User talk:I JethroBT/Userspace RfC

Confused about anon user pages

I might have brought this up during the RfC or over e-mail, but I'm confused about user pages for IPs. Normally if I click on an IPv4 address in my watchlist, I get directed to the Special:Contributions page, not to a user page. Under what circumstances can such pages be created? They only time I've even seen an option to create a user page for an anon is for one of those really long addresses with numbers and letters separated by colons. Apologies for my lack of technical expertise in this area! Funcrunch (talk) 23:35, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@Funcrunch: I've been looking at this a little. Apparently all IP addresses can create a userpage (e.g. User:103.6.156.167); however, this is not really useful if you're on a dynamic IP. Even if you have a static IP, it's still not very useful if you change internet service providers, or if you end up moving. One case where it is useful to have an established userpage (for the project, not for the contributor) is when an IP/IP range is being used for socking (e.g. User:107.10.147.174). Xaosflux might be able to weigh in on this a little more. I JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 05:13, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

As far as watchlists go, no change - the link in the watchlist for IP's just happens to point to the contributions page - that behavior doesn't change if they do or do not have a userpage. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I see now that if I click on the Talk page for an IP, I am able to see the redlinked User page which I then have the option to create. I guess I've just never seen a user page for an IP before, so I didn't consider it in my proposal. Funcrunch (talk) 16:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)