Wikiversity talk:Blocking policy/Archive

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Contents 1 Vandals 2 Personal attacks 3 Votes 4 Comments 5 Block time 6 Expiry times for blocking users

[edit] Vandals

I think a distinction needs to be made between different types of vandals. Someone who listens to Stephen Colbert on TV and then comes here and adds some silly comment about elephants will probably stop adding useless content if we explain what this wiki is all about. Someone who is a practiced vandal and already knows exactly what a wiki is is not worth a series of warnings. --JWSchmidt 01:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Part of the problem though, is that we have to assume good faith, and warn them, even if they are hardened, because it can often be difficult to tell the difference (I think I would know, I've made over 1500 reverts on en.wiki!) However, I think a wording change could be made to that effect. --digital_me^talk 02:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I have dealt with vandals that deserve absolutely no mercy of any kind what-so-ever. There are some that simply don't belong and have to be dealt with as the vermin that they are, as a mere warning is only going to encourage them. Still, if somebody has been otherwise trying to make positive contributions and has a momentary lapse in judgement, I generally will be quite a bit more forgiving. The larger issue is to deal with social vandals that are much more subtle but do things to really stir up the pot and make everybody angry.

BTW, as a general policy for myself, I also red-shirt every permanent block (i.e. delete their user page and user talk page). If there was something there, the individual didn't deserve any recognition at all. Certainly I never want to see some silly WoW template for some idiot to count coup on vandalism attacks. --Robert Horning 05:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I don't want to see those tags here. On Wikipedia, a lot of new administrators get experience by adding these tags. It's perhaps good over there, but this is not the sort of prerequsity training that we will want to have for those who wish to work on the maintenance side of things. --HappyCamper 11:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Why has this taken so long to implemant/reject/modify? Do we need a new system? Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 20:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Personal attacks

I'd rather not see anything related to "personal attacks" in this blocking policy. This notion is simply too ambiguous to properly codify. Do we really want custodians to judge whether something is a personal attack or not, and what the proper threshold is for blocking?

In my mind, the bottom line is that people who are here, are here because they take this project seriously. They don't need to be "policed" like children in a playground. If people are treated like responsible people, they will act like responsible people.

If anything, I think it might be better to refer to "professionalism" - people can simply be blocked for lack of professionalism. And this is a much better approach - we preserve the dignity of both the offender and the offendee. I'd rather be blocked for "lack of professionalism", rather than a "personal attack".

Of course, the risk is that we end up with a bunch of administrators who are very skilled at being passive-aggressive in their dealings with the community, but this is a tradeoff that we will need to evaluate, probably at a later stage in this project. What do others think? --HappyCamper 11:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Votes

• Pro Rayc 05:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Contra -- sebmol ^? 12:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC) Doesn't need to be a policy.
• Pro jes of course --Dario vet 12:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Pro Mirwin 12:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Contra Needs better wording --HappyCamper 13:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Contra This policy is not ready to be voted upon. --Robert Horning 22:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

• I have a problem with point 4 "Any user/IP disrupting the normal functioning of Wikiversity may be blocked.", but "normal functioning of Wikiversity" soon will be defined by what wikiversity is--Rayc 05:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This point is used on Wikipedia, and it provides a way to block disruption that isn't really vandalism--nasty messages on one's userpage, for example.--digital_me^talk 13:31, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Doesn't need to be a policy. We'll have to establish our own practice and precedents and write them down as they happen. Importing policies wholesale isn't appropriate nor is the timing. -- sebmol ^? 12:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• This is a major action aimed at at an individual who in the perception of the Custodian(s)(concurrence of two required if I read this properly) are creating large problems. I think specific policy should be in place to facilitate review and baseline moderation. Particularly since our percentage of custodians is quite low and will probably get lower. Appointments all branching from a small pool of initially appointed people.

Wikipedia from special statistics page --> "We have 2,060,166 registered user accounts, of which 989 (or 0.05%) belong to administrators"

Wikiversity --> "There are 373 registered users, of which 8 (or 2.14%) are Custodians."

When a adversarial situation emerges it is quite common for any group to close ranks against outsiders. This group mentality should be avoided at most costs at Wikiversity. In the future it might be useful to be able to block by school, portal or other trouble area. At least then errors would have a more limited scope. Mirwin 13:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a problem on Wikipedia where the blocking culture is as if the encyclopedia is constantly "under attack" by vandals. Just think of the sort of software package names that are available now to "protect the encyclopedia". I don't think we want to adopt that thinking here - for example, if people leave nasty message on talk pages after being blocked, why not simply protect the page, and move on? Or, if nasty messages are present on userpages, why not simply revert, and move on? Things do not need to look pristine 100% of the time, it simply is not a reasonable goal. If someone is really intent on using Wikiversity for productive purposes, they will find a way to get an unblocking. We simply need to be professional about what we do. --HappyCamper 13:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Block time

*cough* - I suggest a rewording of that section entirely. :-) --HappyCamper 22:26, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expiry times for blocking users

I really don't think that blocking users for 1 week or even longer is necessarily excessive. I am speaking from considerable experience here when I say that. Indeed, for quite some time on Wikibooks, administrators were not only simply blocking users for just one week, it was simply an infinite block, even for anonymous users. After this policy was followed for about a year, it was moved down to a more reasonable 1 month, with more typical blocking of about 1 week being typical, and the previous infinite blocks reduced.

I know that this is not typical on Wikipedia, but at the same time this is a much smaller project than Wikipedia with considerably fewer admins. One of the motivations on Wikibooks to have slightly longer user block, (with almost everything that happens on Wikibooks with longer time frames) is both to reduce administrator overhead, and to note that the vandals really did cause some considerable damage. Posting the w:goatse.cx image on the front page of the project is not going to be something I would condone, and is the sign of a hardened vandal.

If you have the time, energy, and patience to really work with vandals and try to discover their motivations, perhaps a block of only 1 hour might be reasonable to "cool things off".

BTW, I still believe in infinite blocks for "registered users" that do blatant vandalism and no useful content. --Robert Horning 22:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think everyone is in general agreement here, it's just that the wording as it exists is open to a lot of semantic loopholes. There is the moderated idea that blocks should more or less go like this: "Block where necessary, but not necessarily blocking" - in other words, there is an element of discretion on the part of the custodian. The custodian should be able to justify the length of the block in a sentence or so. More later when I come back. --HappyCamper 22:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not even sure how a line that says "the most common block time is x" could even be justified at the moment since it would have to be determined by actual practice, of which we have close to none. I'd rather just remove the whole line. BTW, the most common block time on de-WP is indeed one hour. That takes into account that the vast majority of anonymous users use dynamic IPs so blocking them for more than one hour would cause unnecessary collateral damage. -- sebmol ^? 23:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hence the "semantic loophole". Let's give this a rest and revisit it later. --HappyCamper 00:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)