Wikipedia:Blocking policy

This page should not (yet?) be considered official policy.

Most Wikipedians are good contributors, and we encourage people to show good Wikiquette when dealing with them. For example, we suggest that it is almost always better to fix bad edits, rather than revert them. In particular, reverting without some meaningful comment is particularly frustrating and off-putting to newcomers.

However, some contributors get along with each other better than others, and we wish to encourage them to adapt to an etiquette that we believe works to build an encyclopedia. That said, some are here for reasons other than a desire to help write neutral encyclopedia articles, and we wish to encourage them to leave Wikipedia and find a "virtual community" more suited to their style, or else adapt to the community expectations of Wikipedia. There are various tools that we use in order to achieve this. We do this not out of a goal of conformity, or a desire to punish "bad" behaviour, but strictly to help build an encyclopedia. See What Wikipedia is not.

Pure vandals are dealt with slightly differently: see dealing with vandalism for suggested tactics. By vandalism we mean "edits that have no discernable merit", and by vandal we mean "someone who makes more than one".

See: Special:Ipblocklist

Education and peer pressure

Everyone was new once, and most of us made mistakes when new -- misunderstanding things, getting into edit conflicts, accidentally wiping pages, etc. That's why we welcome newcomers and try to gently point out their mistakes, point them to appropriate policy pages, and show them the correct way of doing things. We ask that newcomers be patient while they learn the ropes.

The vast, vast majority of users in conflict rapidly understand what is going on, and either start helping us make an encyclopedia or decide that Wikipedia isn't their scene and depart. However, a few users, for whatever reason, continue to hinder us in our goal of building an encyclopedia. Hence:

Hard bans

Although it is impossible to verify "who" is behind any account or IP, in principle users may be hard banned at any time by Jimbo Wales, our "benevolent dictator" or "GodKing". He does this by announcing it on the WikiEN-l mailing list.

As of September 2003, it is now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is important to note that sysops are not authorised to decide whether a particular case of Wikiquette violation warrants banning by username. The ability to ban by username has been made available for the purposes of enforcing a ban already approved by Jimbo, and to protect Wikipedia from "simple vandalism". It may be used to block accounts of obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users (see below).

Discussion of possible bans, existing bans, etc., should take place on a single Wikipedia page - it doesn't particularly matter which one. You are encouraged to move discussion elsewhere to this one page. This practice is disputed by some, and the dispute is actually being exploited by some users in conflict, so, check the consensus among those who you are debating this with.

All edits by a hard banned user made since their ban, regardless of their merits, may be reverted by any user. We ask that users not reinstate any edits made by banned users, but some strongly oppose this policy:

I think it's stupid to revert a useful edit, merely because the contributor was "banned". It can only lead to a tit-for-tat or cat-and-mouse game. Please leave me out of the "we ask" part of this. --user:Ed Poor, sysop and developer

However, nobody is obligated to enforce the ban. In addition, hard banned users may face technical measures to prevent them editing Wikipedia, such as blocks on IP addresses or usernames.

If you are hard banned, please respect your ban and do not post to Wikipedia while it applies. Hard banned users may be unbanned solely at Wales's discretion, following the banned user emailing him to request unbanning.

Wikipedians are encouraged to keep their cool when dealing with hard banned users and any articles that they've edited. We might not always agree with each other, but that's okay, with a little WikiLove.

Ban notice

proposed 30-Sept-03

Someone should place the following text on the user page:

Dear USER NAME,

Certain content that you have posted to Wikipedia has broken the norms and etiquette upon which the Wikipedia community runs. [[user:Jimbo Wales|]] has decided to suspend your account pending a [[Wikipedia:bans and blocks|permanent ban]]. His reasons for this can be read here: [[User:USER NAME/ban]].

If you believe you have any mitigating reasons for the actions described, please reply to this email with them. Jimbo undertakes to read email replies from you and consider their contents before coming to a decision. His decision will be made in one week. Please remember when replying that abusive, threatening, or offensive email replies will result in the immediate imposition of a life ban, as will any attempt to return to the site under a different ID.

To other members of Wikipedia: Please post character witness statements at [[User talk:USER NAME/ban]]. Comments in other areas of Wikipedia re: this subject are not welcome. Please concentrate discussion ''there''. Please do not flame. Rational debate is encouraged for the duration of the remand period, i.e. one week. At the end of the remand period, content of polite postings here may be taken into account when deciding whether to ban this person permanently. Postings elsewhere will be ignored. A decision will be made one week from the date of this entry and until that time USER NAME will remain suspended. Jimbo is unlikely to participate in conversations on these threads, but will read what is written.

Yours sincerely,

~~~~

The full text of Wales' post should be placed on User:USER NAME/ban with a link to an appropriate URL in the WikiEN-l archive.

After a week, Jimbo will read the relevant talk page comments, email, and any relevant evidence, and decide whether to ban the user more permanently. If he decides not to do so, the account will be unblocked. If he decides that a longer ban is warranted, the account will remain blocked, and the following text posted to the user's page:

This user has been [[Wikipedia:Bans and blocks|hard banned]] from Wikipedia. Representations by and on behalf of USER NAME were considered at the time of the ban. See [[User:USER NAME/ban]] for details, and [[User talk:USER NAME/ban]] for discussion relating to this decision. If you wish to discuss the ban or events surrounding it, please do so here, only. Conversations are easier to follow if they occur on one place, so please cooperate and do not discuss this in other conversation threads, unless it is to link to here. Thank you.

All subsequent edits by this user may be reverted. Please do not reinstate any edits made by this user. Thank you. ~~~~

Some users were banned by Jimbo before the formulation of this policy. These users are still hard banned, though the relevant user pages may not yet be updated.

With thanks to Hoovooloo of h2g2, who wrote similar guidelines for h2g2, used and modified here with permission.

Newly created articles

It is not possible to revert newly created articles, as there is nothing to revert to. For hard bans, sysops can simply delete the page without listing it on votes for deletion, though this is controversial. Non-sysops can blank the page and list it on votes for deletion if they want to be sure that it doesn't get missed.

If someone else has edited the page, deletion is generally not appropriate. Try instead to edit the page to remove or refactor content contributed by the banned user, and keep content contributed by others. If you feel a newly created article may have been deleted in error, list it on wikipedia:votes for undeletion. For example, you might list a page if you think it's a case of mistaken identity, or for some other reason.

another reason for undeletion would be that the new page is a page of quality, and that Wikipedia will be more informative with than without this new page. For those who think a good edit must be kept, since they consider what count is the edit, not the author of the edit.

See wikipedia:deletion policy for other instances where sysops may delete pages without listing them on votes for deletion.

Reincarnations

This is a difficult issue and one that is still under discussion.

Wikipedians should generally refrain from witch hunts of users who may be reincarnations of banned users. However, it's reasonable to politely ask so that, in cases of mistaken identity, the new user can quickly set the record straight (see below for some of the many kinds of evidence one could use to do this).

If it becomes clear that a new user account is a reincarnation of a hard banned user, then it should in theory be treated as hard banned. A notice of some sort may be added to the top of the user page, or the user page may be redirected to the page of the original account.

If you are the victim of a mistaken identity, please provide some evidence of who you are. This evidence might include a photograph of yourself, or a non-disposable email address, or a work address or telephone number, or a link to your off-Wikipedia home page. If you happen to live in a different country to the banned user, then you could make a few edits when not logged in - this reveals your IP address and demonstrates that your ISP is based in a different country. There are many options available. Your evidence needs only be sufficient to convince the community that there is some reasonable doubt -- it need not be conclusive. Many object to this on privacy grounds, e.g.

This is not a point I will ever agree with. This is *private* information. Besides, most users can edit under a proxy ip Anthère

This is silly. We don't need Photo ID to contribute. As long as they behave themselves, who cares if a banned user reincarnates themselves? Some people may have too much "pride" or some such to repent publicly; that should be no barrier to their rehabilitation. --Uncle Ed 14:24, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And some people repent publicly, and Jimbo still won't unban them. Martin 15:37, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Blocks

Blocks are the technological means by which bans are enforced, and are also used to protect Wikipedia from simple vandalism. Sysops have the power to block and unblock both user accounts and anonymous IPs. As noted above, this does not mean that sysops may decide that violators of Wikiquette deserve to be blocked — that privilege rests entirely with Jimbo. (Jimbo has stated that user accounts that do nothing but simple vandalism may be blocked without controversy. [1])

Effects of being blocked

Blocked users can still see all Wikipedia pages, but the "Edit this page" link brings up a "User is blocked" page which explains the reason behind the block and gives information on how to request unblocking. The scope of the block depends on whether it is an account or an IP that is being blocked.

IP blocks
- the block expires automatically after 24 hours
- accounts which share that IP are automatically blocked, preventing one from simply creating a new account to avoid the block

Account blocks
- the block is permanent, until a sysop explicitly unblocks the account
- the IP of the account is automatically blocked, preventing one from simply creating a new account to avoid the block

Accidental blocks

Occasionally, users with floating IPs will find that they have been blocked accidentally, due to that fact that their present IP was previously used by a vandal or hard-banned user. These blocks will disappear if IP change can be forced. If that is not possible, the block should be reported to the nearest friendly sysop via email.