075199cd1e
Remove the /ip_addresses page. This page allowed moderators to search users by IP, and to see recent activity tied to an IP. However, it was limited to IPs tied to uploads, comments, dmails, artist edits, note edits, and wiki edits. Remove this page because it was limited in scope and because there are better ways of doing what it did. The /user_events page is better at catching sockpuppets because it tracks IPs for every login, not just for certain types of edits. And the /user_actions page is better at monitoring user activity because it shows all activity associated with an account, not just for certain types of edits. Removing this allows us to drop IP addresses from all tables besides the user_events table. This is good because these IPs are no longer necessary for any purpose, and because storing them forever is a liability.
Helpers
This directory contains helper functions used by views. Helpers are used for simple common functions, such as linking to users or formatting timestamps.
Helper functions are globals. If you see an unnamespaced function in a view, and it's not a Rails function, then it's probably a helper defined here.
All helper functions defined in this directory are globally available to all views. They're not limited to single views. For example, the functions in posts_helper.rb are available to all views, not just to app/views/posts.
The use of helper functions should be minimized. Partials or components are preferred for more complex widgets, or for things used in only one or two places. Helper functions should be limited to very simple things used in nearly all views.