Wikiversity:Blocking policy/Guidance if blocked

While this is a guideline, it should enjoy consensus. This is a draft proposal.

Overall guideline

Never consider your personal access to the wiki an emergency. If you do, you will be led into many difficulties. If one has been heavily editing, it can be a shock to be blocked. It can seem very, very wrong. Take a deep breath, repeat "it's only a wiki" as many times as necessary, and develop a plan for what you want to do. Some people decide to take a vacation in a fantastically pleasant place and realize how much nicer it is than that damn wiki! People actually develop real relationships with real people. Share block and ban stories on Wiki studies/Blocked and banned. You may be in very good company, there are professors and experts in this group. And you will also be in the company of people who were very disruptive, stubborn, refusing to listen to advice, and uncivil to boot. All of these. Welcome to life.

A motto that might cheer you up:

• Wikipedia Rule Number One: If a rule prevents you from improving the project, ignore it.
• Corollary: If have not been blocked, you are not trying hard enough to improve the project.

Now that you have decided to be patient, to look before leaping, the rest of this page is details.

User blocks

User blocks are applied by local administrators. They only affect one wiki. Blocks may be for a defined period, or may be "indefinite," which really means "until lifted." An administrator might block "indef" if they simply don't know how long it should be. It is not -- our should not be -- a punishment.

Blocks really mean "Stop!" Most administrators will not block if a user has not been warned and failed to stop problem behavior. So, first, pay attention to warnings! The warning may come from a non-administrator.

But what if the warning is "wrong"? Any warning might be the basis for an administrator to go ahead and block, if ignored. Some will repeat the warning, some won't. So attempt to address whatever might be sensible about the warning. Do this on your talk page, where a blocking admin will see it. Make sure that your comment will assure an administrator that there will be no problem if they don't block you. Do not attack the user who warned you. Read meatball:DefendEachOther.

Blocks have levels and types:

Short blocks

Short blocks are issued when a problem seems temporary, or as first blocks. With a short block, one should consider the value of requesting unblock. It might not be worth an administrator's time to consider. If the block was in error, it is possible to hide blocks or to create a block log annotation, but never consider this an emergency. Rather, what is most urgent on wikis is to cease disruption and restore normal collaborative process. Conflict can waste enormous amounts of time, as people explain and argue, attack and defend, and useless discussion multiplies.

Talk page access allowed

A normal first block or short block will allow Talk page access, with one exception: where disruption has occurred on the user's talk page. Talk page access is normally left so that a user may easily appeal a block. It is not left open so that the user may argue endlessly that they were right, the blocking administrator was biased, or for other reasons. Abuse of the talk page will often lead to the next level of block.

So, if you have talk page access, there is no emergency. Do not rush to appeal, until you are very clear, because, while repeated appeals may be allowed, it also happens that talk page access can be cut off if they are repeated.

First of all, never, ever allege that the blocking administrator was biased, even if he or she was. It is actually irrelevant, but making the claim will lead to an appearance that you are a disruptive user.

Rather, there are two points to be made, for a successful unblock request.

• Show that you understand why you were blocked, if possible. (If that is not possible, then ask.)
• Show that there is little risk of repetition of problem behavior.

This is not based on an assumption that you did something wrong. The behavior was a problem for someone. See #What if you are right

If you need to ask about the reason for the block, i.e., you don't know, do not immediately put up an unblock request. Wait until you have an answer, or a considerable period of time has lapsed. I know it could seem like forever, but this really should be a minimum of a week. You want to get that answer from the blocking admin, if possible. If you can't wait a week (gotta have that wiki fix!), then a day. If you can't wait a day, seek professional help! Seriously, there can be true emergencies, but use email for them, don't depend on unreliable wiki process.

So, when you are ready, put this on your user Talk page:

{{unblock request|fill in your reason here. ~~~~}}

Keep it short. Offer to cooperate with any requests by an unblocking administrator. Long explanations often equal an unsuccessful request. If there is a complicated situation to explain, I recommend getting help. Administrators cannot and mostly will not take the time to understand complicated situations. You were probably not blocked for something complicated. That is why it is so important to first understand why you were blocked!

Sometimes a user is blocked for creating long, complicated discussions. They, of course, have perfectly good reasons for this. So when they are blocked, they then create the long, complicated explanation of their perfectly good reasons. It's perfect, all right, a perfect storm.

Again, get help if possible.

Talk page access not allowed

Usually for abuse, but sometimes from an overeager administrator, angry with a user, talk page access is cut off. If talk page access has not been abused, it is often not difficult to get access restored.

Email not allowed

Again, the normal "light block" process is to allow the user to continue email access. This may continue even under a user ban, if email access is not abused. So if you are left with email access, do not send lots of appeals. Some users will email every administrator. Don't. It is a fast path to having email cut off. Rather, identify one you believe won't object, and email that administrator. Wait a long time before emailing another. Do not repeat mails, because an administrator may conclude you are pestering them. Again, get help!

Global locks

A global lock disables all access to the locked account, log-in is rejected. Global locks are not global bans, they are account based. However, in practice, it has occurred that stewards consider a user globally banned, and so they will lock any account identified as being from the same user. Given the relatively new SUL accounts, this is not easy to handle locally; but if a user is hit by a "defacto ban," again, identifying local support may then lead to global process to unlock. It has happened.

Bans

There are three types of bans:

Local bans

A local ban is a decision by a wiki community, after discussion, to prohibit all editing by a user; local bans are usually enforced with an indefinite local block, usually including blocking the user from editing their talk page. Normally, unless it has been abused, email access is not cut off. Wikis normally provide a ban appeal process. Where there is no formal process, any user may choose to advocate the lifting of a ban, but should be careful to avoid "meat puppetry," i.e., simply editing on behalf of the banned user. A user assisting a banned user in this way should take full personal responsibility for the edits made.

This, then, suggests how to appeal a ban, where there is no formal process: contact a consenting user and gain the user's support.

Do not create a new account to appeal. Creating a new account when banned may be considered disruptive in itself.

Global community bans

This is a very rare process where a user is globally banned through a community discussion on the meta wiki. It has never been resolved whether or not local communities may decide to exempt a user from a global ban. It is highly recommended to avoid getting into this situation! See m:Global_bans for the conditions of global bans. ===WMF global bans m:WMF Global Ban Policy While quite WMF bans existed in the past, these were introduced at the end of 2014 more formally, with substantial dissent being expressed with regard to certain announced bans. Such bans may only be appealed to the Wikimedia Foundation and are mostly enforced by WMF employees. A WMF global ban does not create an obligation to not "meat puppet" for a WMF-banned user, but, obviously, such collaboration could be viewed as disruptive. So far, nobody has been sanctioned for, as an example, arguing for files, uploaded by a WMF-banned user, to be kept, or pointing to relevant documents put up off-wiki by the banned user. Obviously, as with other situations described on this page, such activity is the responsibility of the user who edits in this way.

What if you are right

Our condolences. Being right is the most difficult situation to handle. An old counselling saying is "Would you rather be right, or be married?"

So, would you rather be right, or be unblocked? That is a question, not advice. It might be better to be blocked, if the place is really as full of idiots as it might seem.

A strategy: Drop being right. That does not mean jumping into being wrong. It means understanding that "right" and "wrong" are essentially opinions, not fact. If you don't understand this, well, we do need a Wikiversity resource on Ontology. Maybe you can help build it.

Get help

If you are blocked or banned, and if simple measures don't work, get help. Most blocked or banned users fail to do this, and make many mistakes that make the situation worse. There are others with long experience. Take advantage of it, and listen to advice. You will still make your own decisions, but it is likely that your own decisions created problems in the first place. That does not mean that you were "wrong," or that others were "right." It means that wiki process can sometimes be difficult to understand, and some users may be less than helpful. Find support with users willing to be helpful! And read this old essay, classic wiki-wisdom: meatball:DefendEachOther.