and the change can happen automatically. This allows him to create new accounts because any blocks on IP addresses used by previous accounts may not match the IP he's currently using.

As a result, if he shows up under an IP address, you need to set a rangeblock. A rangeblock looks like this: 37.58.52.0/24 The /24 at the end says how much of that address to block. This is a pretty small rangeblock, covering just the last number where the 0 is, and will cover 1 through 254.

Due to what he's doing, small rangeblocks like this are about as effective as you can get without making them so wide you shut out too many people in that same area (collateral damage). For example, increasing that to 37.58.0.0/16 will shut out over 65,000 addresses, but might not be necessary since none of the IP addresses I've seen him use fall into that wide a range.

If you would like to prevent him from coming back, set rangeblocks on the following. Wikia doesn't allow permanent rangeblocks, but 6 months or a year should make it more difficult for him to go back to a previous proxy server and try again.
 * 5.152.205.0/24
 * 5.254.65.0/24
 * 37.58.52.0/24
 * 37.220.18.0/24
 * 37.220.26.0/24
 * 68.7.184.0/24
 * 68.8.163.0/24
 * 68.111.159.0/24
 * 76.21.125.0/24
 * 103.10.197.0/24
 * 178.162.216.0/24
 * 179.43.147.0/24
 * 207.244.72.0/24
 * 207.244.76.0/24

He has been at this for two years and will probably keep at it for years to come. Part of it is because he has shown he's willing to lie low for months at a time to see if people have forgotten about him. But another part is due to the kind of message you left entitled "WARNING". People like this want to see you get mad and that makes it fun for them. If you don't get riled up or mad, it usually stops being fun.

Basically, all you need to do is put something like "returning vandal" or "IP range used by a returning vandal" when setting a block. Nothing else. It goes along with what you said about you not leaving why they're blocked messages. Don't make comments about his behavior and don't try to guess as to what his motivations are. He's made the decision to behave this way. If he decides to continue vandalizing wikis for another two years or even longer, it's his decision to pursue something that's ultimately pointless and is cleaned up faster than he can create the mess.

Any time you delete one of his messages, whether it's a picture, page, article comment or blog comment, make sure you erase the line below the reason so that nothing of that item is stored in the deletion log. That's another way you can make it stop being fun for him by making sure nothing of what he did is visible. I recommend you delete his "Don't really care" message on the "WARNING" page and your follow-up response so he doesn't get the benefit of seeing you mad at what he did.

If you have any further questions, let me know here, and don't discuss anything I've listed here on your wiki. He may stumble across this information in the future, but no sense giving him any hints that I've passed this info onto you. 