Wikiversity talk:Blocking policy

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Contents 1 global block on all public Wikimedia wikis 2 Professionalism and disruption 3 Recent changes 4 Blocking users for reverts 5 Warnings 5.1 Possible addition 6 Comments 7 Responsibilities of the blocker 8 Violating guidelines ? 9 Infinite blocking on IP addresses 10 Offensive username blocking policies

[edit] global block on all public Wikimedia wikis

Special:GlobalBlockList: info at meta:Steward handbook#Global access restriction, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 20:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

See also: meta:Locked global account. --mikeu ^talk 14:15, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Professionalism and disruption

Without any detailed guideline these two section look very much like blank cheques. --Hillgentleman|Talk 07:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The term "disruption" is vague and ill-defined. If often appears to be one person's subjective opinion, ungrounded in evidence, analysis or reasoning. In that regard, it's an open temptation to arrogant abuse of power, which is corrosive of a well-regulated academic culture. —Albatross 11:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Blocking itself may be an unprofessional way of dealing with subtle and complex issues. Professionals deal with issues in a professional manner. Binding and gagging someone is hardly a professional way to treat someone who raises serious and legitimate issues that custodians may frankly not want to deal with. —Montana Mouse 11:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "disruption" could just mean "disagreeing with the Custodian who issued the block". In other words, any Custodians could issue a block for anyone with whom they have any disagreement. Way too vague. StuRat 20:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes

I just want to say I approve of this edit. The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 10:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't. "Never...unless..." is bad English, and blocking a user's talk page denies them the ability to appeal their block. StuRat 20:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking users for reverts

"Custodians may block users who continuously revert the edits of others without clear justification."

How is "clear justification" determined? Emesee 19:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

At the moment, I'm guessing it is up to the Custodian's discretion. Would you like to propose an alternate way of putting it, or some sort of clarification? The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 11:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

How about a 3 revert rule ? That way, Custodians don't have to determine whether the justification is clear or not, just how many times it has occurred. Hopefully this will also prevent custodians from blocking users they don't like, for "reverts without clear justification", while ignoring such behavior from users they do like, thus favoring one side in an edit war over another. StuRat 20:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I think custodians should have some room to decide if blocking for reverting makes sense or not. How about some conditions like this that custodians could follow? --darklama 00:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems like there should be an "and" between the first and second point (no reasonable argument to revert AND no consensus to do so). I don't get the third point: "Participants ignore consensus". What did you mean there ? StuRat 05:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I mean if there is consensus to keep content, but someone keeps reverting anyways. --darklama 09:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

In that case it seems rather redundant, since, if there's a consensus to keep, then obviously there's no consensus to revert. StuRat 14:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Warnings

Shouldn't we have a section on warnings? I think strong, clear warnings should be given in cases of lower-grade long-term abuses, and would be highly recommended for all but blatant, intentional abuse of the site. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 21:07, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Warnings themselves are subject to being used in a threatening or abusive manner. A warning typically takes the form of an anankastic conditional which (in many cases) amounts to a form of bullying. —Barry Kort 21:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Barry, but it has become abundantly clear your ethical philosophy is based on very in-depth readings of only a few concepts (not all of which you seem to understand), an utterly unrealistic idealism lacking any basis in actual human behavior, and your own egocentrism. As a result, it's become less and less necessary to reply to you, since you are usually reposting something I've already read ad nauseum. I'll indulge you this time, though.

My suggestion is about how to deal with real people (albeit in a virtual space). As a result, warnings, as well as "anankastic conditionals", are among the tools that will be needed to address problems. There's a fine line between a warning and a threat, but it does exist. The former is a sincere attempt to deter problem behavior, while the latter demonstrates an intent to do harm (bullying). Frequently, you can tell the difference by the focus of the statement. If it is on the behavior (or sometimes the person) that must change, that's a warning ("Please stop this behavior, or it will be necessary to block you"), but if it's on the punishment (and usually phrased to focus on the speaker), it's usually a threat ("I'm going to block you if you don't listen to me"). Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 22:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The key distinction that divides anankastic conditionals isn't the divide between a warning and a threat, but the divide between powerlessness and power to cause the consequent to occur. If I (as a scientist) issue a warning, it's in the form of a prediction of a likely harmful event that will occur from natural causes, over which I have no control. A threat (including the kind of warning contemplated in the context of this thread) is a consequential act that speaker has vested political power to cause. Intentional harm (punishment) is well-known in the scientific literature to be a contra-indicated practice — ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst. Woe to the anankastic control freak who fails to appreciate this crucial scientific finding. Barry Kort 23:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"Intentional harm (punishment) is well-known in the scientific literature to be a contra-indicated practice — ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst." Not true. You are once again showing that same idealism and lack of breadth to your knowledge. Punishment (and reward) is a basic concept in behavioral psychology. Some applications of punishment are unlikely to be effective, but it has certainly long been known that punishment is a necessary tool in any social group.

Your definition of "warning" is also not in keeping with any common definition. It makes no difference whether the speaker has the ability to cause potential harm or not. A warning seeks to turn someone away from a course of action, while a threat seeks to cow a person by demonstrating an intent to harm. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 00:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the research of James Gilligan, Suzanne Retzinger, or Rene Girard? Their path-breaking research overturns the naive myths that you cling to regarding the utility of punishment. Intentional harm (notably encompassing state-sponsored violence) is increasingly seen as an unwise practice. —Barry Kort 01:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Your Google searches linked to indicate you are misrepresenting what those three have to say. They disagree with certain kinds of punishments (tending to write on criminal justice and shame-based punishments), but I see nothing to indicate they reject all punishment. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 01:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Please continue your studies before you draw any conclusions. Have you read this article by James Gilligan? —Barry Kort 10:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

It only reinforces my first impression. You are attempting to take the work well out of its context. Gilligan is talking about physical and shame-based punishment, defined as "to deliberately cause them pain--above and beyond the degree that is unavoidable in the act of restraining them," within the context of criminal justice and in the form of physical harm and imprisonment. Since the intent of blocking here is to remove disruption, it wouldn't even fall close to his definition of punishment. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 18:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Historically, Wikiversity has made a distinction between two types of situations. First, there are some problems such as obvious vandalism where custodians clean up the mess as quickly as possible and move on. When cleaning up obvious vandalism, no warnings or talk page messages are needed. The approach that has been adopted is Wikiversity:No shrines for vandals. For other situations, I think it makes sense for custodians to be sure that they are not blocking under conditions that will lead to controversy. If there is doubt, then there should be discussion first and the community should decide by consensus if a block is needed. Another issue that should be made explicit is that a custodian who makes a bad block should not have the power to refuse an unblock request...someone else should evaluate the situation. If two custodians do not agree then it should become a matter for community discussion, not a "wheel war". --JWSchmidt 00:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm in agreement regarding vandalism, which is clear-cut abuse. However, I think there is a further category of cases that may be clear-cut, but not urgent, and those that are more ambiguous. The less urgent ones could benefit from a warning, and ambiguous situations can be taken to the community. Warnings also have the benefit of giving those warned a chance to bring the issue before the community if they disagree with the assessment. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε}

Rather than a warning (i.e. a threat of administrative sanction or punishment), an alert regarding community policy is more appropriate. What you have now is not a coherent policy, but a hodge-podge of mutually inconsistent rules, each one carrying the option of a discretionary sanction by an admin who favors that rule over a conflicting one. These inconsistent rules transform Wikipedia into a chess game: "If you move your piece into that square, then I will respond by moving one of my pieces either to block your gambit or to entirely remove your piece off the game board. Neener." —Barry Kort 10:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Sχeptomaniac's idea here is a step in the right direction: if the warned user thinks that whatever they were doing doesn't warrant a warning, they should bring it up on WV:CR for comment. If there's a reasonable consensus that what they were doing is not problematic, they should feel free to ignore the warning. They should not, however, just bring it up on CR and continue doing the same thing they were warned about. --SB_Johnny ^talk 14:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Possible addition

OK, there seems to be some support, so perhaps an addition would look something like the following:

Except when dealing with situations requiring immediate action to prevent further damage to Wikiversity, a Custodian should give a clear warning regarding the problem behavior that needs to stop before placing a block. Escalating blocks may then be placed on the editor as the behavior continues. If the editor disagrees with the Custodian's assessment, they may request a community review of the behavior in question (however, they must stop the behavior while the review is under way in order to avoid the possibility of a block).

Any thoughts or edits? Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 19:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. --SB_Johnny ^talk 19:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. --mikeu ^talk 20:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Done text is added --mikeu ^talk 15:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's test-drive the process of Scholarly Community Review by convening a Moot Court Ethical Review of the previous blocks. —Barry Kort 19:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

I strongly disagree with the phrase "Blocks may be placed on accounts or IP addresses which have consistently demonstrated a lack of professionalism and respect for the editing environment on Wikiversity." Wikiversity is for everybody also children and also people with mental disorders. If someone "doesnt have the a professionalism" in editing the wikiversity it is not a sin. I would advice to remove "lack of professonalism".--Juan de Vojníkov 19:39, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I support removing the reference. I think "civility" makes more sense. --SB_Johnny ^talk 20:01, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

So, just substitute civility for professionalism, and leave the rest? --mikeu ^talk 20:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

What about renaming the section "Disrespect" and changing the first sentence to "Custodians may block users who have consistently demonstrated a lack of respect for the editing environment on Wikiversity or for other participants."? --darklama 20:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, "professionalism" is too high of a standard to expect, while "civility" and "respect" are not. StuRat 20:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, with you too.--Juan de Vojníkov 17:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I kind of like "collegiality" since it has both an egalitarian sense and an academic sense. It's also not the name of a policy, which might be better as well. --SB_Johnny ^talk 17:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

What exactly are you suggesting? I don't understand your comment. The only part I can reflect on is the last sentence. Any word has the potential to be used in the name of a policy or become the subject of a policy proposal, so I don't see the point of avoiding words due to their use in a policy proposal. --darklama 11:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Responsibilities of the blocker

I'd like to see a section added on the responsibilities of the blocker. These are what I would include as info the blocker must provide when adding a block:

1) The nature of the block (is their user page protected, and e-mails locked, too ?).

2) The duration of the block. ("Indefinite" is not a duration, it's a way to avoid giving the duration.)

3) The reason for the block, citing specific policies which have been violated.

4) Evidence for the violation of policies, such as diffs.

5) Disclosure of any apparent conflict of interest. If the blocker has been having an edit war with the blockee, for example, just prior to the block, this needs to be disclosed. (We may also want to make a rule that nobody with a conflict of interest can add a block).

I'd also like a statement that the block can be requested to be removed by the blockee, and then will be removed by a Custodian, if any of these standards aren't meant. I want to avoid the situation where a Custodian puts a block on a user, for reasons that aren't clear, then the block is left on for an extended period while the blocked person tries to figure out why he was blocked. In some cases, the Custodian may have just blocked the wrong user name, but lack of info at block time makes this difficult to determine. StuRat 20:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The nature of the block and the duration of the block is already included in the log for the block automatically, so I don't see a need for custodians to repeat that information. If custodians were to repeat that information anyways, what do you propose custodians put instead when they really do mean indefinitely? "Forever", "Until hell freezes over", or what? Are you also suggesting that custodians must never block user accounts as well as IP addresses indefinitely? What do you propose custodians do if there are many instances in which policies were violated? --darklama 23:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that "indefinitely" can either mean that it's intended as a permanent block or that the length of the block has not been decided. I don't want it left vague like that, I want the blocker to state explicitly how long they intend the block to last. If they mean a permanent block, then state that. If they mean until some condition is met, then they should state that. Vague conditions, like "until they learn to behave", should also be avoided. StuRat 04:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

About your suggesting about adding suggestion to add a rule that nobody with a conflict of interest can add a block. What if there is nobody left without a conflict of interest? I think "conflict of interest" is vague and can be gamed just as easily as you seem to feel that "disruption" can be. I've seen cases on other wikis where someone accused each person who attempted to block them of having a conflict of interest. I think the point is to find the right balance between accountability and custodians still being able to do the job that the community trusted them enough with the tools to do. I think that balance already exists in this proposal in the form of anyone being able to have the community review any block that a custodian makes. I think that is better than just allowing the blockee to make the request. I think anyone whose ever been blocked feels the block is unjustified. --darklama 00:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

So, are you arguing that in the case I gave, where the Custodians was edit warring with a user, it's OK for that Custodian to block the user, so they win the edit war ? I think we have enough Custodians so we will be able to find one that doesn't have a conflict of interest with the user to be blocked. Of course, the blocked user can claim that everyone has a conflict of interest, but nobody is likely to believe this. StuRat 04:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Stu on this: if a Custodian is in an edit dispute, they should not use sysop tools (block or protect) to "win" the dispute. --SB_Johnny ^talk 11:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not arguing that. I think being more specific about what it is you wish to prevent would be better than using "conflict of interest" as a guide to what custodians shouldn't do. Maybe something like "Custodians must never block or threaten to block users in an attempt to influence or bias disputes, decisions, or consensus"? --darklama 12:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That's good, but I'd also like the more general "Custodians must avoids blocking, or warning of blocks, where the appearance of a conflict of interest exists". StuRat 14:44, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I don't like the COI bit, as I've said before, I think its too vague and can be easily abused by anyone wishing to try to avoid a block. How about "Custodians must avoid the appearance of favoring those they agree with over those they disagree with when using custodian tools"? If you don't like that or think its not enough, can you think of any other ways to describe what you want without using "conflict of interest"? --darklama 16:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess that's OK. StuRat 03:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

What do you think of these changes? --darklama 19:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I had to read this sentence several times to figure out what it means: "Blocks may be escalated for behaviors that continue without further warnings." I was thinking "what are behaviors that continue without further warnings ?" That sentence needs a rewrite: "Blocks may be escalated, without further warnings, if the same behavior continues."

The part you added was "Custodians must avoid the appearance of favoring participants that they agree with over participants they disagree with when using custodian tools. Custodians must never block or threaten to impose a block as a means of ending or influencing discussions. Custodians should seek a second opinion before blocking if doubts about blocking exist." That's good, but there's a lot more we discussed in this section that you haven't yet put in, such as those 4 points I started with. StuRat 05:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Violating guidelines ?

It doesn't seem appropriate to me to block someone for this, as they aren't policies, after all. The word "guidelines" sounds more like a suggestion than a requirement, to me. StuRat 20:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Infinite blocking on IP addresses

I notice one IP has been blocked indefinitely, by an admin here. Should IPs be blocked indefinitely at all - I'm not sure they should though. Even open proxies can become closed or so. Yes, CheckUser evidence maybe a reason to block an IP for a while, but normally, no longer than a year for non-open proxies, where CheckUser evidence is found, or a spammer/troll evading their block, but 3 years for an open proxy IP. Is that fair? That was my old wiki's blocking policy, and it seemed to work well.

Feedback is appreciated. AC --Sunstar NW XP 11:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Recently, I've been reviewing some of the older blocks and as part of that I have reduced many of the longer ones to just one year. I tend to agree that there is not really much point in very long blocks of ips. --mikeu ^talk 14:17, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, both because those IPs may no longer be used by the same people and because any vandal is likely to lose interest in vandalizing Wikiversity after a year. StuRat 16:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I just went through some of the older indef blocks of open proxies. I shortened the block to 1 year and enabled allow account creation. Then I realized that there are at least a couple of thousand blocks... It seems that it was standard policy as part of Wikiversity:Open Proxies back in 2006-2007 to use indef. IMO, the only practical way to deal with these older blocks is to use a bot, though I am not sure about running a bot with a custodian flag. The number of recent indef blocks is much smaller, and it is more practical to fix by hand. --mikeu ^talk 17:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

If you can get a bot to work, great. If not, maybe you could just do maybe a dozen a day and perhaps get a few others to do the same ? StuRat 18:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Offensive username blocking policies

I was just on the welcoming committee new user log and saw some interesting names, my current *favorites* being Pissonyou and Iamgay12345. What are the policies when you see this sort of blatant, offensive misuse of Wikiversity with just the user's name? Should they be blocked immediately or is good faith assumed even in these cases? I really don't see any way a name can be redeemed. Any comments here? Trinity507 03:39, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think "Iamgay" is that terribly offensive of a username. Pissonyou, on the other hand... The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 05:07, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Here are some examples: [1] [2] [3]

If you go through the logs you might see something like this:

10:41, 5 October 2008 SB Johnny (Talk | contribs | block) (log action removed) ‎ (Unacceptable username)

In addition to blocking, a request was made to have meta:stewards delete the account. This might be done if the username contains libel against a person, for example. The requests are made in irc #wikimedia-stewards to prevent drawing attention to an abusive username on wiki. --mikeu ^talk 13:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikiversity:Censorship has to be evoked for that and requires quorum in my judgement. I'm not personally offended by those user names, but those users need to realize that establishing their identity online is a once-in-a-lifetime chance: you are what you type. We can mimic w:Wikipedia:Offensive username proposal with Wikiversity:Offensive username proposal or do something original. Let's look at Special:Contributions/Pissonyou and Special:Contributions/Iamgay12345. Hmmm. Not much there yet. Maybe User:Jtneill and others have some psychological insight about why a person would do something like that to themselves. I would also like to hear some disclosures from User:Altera vista from the Universitas/Communitas perspective. This would go to the top of Wikiversity:Guidelines since choosing your username is your first action when arriving here. Perhaps an {{unwelcome}} template should be crafted that points to the proposed Blocking policy and this. This is not easy. We need to look at other cases on other languages and projects, also. My idea for a responsible action is to notify them first and give them a week, then block. --CQ 13:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I support notifying first. The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 18:48, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Notification sounds like a good idea to me, too. I think the issue is less that it is personally offensive (though it might be to some people, it's not really to me) and more the "you are what you type" thing. What kind of persona are you creating by using those usernames for your Wikiproject identity? Doesn't really make sense to me as I don't think you'd get much respect from the community. Censorship is an issue though, especially with something like Iamgay. Some people might have a problem with that (I don't) and others would call it vandalism (I know a LOT of people who would be highly offended to see that on a page's edit history). So this is definitely a tough one. Trinity507 20:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)