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Revision as of 01:38, 9 December 2016

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Misplaced Pages. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Please review policy editing recommendations before making any substantive change to this page. Always remember to keep cool when editing, and don't panic.

This is not the page to report problems to administrators or request blocks.
	This page is for discussion of the Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy itself. Report incidents such as block evasion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Report violations of the three-revert rule at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Report active, persistent vandals at Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism.

See WP:PROPOSAL for Misplaced Pages's procedural policy on the creation of new guidelines and policies. See how to contribute to Misplaced Pages guidance for recommendations regarding the creation and updating of policy and guideline pages.

The contents of the Misplaced Pages:GlobalBlocking page were merged into Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy on 18 October 2012. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

The contents of the Misplaced Pages:Block on demand page were merged into Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy on 25 July 2016. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

Archives

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Can an uninvolved editor request a block review?

Can an uninvolved editor request a block review? If so, where is the process described? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 15:26, 8 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

A block review yes. A formal unblock request on the user's Talk page not in my view. In the case of the latter, I would revert it or transform it into a comment.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:30, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

For some general background see this archived thread. -- zzuuzz 15:40, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: Thanks for providing the link to this archived discussion that started on 27 June 2012 and attracted hundreds of edits by ? contributors. Unfortunately I cannot find a summary of the discussion, and don’t have the time to wade through it. Sigh… Ottawahitech (talk) 14:36, 9 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Finding the time to spend would be better than any summary, however, if you're looking for a different explanation than Bbb23 gave above... There is currently nothing in the policy which forbids a third-party appeal (see WP:CREEP). By convention, using the {{unblock}} template should only really be done by the blocked user. Block appeals should first be addressed to the blocking admin (this can be done by any user), really bad blocks or those needing further review (including a review of the admin) can be subsequently put on AN or ANI. This isn't in the policy because we don't need every block that someone wants reviewing to be reported to the admin noticeboards. I would add that we will often need to hear from the blocked user. -- zzuuzz 15:50, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

New adminbot proposal - blocking spambot IPs

Administrators are currently manually blocking IPs that hit certain URLs on the spam blacklist. It has been requested that a bot perform these blocks to allow for faster response time. Please comment at Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT III 3. — xaosflux 01:02, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Throwing other users' block logs in their faces?

This has been happening to me quite a bit. Most of my block log is based on technicalities (reporting mutual IBAN-violations in an inappropriate manner, reverting IBAN-violations myself when I should have emailed someone else to do it, accidentally editing under an account that I had logged into for email access when I was only supposed to be editing under another declared/legitimate alternate account, etc.) so it's water off a duck's back for me, but it still seems like somewhat dickish behaviour that should be formally discouraged, and it doesn't seem to be. Am I missing something? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:34, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I think you've got a point here. A user's previous blocks should only be brought up if they are relevant to the situation at hand, i.e. "I see you've been blocked for this exact same thing before so you already knew better". Bringing it up in a content dispute or some other unrelated discussion is a needless distraction and not very polite. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:55, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

True but I wouldn't change the policy to reflect that.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I think a version of this is already part of the civility policy... "...to repeatedly bring up past incivility after an individual has changed their approach, or to treat constructive criticism as an attack, are in themselves potentially disruptive, and may result in warnings or even blocks if repeated" Lourdes 05:24, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Huh. I hadn't thought about that. I don't usually like to throw other users' incivility in their faces during content disputes, and in non-content-related disputes if block logs come up it usually either gets ignored bites the uncivil user back. But I guess you have a point. No need to edit this page if it's already (essentially) covered in another policy. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:10, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

(ec) To play devil's advocate for a moment here, and without doing (or inviting) a deep dive into your history, you'd probably draw more sympathy if your attitude towards your history didn't come across as Sure, I got blocked lots of times, but the stuff I did wasn't ever really bad, and it wasn't ever really my fault. Nearly all Misplaced Pages editors manage to go their entire careers without getting blocked even once, without getting their conduct reviewed and sanctioned at AN/I even once (let alone multiple times), without even once being sanctioned by ArbCom, and without requiring even one topic ban or interaction ban. When an editor has a long history of battleground behavior and a tendency to minimize both the severity of that behavior and his own responsibility for it, it's the sort of thing that really can broadly affect the way other editors interact with him.

Whether you realize or acknowledge it or not, you did dig yourself a substantial reputational hole with your past conduct. Your best approach is to edit in a way that doesn't reflect your previous bad behavior, and to not engage with editors who bring up stuff that isn't relevant to whatever matter is at hand. Focus on being a good editor yourself, and let your actions speak for themselves. Rebuilding goodwill with the community doesn't happen overnight, and there are always going to be a few people who won't let past stuff go. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:10, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Technically, that has nothing to do with my post here. I wanted clarification as to the appropriateness of digging through other users' block logs in general. Most of the users who have done this to me recently made their very first edit after my most recent block was removed, so my prior reputation should be irrelevant (they only know about because they engaged in a form of hounding). I know the background of my block log, as do several other users (including a number of the blocking admins), but it shouldn't be my responsibility to have to explain this to people constantly (especially when the still-active IBANs, which should have been one-way from the get-go, are still in place). The people who, as you say, "won't let past stuff go" weren't even involved in that past stuff, so while your devil's advocacy is appreciated it doesn't really change the fact that the behaviour is uncivil and inappropriate. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:57, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

"undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand"?

I would have been just as happy to change "can" to "should", as remove one of the examples, but now that I've been reverted I might as well open a discussion. The current wording appears to imply that if a blocked user engages in block evasion and reverts vandalism, then it is acceptable either to revert them and reinsert the vandalism or to let it stand. I certainly don't think we should say that it is acceptable to re-vandalize a page because the one who first reverted it should not be editing.

Admittedly, deliberately reinserting a typo because the one who corrected it was block-evading is also unacceptable in theory, but vandalism is obviously worse.

So can we just change "can be allowed to stand" to "should be allowed to stand"?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:06, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

As I stated, the language is clear now. Your interpretation is not a reasonable one. "can" and "should" aren't the same. There's no reason to change anything.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:16, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I know "can" and "should" aren't the same. That is why I propose we change it. Reinserting unambiguous vandalism is simply unacceptable, regardless of whether the vandalism was reverted by a block evader. "can" implies that either option is acceptable. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:19, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

You're using should to imply a permanence of what should be done. That's not how these things work. There's quite some amount of judgement that has to be administered on a case to case basis and can is absolutely alright. In fact, may would have been better, to imply considerable leeway and discretion. But how it currently stands is more than enough. No need to rock it. Lourdes 14:57, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

It still seems like the leeway and discretion you are talking about are the leeway not to revert block-evading edits in these circumstances if one doesn't feel like it, but we're not talking about innocuous, benign edits that reverting wouldn't hurt the encyclopedia one way or the other -- we're talking about reverts of unambiguous vandalism. There doesn't seem to be any point in granting editors the freedom to go out of their way in order to re-add vandalism to articles. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:49, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

You're misreading the policy. That's about it. Lourdes 00:50, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

It's not clear what you mean -- am I misreading it and it is actually supposed to say what I think it should say (that reinserting vandalism is unacceptable) or is it actually supposed to say what I think it shouldn't say (that reinserting vandalism is acceptable) and my thinking this is just an accident of poor wording is a misreading? If the former, then shouldn't we change it to be clearer so others don't read it the way I am? And if the latter, shouldn't we change what it is meant to say anyway, so as to actively discourage vandalism? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:01, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, perhaps I am not being clear. I am not saying that users who accidentally re-vandalize a page because they were mass-reverting edits by a block-evader should be sanctioned or anything like that. That would be "must" rather than "should". "can" just seems like, once a user has established that this or that edit was by a block-evader was a revert of unambiguous vandalism, the choice is theirs as to whether to revert or not. AGF means that "I was reverting a block evader and didn't consider whether I was reinserting vandalism" is a perfectly valid defense of such edits and the vandalism can be removed with no further questions asked, and my proposed change wouldn't affect that. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

The current wording is fine, although the commas in the parentheses should be omitted. All wording can be misinterpreted by someone at some time, but I do not see a need to improve the current wording. If it is not possible to explain the potential problem so at least one other person can see it, perhaps the matter should be dropped. Obviously should is different from can, and should would encourage drama-seekers to oppose the application of WP:DENY to banned/blocked users. DENY is the only tool available in an open wiki, and starting mini edit wars over a sock's edits would be highly undesirable. Johnuniq (talk) 06:34, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Again, not creating an artificial and pointless conflict between our need to revert vandalism and our preference to revert block-evaders would prevent edit wars, not cause them.I don't know what you mean by "mini edit wars". Just telling people outright not to re-insert vandalism regardless of whether it was previously reverted by a sock would prevent the obvious need for those reversions to themselves be re-reverted. But I can see this is going nowhere, so I'll drop it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:14, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Are block-evading edits within closed AfDs protected edits?

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At Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Wiki93, I placed a WP:BLOCKEVASION revert using strikethrough font on the nomination, and was reverted.  I have been ordered by an administrator to not re-revert.  Does an administrator's close protect a block-evading editor's edit?  Unscintillating (talk) 01:38, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

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