This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. —spookywillowwtalk 19:01, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Blocking policy revamp
Happy April! I've been cooking up a potential revamp of the beloved Blocking policy, which I've found confusing at times, even though it was given a significant rewrite in 2020. Given how important this policy is, I'd like to get input from everyone about what they think might be missing from my proposed clean-up. I'll keep the changes link updated as we go along: (diff)
The changes so far:
- Updated language to be inclusive of our Discussions forums (e.g. "editing Wookieepedia" -> "editing the wiki and contributing to the Discussions forum")
- Added a new section very briefly giving the ways a user could request admins to block another user, with advice on potential pitfalls (like violating WP:NPA)
- Removed the rather NPA-violating implication that good faith users violating policy is "stupidity"; we don't need Hanlon's razor when we've got assuming good faith :)
- Emphasised that blocking is a last resort, and that the consequences of violating policy applies to all users
- Expanded on the use of warnings before a block and gave a general guide to block lengths. Based on the global guidelines here, I figured it is better to detail the values behind the whole blocking business instead of simply giving ways of achieving them, so that blocks don't get misused etc. in the long term: emphasised here the values of assuming good faith, helping newcomers, and being clear, as well as spelling out that the purpose of warnings is to educate users and the purpose of blocks is to protect users.
- Clarified that partial blocks exist, but they are not to be used: relevant SH discussion.
- update: mentioned how autoblocks work (which are enabled by default) and the MediaWiki:Blockedtext error page. OOM 224 (he/him) 13:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
- Added to the "How blocks work" section a mention of the {{Blocked}} template, and that a blocked user could appeal their block or request further clarification on the reasoning.
- There is no AbuseFilter for users removing external links (in fact, there's one for adding them), so substituted that with a real example of a filter being in place to stop new users from moving other users' userpages.
- Expanded on how the AbuseFilter and the corresponding logs work
- "Ground for blocking" section
- "and administrators are not bound by these specific cases" — leaves room for administrative abuse, and at any rate not true anymore; per Fandom's Wiki Rules and Blocking Policy (2022), blocks may only be issued for violations of written rules.
- Shortened list; a policy violation is a policy violation, so I've clumped them all under one point.
- Clarified what "disruption" is and is not. Note that historically, dissenting users have been threatened with blocks for "disruption" of Wookieepedia.
- Added a snippet confirming that anyone who's blocked gets their voting eligibility revoked per WP:VEP.
- Clarified our new Administrative autonomy policy on blocks.
- Expanded on appealing blocks. Nowadays most users use Message Walls on Community Central.
OOM 224 (he/him) 14:41, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
- I also realise, contrary to other policy pages, that the Blocking policy lacks a {{Nutshell}} statement. Do we want one? and if so, any suggestions? OOM 224 (he/him) 14:41, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
- Loving all the 2023 policy cleanup runs! We're really getting a lot done. Only thing I saw was per: "On Discord, use the public #admin-help channel on Wookieepedia's Discord server, or share in confidence via direct messages."—it might be worth noting the provision in the Discord rules that allows for DMs to be reported as an exception to the privacy policy's overall guidance.—spookywillowwtalk 15:18, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
- This looks good! Rsand 30 (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
- Excellent work, OOM. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 14:55, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
- Nice work on this! I'd suggest removing rule 6 alltogether, that was from an era where certain people tried to ban Fandom staff from doing anything on site. We have a far better relationship with them now, and I'm confident that if a member of Fandom staff has to ban someone here, there would be a very valid reason for it. Supreme Emperor Holocomm 07:49, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
- Regarding warnings: it appears that that's a discretionary and informal thing that doesn't have any official language or template associated with it, is that right? As someone who opts not to participate in the wook's discord I think it would be very much in the interest of transparency for pre-block warnings (which, granted, are not necessary in every single case) to be formalized and issued on a person's talk page, the same way blocks are--that way the sequence of events leading up to a block are clear to anyone who wants to know and not subject to secondhand characterizations of what did or didn't happen on discord. CooperTFN (talk) 22:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
- Great points. Most of the templates here are user warnings, but how they are used or whether they are used at all is pretty much up to admins at the moment. I should also note that regular users are also allowed to (and do) use these warnings too, and that impromptu warnings can be given mid-way through a conversation on the Wook Discord or in Discord DMs. But yeah, I concur that some form of standardised procedure on the site itself would make things clearer to everyone. OOM 224 (he/him) 15:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
- The vote for this is now up! The formalising warnings and standardising block lengths issue does need to be handled once the policy is revamped, though. OOM 224 (he/him) 12:44, 4 June 2023 (UTC)