Wikipedia talk:Banning policy/Archive 6

contradiction fix

Updated "site ban" section as the page contradicted itself, as suggested here [1]. Nobody Ent 00:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

User pages

The section on user pages starts with "Banned editors' user and user talk pages may be replaced by a notice of the ban and links to any applicable discussion or decision-making pages."

I note that it's "may" and not "must"... this would seem imply there's some discretion in the policy. In some cases, the userpages of banned editors are preserved, with a "banned" template added at the top. In other cases, the page is blanked except for the template. (In still other cases, the user page is left alone and no template added.)

Is it a reasonable interpretation of the policy that blanking is not a requirement but is subject to the normal BRD cycle of discussion and consensus, and if there are strong objections to the blanking, it's not done (and if done, can be reverted as any bold action can be)? Or is there a sense that "may be" implies that any editor may blank the page without discussion, and that reverting the blanking is frowned upon? 28bytes (talk) 19:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I did not revert a blanked page. I added info from the user's subpages to an area underneath the ban notification only. And I only did that, after searching for, and not finding any policy that prevented it. So I guess that makes the additional question, is it reasonable to add uncontested information that is WP related, and not disallowed for any other reason, to a talk page of a banned user? -- Maelefique^(talk) 19:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I would support appropriate language to make it the default to post an appropriate (intentionally loose word) notification on the user page and that they should otherwise be left alone. I see no reason at all to blank talk pages. This change would, hopefully eliminate some of the unseemly grave dancing that goes on.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:56, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

At that point, it might also be wise to protect that user's page from future edits too. I could support those steps. -- Maelefique^(talk) 19:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

(od) It seems to me that the way forward is simply to add the template at the top of the user page extant at the time the ban was executed.  Roger Davies ^talk 20:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

And then protect the page? (Assuming the editor in question is not allowed to edit his own page). Otherwise, this change would not prevent others with, imo, less scrupulous motives from coming along and vandalizing the page. -- Maelefique^(talk) 20:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate. Maelefique, that your feelings are/were running high but I'm not quite sure why we're making such a special case of this. User pages aren't normally protected on the off chance that they might be vandalised in the future.  Roger Davies ^talk 20:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think they should be protected on the offchance that they will be vandalized, (although, in this case, I can see the other POV that could argue that I did just that), it should be protected because only the editor in question should be in charge of his own page and if that ability is taken away then it should look just the same way when he comes back, whenever that may be, not the way it looks because others decided to change it during his absence, whether negatively, or positively and without his consent, approval, or over his objection. -- Maelefique^(talk) 20:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I see your point, but I think I'm with Roger on this. Any appropriate changes can be reverted by the normal means, and if that's insufficient, then protection can be considered. 28bytes (talk) 20:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I think Roger's idea has merit, but I suspect it would be best if one person did the changes, and a different person did any protection. I'd imagine someone could cry foul if the same person did both. — Ched :  ?  20:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC) ... page now protected with "shrine" intact; so it will need to be an admin to revert it back to the existing state prior to AC decision with ban tag. — Ched :  ?  20:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Let's just replace the page with the "Retired" template. It's true (if involuntary), it's less of a Scarlet letter than the I was bad and got kicked outta Wikipedia, and anyone that's curious can look through the page history to see the prior versions. Nobody Ent 22:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That strikes me as either disingenuous (under the voluntary reading) or condescending (under the involuntary). No need for excessive grave stomping, but no need to bend the truth either. A "this editor is no longer active on Wikipedia" notice with a link to the ban decision might be an acceptable alternative. Skomorokh 23:06, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree, that wording is better. Don't think a link is necessary. Nobody Ent 23:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Blank the userpages and add that new wording for the template :) --Guerillero | My Talk 23:22, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the link would be necessary in general, and therefore, always. I don't have a problem with transparency, I have a problem with 1984-ing a user by waving the "blanking page" wand. No one is forced to click on the link. -- Maelefique^(talk) 23:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• I think Roger Davies' proposal is the most adequate. (Nobody ent's proposal to use 'retired' would be too confusing. Imagine calls for someone to 'unretire' when they've been banned and can't actually do that even if they wanted to.) If there are additional reasons to blank a part or all of the banned user's page, then that should be done as well, but by default banning should not result in wholesale deletion of the user's page, just like WP:CSD#G5 doesn't apply to contributions made prior to the ban. Protection should not be used unless there's some other reason like vandalism or edit warring, which Roger's proposal would actually do a great deal of preventing. There are recent changes patrollers after all. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with ASCII (and Roger) here. Although I've never been fond of those "look at what a bad boy this user is" orange tags rather than a simple statement such as: This user is currently inactive. (reason)); but that's a different discussion I suppose. — Ched :  ?  10:12, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed on both points. Blanking should not be commonplace; and I agree that "bad boy" tags would generally be better served by a simple "is inactive: banned for X" template, similar to the other inactivity templates. – SJ + 07:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• Policy documents, and does not prescribe, common practice - so let's look at the typical approach to banned users' userpages. Virtually all userpages are replaced with the banned user template, and a small subset have the banned template added to the top of the userpage as it existed before the ban. There is no support among the community for listing a banned user's barnstar gallery under the banned template, as was done at User:Will Beback. There is no support for doing anything except: 1) replacing the whole talk page with the banned template; or 2) adding the banned template above the most recent userpage; or 3) adding the banned template above a leaving statement by the banned template. I am concerned that this thread would purport to be representative of the community's views when the majority of the community is not aware of this thread. If you look at standard practice (as we ought to), it surely mandates the current wording be interpreted to allow only the three preceding options (one of which is Roger Davies' proposal, with which some of us have already agreed). I can see the benefit to protecting a banned user's userpage, because a change is rarely going to be necessary, but at the same time vandalism of these types of pages is rare. AGK [•] 10:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any objections to #2 (Roger's post). I also agree that protection shouldn't need to last very long (if any longer); but I understand the reason for the initial protection as there was a bit of back and forth going on. — Ched :  ?  10:28, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Policies are both prescriptive and descriptive, consensus can change, and the talk page of banning policy is the most appropriate place to discuss changes to the banning policy. I concur that any locally achieved consensus here would need to be advertised to the broader community before acceptance. If blocks and bans are supposed to be preventative rather than punitive a clear but neutrally worded banner is appropriate, if for no other reason than to model the non-judgmental calmness that is unfortunately often lacking in Wikipedia dispute resolution. Nobody Ent 11:30, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I like Roger Davies' proposal as well. Let's just add the banned template at the top of the userpage as it was at the time of the ban. No protection is necessary. Leaving the talkpage editable also makes sense, especially for a longterm established editor, as it allows others to post (positive) comments. --Elonka 14:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

@AGK,Times change, policies change, and users opinions change. As mentioned already, just because 'it's always been done that way' is not a very good reason to keep doing it that way (I'll skip the inflammatory example here). As well, there *is* no policy that prevents what I've done. Ergo, if it's not prevented, it's allowed. You state above that there is "no support among the community for listing a banned user's barnstar gallery under the banned template", but you've already read several examples of support on this particular userpage issue.

• "I would let those who wish to honor WBB on his user page to do so. Within reasonable limits, what is the harm in it? And I don't find "well, we've always done it this way" a sufficient answer, like Maelefique. If it makes them feel better, so what? Let them feel better."
• "I see no remedy blanking WBB's user page. I would say that the present arrangement, with the ban notice but also displaying Will's considerable achievements, is appropriate. Let it be."
• "I see no real harm in having the ban notice along with his past achievements."
• "The barnstars are pretty harmless, and the "crushed under the wheel of justice" business is gone; probably best just to leave it be, don't you think?"

So to say there's no support doesn't seem correct, as is the idea that we should poll the community at large on this issue before it has support. Even if it's me alone that supports it, I am a member of the community, therefore, it has some community support (I would further suggest that if a poll were to be added to WBb's talk page asking if they supported the barnstars, we'd see overwhelming support). I agree that the community as a whole may not have given this issue any thought, and therefore doesn't expicitly support it, but again, it could equally be argued that since the community as a whole didn't feel it important enough to explicitly prevent, they are implicitly allowing it. Also, looking past all of that, I have asked several times, and at no time has anyone shown me a policy that prevents it, since I'm not an agent of WBb's, nor am I vandalizing his page, or displaying non-WP related info. Again (3rd time at least I think), if there is a policy that prevents what I've done, please show it to me, I have looked and could not find one. 'I don't like it', isn't a policy AFAIK. -- Maelefique^(talk) 16:26, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

A user page gets edited by the user except for the special circumstances outlined at WP:UP#OWN. Nobody Ent 17:16, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

You may not have read that policy all the way through, quote:

Ownership and editing of user pages

This section applies to all pages within your user space.

Traditionally Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit. However, pages in user space

belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user.

Bolding not my own, from that page. -- Maelefique^(talk) 17:26, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• A couple things:

It has long been standard procedure to add the banned template to the user page of banned users

It has never been standard procedure to make any other edits of any kind to a banned users user page

This is a stupid thing to be fighting about and we don't need a policy for it. Add the banned template to the last version of the userpage saved by Will and move on to something that actually matters.

Beeblebrox (talk) 18:11, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Quite. I'll do this early tomorrow, unless someone else gets there first.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to be a pain in the ass, although I'm aware that's what's happening despite that. But can someone tell me why another editor's opinion gets more value than mine when there's no policy against what I did, and I have quoted a policy above that explicitly allows what I did? And to reference what Beeblebrox said, he is incorrect, it may have been customary (not relevant) or standard practice (also not relevant) but it has never been procedure, since there is no policy for it. Ergo, that's just an opinion isn't it (albeit it, an opinion shared by many)? -- Maelefique^(talk) 23:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

While there may be no explicit policy against it, there's no policy at all for what you're doing either. Wikipedia simply isn't a "anything that isn't prohibited in writing is permitted" sort of place. What, at first sight, this looks like is you wanting to make a statement and using someone else's user page to do so. Doesn't that seem more than a bit pointy to you? A reasonable solution is to return to a neutral version (ie Will's) and add the template to that. What is the problem with that?  Roger Davies ^talk 16:01, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Ya, it might be a bit pointy, but it's on a page where no one is going to stumble across it accidentally (it's not on an article, talk, or policy page), and there isn't a policy against it (even WP:Point says there are exceptions). I do think that the contributions W_Bb made to WP have been impressive and should not just be wiped away. Having said that, I've said all along that I would be ok with reverting it back to his original page with the Ban notice at the top. Also, there is a policy for what I did, WP:Bold. What I was grappling with most recently here is that there is going to be an admin action (reversion) over what I did, based on the idea that some other editors don't like it, even though there's nowhere it says that what I did is not allowed (I'm not ok with *that* concept). Anyway, again, I'm ok with your idea, really. Sorta... :) -- Maelefique^(talk) 16:10, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that ;) I've now gone back to a pre-ban version (per WP:PREFER, removed the admin tags, and added the template. Hopefully, peace will now prevail,  Roger Davies ^talk 16:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, the page still appears to be locked to me. So *only* admins can change it now? -- Maelefique^(talk) 16:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it was protected to prevent edit-warring and, as you requested above, possible grave dancing. Probably best to leave well alone now,  Roger Davies ^talk 16:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Maelefique, I didn't mind the barnstars, but consensus was for Will's version, so it's reasonable for someone to change it to that version. 28bytes (talk) 16:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Ya, I agree with that, and I think I got to have my say in the matter, so I'm reasonably happy. And I do want to say thanks to you, Roger, Wehwalt, and any other editors here who did not dismiss my POV out of hand simply because it wasn't one they shared. So thanks! -- Maelefique^(talk) 16:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Not a problem.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Another related template

{{BannedMeansBanned}} also gets added to some user pages. Although I had never encountered it before reading the ArbCom RfC3, this template seems in use quite a bit, although it is at MfD right now. Regardless whether it's deleted or not, is it appropriate to place it on user pages? See for example usage User:Wikipéire. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 08:40, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It sure is. That's for when a banned user is evading their ban, to inform them and everyone else that any edit made by a ban-evading sock can be reverted without further cause. It is normally only used after a sock is caught, not preemptively, although there does not appear to be a doc page advising users of this. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:01, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to replace the "stop" icon with an informational icon

Templates such as Template:Banned user and Template:Blocked user currently use the red "stop" icon:

I'd like to propose this be changed to an informational icon instead:

The reason is that the stop icon should be used to inform a reader or editor that they cannot do something; however, it's not clear from this context what the average reader or editor is not supposed to do. There's a note on the banned template saying to read the banning policy before unblocking or commenting, but this still seems like more of an informational thing than a "STOP!" thing, at least regarding commenting. (One hopes anyone with rights to unblock would be familiar with the banning policy anyway.) I could understand the red X if it were directed towards the banned user, but displaying it to anyone who comes across the page seems a bit of overkill. Any objections to swapping the icons? 28bytes (talk) 00:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with dispensing with the confrontational and needlessly aggressive X, but could we please not co-opt an icon widely used and associated with a different purpose (i.e. imbox notices)? There are others available that can serve a similar function while retaining clarity in the readers' mind, such as . Skomorokh 00:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Fine by me. 28bytes (talk) 00:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Banned user.png Nobody Ent 01:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Skomorokh's proposal seems more civil to me. The big red X always looked to me like it was trying to convey "this user has been NUKED". ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

so is out of the question? If so, then I like the non-confrontational as well. -- Maelefique^(talk) 03:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Why not use this picture in the template? Cla68 (talk) 07:59, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

[ Abbott and Costellopicture removed] For starters because it's non-free. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 08:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, why not just get rid of the pictures and bright orange "naughty boy" "tag" altogether and opt for a simple:

• This user is currently inactive. (reason))

statement that's a bit more adult, but still contains information if someone is that inclined to review history? — Ched :  ?  10:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The point of the template is to make it clear that a user is banned. As a checkuser, I know this is necessary when I'm tracking accounts back to blocked users; I need to know if there is a banned user at work in a given situation, and other checkusers and administators surely must too. However, I agree we don't need the abrasive, unnecessary X sign; perhaps the 'blocked' image - File:Stop_x_nuvola_with_clock.svg - might be better, with "X" representing "cannot edit" and "clock" meaning "for specified time (or until further notice)". The "I" would work too, but really, I'm indifferent, so long as it's immediately clear from a single look at a userpage that the associated account is banned. AGK [•] 10:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

A distinctive, non inflammatory icon would be best. Nobody Ent 11:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree - but will note that whatever is done, should be done across the board for ALL users. Consistency should be a "must have". Unfortunately that's not currently the case. — Ched :  ?  11:11, 28 February 2012 (UTC) ... note WB and I disagreed on most things. I strongly disagreed with many of his methods and tactics; as such, it's likely best that "I" don't edit his page personally. — Ched :  ?  11:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

(od) The {{ArbComBlock}} uses this one: ,  Roger Davies ^talk 11:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Ched, this should not be a matter with discretion. In addition, if talk page editing is removed for the editor in question, the talk page should probably be archived and protected since the editor can't remove grave dancing.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• It always makes me crack a smile when we have these kinds of discussions. I wonder how some people manage to even walk down the street if they find a stop sign so alarming and confrontational. I say we go with this Beeblebrox (talk) 18:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Marketing matters. The San Jose Sharks sell more fan merchandise than the Boston Celtics -- sports marketing experts say it's in part because people prefer to wear black over green. While changes here are admittedly No Silver Bullet, minors improvements in the branding and gestalt of Wikipedia add up. Nobody Ent 19:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

So we put the hand on a black background and change the template text to read "You're banned, talk to the hand" and sell t-shirts. Or are we talking about what we put on the pages of users who are at least temporarily unwelcome to edit here? Beeblebrox (talk) 05:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Beeblebrox, but I find this to be one of the nastiest comments I've read all week. It's deliberately insulting to people who are trying to resolve what has long been an issue. When someone is banned, it is the project's hope that the person will just go away; however, it's the long experience of the project that putting big red "banned" signs on the person's userpage is like waving a flag in front of a bull. If the banning admin cannot put a proper reference to the block into the block log, that means the block gets fixed with the proper link. Anyone can look at the user contribs and see what the most recent block is. Risker (talk) 12:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, evidence suggests I am not the only one who finds this discussion a bit silly. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That would work too, but some people might post to the talk page without checking that. A non-archived talk page notice might be a little more helpful, although it surely may be a bit more waving flag. If someone else supports Risker's option, perhaps calling at {{rfc}} on this issue with at most 4 clear choices (replace user page, tag user page, add non-archived talk page notice, just log block with link) might the best way forward now. Hopefully this isn't another policy discussion that results in "no consensus for anything". ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 08:55, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment: I'd be in favour of transitioning to an ochre message box rather than the big red X, or preferably doing away with the user page (just the user page not the user talk page) template altgether. Another option would be to delete the userpage of banned users with a default message mentioning the ban and linking to the decision, but then restore the page if/when the user accepts the 'standard offer'. My logic for suggesting deletion is
a) If the person is no longer a member of the community why should we be keeping "their" userpage anyway.
b) If the whole ban tagging thing is an issue lets remove the need for it--Cailil ^talk 17:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• Let's stop ignoring the elephant in the room, shall we? Nobody was concerned with this last week, before the recent Arbcom decision. Nobody was worried about what message is placed on the user pages of long term trolls, sockpuppeteers, POV warriors, etc. Now that a well known admin has been booted by Arbcom, everyone is suddenly worried that we are to harsh to banned users and is trying to water down the process so as to be gentler to this one person. In the process we'll also be watering it down for the worst, most abusive long term trolls that we have the misfortune of having to deal with. So, how about this: for users temporarily banned by arbcom, we can have something milder. For users indefinitely site banned by the community, we keep the stop sign. These folks need to be told as strongly as possible that they are not welcome here, and we shouldn't back off from that just because some users feel bad about what happened to Will. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

FWIW. I've semi-regularly (i.e. when I noticed it) removed notices like these from user pages - usually added by our more enthusiastic newer editors - on the principle that it is the ultimate badge of shame and generally not necessary. 28 Bytes, below, is dead on - if the point is to inform others then we could do it in a much less gloating way (that's a whole other essay, how annoyingly gloating we are) than is currently used. -Errant ^(chat!) 23:31, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I was concerned on Dec 11, 2011 Nobody Ent 18:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, my whole point is that if it's a message for the banned user, fine, but what good does it do to shout "STOP!" at anyone who browses to that page? What are you, I and Random Joe Wiki Reader supposed to "stop" doing when we come across such a page? It's shouting at us, not the banned user, who is presumably not sitting around looking wistfully at their old Wikipedia user page wondering if they should edit. 28bytes (talk) 18:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I can recall vaguely the first time I happened across such a template. Though I have forgotten precisely who it was exactly, I am fairly certain that it was one of the numerous ones from the warzone of Eastern Europe on En-Wiki. I didn't feel as though as I was being shouted at by the notice, this much I can remember clearly. I was initially confused—how is a ban different from a block? The starkness of the notice signalled that it was something pretty damn serious, and spurred me to educate myself on it. Since then, I have come across numerous other banned users and even participated in a number of ban discussions. Every time I see the notice on a userpage, I always get a bit of that visceral "well shit!" reaction that I had at first, and I generally try and learn about the circumstances behind the ban. The image has never made me feel personally threatened. If anything, it tends to encourage familiarisation with how things have worked around here. NobodyEnt is right—branding matters. In this case, the "branding" is spot on—the image used in the notice matches the strength of the sanction. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 06:03, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Like Nobody Ent, I have been concerned about this for years, as have several other arbitrators. It has been the ongoing experience of those of us who get the really difficult requests that these templates sometimes create, and arbitrators (usually with the backing of the Committee) are amongst the most frequent removers of these tags. While user talk pages aren't google-spidered, userpages are, and many people who have run afoul of some rule or other here have had "banned by Wikipedia" branded on their online identities, often for juvenile silliness years before. The place to look has always been the block log or the user talk page, where the reason for the block/ban should be clear. Posting these templates on the userpage has always been intended as a scarlet letter. I'll have to go back and review the arbcom clerk instructions, as I recall this was changed some years ago but seems to have reverted back to previous practice. Risker (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Hey Beeblebrox. First, if you've taken any of my comments personally, then I do apologize - it was not my intent. To be perfectly blunt here, if there was anyone I thought should get that big red scarlet letter, then I'd go along with this specific case of "Will". I have long thought that this "banners, templates, graphics" whatever you want to call them, seemed to make the project less dignified (or professional if you prefer). I suppose I chose this case to say we should get rid of the banners in favor of a simple statement with links (mentioned above) simply because "if it's good enough for those I agreed with, then it's good enough for those that I disagreed with. I'll also concede that although I found WB's methods, tactics, and actions to be unacceptable (as did WP:AC), there were people who had positive interactions with him as well. MY OWN choice would be to get rid of that "red badge of shame" from users I considered to be for the most part productive members of the community - but who were pushed out none-the-less. (Ottava Rima, ChildOfMidnight, and several others come to mind on a personal note). This isn't something I want to dwell on, cause a fuss over, or see folks get into some tug-of-war over. Perhaps a discussion at some MfD, or VP, the template's talk page, or something like that is really where this should all be moved to. Personally I did see the humor in a few of the posts on this page - but not everyone does care for that humor. IDK - but I wouldn't take anything personal by any of it. Just IMHO. — Ched :  ?  18:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• No change for banned templates, neutral for block templates but that being said, this is incredibly silly to me. Are we really blaming our retention rates on block templates? By the time someone is blocked, it's already too late. Either they're not here to be constructive, or we've chased them into a corner with hostility and bureaucracy. Changing signs isn't going to do much of anything. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

• As I've said, I also think it is a bit silly, but upon further reflection I can't really think of a reason to object to changes, I just don't see a pressing need to do so. So, here are mock-ups using some of the ideas from above:

Extended content
And here's one I whipped up to be as non-confrontational as possible: This user is banned from editing Wikipedia. Please review the banning policy before commenting or unblocking. (see: block log · contributions · current autoblocks) }}

Beeblebrox (talk) 03:15, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Top one, place on top of user's talk page. (Thanks for putting these together). Nobody Ent 03:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

A belated thanks, Beeblebrox, for putting those together. The first, third and last varieties all look good to me. 28bytes (talk) 18:25, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• I really don't see why the template needs changing. I'd like to see instances where the stop sign has actually caused demonstrable problems, rather than a subjective "it seems too confrontational to me" judgement. This all feels (subjectively, of course) to me like a particularly bizarre outgrowth of the civility crusade that has gripped the community as of late. In my personal view, watering down a ban—the hammer of hammers—is counterproductive. A ban (especially indefinite) is the strongest "you are not welcome here" that can possibly be given to an editor. The template should reflect that. A "nonconfrontational" template looks either weak or artificially cheery and flippant—either way, incongruous with what a ban actually is. I don't buy into the "badge of shame" line for this, either. If an editor has shown themselves to be such a large problem that they get themselves banned from the project, then why should they get a vacantly pleasant notice that they have been emphatically booted into the gutter? Should a convict get to wear business casual as they pick up litter on the side of the highway? The "badge of shame" argument might hold up for users who have been temporarily blocked but wish to return to editing as usual without a pesky block notice hanging around. But for one who has received the strongest sanction in the book? It's not a "badge of shame", it's a reflection of the reality of the sanction.
• That said, if everyone really does wish to use a kinder, gentler symbol, I think it should be one which preserves at least a shred of the gravitas that comes with a ban. I have added my proposal using to the collapsed-content box above. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 05:02, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

IBAN wording

In regard to the sentence "Although the editors are generally allowed to edit the same pages or discussions as long as they avoid each other, they are banned from interacting with each other in any way. ".

Currently on WP:AE, User:T. Canens is basically asserting that this is not in fact the case [2].

It looks to me like the current wording basically sets a "trap" for editors under IBAN restrictions. It states explicitly that editors are "generally allowed to edit the same pages or discussions" (as long as they don't refer to each other, which is how it happened in this case) - but then we have, at least some, administrators who appear to have a completely different understanding (knowledge?) of the policy.

As a result I would like to hear other people's opinions on changing the above wording.

Per WP:BRD and per the fact that this kind of misleading statement can get people potentially banned for no good reason I am going to go ahead and provisionally change it myself, although I should note that a prohibition on commenting in same discussions is not a policy I agree with.VolunteerMarek 16:15, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this change. One admin misunderstanding estabilished policy should not set a precedent for such a drastical change. In an ArbCom clarification request here, SirFozzie (as I understand his comment) noted that "I have concerns that Interaction Bans are being used as a blunt force instrument to force people out of topic areas ("I'm there already, so you can't edit the article because otherwise you'd be breaching the interaction ban!""). In other words, interaction bans are not there to allow an editor to mark an article as theirs, and thus prevent all others under the interaction ban from editing them. I am going to be bold and restore the previous wording. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:08, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

If interaction bans prevented any coincidental editing of the same page, it would be rife for gaming and generating unneeded drama. It would establish a "first mover" advantage to any user who could premptively "wall off" sections of Wikipedia from their perceived enemy by simply editing some articles first, and then claiming that the interaction ban effectively prevents their perceived enemy from being allowed to edit those articles. So long as such users don't come into conflict, I see no reason to prevent two users from editing the same article in ways that don't interfere with each other. They shouldn't revert each other or enter into the same discussions on the talk page, but if both happen to edit the same article in ways which don't constitute a conflict or interaction under any reasonable view, it shouldn't be viewed as a violation. --Jayron32 18:13, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I mostly agree, though I don't see why they should not be allowed to enter into the same discussions. By saying they cannot, you are accepting a "first mover" advantage on a discussion. As long as the editors are not replying to one another, I think they should be allowed to participate in the same discussion. Otherwise we enter into an incresingly blurry realm; can they participate in a very similar discussion in a different thread? Why can they edit the same paragraph in the article? Same section? And so on. IBAN is now quite clear, listing the three or four things that are not permitted (don't revert one another, don't comment on one another, don't directly reply to one another). That's clear and difficult to game. Any blurring of that will make gaming easier. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:29, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Shonuff. --Jayron32 18:35, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Tim is saying that that it should be a violation for one user to comment on a DYK filed by the other party. He argues that this is a basis to consider a sanction of VM. That sounds reasonable to me, even though no finding has yet been reached about VM. As a consequence, I assume that one user should not comment in the AfD of an article created by the other user. If necessary we could work out further wording to add to the policy to be sure that IBAN is interpreted correctly. Arbcom has used IBANs in the past, and they have never said they have lost confidence in them. We should try to make IBANs work, if we can, allowing some slack in the enforcement when people appear to be genuinely confused. Others have complained that IBANs don't work so well in ethnic disputes as they do when there are just two users who quarrel a lot. That statement has a chance of being true, but the jury is still out. EdJohnston (talk) 20:19, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

If this is what Tim meant, than I am in fact inclined to agree with him that commenting in a discussion started by another user may be worth including in the list of interactions prohibited by the interaction ban. However, as of now, this is not currently prohibited by an iban, and we should not penalize editors for doing things that a policy seems to allow. I would support adding a sentence to the iban, forbidding editors to "participate in discussions (AFD, DYKs, GAN, FAs, and such) started by another party, and of course enforcing it from now on (but lex retro non agit). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 20:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree with EJ - a DYK filed by one party means that ANY comment opposing it by the other is by definition directly against the party that filed it. VM wanted to scupper the DYK - hence mentioned the AFD. He knew what he was doing, and broke the spirit of the rules on this page. Any complaint about the wording is just an attempt to game the system. Malick78 (talk) 21:02, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Malick, please stop following VM and commenting on him in a critical fashion, such behavior is not welcomed here. Your conflict is already being discussed at ANI, I suggest you try to avoid letting it spill elsewhere. I suggest you refactor or remove your post here (and I'll adjust my accordingly). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 21:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

• According to current version of the policy, commenting on DYK or AfD by another party is allowed, as long as two i-banned users do not talk with each other. That was also noted by arbitrators during one of recent clarification requests about i-bans. Was not it? My very best wishes (talk) 21:28, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Ed, Tim may be saying that, but saying that something *should* be a particular way is not the same as that something *being* a particular way. As I've commented already, if Tim feels this way then it is his responsibility to first the change the wording of the policy to reflect his feelings, provided he's got consensus for that, then he can ban people under the new wording.

Malick78, once again I am asking you to stop freakin' following me around and stalking me.VolunteerMarek 21:09, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

No stalking. Just researching the activities of those who make accusations against me. That's all. Oh, and trying to help make sure this page covers all the angles. Malick78 (talk) 21:24, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I fear that an interpretation offered may be akin to "ex post facto" reasoning - if the current policies and decisions do not bar participation in discussions as long as no personal comments are made in violation of a ban, then the ban, under current wording, has not been violated. Else we could have cases such as the current PC discussion then being used to allow "first person in only" in a discussion, which is contrary to how Wikipedia works. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:45, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

My personal view on this: all rules must be interpreted and followed very literally (including 3RR). Otherwise, there are numerous possibilities of gaming and endless disruptive discussions (such as "he wants to eliminate me from this area by using the i-ban"). Of course rules may be changed, and I am not telling that they are perfect. My very best wishes (talk) 14:21, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with both of you; we need to have very clear and precise rules and avoid borderline interpretation, as this leads to admin abuse and rule gaming. If a precedent suggests that a rule is inadequate, the correct approach is to change the rule (or even better, to start a discussion about whether it should be changed). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 15:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

• This clarification[3] by EdJohnston, who administered many previous iBAN reports to WP:AE confirmed it is permissible to comment at discussions such as AfDs (and presumably DYKs), even if the discussion was initiated by one of the parties to the iBAN, as long as the comments directly relate to the content and not the person. I think Ed's interpretation is closer to the current policy than Tim's. --Nug (talk) 19:52, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

User:MastCell has some great wisdom on his talk page under "The Cynic's Guide to Wikipedia"

7. Anyone who edits policy pages to favor their position in a specific dispute has no business editing policy pages. Corollary: these are the only people who edit policy pages.

Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 07:01, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Question about the policy

Suppose Users X and Y are interaction banned. And suppose X doesn't like Y's edits to a particular page. Can X express disapproval of the edits without mentioning Y on the article's talk page or would that be a violation of the interaction ban? ChromaNebula (talk) 16:32, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Usually no, that is the point of interaction bans. The difficulty comes when editors inadvertently come across each other in areas where they haven't previously had conflict. If X adds a couple of paragraphs to a page on y's watchlist and y then spots a typo in that edit then I can see the temptation to fix it. If x start making major changes to an article that y has been working on then clearly there is potential for discord. I'd suggest that an editor in such a scenario email an admin who can talk to both - that may result in anything from one agreeing to dewatchlist the article, to an amendment to their IBAN that regardless of their discord elsewhere they do seem to be able to collaborate on hillforts. ϢereSpielChequers 13:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Topic ban notifications?

I have received a question about an editor who has recently been made subject to a topic ban removing the notice of the topic ban from his user talk page. The policy refers to "banned" users, but does not indicate one way or another whether topic bans or article bans qualify under this policy or not. Might it be possible to clarify the phrasing one way or another about such matters in the page itself? John Carter (talk) 20:45, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose per Scarlet letter and WP:EHP Nobody Ent 10:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

edits of banned users

What exactly is out policy regarding the edits of a banned user. The current reading of the policy page indicates that the edits of a banned user may be reverted without explanation. What happens if someone restores the banned editor's edits by "taking responsibility" for the banned users edits. Can the edits be removed again without explanation? --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 00:02, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

They certainly can be. In general, they probably shouldn't. If the editor that is restoring the edits is doing so in good faith and isn't proxying for the banned editor, there's no reason not to allow the restoration.—Kww(talk) 00:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

That's what I thought. How about adding something to this extent to the policy page just to make it clear?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 00:28, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I think we would be getting into instruction creep. It already indicates that an editor can take responsibility for the edits. Why should we need to explicitly state that that editor's edits shouldn't be reverted without explanation?—Kww(talk) 01:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

IBAN and AFD

I see some discussion on this, but shouldn't IBAN seriously be more clear to include AFD? This is at ANI right now, and they seem to think that AFD is ok for two IBANed editors. I did a spit-take. I wasn't sure the policy, per se, but common sense seems to dictate that this isn't acceptable, and I think the policy needs to be more explicit. It would obviously make the ANIs on TopGun and Darkness Shines faster or unnecessary, but obviously many others as well. I don't understand why it isn't more explicit in the limits. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:13, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• Specifically, I would like to see a clarification that summarizes: If there is an IBAN between user A and user B, then they should not both vote in the same AFD. If user A is a creator of an article, or a significant contributor of an article, user B should not vote in an AFD on that article. If both editors have small or incidental edits to the article, then it goes to AFD and one votes, the other should refrain and rely on the rest of the community to determine consensus. This is no more inconvenient than other restrictions of the iban. This overly verbose statement seems to indicate the spirit of IBAN, but not clearly enough the letter. I feel this needs to be better summarized, but included in the page itself. The lack of clarity on this issue is problematic and causing problems for admins at ANI. The issue of RfCs was also brought up, but both reply to RfCs is less of a concern to me personally. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 11:29, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

  Seeing past RFCs if I remember correctly there have been scenarios where

  1. User A started RFC and User B commented on it and vice versa
  2. Either of User A or B added/deleted/edited content in an article which was followed by a discussion and an RFC where the other user commented.

  I would like clarifications on these too and probably the page can be updated afterwards so we don't have to find past discussions when required. --SMS ^Talk 12:06, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• There have been a number of clarifications at ANI for my IBAN and they seem to apply generally... including the fact that IBAN does not mean that it is a first come first serve policy. Editors are supposed to not interact with each other, this does not stop them from discussion content with other editors. AFDs are regularly commented on and have not been a problem. The recent issue that resulted in this thread being started is when it is an AFD on an article created by user A and B comments on it for delete or something. That was just clarified as a violation. As far as other AFDs are concerned, there's not supposed to be any contention... there've been dozens of AFDs and RFCs without any issues. Most of the IBAN issues are in the main space (even when edits are not directly reverted). --lTopGunl (talk) 12:15, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

This policy is inconsistent with WP:IAR

Especially considering how things have changed in the last few years. Before about 2009, topic banned editors were really judged to be incapable of contributed contructively in the topic area in an objective way by the community, or by ArbCom. Since that time, we've seen a gradual movement away from this toward a more procedural system where topic bans are imposed more as punishment. Also, while it used to be possible for a topic banned editor to still contribute indirectly, e.g. by pointing to a vandalized page on his talk page, today this is not allowed.

While there would always be a tension between WP:IAR and a topic ban, the way things used to work in practice was at least consistent with the spirit of WP:IAR. Today, the way topic bans are imposed is in clear violation of WP:IAR. Therefore, I would suggest that this policy page be completely rewritten or, if there isn't any consensus for this, we ask ArbCom for clarification about this issue. Count Iblis (talk) 17:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

What tension? Are you suggesting that IAR says we should continue to accept disruption as some SPA relentlessly grinds down other editors in the topic that interests them? I have never seen a topic ban that was a punishment—they are generally to provide relief for good editors who are able to build articles and collaborate. If someone is so brilliant that they can refute any argument and can write twice as much rebuttal as any response, what is supposed to happen? There should be some assessment whether the SPA is actually correct per WP:V and WP:DUE (possibly they have run into a tag team of people without much clue). After that, there are only three choices: allow the SPA to continue driving away good editors so they can put their spin in articles on their topic, or indef block the SPA, or topic ban the SPA. The latter is an excellent choice because often if the SPA would take the challenge and see how Wikipedia operates in areas where their interest is not intense, they might find out how the place works, and what "collaboration" means in practice. Johnuniq (talk) 02:13, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

We should not accept disruption. Topic bans are mostly imposed on editors who are trouble makers, that's a good thing. But it is not always like that, there are blocks and bans for people who could contribute without problems. Just today I saw that Fae is going to be banned for at least a year because of showing contempt for ArbCom. He did make some mistakes interacting with people in dispute resolution processes, but if there wasn't an issue with the actual editing of content, then why are we kicking the person out of Wikipedia? That is certainly contrary to what IAR says. Count Iblis (talk) 19:40, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I really do not see how problems with arb com having made a particular over-extensive or insufficiently extensive action is relevant here--they will continue to have the final power over anything which can be considered a behavioral dispute. DGG ( talk ) 17:54, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Refactor, note

(Post by banned sockpuppet removed) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:38, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

This editor RedBull Warrior has just been blocked as a sock of Doughnuthead -- so by proposing a ban on themselves on AN they've been trolling Wikipedia for a couple days. This makes the argument for the silliness of banning indefinitely blocked editors pretty strongly. Nobody Ent 15:30, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Kudpung's removal of a comment by an indef blocked, but not banned, editor is more evidence there's little functional difference between indef blocked/banned and such discussions are a waste of time. Nobody Ent 21:09, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

"Reciprocal recognition" is absurd

I propose removal of the sentence "Reciprocal recognition of bans is an unsettled area of policy, in part because of the relative rarity of cases in which a banned editor attempts to join another project." It is not rare for these editors to contribute to Commons or Meta, and because there is definitely not reciprocal recognition of bans when they do. Wnt (talk) 00:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Quite. For the most part we care only about what happens on Wikipedia, and exceptions to this are very rare. The notion of an interwiki blocking policy is either absurd or deeply scary. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

FYI see the section "ANI: Locked talk page" All access by this account was locked across all Wikipedias at 23:29, 23 December 2010 (see lock log). See also Socks on more than one Wikipedia. -- PBS (talk) 11:18, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like that user was global-locked, yes, but that is AFAIK an extremely rare action, comparable to an office action in rarity, and it shouldn't be taken as an extension of en-wiki blocking, as evidenced by the people discussing it on the admin board not even knowing what it was or how it happened. It may be that the policy could clarify about global locks somewhere, but this isn't the place or the text to do it. Wnt (talk) 11:40, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done Nobody Ent 11:44, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

IP editing

I've just made what I hope was an uncontentious copy edit. Hopefully it now makes sense and means what it was intended to mean. But I do wonder a little about the IP editing loophole. Arbcom require appellants to list all the accounts they have used to edit Wikipedia in the last two years, but no mention is made of IP editing. ϢereSpielChequers 18:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Quick question

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I have a quick question about site bans. On AN and ANI discussions, indefinitely blocked editors who continued disruption by using sockpuppets have resulted in full site bans. Should site bans not be proposed for indefinitely blocked editors, or not? Thanks, Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 14:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

• It is optional, but there is some question as to the wisdom of it. Most of the time, it seems moot as no one is going to unblock them anyway. I used to be one to think we should as a matter of procedure but as I deal with more and more socks at SPI, it seems just bureaucratic except in rare circumstances. Banning a sock doesn't make them sock less and may make them sock more. Banning someone at Arb as part of the proceeding is fine, as a formal declaration to say "you are no longer part of the community", but socks are already not part of the community. Short answer: if it is specifically addressing an issue, then fine. Otherwise, it might be seen as a bit of gravedancing and simply encourage the sock to be even more disruptive, since you just gave them a shiny new trophy, so WP:DENY is a better option. Others may feel differently. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:08, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
• Per tentative consensus Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Proposed_community_ban_of_User:Doughnuthead, and past AN discussions, I've added "Site bans should not be proposed for indefinitely blocked editors. " Nobody Ent 15:57, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Since we are trying to make sure that any change to policy reflects consensus, I have no objections but consensus can change at any time. However, I am seriously concerned that we need a wider consensus on this matter per the Policies and Guidelines page. In accordance with the policy and guideline changes, I have tagged it with the intention of gaining widespread consensus on the issue presented here. Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 16:16, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Ent, I would say that isn't enough of a consensus to make that large of a change to the policy, since it is a bar to an action that has been allowed up to now. That requires larger discussion, preferably RfC pointing here. I see the logic in the result, and it has become more clear over time to me, but it still requires fair process and input from the larger community to make that kind of change, as it isn't subtle, but rather a very large change that affects more than this one policy. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 16:56, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I've gone ahead and started the Request for Comment in accordance with WP:POLICY. Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 17:02, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Site bans for indefinitely blocked editors

Should site bans continue to be proposed for users even though they are already blocked indefinitely? Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 06:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

• Yes. I assume you mean should they continue to be proposed as they have been. Very often an indeffed editor is socking away, and they get banned because of it after exhausting the community's patience. A brief perusal of the list of banned users will verify this. Doc talk 20:57, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, being indefinitely blocked should not be a protection against banning.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:04, 4 August 2012 (UTC).
• Yes. A ban is more strict than an indef. A ban means that you need community discussion to unblock. A ban means that you can blanket revert all his edits. A ban is the last resource when an editor has exhausted the patience of the community. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:16, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
• no. You can revert edits of indefinite blocked socks anyway. Its just a waste of time on AN. If an editor is indeffed how can they do anything requiring patience?Nobody Ent 22:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

  Not per G5, you cannot. Jclemens (talk) 03:08, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

  G5? Nobody Ent 15:28, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

  CSD G5 -- PBS (talk) 18:27, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

  Thanks. The link indicates we can revert blocked editors. Nobody Ent 19:10, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

• Yes when someone just doesn't get it, and doesn't appear to have any progress in that direction, then the community is entitled to ban a user through the established venues, regardless of their current block status. We do this for flagrant/repeated sockpuppetteers occasionally who were never "banned" but keep up the disruption. Jclemens (talk) 03:08, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
• Absolutely, positively not; and for far more reasons than I'll list at the moment, but here's a few.

1. Bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake - ill-considered for a website.
2. Every editor, and every situation is different - lumping every indef. block into a "well, it's an indef block, so now we need to propose and indef ban" is simply not a good common practice.
   1. As arbitration history shows, there are many, MANY reasons for indefinate blocks (and indefinate bans). Some examples: a.) An editor's account gets compromised and is being used by a second person. b.) An editor becomes emotionally distraught and begins posting disruptively, but seeks assistance and resolves their issues. c.) An editor may desire to contribute to the site in all good faith, but lack the maturity at the time to edit with acceptable standards - but that may change with time and age. There's a large difference between a 17-year old and a 22-year old. Many people grow, get married, get jobs, become members of society, have children, and mature in a very short period of time. All cases where an indef. "block" may be appropriate - but an indef. "ban" is not. (IMO). Perhaps all good reasons to iblock .. but hardly reasons to throw the "ban mountain" in the path of a return.
3. - and perhaps most important: Bans and blocks are two seperate things - and are established that way for a reason. Trying to conflate the two defeats the spirit and the purpose of the policies. There are reasons for indefinate blocks. There are reasons for indefinate bans. One =/= the other. — Ched :  ?  04:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

• (N.B. that the above response was to the original RfC — Ched :  ?  12:52, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is about banning every indefinitely blocked editor . It is related to this addition to the policy , which would throw a protective shroud from banning over every indefinitely blocked editor (on a case-by-case basis) simply because they were already blocked indefinitely. Doc talk 05:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you're correct, but the way I read Should site bans be proposed for indefinitely blocked editors? is a "ban" proposal should be made for "indef. blocked editors". Now we all know how some people just love to pull cherry-picked sentences out of policy and wiki-lawyer their own views. Since we already DO propose "bans" on a fairly regular basis - I think this is a poor change to policy. If you're correct in that it means "some indefinitely blocked editors" - that's already common practice, so I don't understand the intent of the proposal. — Ched :  ?  05:31, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm quite sure it was a reaction to the proposed policy change, and the RfC should be worded more clearly to something like, "Should site bans continue to be proposed for users even though they are already blocked indefinitely?", or something like that. If it were changed to, "Should we stop proposing site bans for users who are already blocked indefinitely?", there'd have to be reversals of votes. Doc talk 05:35, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Well - as this proposal is written, then I must stand by my "oppose", but I'll watchlist and check back. — Ched :  ?  05:46, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I dropped a note to the proposer, and the the wording should get hashed out in due time. FWIW, I would never vote to sweepingly ban every indeffed editor, just as I would never vote to give every indeffed editor a free pass from banishment. Doc talk 05:59, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment refactored per Doc. Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 06:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

• In response to the current RfC, if you're asking a general question then I would say. "Yes", in some, (perhaps even many) cases we do propose ban discussions even after an editor has been blocked indefinately. I would not say that we do this in ALL cases however. As our policies are generally "descriptive" rather than "perscriptive", I'm not quite clear on what "changes" (if any) you're asking for to the current policy. Administrators institute an "indef. block" for a wide variety of reasons, but the general goal is usually the same: To put a stop to the disruption until the situation is resolved. I would hope that most of these "indef. blocks" are placed with the desire to provide the blocked editor a means of understanding acceptable editing practices; rather than as a punitive measure for past practices. In cases where an editor has demonstrated only a desire to disrupt the project (vandalism, spam, personal attacks, etc.), then indeed the community may (and should) discuss and institute the option of "banning" that person from the project for an extended or unspecified ammount of time. (WoW, Grawp, ILT, etc.) — Ched :  ?  12:52, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
• One possible answer could be: "it depends". For example, if an indeffed user came back as a sockpuppet, then it might be appropriate to make a formal community ban. However, if he was indeffed yesterday and did not do anything yet, then proposing an additional ban (as it was in this case) is hardly appropriate. However, I tend to believe that a simple "ideff" is more than sufficient for any practical reasons. So, I would say no to such practice, simply as an unnecessary administrative hurdle. My very best wishes (talk) 15:03, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
• In many cases, we've gone ahead with a ban of indef-blocked editors, to enable, for example, their socks to be reverted on sight with no question of 3RR coming into play. An indef block is something a single administrator can come to a conclusion of, and could then be reversed at any time. A ban means the community has weighed the issue and decided the author's presence here is so disruptive they are no longer wanted, and the decision cannot be reversed without community discussion or a Ban Appeals Subcommittee decision. There is a difference. Most indef-blocked users are just vandals or spammers, and never reach the level of a ban. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
• I encountered a situation a while back in which a sockmaster with some dozens of blocked socks honestly didn't believe that she really was banned. A discussion in which everyone said, "Yup, she really is officially banned" didn't permanently stop the socking, but she quit giving the excuse of "I'm not really banned" for it afterwards. So I think that we should sometimes have these discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
• I side towards thinking these discussions are generally unnecessary. I would favor wording along the lines of "Generally, the community rapidly forms consensus about which indefinitely blocked editors are de facto banned and which are still potentially members of the community. In such cases, a formal ban discussion is unnecessary. In the event of controversy about the status of an individual editor, a formal ban discussion is useful for reaching consensus."—Kww(talk) 05:41, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
• If there's some actual benefit to having a full ban discussion - whether because there's an actual controversy over the ban status or because there's some realistic prospect that the 3RR exemption is going to be useful or because of some oddity like the case WhatamIdoing mentioned or something else - there's no problem in having one. On the other hand, if there's no realistic chance of the 3RR exemption being actually useful, which is the case with most persistent vandals (vandalism is already exempt, banned or not), then having a ban discussion is just a pointless bureaucratic gesture.

  I'm also rather concerned that some new-ish editors are proposing pointless sitebans, perhaps because it gives them a sense of authority. In the case mentioned in the original discussion, for instance, we have someone who has a bit more than 100 edits and 11 days' tenure proposing a ban for a vandal whose edits already fall within the vandalism exemption and who no sensible admin would be willing to unblock. T. Canens (talk) 10:53, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

• Yes for all the reasons that Enric Naval gave. -- PBS (talk) 18:27, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
• The introduction of a lightweight banning policy (or an upgrade from de facto to de jure ban) has been a significant step forward in dealing with the dual problems of a) long-term abuse and b) rogue admins who unblock abusive editors on a personal whim. Although I do note the unsettling recent example of a community ban being overturned by an admin based on a quick note with the banning admin and a couple of hours of inconclusive chat on ANI (the user in question has already managed to get himself blocked again in short order). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rename "Ban" to "Recess"

I often hear about people confusing the two terms 'ban' and 'block'. They both start with 'B' and in normal life, these two terms generally carry a very similar meaning. A term *like* "recess", "sideline", "breather", or "deferral" might end up causing less confusion down the road and would help editors and administrators explain better what the difference is between a threat to "block" or simply offer a "recess".

If you have a better term in mind, let's hear it, but Ban is really not the best term for asking an editor to voluntarily comply with a request to stop editing a topic or an article for a while. Instead we could say "You're being given a 2-week recess from editing articles about whales, User:Ahab, because you seem to have a single-minded fixation on them." -- Avanu (talk) 11:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Recess sounds like play time. Renaming a thing doesn't change its nature; this would be pointlessly confusing. A turd by any other name would smell just as shitty. --Jayron32 18:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree, but prefer the original rose version of what's in a name. Nobody Ent 18:39, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Situations which lead to bans are rarely, from either side, described as "rosy". They are often, from both sides, described in more fecal terms. --Jayron32 19:08, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

What about "potty break" instead of "block" then? :) Though I suppose then a topic ban would be constipation, would that work too? Franamax (talk) 21:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Snort... --Jayron32 21:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Let's call them what really are, "suspension" and "termination.". Why sugar-coat it? Neutron (talk) 03:47, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Or if "termination" is too harsh for a permanent ban, how about "exile"? It's less bloody than "termination". Neutron (talk) 21:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Bans cover a gradient, from topic/other editor to full-site, and even for a full site ban there is always the possibility of an appeal, so "termination" overstates it. Exile implies the editor ever had a right to be here in the first place, which is untrue. I do myself try to use language closer to "suspension" when talking about blocks, as in "I've removed your editing privilege for a time" - since we are talking about private property and people need to remember that the ability to edit here is very much conditional. Franamax (talk) 21:36, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I do like the suspension one, it's a good clarification. I'd leave the ban as, well, ban. Termination, to me at least, has the connotations of somebody being shot. I don't think we do that... not yet, at least. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:01, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I probably should have put a "smiley" or something next to my suggestions, at least as far as termination/exile goes. I do think suspension is more descriptive than block, but block has a well-understood meaning on the Internet so I think it's ok either way. Neutron (talk) 23:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Contradiction between banning policy and WP:PRESERVE

This policy states: Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. By banning an editor, the community has determined that the broader problems, due to their participation, outweigh the benefits of their editing, and their edits may be reverted without any further reason. This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor, but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.

WP:PRESERVE states: Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't. Preserve appropriate content. As long as any of the facts or ideas added to the article would belong in a "finished" article, they should be retained and the writing cleaned up on the spot, or tagged if necessary. If you think a page needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do it, but preserve any content you think might have some value on the talk page, along with a comment about why you made the change. Do not remove good information solely because it is poorly presented; instead, improve the presentation by rewriting the passage.

So which rule takes precedence if a banned user inserts "appropriate content" into an article?

Secondly what exactly is an "obviously helpful edit"? A typo fix is indeed helpful to an article, but so is the insertion of appropriate, well sourced material.

I am certainly not proposing a policy change, just seeking advice as to how to follow Wikipedia policies correctly. Eptified (talk) 01:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Edits by banned users should generally be reverted, even if the content would otherwise be considered appropriate.—Kww(talk) 02:45, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The answer is, if you are willing to evaluate and take responsibility for an edit, go for it, but if the edit introduces content which is otherwise a violation of Wikipedia policy, you'll have to answer for it. Also, it is a matter of scale. If you find a single edit by a banned user that was reverted, and you find it is worth restoring, people aren't likely to complain. Probably even two. But where the line gets crossed is when you become an uncritical proxy for a banned editor; i.e. allowing them to edit at will by passing all his edits through your account. That would be seen as a violation on several fronts, including WP:MEAT and WP:GAME. So, the answer is: if you trip over one reverted edit from a banned user, and you happen to notice that one edit is probably a good edit, you're not going to get in trouble for adding it back. If you're actions allow a banned user to essentially bypass their ban, you'll likely get into trouble.--Jayron32 03:23, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Jayron32, that is exactly the explanation I was looking for; it's a very reasonable policy now that I understand it. My question was answered, so should I delete this section from the talk page? Eptified (talk) 03:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it's a fine question, and there's nothing wrong with leaving it here for others to read. In addition, I am but one person. Others may have a different perspective. --Jayron32 04:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

For the record I think Jayron hits the nail on the head. Banned users who continue to sock are best dealt with with a WP:RBI approach. Often when a sock is detected all the edits are reverted without even being looked at. The point is to drive it home to the banned user that we don't care about their attempt to prove themselves because we have already told them to leave and that the problems they cause outweigh the benefits. With very few exceptions the community has upheld this principle. I also will slap {{bannedmeansbanned}} on their talk page as a clue to other users as to why their edits are wholesale reverted. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Proxy edits

Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and they have independent reasons for making them.

This bit from WP:PROXYING could be construed to prevent someone from posting a request for restoring talk page access to a user (e.g., to post material related to an appeal or to communicate with people about copyvio problems the user created). You can't exactly say that such requests are "verifiable". Should we clarify this by adding the words "to articles" somewhere? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you have evidence that it is being used to do that? That is, has there been any specific events that have necessitated this change? If not, then WP:CREEP is as good a reason as any not to invent solutions to problems that haven't been shown to exist. --Jayron32 02:59, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

This came up at Meta in a discussion about the Global Ban Policy. An editor is concerned that people making third-party requests for a person to be unbanned will be punished for violating PROXYING (or similar rules on other projects). Since I believe most admins are sensible people, I don't think it's especially likely, but it's also not good form for policy writers to assume that the policy will always be interpreted by a clueful person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Let me ask it again: what user has been punished or threatened with punishment for this issue? We also shouldn't write policy to placate the most paranoid and delusional people out there. That makes bad policy as well, and if people, with no evidence, believe that they are going to be persecuted, then changing policy merely to assuage the delusions of someone that out there also seems like a fundementally bad idea. If people are being mistreated in anyway, show the evidence and we'll fix it. If no one is, has, or has shown any evidence that they've been threatened with such sanctions, then why all the fuss? --Jayron32 19:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Have you read the long discussion at WT:BLOCK#RfC:_third_party_request_for_unblock? If it's so obvious that requesting an unblock will never result in punishment for the third party, then why did twenty screenfuls of discussion come to no consensus on that point?

But if you want an example of someone complaining about it, here's someone at AN saying it's "confusing and disruptive" for third parties to request unblocks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

No, he's saying what that person is doing specifically, in that instance, is confusing and disruptive. And the first discussion makes my point for me exactly: without a specific instance of any actual need for the policy, the discussion decended into a morass of inconclusiveness. Without a concrete need for a policy, as demonstrated by an actual (not imagined) inadequacy in current practices, then people just say whatever comes to their mind, and having long discussions where neither side has any concrete evidence to support their position gets nowhere at all. Since we have no evidence that this is causing a problem, then we can't even agree that it is a problem, much less something in need of a solution. If you want a chance of enacting a policy change with widespread appeal, you'll need evidence that it is needed. Otherwise, it's just everyone talking out of their asses about what they think is fair or right or just. And that never gets anywhere. So, yes, thanks for that first discussion. It makes my point for me exactly. --Jayron32 02:52, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Preventing what you describe as a descent "into a morass of inconclusiveness" in which "people just say whatever comes to their mind" is a proper role of a written policy.
• I am not asking for "a policy change". I am asking for the written policy to fully reflect the actual policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Meanwhile, getting back to the title of the section: I continue to encounter situations where people revert to POV, BLP-violating, or otherwise poor quality versions of articles because there's a reasonable chance that the corrective edits were made by a banned user, and anyone who reinstates the edits is pilloried, and accused of proxying for a banned user. This is a major problem, in that we're actually making our project worse by removing these edits (or failing to reinstate them). Ideas on how to address this? Risker (talk) 20:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I like Avanu's change, which probably addresses my concern sufficiently. What would you think about naming BLP violations as an example of the sort of edits that all right-thinking editors would consider productive and independently warrantable? Would that help? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:11, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

It's a balancing act to be sure. On the one hand we have the need to make it clear to banned users that we mean it, that their contributions are not welcome no matter the quality. I'm sure those of us who have been around for a while alrady have a name or two on our minds that this applies to. On the other hand if they were fixing typos or removing vandalism it certainly doesn't do us any good to revert them. where this becomes a serious problem from my perspective is when, as we habe seen recently a few times, they will then turn around and say "See, I can make good edits. You have to let me sockpuppet because I am so important to this project that you need my help and I should be exempted from the rules". We obviously can't let that become a reality, but we can't reintroduce typos and vandalism just to teach them a lesson either.

Scale is of course also an issue. If the sock just popped up that day it is probably no big deal to go through the contribs and reverse anything that wasn't copyediting or removal of vandalism. If they got away with it for a few weeks or months, it's unlikely anyone will be willing to go through everything they ever did edit-by-edit and evaluate it. If we blanket revert we may re-introduce problems. If we don't we may encourage the banned user to keep socking and to try and use their ban evading socks as evidence that they should be unbanned. A month or two ago I would have said that was ridiculous and nobody would ever fall for that, but it has in fact worked as an argument at least once and soon after it did other banned users tried the same thing.

Proxying is something I think these banned users, who just can't bring themselves to just stay away from here, do for essentially the same reasons. In such cases I believe the attitude should be something like "Ok, we'll make this change since you ot os needed and beneficial, but it does not change the fact that you are baneed and we do not want any more suggestions from you". Even that risks playing into the type of intermittent reinforcement that keeps obsessive personalities obsessed, we should not allow repeat proxy editing at all in my opinion. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Big Question

Why do bans apply per person and not per account? 85.210.157.135 (talk) 16:44, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Because accounts don't disrupt Wikipedia, people do. Nobody Ent 20:08, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Revision to policy with respect to restoring edits by banned and indefinitely blocked editors

There have been a few cases recently that have illustrated that we have sections of the community that choose to enable banned editors. I'm contemplating an RFC on the topic of what constitutes enablement, and would like to get input before starting a formal RFC. There are two practices that I would like to see a formal consensus for the fact that they are disruptive:

1. Systematic examination of reverted edits. When blocking a sockpuppet, it's a common practice for the blocking admin to revert all edits. We have always allowed editors to restore some of these edits and take responsibility for them. This is a good thing in its place: an editor that is familiar with the article sees the reversion, looks at the change, and determines that the change was a good one. Where it becomes a bad thing is when an editor that is philosophically opposed to our policy on blocking and banning editors systematically examines every reversion that was made in conjunction with the block and restores the ones they deem good. In this case, the motive behind the restoration is to ensure that all good edits made by the blocked editor are kept, and this flies in the face of our blocking and banning policies.
2. Restoration of talk page comments: Blocked and banned editors frequently attempt to use talk pages to stir up trouble. When these edits are removed, there's no situation where restoring the comment is beneficial, regardless of any policies related to talk pages.

These two behaviours come perilously close to proxying (in fact, I believe that they are proxying), but I've been criticised in the past for overreaching in the area.—Kww(talk) 20:24, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

It's unclear to me what the metric for the "system examination" would be? My observation has been that rules/remedies/policies that are not crispy defined frequently create as many difficulties as the situation there are designed to fix. Regarding restoration of talk page comments, if there have been no replies the comments should obviously be removed. If editors in good standing have replied (before the sockpuppet was identified), removing comments would destroy context for good faith contributions, so I'm ambivalent about that. Nobody Ent 23:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

That's part of why I wanted to talk before going for a formal RFC. In the recent flurry around Dewan357, multiple editors saw my reversion stream, and proceeded to check every edit I had reverted. Clearly, their motivation in checking the edits was not that they had a particular interest in any of the articles involved, nor did they habitually edit in the area: their motivation was that they were going through my reversions.

As for the second case, we have this instance, for example, where Silk Tork unstruck out comments by a banned editor. How does an edit like that benefit anyone? Certainly the strikeout preserved any context to the replies.—Kww(talk) 02:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

• Meh. --Jayron32 02:10, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Standard offer

Wikipedia:Standard offer should probably be linked somewhere, either in the "review and reversal" section or as a see also. Peter James (talk) 17:49, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem with SO is that it applies to a specific, limited number of indefinite blocks. It really ONLY works in the following sequence of events:

1) A person is blocked for disruptive behavior of some sort, either indef or of finite term.

2) The person creates a new account to dodge the block, and continues the same behavior

3) The new account is blocked for socking, often leading to an escalation of an original finite block to an indefinite block

4) Repeat steps 2-3 a few dozen times.

The key to making the standard offer work is that it is contingent on the fact that the primary reason a person is not welcome at Wikipedia is their refusal to abide by their initial sanctions. It is merely a reminder that we expect people to abide by their blocks, and that they need to prove they are willing to follow the rules regarding their block before we'll reconsider their participation at Wikipedia. Now, there are lots of people who are indefinitely banned at Wikipedia that don't fit this mold: they aren't a minor annoyance that escalated their status to indefinite by repeatedly socking (which is what SO really works for); instead they are usually a well-established user who has exhausted the community patience. That's a very different sort of thing. Yes, people can earn their way back into the community's good graces, and that does take time, but that's not exactly what the Standard Offer means. By trying to overextend its applicability, we run the risk of making the SO seem universal and automatic, and it is neither. It has limited applicability, and it still requires community decision. --Jayron32 18:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Good points! Binksternet (talk) 19:30, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Binding voluntary restrictions

I have added a provision for "binding voluntary restrictions". This idea came out of a rather bitter RFC/U and banning discussion at AN. There were editors who wanted to work out an agreement with the editor whose behavior was being discussed, but the discussion was delayed because there was no specific provision for doing this. The discussion took place on the AN noticeboard [4] with some favorable comments and no objections.

A binding voluntary restriction has been entered into before, in consensus between the community and an editor here [5], the close is here: [6]. I understand a block was also issued in connection with this agreement. So basically, this is a procedure that has already been tested, and this provision just makes it more public and more accessible to others who are trying to resolve disruptions, to give a less punitive and vindictive taste to conflict resolution.

There are several advantages to this type of resolution to disruption, if it can be realized. The Project is less likely to have to waste time chasing down socks, as was seen at Arbcom MOS decisions recently with one particularly persistent sock, PMAnderson. The editor with the conflict has the opportunity to save face, and demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with the Project, also a firm motive to edit in a different area. This is particularly valuable in cases where the editor has done productive work before, and truly believes they are doing something to benefit WP, however misguided. I would suggest that an agreement might also be entered into even after a formal restriction has been decided on, in addition to it.

—Neotarf (talk) 05:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps create or expand an essay about voluntary actions: Perhaps write an essay "wp:Voluntary restrictions". Because a policy needs to be kept simple, for easier long-term analysis, then all tangent actions which could avoid sanctions, should be documented elsewhere, as a guideline or as recommended steps. My concern is that there might be "57 varieties" of actions to avoid an edit-restriction ban. For example, a problem might be someone flooding wp:PUMP with a rare concern, where the voluntary restriction would be to limit debates as an isolated RFC page, or other limited venue, until wider interest could move a focused discussion into a system-wide PUMP page. Another example might be someone attempting to change 50 templates, for an unproven "improvement" where the voluntary restriction could be agreement to change just one template, with discussion there, and try results for 2 months before widening the scope to later change more of the other 49 templates. Hence, an essay (or essays) to explain "57" other ways to reduce frustrations would allow more space to outline the alternatives, rather than over-complicate a policy page. That does seem reasonable? -Wikid77 (talk) 20:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Any editor can voluntarily decide to not edit in some area, but this option was rejected in the case of RFCU/APTEVA because the restriction was seen as unenforceable. This proposed change would make it clear that an editor can enter into an agreement for a voluntary restriction with the community, and the agreement can later be enforced with a block. —Neotarf (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Note: I've been working on an essay regarding the subject at User:DCI2026/Voluntary restrictions. dci | TALK 22:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Single-person interaction bans

Can we make it clear whether the WP:IBAN guideline allows single-person interaction bans? The wording alternates between plural and singular. Binksternet (talk) 18:05, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

You mean interaction bans that are not mutual? Yes, those have always been possible, and as far as I know several are currently in force. The latest was the one imposed at AE on a couple of editors restricted from interacting with User:Mathsci. That AE decision was subsequently challenged at Arbcom, where some Arbcom members voiced concerns that such non-mutual bans were usually not a good idea, but they explicitly did not overturn it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:16, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing in the present wording which even hints at IBANs being exclusively mutual, and the example plainly makes sense for one-way bans as it's presently written as one. The present ANI kerfuffle is simply a case of certain editors being deliberately obtuse. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 18:19, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

The IBAN wording could be made more overt, specifically allowing non-mutual IBANs. Binksternet (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Explicitly codifying every case in which a rule can and cannot apply leads to guidelines turning into legalese. The important thing is that the community understands and approves of the concept, not the exact wording of the policy, which already seems to be clear enough for a majority of participants. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:58, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned elsewhere, I think a reasonable solution would be to clarify that one-way interaction bans can be temporarily revoked to allow a right of reply should the person not banned directly contact the other. Kansan (talk) 20:21, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

The history of one-way bans is not good. In fact, it is terrible - with "gaming" being common. And where both editors have edited on an article in the past, there is no good way to say that the "banned" editor can no longer edit on articles the other has ever edited, whilst the "not banned" editor is free to extend his territory of articles (presumably even up to the entire range of articles the other person has ever edited), and call for blocking of the "banned" editor who is simply doing what he had been doing before. In "real life", folks who get a restraining order against another person are not free to "go after" that other person in any way with the intent of getting them in trouble. I.e. some parts of a "restraining order" are, indeed, "two way." Collect (talk) 20:35, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly the same thing happens with mutual bans. It's a difficult area of policy in general. If you've a better way to resolve long-term interpersonal conflict then I'm sure the community would love to hear it. For now, what matters is that one-way bans are an accepted tool. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 21:16, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

In general, if we have a problem with "certain editors being deliberately obtuse" about a point of generally accepted policy, I think it better and faster to solve the problem by clarifying the written description of the policy, than to say that people shouldn't be obtuse and shouldn't try to twist the words of the policy pages to be most favorable to their situation. In this case, a short footnote or a "defining the terms" statement ("A one-way ban is...") would likely be adequate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, something brief and to the point. Binksternet (talk) 06:32, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I've added the footnote that defines the terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Temporarily banned editors soliciting edits by others

Currently, WP:PROXYING does not actually prohibit banned editors from soliciting others to make edits that are covered by the ban. This may be because the policy may have been written with indefinitely sitebanned editors in mind, to which no further sanctions can be applied. However, in a WP:AE context, I'm now faced with a temporarily topic-banned editor who is apparently soliciting others per e-mail to make edits that are covered by the topic ban. Intuitively, this strikes me as an inadmissible attempt to evade the ban. But the policy does not explicitly prohibit it. Should it? If yes, we could add the following to the second paragraph of the section "Edits by and on behalf of banned editors":

"... they have independent reasons for making such edits. The banned editors themselves are forbidden from attempting to circumvent their ban by asking others to edit on their behalf. Any such attempts may be grounds for an extension of the ban's duration or for other sanctions."

What do others think?  Sandstein  07:36, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

The grey area "unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits" seems to almost nullify a ban. Unless who is able to show the changes? Those acting under the direction of a banned editor? Remove everything after the parenthesis, and include your addition in its place. That's my take right now. 24.190.49.71 (talk) 07:49, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

It's certainly proxying, and I would support your addition.—Kww(talk) 14:49, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. Instruction creep for one thing, can of worms, the other.

If the user solicits onwiki, that may, or may not be violation of the topic ban (depends on wording of particular ban). If the editors solicits offwiki, how would the community know? We're not privy to the contents of emails sent between editors, or, as I understand it, emails sent through the Wiki interface (only that an email was sent is my understanding.) NE Ent 22:46, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

If solicitation occurs onwiki, then we have clear evidence of proxying. If if occurs offwiki, we may or may not have evidence, but that's not a reason not to prohibit proxying for the cases in which we do have evidence.  Sandstein  08:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Not only is it unenforceable, it's potentially problematic. What if the solicited changes are actually important? Consider the case of someone being topic-banned from BLPs for being too aggressive about removing contentious matter. Do we really want to prohibit that user from saying "There's a problem at this underwatched BLP; someone needs to remove the unsourced libel in the second paragraph". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

What editor has been topic banned from BLPs for that reason? --Jayron32 06:00, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Bans apply to all edits, good or bad. Certainly that has some effects that are less than ideal, but that's the nature of a ban.—Kww(talk) 07:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:BAN#Exceptions to limited bans already excepts clear BLP violations from limited bans, so the same would apply to edits suggested by editors with limited bans.  Sandstein  08:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

A question

Can you change policy that all edits of banned editors can be reverted? That policy can be misused by opponents of banned editors who revert their edits only because of personal vendetta. Why Wikipedia should not keep good edits of banned editors and delete only bad ones? 62.80.253.2 (talk) 19:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Highly unlikely especially with the disruption you've been causing. Just as an FYI, persistent use of proxies will likely keep you perma-banned. Elockid ^(Talk) 01:27, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, all edits made in defiance of a ban can be reverted, unless doing so would re-instate obvious vandalism, BLP violations or copyright violations. No one, however, is obligated to revetrt a specific edit just because it was made by a banned user. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Request for help/clarification

2 quotes from this policy:

"The Wikipedia community can decide, by consensus, to impose a ban. Community banning discussions generally take place at the administrators' noticeboard or a subpage thereof." and

"If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Wikipedia, the community may engage in a discussion to site ban, topic ban, or place an interaction ban or editing restriction via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute.[2] When determining consensus, the closing administrator will assess the strength and quality of the arguments."

So, if this is right, I could use some input from uninvolved editors (you?) at W:AN#User:J._Johnson_-_hostile_environment to review some diffs and such and help achieve consensus on action against a disruptive editor. If not, this policy needs editing; I'm being told doing this is not allowed! Thanks.--Elvey (talk) 17:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Clarification needed

I noticed this with regard to the analogous statement in the blocking policy, so mention it here too. The sentence "Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits." What do we mean by "either verifiable or productive"? Why not AND? And what do we mean by "independent reasons" - reasons other than the reasons that the banned editor would have? This all makes little sense to me, if it's intended to be restrictive at all. Victor Yus (talk) 12:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

No replies, so I'm guessing no-one really knows what it means to say. I propose, instead, something like this:

"Wikipedians are not expected to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying). If edits or comments are made at the suggestion of a banned editor, the user making them takes full responsiiblity for them and should be able to justify them independently. If such actions in any way continue the disruption for which the previous editor was banned, the user making them can expect to have similar sanctions applied."

Is this the right idea? Victor Yus (talk) 11:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Imagine that I'm banned, and I suggest that you fix a typo on some page. Fixing a typo would be "productive", but not "verifiable". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I guess we could look the word up in a dictionary to verify it, but I kind of see what you mean... What about "verifiable but not productive"? Victor Yus (talk) 08:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

The difference between blocked and de facto site banned

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KOXY User:Scaldjosh has posted an AfD !vote.  User:Scaldjosh is now blocked as a sockpuppet.  However, User:Mangoeater1000 is not a banned editor.  Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mangoeater1000 lists five possible sockpuppets.  But there is no way to know if a consensus of editors will agree that this editor is "de facto banned".  Therefore, this !vote stands.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:23, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

No, because the edit still constituted block evasion by an indefinitely blocked editor (which permits us to remove his edits) and violates WP:ILLEGIT, which forbids the use of sockpuppets to edit discussions in project space. I've removed the !vote. That's the entire point that I've been trying to make: our treatment of these editors is the same as if they were community banned.—Kww(talk) 20:56, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

• The two foremost rules for talk page refactoring are (1) we are here to build an encyclopedia, and (2) don't change the meaning.  Your removal of the !vote without leaving notice of the change to the page does not conform with our talk page guidelines.  The normal practice is to strike-through the !vote and to use small font to explain the strike-through.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
• Back to the banning policy, where is the text that supports your position, "the edit still constituted block evasion by an indefinitely blocked editor (which permits us to remove his edits)".  I also looked at WP:ILLEGIT, which is a redirect to the policy Wikipedia:Sock puppetry, but I don't see anything in there that calls for the removal of !votes, but only lowering the weight for the !votes of potential meatpuppets.

If it is your purpose to refer to the left column in the table at Wikipedia:Banning policy#Difference between bans and blocks, "content" is generally understood to be different than talk pages, and AfD "Project page" discussions are considered to be covered by talk page guidelines.  And the "exceptions" mentioned in the table require that the editor be site banned, which seems contradictory.  The point remains, that the reason IMO you were able to do this edit is because you are an administrator using WP:IAR, not because of anything in WP:Banning policy.  If this is not correct, please identify the applicable policy text that would allow non-admins to enforce banning policy for this case.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

• WP:ILLEGIT specifically calls out "Editing project space" as an unacceptable use of an alternate account, and Wikipedia:BLOCK#Edits by and on behalf of blocked editors specifically permits the reversion of all edits by block evaders. No WP:IAR or administrative powers involved at all.—Kww(talk) 23:12, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks, that is helpful.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Gender neutrality

I changed three occurrences of "his" to "his or her", but it was reverted by Kww with this comment:

unnecessary. "His" is the possessive for people of unknown gender, not exclusively males

That view is decades out of date - see Singular they#Gender-neutral language movement. Additionally, the text "himself or herself" already exists in the article, so my change was consistent with that. Our participation rate for women is extremely low, and language such as that which I attempted to change only serves to reinforce that situation. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:30, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

So why not change the pronoun to singular they? NE Ent 12:05, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

That works for me - if anything, I prefer the singular they. I'm just sticking to BRD here rather than undoing Kww. — Hex (❝?!❞) 12:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

As there's been no objection, I've restored the "his or her" wording. There were already instances of it and "he or she" throughout, anyway. If anyone wants to switch it to use the singular they, I won't object. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

IMO, deliberate use of the "singular they" is poor writing style. In the particular context of user accounts, though, I worry that it might confuse people (e.g., people who don't speak English natively) about our WP:NOSHARE rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:58, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Good point; "his or her" is unambiguous. — Hex (❝?!❞) 19:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Just noticed this, and I disagree that my view is "decades out of date": "his" remains the possessive pronoun for people of indeterminate gender. "His or her" is clumsy, and "their" is painful. "His" is grammatically correct. I quote from Hex's link: "One solution in formal writing has often been to write he or she, or something similar, but this is considered awkward when used excessively, overly politically correct, or both". I lean towards "both".—Kww(talk) 02:19, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

No perfect solution, but just sticking with "his" is the worst possible option. Do we have any Manual of Style related guide on that? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Indefinite sitebans for repeated sockers

I'd like to see the banning policy expanded with something such as the following:

Indefinitely-blocked editors who are caught [insert number here] times operating sockpuppets are to be considered formally and indefinitely sitebanned by default. They may be unbanned through the same processes as all other banned users.

It seems that most siteban discussions at WP:AN are for permablocked editors who continue editing through lots of sockfarms; apparently lots of people don't trust the idea of de-facto bans, and thus we're left with ban discussions that WP:SNOW into the well-deserved official siteban. If we declare that such editors are banned by default, we'll have the same results without needing to bother with as many discussions.

If you support this idea, please indicate your opinion on what number(s) should be inserted in the brackets. As well, if you support the idea but have a better idea for some of the wording, please spell out what you'd rather see proposed.

• Support as proposer; no opinion on the brackets. Nyttend (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• What about "Editors which stand no chance of being unblocked are considered banned." or something similar. That used to serve us well, and was removed a while ago for unknown reasons; such a statement would subsume the above case. --Jayron32 03:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• It's still there: "In the event an indefinitely blocked editor has continued to be disruptive and no administrator is willing to unblock, they are considered de facto banned." People don't seem to trust that idea, however; I wish they did, but I don't think I can change that. Nyttend (talk) 03:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't want to get into discussions over whether the threshold should be three, six, or seven. I'm sympathetic to the goal of getting rid of those silly formal ban discussions, but this doesn't help.—Kww(talk) 04:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
• I'm trying to translate this into practical effects. The practical difference between being indefinitely blocked and indefinitely site-banned is - what? That in the former case an admin might unilaterally decide to unblock you, but in the latter case any proposed debanning would require wider discussion? So the effect of the proposal is to forbid admins from unilaterally unblocking someone who's been caught sockpuppeteering n times? Or is it more than that? Victor Yus (talk) 08:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
• There's always going to be a "rogue's gallery" of banned users here. Blurring the lines between indeffed users and banned users in an effort to make the "de facto = banned" thing fly is pointless. Banning is not an archaic practice that needs to go because all admins think alike. They don't. One admin indefinitely blocking a repeat sockmaster does not mean that the community has decided to ban them. It's along the lines of "checks and balances". Doc talk 09:47, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Insufficient rationale is provided for by-passing process. The rationale provided says, when appropriate proposals are made they are accepted. How often is the user not banned? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Let the community decide. Bans are generally decided by the community or by ArbCom through a formal process, not by an administrator imposing an indefinite block. If a user is repeatedly operating socks, an administrator should subject that user to the banning process, but a ban should not be automatic without community consensus. — DragonLord ^{(talk/contribs)} 15:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• Actually, the vast majority of bans come about by there being no administrator willing to undo an indefinite block. Hard to get precise numbers, but I would expect that well over 90% of bans happen that way. That's what de facto bans are all about. I understand the motive behind the original proposal here: people unwilling to recognize de facto bans as being legitimate keep insisting on having formal ban discussions when they serve no point. I just don't think this is the way to address it.—Kww(talk) 18:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• Your statement "hard to get precise numbers" is evidence that there is no operational definition for the term "de facto ban".  A corollary is that since an indef blocked editor per se does not have an admin who has unblocked him, all currently indef-blocked editors might be considered to be "de facto banned".  Unscintillating (talk) 01:17, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• You missed a part of that... The phrase "has continued to be disruptive" is part of a de facto ban. Users who are indef blocked and do not continue to disrupt Wikipedia are not de facto banned. --Jayron32 01:32, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• But there is no operational definition for being "disruptive".  Please read the section WP:Banning policy#Bans apply to all editing, good or bad.  If a blocked editor makes an AfD nomination; and I revert the edit claiming the edit was disruptive; it takes only a non-admin to claim that the nomination was not disruptive, and to restore the nomination.  With a banned editor, that same restoration of the nomination is "undermining or sabotage" undermining or sabotaging".  Unscintillating (talk) 02:28, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not seeing anything in the policy to that effect. Is it the case in practice? This seems to be connected with the section to which my question in the above thread relates - the one about "edits on behalf of..." (and the corresponding section in the blocking policy). Victor Yus (talk) 10:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• The words are actually "undermining or sabotaging", and they are at the sentence in front of WP:Banning policy#Bans apply to all editing, good or bad.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:24, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• But it doesn't say that any specific type of action counts as undermining or sabotaging (in particular, it doesn't distinguish between actions with respect to blocked and banned editors). Victor Yus (talk) 09:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

• A de facto ban is ended pretty easily: one admin convincing himself that extending a second chance is in order and unblocking the account. Until that time, though, there's no operational difference between an indefinitely-blocked editor that is evading his ban and a banned editor. The purpose of a community ban is to prevent disruptive unblocking: the kind of thing that happened with Science Apologist, MartinPhi, A Nobody, and other editors that had a group of supportive admins that would unblock them no matter how disruptive they had become.—Kww(talk) 01:54, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - most community socks are non-abusive and hence legitimate, whether admitted to or not. Persistent abusive socking will eventually be met with a community ban anyway. Rich Farmbrough, 05:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC).
  
• Oppose - I see no real purpose in that - no admin would unblock a recently-socking user without community approval. And I think that many of our worst sock farms are operated by teenagers, who will be ready to be truely constructive Wikipedians in a few years. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:06, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
• Strong support. I suggested something along these lines during some previous ban discussion for a prolific sockmaster. I think Nyttend hits the nail on the head when he says that the issue is that we no longer trust the informality of the de facto ban system (not that I think this should replace it; rather, it should supplement it). What this would do is put a stop to the endless re-hashings of past debates every time someone tries to ban an already d.f.-banned user. For those of you questioning the reason for this, that's the reason: Every time someone suggests such a ban, there's a contingent of users (who in many ways I agree with) who oppose the ban on the grounds that it's redundant with the d.f. ban. A measure like this would be a compromise between the two points of view.

However, I think the important thing to note here is that this should only be done for users where a formal ban would be nothing other than a formality (i.e. the only "oppose" !votes would be on the aforementioned procedural grounds). For that reason, I would only support a measure like this with a threshold of 50 or more confirmed sockpuppets. These are the users for whom it seems – to steal a term I've seen used in the past – "tribal" for us to ban. These are the users who are virtually never making constructive edits (re Rich) and virtually never turn good (re Od Mishehu). — PublicAmpers&^{(main account • talk • block)} 22:19, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

If something like this is accepted, the threshold needs to be closer to two than to fifty.—Kww(talk) 03:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Why? We often don't even indef sockmasters until the third or fourth offense. — PublicAmpers&^{(main account • talk • block)} 18:57, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Because someone that is blocked on their third offense is usually de-facto banned at that point. If this rule got passed and written as 50, we'd be dealing with people arguing that we shouldn't ban somebody "because he only had 49 socks". Socking is a serious offense: in my eyes, the only thing worse is knowingly inserting false information. By the time someone has done it three times, there's no reason to ever trust them again.—Kww(talk) 19:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support, but prefer the site ban be a one- or two-year site ban, not indefinite  Whether it is one or two times caught using sockpuppets, this has an operational definition, unlike the concept de facto ban.  Looking at the article, "de facto" includes the meaning "...not officially established".  Functionally, there is no difference between an indef block and a de facto ban, as either status only requires one admin to remove it.  A WP:AN discussion in October 2012 was closed early arguing, "There's not going to be a consensus for a community ban, nor is any admin going to be dumb enough to unblock, so we can all move on."  The editor was unblocked in less than a week, without community discussion.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
• Comment  De facto ban should be moved from policy to an essay.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Disagree with that. The idea that we have to have a formal discussion for every disruptive user to ever come across Wikipedia is unnecessary bureaucracy. Yes, for users with a well-known history at Wikipedia, with a history of positive contributions where it isn't a cut-and-dry case, ban discussions are useful to establish where the community stands. For users that have made no useful contribution to Wikipedia, who have shown no interest in making Wikipedia better, and whose entire history consists solely of trolling and vandalism and creating new accounts to dodge blocks, there shouldn't be a need to hold a tribunal to say we don't want that kind of person around. --Jayron32 03:02, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• I don't see a single thing you've said that is not consistent with moving this concept to an essay.  What is it that you disagree with?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• Moving the concept to an essay would remove it from the realm of official sanctioned policy and would instead make it an idea that everyone would ignore. I don't see the benefit of downgrading this concept, it should be part of official policy. --Jayron32 03:12, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• But what does it practically mean? That no-one's allowed to be unblocked unless there's an admin who's willing to unblock him? That sounds like a tautology. I would rather introduce some kind of standard for admins whereby you don't unilaterally undo another admin's block unless it was a clear error (if it's true that we have admins who make a habit of unblocking their "friends"). Victor Yus (talk) 08:07, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• It prevents Wikilawyering around some of our policies about banned editors. Over the years, our treatment of indefinitely blocked and banned editors have merged to the point of being indistinguishable, but there are some sections of policy language that have not caught up.—Kww(talk) 15:17, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• So maybe we should tweak those sections, if the intention is that the two situations are to be indistinguishable (except, I assume, that a formal ban means that a single admin shouldn't simply unblock the user)? Victor Yus (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• I've got no problem with that. Still won't solve the base problem of people bringing up pointless formal ban discussions, though. The real goal is to get people comfortable with the idea that unless there's a real risk of a disruptive unblock, there's no need to was time on WP:AN with a formal ban discussion.—Kww(talk) 17:49, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The best example of how it could go wrong is the now banned "Jack Merridew" (et. al) operator. Remember him? A wildly popular presence among his fans, including a slew of admins who would unblock him in a heartbeat. But a prolific and defiantly disruptive sockmaster - shouldn't ALL admins know to ban someone like that? He was not "de facto" banned under any circumstances until the formal community ban discussion was concluded. I was quite surprised by the result due to his level of admin support. There is no true "de facto" ban: there is a ban after the end of some sort of a discussion. Doc talk 09:48, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Bad example, Merridew / The Rabbit was an arbcom case. NE Ent 17:58, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that's a perfect example of when a formal ban discussion is warranted: when there isn't an obvious consensus that the user shouldn't ever be unblocked.—Kww(talk) 18:41, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding the example, Kww. NE Ent may not recall Merridew brusquely dismissing him/her as a "lesser editor" for their Talk:Article edit ratio, but I can find the diff if needed. Best. Example. Ever!!! Doc talk 06:37, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Ent has excellent recall (twas on Flo's talk page, if anyone really cares), but I can't think of anything less relevant to a policy discussion. NE Ent 11:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

There's never going to be a consensus that a user shouldn't ever be unblocked. What's the Wiki statute of limitations? A year? Two? Five? A ban discussion doesn't keep a user from being unblocked, it just adds more bureaucratic steps to gettting them unblocked later. NE Ent 11:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Huh? Think "Grawp". Nothing de facto about it, and no admin would ever unblock if they knew who it was. Banned by the community forever and ever after much due process, not bureaucracy. I see the point about crying wolf in raising many ban discussions, but eliminating the entire process because of this annoyance is just too much. Doc talk 11:32, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I feel I should further clarify on the de facto issue. I am responsible for 2 LTA reports concerning IP-hoppers that would easily have to be considered "community banned" if a discussion were ever raised. I never will raise a discussion in either case because I know that they are effectively banned. I definitely understand the calling for community bans for every real or perceived miscreant is "process wonking": but we can't simplify it any further by creating boundaries that would automatically preclude a ban discussion at AN/ANI. Doc talk 12:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, I'm sorry, I just don't think this will solve any problems, and it may create new ones. I'll also comment that "de facto bans" must stay in the policy. KillerChihuahua 03:58, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per silliness and waste o' time. If some rogue admin is going around unblocking folks who shouldn't be, deal with them instead of building bureauracies. NE Ent 17:58, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per reasonings provided by NE Ent, KillerChihuahua and Doc. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 18:07, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose It's not a terrible idea, but I'd prefer that bans be handled on a case-by-case basis. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 02:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Clarification in the interaction between site and interaction ban

I have added the following clarification. I presume it is non-controversial? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:07, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I've rephrased it as "A ban from interacting with an editor remains in effect if the editor is later blocked or sitebanned, unless the interaction ban is explicitly lifted".  Sandstein  11:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

It should be discussed. It is more than a clarification, as there was originally nothing about the concept to clarify. The timing is highly suspect in that it favours the position of a specific editor currently in conflict with another using this "clarification" as the rationale. This is not just policy by fiat but more distressingly policy by personal perspective. Please delete until it can be discussed. Bielle (talk) 23:00, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to undue my edit, I have no intention of edit warring here. If this addition is controversial, by all means, let's discuss it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I have deleted the further "clarification" as agreed. My personal view is (a) that this is unnecessary instruction creep and (b) that it needs further discussion, as do all policy augmentations. This page will not get an audience of sufficient size without some advertisement. Perhaps, if you still feel strongly that this is an appropriate change, you will bruit the proposal abroad on the various boards. Bielle (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

As someone who has had his ass bitten over this in the past, I can assure you that such clarification is needed. It is not "instruction creep" nor "policy augmentation", but simply articulating current practice. What is the point of not adding clarification, so that admins can practice using their ban hammer on a supply of users unaware of this? --Nug (talk) 11:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't see a problem with a clarification in respect of blocked (time limited or indef) users, but I think that anyone should be able to discuss a site-banned user, and that interaction bans might lapse for all related parties at that point. Bielle (talk) 16:08, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I am not taking a stance of whether I like what you think, but please note that (to my knowledge) people have been warned and blocked for activities such as explained in my clarification. By removing it you are making it more likely more will make the same mistake. If you think that the clarification is wrong and people should not be warned/blocked for such actions, fine, but either way we need to have a clarification in the policy that clearly states this is or isn't allowed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:37, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and started the RfC. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Interaction ban clarification

Should an interaction ban between two or more editors remain in effect until one of the editors are either blocked or site banned? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:21, 3 April Should one of the editors being blocked or site banned terminate the interaction ban between them? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Is that really the question you meant to ask? Or are you asking whether one of the editors being blocked or site banned terminates the interaction ban? If it's the latter, then of course it does: no editor in good standing should be restricted on the basis of the needs of an editor that is banned.—Kww(talk) 01:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I've quickly rehashed the wording. And to clarify, I have been an editor in good standing so far, but have had some issues here and there. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

No If X and Y are interaction banned and X is site banned, what possible reason would Y to be interacting other than gravedancing? NE Ent 01:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Reporting socks. Reverting edits by socks.—Kww(talk) 01:58, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of other editors who can do that. NE Ent 10:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

But most of them won't. What's the benefit in preventing a user in good standing from dealing with someone so problematic that he wound up banned?—Kww(talk)15:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

"Editors in good standing" don't end up with interaction bans. NE Ent 19:15, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying/answering questions about past interactions or his/her experience with user X. Anti-gravedancing: showing practical application of WP:FORGIVE, praising X and/or asking for X to be unbanned... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:22, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• No. Blocks and bans can end, in which case there is presumably still a need for the interaction ban. If there isn't, the interaction-banned editor(s) can petition for the interaction ban to be lifted.  Sandstein  11:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
• No, per Sandstein, Ent. KillerChihuahua 00:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
• Suspends: Entering a formal !vote for my opinion here: an interaction ban with a blocked or banned editor makes no sense to me. It would prevent reporting or dealing with sockpuppets by the person that is most likely to be the target of attacks or aware of other problems. The interaction ban is rendered moot by the block, but should be automatically go back into effect if the block or ban is lifted.—Kww(talk) 01:03, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• I think that's too gameable. For instance, it could motivate editors to go on a quick reverting spree while their "opponent" is blocked for 24 hours and the interaction ban is suspended. It is much preferable that the interaction ban only ends if whoever imposed it decides that it's no longer needed.  Sandstein  19:36, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• A reasonable concern. Perhaps a specific exclusion for reporting and dealing with socks? That's my primary concern, and it wouldn't permit the kind of behaviour you are worried about.—Kww(talk) 19:46, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'd prefer not, for policy creep reasons. There are many other editors who can do that. Considering how inflammatory accusations of sockpuppetry can be, it's better if sock-hunting is done by editors who are not engaged in an intense personal dispute already.  Sandstein  19:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• The most likely target of any abusive socking would be the person with the interaction ban, and saying that a person can't even report that he is being abused seems draconian. Replying on third parties is historically ineffective.—Kww(talk) 20:15, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• OK, considering that the exceptions already allow reporting of interaction ban violations, it would seem logical that they should also allow reporting of interaction ban violations via socks.  Sandstein  20:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• No per Sandstein and Ent. — Ched :  ?  01:09, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
• No as per Sandstein, NE Ent and all the others. We actually hope that blocked and banned will come back and become productive, so on that basis they should be reviewed as normal and not removed etc when one party is blocked etc--Cailil ^talk 19:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
• What seems to be the underlying goal might be okay, but the actual wording of the question is impossible. You've accidentally proposed that any editor can unilaterally end an interaction ban by the simple expedient of getting blocked for a very short time. So on Monday, ArbCom issues an interaction ban; on Tuesday, I go edit war at some contentious article until I win a 3RR block for 12 or 24 hours; on Wednesday, with the interaction ban having been terminated due to "one of the editors being blocked", I go back to harassing my opponent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Right, so do you want me to refactor the original proposal? I felt that it was being misunderstood by other users. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 23:19, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

    Since you've already re-written the question once, I suggest that you end the RFC (just remove the RFC template) and try again next month (the purpose of the time delay is to keep people from getting confused/hating on your proposal because the previous one left a bad taste in their mouths, not to comply with any "rule" against it). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

    •  Done. I apologize for any unintentional misunderstandings. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 03:44, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 30 April 2013

In Types of ban section:

• make reference to or comment on editor Y anywhere on Wikipedia, whether directly or indirectly; or

Please remove the word "or" after semicolon. Nmphuong91 (talk) 02:07, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Done. Victor Yus (talk) 07:49, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Topic ban amendment

I amended the topic ban description to include related categories and lists. I'm presuming this is uncontroversial, but please feel free to review. Manning (talk) 02:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

IP banning

Any objections to my change? I'm attempting only to reflect what's already been done and hope that nobody sees this as a substantial change to policy. Someone recently observed that this page doesn't appear to discuss bans of IP users. Nyttend (talk) 03:00, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I would take out the "but are rare" bit at the least. Bans apply to the person, not any particular means of accessing Wikipedia, and as such, we really only need to note that it doesn't matter how you use Wikipedia, if you're a trouble maker, we'll ban your ass. If we make it seem like IP-based users get off easy, it opens the door to WP:GAMEing problems. --Jayron32 03:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Considering that simply indeffing an IP is rare: how can a single IP be "banned"? This is where "de facto" makes good sense. But why waste an AN ban discussion? WP:LTA for those long-term banworthy sorts that refuse to create any username to be tagged with. Doc talk 05:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I like the addition to the policy, and it is rare. I made a couple of minor changes to the wording, but I think it should stay. I don't think it'll lead to IPs gaming the system because, almost invariably, IPs are blocked, not banned. As an aside, I'm embarrassed to admit that I posed the question at WP:AN and yet I was the one who closed a discussion on the ban of an IP several months ago. I'd completely forgotten it and it was unusual to say the least.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Correction

I was reverted here [7] if we want to clean that up, fine, but a talk page discussion that endorses a block is NOT a substitute for a formal ban discussion. Current practice is not as such, nor do I remember it every being that way. Rather than get in a revert war over semantics, I would prefer the community clarify that sentence and normalize it with the community consensus. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 23:10, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• I support your edit, but I do agree that this needed discussion first (just to ensure it is indeed what the community wants to be applied.) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 07:53, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
• I think the hang up was "may or may not". My main point is that a ban discussion has always been and should always be a different discussion than a block discussion. This has causes some confusion at AN recently. I think that consensus is already established by ample precedent, it is just a matter of phrasing. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 11:02, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
• I've looked again at the reversion, and not sure of the problem since I still think it reflects the consensus view and the reverting party hasn't joined us here to explain. Discussion doesn't trump practice. Maybe there is some point I missed, but the section I corrected was:

In some cases the community may have discussed an indefinite block and reached a consensus of uninvolved editors not to unblock the editor. Editors who remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration may be considered de facto banned after enough time has passed that it is obvious that neither the community nor any admin will unblock them. A de jure ban requires a separate discussion and consensus by the community, usually at WP:AN, or a decision by the Arbitration Committee.

De facto banning (something I'm not fond of but is an accepted practice of the community when handling reverts of socks) isn't an official ban. Maybe that is the sticking point. My main goal is to make it clear that a blocking discussion is NOT the same as a banning discussion, and a ban discussion must be held as a separate event, or at least in a fully declared event. We can't assume that a discussion to uphold a block is the same as a ban discussion, when no one has mentioned the word "ban". I strongly recommend always having them as separate discussions because they are two very different things. If combined, I might oppose a ban while supporting an indef block, so that muddies the waters. I am confident I am not alone in this. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 13:43, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I've yet to see any clear explanation of the meaning of the various terms. As far as I can make out, in terms of practical effect, a "ban" is essentially an instruction to admins not to unblock the user until the ban is lifted by whoever imposed it (the "community", or Arbcom). So if you were to oppose a ban while supporting an indefinite block, you presumably believe that the user should not currently be permitted to edit, but that you're happy for a future decision to the contrary to be taken by one administrator, rather than necessarily through community discussion. Is that how you understand it, or is there some other difference? Victor Yus (talk) 09:40, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

See the actual policy page for the difference. There is a big difference in theory. Banned editors are not considered part of the community, indef blocked editors are. How their edits are handled are also different. Banning is supposed to be considered "permanent", while an indef block simply means "we don't know for how long". The bar for an indef is very much lower than for a site ban. That is why the discussions are almost never combined, as some can support an indef but not a ban, so you end up with mixed consensus. In practice, we do these discussion separately, which is the purpose of the changing of the wording, to make it more clear. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 01:01, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

What practical effect does "being part of the community" have? And what is the difference in how their edits are handled? Victor Yus (talk) 09:16, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that the meanings of the various terms including "enough time has passed" and "obvious" are unclear.  The policy states, "...individual editors, including administrators, may not directly impose bans."  By extension, we don't want individual administrators to make subjective conclusions long after a discussion that result in a ban.  Even if these conditions of "enough time has passed" and "obvious" are certified to exist, the proposed text states that the ban "may" exist.  How are editors to know if the ban does or does not exist?  On this page, the proposer asserts that even such a ban exists, it is not "official".  What is the difference between an official ban, and one that is not official?  The statement about "de jure" is applicable to the previous bullet point, so IMO is confusing as stated.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:22, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

On 2009-07-10T02:22:13, the bullet point stated,

“

• In some cases the community may have discussed a block on a relevant noticeboard, and reached a consensus of uninvolved editors not to unblock the user. Users who remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community are considered "banned by the Wikipedia community" and listed on Wikipedia:List of banned users.

”

This differs from the current policy page with the text, "and listed on Wikipedia:List of banned users."  Another part of the edit history for the policy page shows that there is a WP:DENY concern such that some administrators don't want to list all cases on WP:List of banned users.

The proposer states the concern, "We can't assume that a discussion to uphold a block is the same as a ban discussion, when no one has mentioned the word 'ban'."  An obvious fix is to restore the clause, "and listed on Wikipedia:List of banned users", as this provides timely clarity as to the meaning of the discussion.  To satisfy the WP:DENY concern, I propose that we add an alternative that the ban can be listed in the block log.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:22, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• Dennis and I nearly align on this, which I suspect will surprise Dennis. I've unblocked editors that were indefinitely blocked by me or by other admins based on a discussion that led me to believe that the user finally had a clue as to how to get along. I cobble up some editing restrictions designed to head off the issue the editor has difficulty with, enter into an agreement with the editor that he would follow them, unblock the editor, and then monitor him extremely closely for violations of those restrictions. That's part of what an admin is supposed to do, and no one lifts an eyebrow when I do that. If I were to do the same with a formally banned editor, people would be screaming at me, and rightfully so. The purpose of that discussion isn't to make it clear to the user that we've had enough, it's to make it clear to any admin that might be sympathetic with the user that we've had enough. The time to do that is when there's a history of admins unblocking and trouble recurring: Science Apologist, MartinPhi, A Nobody, and others all come to mind, as they polarized the admin community to the point that we had difficulty moving forward.

The issue that people seem to object to is something that Dennis didn't write, but other people seem to be reading: block evasion is still block evasion, and edits created by block evaders can still be reverted on sight, no questions asked. Dennis didn't write anything to contradict that, and I don't think he intends to.—Kww(talk) 02:30, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not shocked we agree, we agree on most things. Everyone has good points here, actually. The real sticking point is the "de facto" ban, a term I hate but the community seems to support. To me, a ban is a completely separate discussion and act and should be always treated as such. It has to do with blind reverting edits by socks of indef blocked users who aren't banned but are treated as such. My main point that I want to be clear in the policy is that a ban can NOT be assumed to be de jure simply because a discussion was had at ANI that supported an indef block of an editor. The wording I proposed was vague (like most policies), but that just allows the community the flexibility to adjust to each situation. I'm infinitely open to a solution, but the current wording makes it sound like if the community indef blocks someone, you can just automatically consider them banned and add them to the list, and that is not the case. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 12:09, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
• Put another way: Banning can not be a passive act, assumed by the fact that community doesn't want to unblock someone. It must be declared and discussed formally. We are banishing someone from the community, after all. Practice reflects this and the policy should. De facto clouds this, unfortunately. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 12:13, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• But banning generally is a passive act where we rely on good judgement. We expect our admin ranks to show good judgment and recognize those users that should never be unblocked without having a formal discussion. Only the difficult cases require formal discussion.—Kww(talk) 15:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• Then we disagree on that point. True banning shouldn't be so wishy washy. We might treat the editor's edits as if they were banned by removing them (de facto) but since a de jure ban means they are no longer part of the community, that takes a clear declaration by the same community. If needed, and RFC can be started, but my explanation is how I perceive the existing practice to be. Most of these formal declarations are nearly unanimous, so I would argue that they are seldom "difficult". No single person should be allowed to simply declare someone "banned" simply because a group of people didn't want to unblock them. That is also counter to the idea behind the WP:STANDARDOFFER. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 15:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• It seems to be that possibly the only disagreement is over terminology. If someone is blocked and is "obviously" not going to be unblocked, do we apply the word "ban" to describe that situation? If that's the question, then my preferred answer would be no, I think - on grounds of clarity. We can then unambiguously use the word "ban" to refer to an explicit decision that someone is not to be unblocked (until that decision is explicitly reversed). I think this is effectively what Dennis is saying. (That said, I also agree with Kww that obvious cases don't need formal discussion.) Victor Yus (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• It is a little bit more than that. Based on an interaction I had with a good faith action, there seems to be a lack of clarity as to when an editor can be added to the list of banned users. I maintain only when a ban discussion is formally held. It should never be done because of an unblock discussion, or when a single admin just "thinks" someone is more or less banned. That removes the power from the community and puts it in the hands of an individual. For bans, which again are considered more or less permanent, that isn't proper. There is no advantage for allowing a single admin (or non-admin, for that matter) to make that determination. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 20:40, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• OK, so I agree with you on that, too. (In fact, why do we need a list of banned users at all?) Victor Yus (talk) 20:53, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

• It is for reference only. Personally, I think logging the ban in the block log is a better solution, but this way we have a list for whatever purpose that serves. Logging Arb bans makes sense, as a form of accountability I suppose. The problem is logging other editors that one might think is banned, but arent, and they may be denied a standard offer in the future because of it. I also think our culture is a bit too preoccupied with "banning" and the grave dancing that is associated with it. Very few people really need to be banned formally. You can still revert at will any edits from any sockpuppet if they aren't banned. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 20:59, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Dennis' edit to this policy was a good one. The previous wording caused me to think someone was community banned because an indefinite block of them had been brought up for consideration at AN/I and had received overwhelming consensus. Dennis pointed out to me that an actual ban, as opposed to an indefinite block that nobody sees a reason to lift, needs explicit discussion. I agree fully with that; as he says above, true banning shouldn't be wishy washy. The new wording of the policy expressed the difference well, and should be restored. — Scott • talk 00:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

• To give specific text for the previous proposal, change

“

• In some cases the community may have discussed an indefinite block and reached a consensus of uninvolved editors not to unblock the editor. Editors who remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community are considered "banned by the Wikipedia community".

”

to

“

• In some cases the community may have discussed an indefinite block and reached a consensus of uninvolved editors not to unblock the editor. Editors who remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community are considered "banned by the Wikipedia community", and listed on Wikipedia:List of banned users and/or so marked in the block log.

”

Unscintillating (talk) 03:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

• In the most situations bans are not necessary and are used not to make a person to leave the project, but to bully and humiliate him especially so called community bans. Let me please quote a Wikipedian on the subject "What this sort of thing comes down to is how many supporters you can line up vs. how many opponents they can line up. It's like World of Warcraft, sometimes there's just too many orcs and not enough humans".
• Also what do we know about human qualities of users who are frequently supporting the community bans and opposing the appeals. Let's see a recent example with user:Russavia. A former arbitrator says about Russavia "It's not only a matter of Russavia's lack of judgement, but an utter lack of human decency." A current arbitrator endorses the comment,yet Russavia who lacks human decency and the judgement used to be a frequent supporter of community bans, and just a few days ago opposed another user's appeal. Do we know how many Russavias who lack human decency are supporting these bans? No we do not. That's why so called community bans is a sick practice that should be stopped.76.126.142.59 (talk) 22:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

I'd like to propose a few changes to the policy, and asking Wikipedians to discuss my proposal and to change the policy accordingly. The changes I am proposing are simple and fair. Please help me to make Wikipedia a better place!

1. Every subject of the ban discussion is allowed to take a part in the discussion as long as he complies with Wikipedia policies like no outing, no legal threats, etc.
2. Users who are involved with the subject of the discussion are allowed to take a part in the discussion,but they should clearly state their involvement, and their votes should not be taken into account. 76.126.142.59 (talk) 02:51, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

On what grounds are these changes needed? AFAIK, we usually allow editors to participate in discussions about themselves, indeed we require that users are notified of such discussions so they may participate. Secondly, what do you mean by "involved" and why does that invalidate their votes? --Jayron32 04:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

"Usually allow" is not good enough. It should be not "usually" but "always" and that's why it should be written in the policy. Every editor should be allowed to take a part in the discussion concerning him as long as he behaves politely and does not violate Wikipedia policies. Doing otherwise is simply inhumane and unfair. Under "involved user" I mean any user who "may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. "just like it is explained here. Why the involvement should invalidate the votes? Well,it is just a common sense: the community bans should not be used as a tool to resolve disputes, and to retaliate to opponents. 76.126.142.59 (talk) 05:07, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• A case in point is this ban discussion, in which the editor was blocked from editing one hour and twenty-six minutes into the ban discussion, the ban discussion was closed short of 24 hours, and a !voting admin was one of the closing admins.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:39, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

• It is counter-productive to bloat policy with wikt:truisms. People should assume that they may do reasonable things without need to find a specific rule. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

  Expert frequent and even not so frequent supporters of the community bans usually don't do reasonable things.The community bans proceedings as they are executed now look more like mobbing. 76.126.142.59 (talk) 05:17, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• Mobbings? Maybe you'd like to propose a standard formatting for a ban discussion, to provide for a defined space for the subject to have their say, and separation of comments from uninvolved and involved parties? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• Well, at least one admin feels that AN/I discussions look as a mobbing, but the community ban discussions are even worse especially, if their subject is not allowed to respond. I do not believe there should be any separation of comments from uninvolved and involved parties. Everybody should be allowed to comment and to respond the comments made by others at the same place, but I do believe that each and every "evidence" presented by anybody should be supported by at least one on-wiki diff and the closing admin should check the evidences before he's closing the discussion. 76.126.142.59 (talk) 16:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that, generally speaking, people should be able to comment on things that concern them personally. Reyk _YO! 03:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

  Thanks, and what do you think about the second point ?76.126.142.59 (talk) 16:39, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

  I disagree with any blanket rule for deciding who gets their opinion taken into account and who doesn't. Reyk _YO! 04:51, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

  To clarify I did not propose to ignore any opinion. I only proposed to ignore votes by involved users, and I meant both "support" and "oppose" votes. Otherwise what the community bans comes down to "is how many supporters you can line up vs. how many opponents they can line up. It's like World of Warcraft, sometimes there's just too many orcs and not enough humans" The community bans is a very harsh and in the most cases absolutely unnecessary punishment, and I use the word "punishment" in purpose. I believe that in many situations the community bans are used to humiliate the subject of the discussion, but if the community really cannot live without the bans,at least there should be some policy changes to make the procedure fairer.76.126.142.59 (talk) 15:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed changes re: category deletion of banned users

I propose to add the following language re: deletion of categories created by banned users:

"Since categorization can impact many pages, and deletion of a category without merging can leave pages orphaned, any categories created by a banned user should be tagged for discussion and possible merging using the WP:CFD process instead of deleting them outright."

Please provide your comments below. This was the result of recent mass category deletion which caused quite a mess in the LGBT categories, as the resultant articles weren't even merged up to the parents, and in some cases, users believed the categories should be retained. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:25, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

A further refinement is now proposed:

"Since categorization can impact many pages, and deletion of a category without merging can leave pages orphaned, you should carefully consider what to do with categories created by a banned user. Blatantly useless categories can be speedy-deleted, as well as any categories which clearly violate existing category standards. Care should nonetheless be taken to see if articles need to be merged to a parent category before the speedy deletion. Other categories should be tagged for discussion and possible merging using the WP:CFD process instead of deleting them outright."

--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:51, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I generally approve of this revised wording. I might still tweak it a little bit, for example to be a bit more specific about what kind of "other" categories the final sentence applies to, but for the most part I approve. Bearcat (talk) 22:34, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

proposed change from bulleted list to numbered list

I propose changing various bulleted lists to numbered lists. An example of the changes I propose is here.[8] I have been guided to comply Wikipedia:Lists_(embedded_lists)#Bulleted_and_numbered_lists and the changes would comply to policy declared therein. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:21, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't have strong views on this matter, but I was the one who reverted Yogesh's change, and we had a very civil discussion about it on my talk page afterward. Per the guideline, I favor bulleted lists unless there is a reason to have numbered lists, and I don't see any reason to do so here. Therefore, I prefer not only not to change the pre-existing bulleted lists to numbered, but also to change the one numbered list to bulleted. I believe Yogesh wants the numbered lists so we can cite the number at some point in the future, but I see that as too speculative a reason to make the lists numbered.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:07, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

These are policy pages, prone to be cited during discussions, I'd be very surprised if they've not been cited before. The purpose of them being in place is for them to be used in disputes. Sections and subsections get automatic numbers, a numbered list would give us for the next level down. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Authority to ban

I was surprised to see that item 4 in the list of groups or persons who get to ban an editor was "Jimbo Wales reserves the authority to ban editors". I've removed it, because it's surely obsolete. Jimbo shouldn't reserve that right, and I don't believe he does. His name in the sentence was linked to the page Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales, but that page doesn't say anything about Jimbo reserving such a right. On the contrary, if anything: the page mentions that he gave up his right to even block editors in 2009. Bishonen | talk 09:07, 14 August 2013 (UTC).

Blocking is not banning. Wales continues to hold the right to ban. Binksternet (talk) 14:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Right, Jimbo has exercised this right quite recently too. The Arbitration Committee has affirmed this right in their "TimidGuy ban appeal" decision. I have undid your edit because of this. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 14:16, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

BRRRD

The edit by QTxVi4bEMRbrNqOoWBV, QTxV4bEMRbrNqOorWBV, editor formerly known by a pronounceable user name is good. Keep it simple. Less is more. Short and sweet. I've rereverted it. (I only vaguely know about the "imperative" thing, but it just reads better.) And avoids philosophical questions like, "Why is important an editor not be confused by the difference between blocks and bans? Does it make Wikipedia a crappier encyclopedia somehow?"NE Ent 00:40, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

When you get a consensus for the change, you can restore it. Meanwhile, the change stays out. The previous wording, as I stated in my edit summary, struck precisely the right note as editors more often than not are "confused" by the differences between a block and a ban. Communicates far better the issue than the changed wording. Welcome back.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:06, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Well that makes you 2rr -- you know about the 3rr rule, right? NE Ent 01:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

You forgot this revert, NE Ent — that's 3 reverts in 33 hours. Bbb23, you must be very sure your judgment trumps that of the three experienced editors you have recently reverted on this page. Bishonen | talk 01:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC).

Other things being equal, shorter and simpler is better. And they are equal, as "are different" is at least as clear as "should not be confused with". And "are different" is purely factual: as QTx suggested in his edit summary, policy should say how it is, in preference to exhorting people not to get it wrong. All right, that's QTx, NE, and me who prefer the shorter wording. I'm putting it in. Bishonen | talk 13:28, 23 August 2013 (UTC).

User talk page restrictions

The policy states "Indefinitely site-banned editors may be restricted from editing their user talk page or using e-mail." In a separate section there is a chart that said that access to talk page is "Usually not allowed". Bishonen changed the chart to match the earlier text. I am going to revert that change as I think it needs discussion first. One could just as easily take the position that the earlier text should be changed to match the chart. As an aside, I believe this issue is coming up because of the ongoing use of Kiefer's talk page after his site ban. As a general principle, I'm not happy with the idea of "changing" policy in light of current events.

I can't speak to the historical perspective. In other words, I haven't researched the history of this policy to see if this issue has been discussed before in any significant way. My personal feeling is the policy should be clearer, and I would favor moving in the direction of not permitting a site-banned editor to use their talk page. I don't get how someone who is no longer considered a member of the community should be free to edit their talk page as if they still are a member of the community.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:21, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps even better would be to get rid of this stupid "not a member of the community" status of site banned editors. But I suppose inertia would prevent that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:58, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Heh, that would require even more discussion, and inertia would be the least of our problems. Melodrama comes to mind.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:47, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Do you wish to imply I changed the policy to gain an advantage in a dispute or express my personal opinion, Bbb23? Really? Anybody interested might wish to weigh in here. (Well, so I say, but admittedly it's not my talkpage.) Bishonen | talk 17:55, 21 August 2013 (UTC).

I was unaware of the discussion you linked to. I'm vaguely aware of the Kiefer issue without knowing who thinks what, so the answer to your question is no. Thanks for the link, though.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:27, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Support change, and support changing (in current section 1.1) "The only exception is that editors with talk page access may appeal in accordance with the provisions below." to "The only exception is the editors talk page." NE Ent 21:13, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I favor restricting the use of the talk page by banned editors to issues relevant to appealing their ban. Banned editors are pretty much virtual nonpersons, and we don't need to encourage martyrdom.—Kww(talk) 01:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Generally speaking banning should stop once and for all. In most situations a simple block will do just fine. I am not going to comment on the talk page restriction after the ban, but at the very least every editor should be allowed to defend himself during the ban discussions, of course, if he does it politely and without violation of the policies. Until then I personally prefer to be a nonperson on Wikipedia than to be somebody who sees its purpose in supporting bans of defenseless people. 71.198.215.156 (talk) 01:51, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

• Re: User talk:AGK#Are banned users allowed to use their talk page as a blog?, WP:BAN, and this current discussion: I also favour restricting the use of the talk page by banned editors to issues strictly relevant to appealing their ban and that any other comments by the banned user should be procedurally removed. I also feel that the withdrawal of talk page access should be the default setting for site banned users - there are plenty of other channels for appealing a ban. Also, IMO, in most cases, it would also be appropriate to fully protect the talk page of a site banned user. That said, I also believe that any changes to major policy should not be carried out by WP:BRD, but should be started in the very first instance as a major RfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:56, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Another current, unremarked use of a talk page of an indefinitely banned user is to direct proxy editing. See User talk:Russavia for an example. Bielle (talk) 01:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

A classic example of why talk page access should be revoked and the page locked down.

Another current practice by blocked and/or banned users is to continue editing as IP users, sometimes from dynamic IPs where imposing a range block becomes the inevitable solution, especially when the range emanates from a clearly identifiable single location.. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:21, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually there is a better solution than range blocks. Wikipedians should learn to let its nonpersons go, which at the very least means stopping templating their user pages and stopping listing them in the shameful banned user list, I mean shameful not for the banned users, shameful for the Wikipedia community that not only tolerates, but supports medieval excommunications. 71.198.215.156 (talk) 03:10, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the 'non persons' would do better to leave Wikipedia, its policies, its editors, and its staff go rather than constantly returning and harping on old issues. Hence range blocks for ban evasion, and eventual talk page blocks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:34, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Only after Wikipedians let noperson go!71.202.122.141 (talk) 15:20, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

• I favor the rule of reason rather than one-size-fits-all draconian restriction. If a blocked or banned user is problematic on their talk page, it seems that any administrator could shut it down with a click. If the discussion there is not problematic and advances the cause of an accurate and comprehensive encyclopedia, the harm to the encyclopedia is shutting it down, not letting it continue. The whole "unpersons" mentality is offensive to many thinking people, frankly — medieval, vindictive, and juvenile. If there are problems, slam the door. If there are not, tolerance. Carrite (talk) 04:51, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

• There is some merit in having rules and sticking to them. Limited allowance to use the talk page is one of the few meaningful distinctions between being indefinitely blocked and being banned and should be preserved. Granted, I also believe in making certain allowances and in this case the continued use of the talk page has basically been to engage in minor pleasantries. I generally prefer the idea that someone who has been blocked is essentially free to carry on as normal on their user talk, while someone who has been banned is not allowed to engage in discussion about this site unless it is related to the ban. Otherwise we are saying that having ArbCom or the community tell you to stop contributing is no different from some individual admin deciding on his or her own that you have had enough chances.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 07:39, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I concur with Carrite and The Devil's Advocate, but only to a certain extent. There is at least one user who when blocked each time, their page become a veritable turntable of pleasantry, complaints in general about being blocked, condolences, and criticisms of the corps of admins. I only know of one other talk page that is so popular, and that is our Founder's - but AFAIK he's never been blocked. No, a blocked user's tp is neither there for socializing nor carrying on with Wikipedia business as usual; the latter defeats the purpose of the block. One thing is for sure, there won't be any more posts from the IP:71.198.215.156 address for a while. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:56, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

• Not trying to suggest anything about any of the specific particpants in this discussion but consider the possibility that that tail is trying to wag the dog to a certain extent here. This is being discussed at "that other site" right now... Beeblebrox (talk) 00:26, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Reverted

Reverted, 'cause

• makes its longer and more wordy (see creep, KISS
• exhibits WP:Policy fallacy, the concept that when editors make clueless edits it's because the policy/guidelines aren't clear enough, and more words to them will improve things in the future (at best, they won't, at worst, they'll make things worse per too long.

NE Ent 23:43, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Appeals from ArbCom

This policy says: "While any arbitration decision may be nominally appealed to Jimbo Wales, it is exceedingly unusual for him to intervene." I don't think this is correct, nor is it complete. I have mentioned the same thing today at Jimbo Wales' user talk page, where an appeal is currently happening.

I think this policy should at least give a deadline (e.g. appeal within one week of ArbCom decision), and should also say whether hearing the appeal is discretionary or non-discretionary on Wales' part, and provide a wikilink to the place where the appeal should be lodged (presumably Jimbo Wales' talk page). I have asked Wales for clarification on some of these points, and he has already said the following which would be worth including in this policy:

An appeal is not a rehearing of the case. The point of the appeal is not for me to substitute my judgment of the facts nor my opinions for ArbCom's. An appeal is a constitutional safeguard to ensure that ArbCom is not stepping beyond it's scope and authority, and not engaging in patently irrational decisions. Those two taken together mean that I will not overturn or modify an ArbCom decision based solely on a sense that I would have, myself, voted differently were I a member of ArbCom. Finally, please know that I take this part of my work very seriously. In the long run, I hope that we invent a better system of checks and balances that doesn't involve me, but at the present time, my final review of ArbCom decisions is a valuable part of the overall process. There is no other realistic check on the power of ArbCom. What I would like to see in the long term is something like a set of lower courts and then an upper court of appeals. Such a system would provide the checks and balances that our current system provides, but without it depending on one person (me).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:01, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

It seems clear from this that Wales does not view the appeal process as being merely "nominal" as this policy now states, which means "in name only".Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Since there was no response, I edited the policy. That was subsequently reverted without any talk page discussion. I disagree with the revert. The edit summary says: "This is not the place to document arbitration policy." But my edit did not document arbitration policy; it documented Wales' policy which had previously been misdescribed at this page as "nominal". A description of Wales' role has been at this page for many years (see, e.g., this description in 2009), so I object to deleting all mention of it here, especially without the slightest talk page discussion.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

What this page says has no bearing on arbcom policy, which is separately documented on the linked page. I'd suggest waiting a few days to allow other editors to review and comment on the change. NE Ent 14:40, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Review and comment about what change? Your unilateral replacement of content with a cross-reference?

What was here describes the Wales appeal process, not any ArbCom process. The material at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy is thus extremely incomplete and misleading. It gives no wikilink to Wales, and suggests that he will only review ArbCom remedies instead of other aspects of an ArbCom decision (such as findings of fact and interpretations of policy).Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to modify "Exceptions to limited bans" to allow reversion of blocked or banned editors

Noting that this is of personal interest to me, it still seems appropriate to add to the exceptions:

• Reverting obvious sock puppets of blocked or banned editors.

As there is a floating IP who often makes over a hundred edits in a day (the last one I counted was 126 in 4 hours). Some of his incarnations have been blocked since early 2012. It would be simpler if topic-banned admins (or even rollbackers) were allowed to mass-revert all of the (new) IP's edits, without worrying as to whether the edit falls into the restrictive topic. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:00, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Having interacted with that banned editor and numerous socks, I'd suggest this is a very reasonable proposal. It has the added value of improving the project broadly. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Not sure. If someone is topic banned, it is presumably for a reason. Assuming that they can then be a judge of which other edits by someone who is (a presumed?) sock can be undone goes against the reason for the ban in the first place. Why not just notify a non-banned editor of the edits in question?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:35, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

If banned editor B specialized in the topic in which topic-banned editor A is banned, then it would be appropriate for A to contact others (unless the topic-ban prohibits it.) If B only incidentally edits in the topic, then it would be difficult for A to separate the edits in the topic within a mass rollback, (which has generally been established as acceptable for dealing with banned editors.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:06, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely not. If it's obvious another editor will get to it sooner or later. NE Ent 01:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Sooner or later? So an IP-hopping sockpuppet banned editor makes hundreds upon hundreds of edits weekly across a vast swath of articles and efforts to mass revert are blocked because we can't improve our flexibility here at exceptions? We should make it easy to protect the project and not put those who are concerned about accidentally running afoul of a limited ban at risk. Capitalismojo (talk) 02:43, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I have an example of the same editor who edited on August 9. Some of his improper edits still remain. I don't think any of them relate to my topic ban, but I'm not sure. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:13, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

If the arbitrators had wanted to specify exceptions to the topic-ban, they could have. I am also banned from the same pages as Arthur, and there are no circumstances, except by mistake, under which I would edit the pages from which I am banned. To attempt to create an exception to one's own topic ban by changing policy seems inappropriate and presumptuous. — goethean 18:11, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think that this is a good idea. Exceptions to bans should be limited to what is necessary in the compelling interest of our readership and article subjects, such as not having to read "John Randomname is a child rapist". Reverting edits (which may not even be detrimental) by blocked or banned users is not an urgent necessity. Every exception weakens the ban and limits its utility in preventing conduct that has been identified as problematic. Additional exceptions should therefore be avoided.  Sandstein  20:26, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
• I could easily be persuaded to grant exceptions in specific cases, but incorporating it as a general rule across all topic bans seems to be courting trouble.—Kww(talk) 20:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - Kww has hit the nail on the head. In specific & limited instances this would be fine as a general rule not so much. If someone is topic banned the best advice is for them to stop watching pages in that topic area completely at least for the duration of the ban, rather than for them to look for loop holes--Cailil ^talk 22:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

  I'm not watching the pages; I'm reverting from the banned user's contributions log. Not a helpful comment. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:13, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think it is a good idea to institutionalize loopholes so users can circumvent valid topic bans. If you are topic banned, that means you are a problem, regardless of who else might also be causing problems in the same area. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:13, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposal on September 7

For many years up until September 5, this policy said: "While any arbitration decision may be nominally appealed to Jimbo Wales, it is exceedingly unusual for him to intervene." This has been replaced without any consensus or talk page discussion with simply a wikilink to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy. I'd like to propose keeping some content here about appealing a ban to Jimbo Wales:

Any arbitration decision may be appealed to Jimbo Wales. While it is not unusual for him to consider an appeal, it is exceedingly unusual for him to overturn such a decision. An appeal should be lodged at his user talk page within one week of the ArbCom decision.

An appeal is not a rehearing of the case. The point of the appeal is not for Wales to substitute his judgment of the facts nor his opinions for ArbCom's. An appeal is a constitutional safeguard to ensure that ArbCom is not stepping beyond it's scope and authority, and not engaging in patently irrational decisions. Therefore, Wales will not overturn or modify an ArbCom decision based solely on a sense that he would have, himself, voted differently were he a member of ArbCom. According to Wales, he takes this part of his work very seriously. In the long run, he hopes that we invent a better system of checks and balances that do not involve him, but at the present time, his final review of ArbCom decisions is a valuable part of the overall process. There is no other realistic check on the power of ArbCom.

This material is largely based upon this material posted at Jimbo Wales' talk page. I don't see any reason why Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy must be the one and only page that mentions the subject of appeals to Wales, as long as this page doesn't contradict that one. After all, we are talking here not about procedures or policy of ArbCom, but rather procedure and policy of a higher forum. The info at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy is incomplete, and by itself is problematic: "Remedies may be appealed to, and amended by, Jimbo Wales, unless the case involves Jimbo Wales' own actions." By itself, that implies Wales can only modify ArbCom remedies, rather than ArbCom findings of fact, or ArbCom interpretations of policy. It provides no wikilink to Jimbo Wales or his talk page, no deadline, and no information about how the appeal works. At the same time, the statement that was at this ban policy for years until two days ago ("While any arbitration decision may be nominally appealed to Jimbo Wales, it is exceedingly unusual for him to intervene") is poorly worded because it suggests that appealing an ArbCom decision is an appeal in name only ("nominal"), and it is unclear whether intervention by Wales is "unusual" in the sense that he will not usually hear appeals, or is instead "unusual" in the sense that he will hear all appeals but usually affirms the decision of ArbCom. I think the proposed language removes all these problems and ambiguities. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of this page is to document banning policy outside of ArbCom. To provide the most service to the reader, it should be as short as possible while covering the subject. It's just a not a place to reprint Wale's musings. NE Ent 21:07, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

You think the first proposed paragraph is also "musings"?Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I plan to reinsert the first paragraph. I also favor inserting the second paragraph, but will refrain for now. If Jimbo Wales operates an appeals process, it seems to me that banned editors should be told about it. A secret appeal process strikes me as kind of silly, or worse.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:02, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Exceptions question

One of the exceptions to limited bans is asking an administrator to take action against a violation of an interaction ban by the other party (but normally not more than once). Could this be clarified? I'm not sure if this means "once per pair of banned users" (i.e. you do it once, you're normally not allowed to do it ever again), or "once per incident" or something else. This isn't related to any specific situations; I'm not banned from anything, not expecting to be, and I'm not involved in (or watching) any disputes where this is coming up. Nyttend (talk) 22:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that it's once per incident. The idea is to prevent someone from complaining about an incident, being told it wasn't a violation, and then admin-shopping until he finds a sympathetic ear.—Kww(talk) 23:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm with Kww. Anything else wouldn't make a lot of sense. Drmies (talk) 02:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

What constitutes valid reasoning for imposing a ban?

Why does this policy not include virtually any discussion of this? On what grounds is an appeal of a ban that may not have been justified supposed to be made? Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 05:49, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, the stated reason is "exhausted the community's patience." (WP:CBAN). Given the primary focus here is building an encyclopedia, there is not general interest in building a resource consuming justice system of any sort. Wikipedia has myraid wp-this, wp-that rules, supplemented (perhaps superceded, actually) by undocumented practices. More succinctly, there's no much black and white, it's mostly gray. Editors who stay out of the gray don't get banned, editors who do -- sometimes yes, sometimes no. NE Ent 11:45, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

This seems to give the "community" (which can be just a few users) a free pass to prevent anyone who has a differing opinion from editing; also, unlike this policy, WP:BLOCK actually discusses reasoning in detail, despite blocks generally being far easier to appeal than bans. More importantly, though, it doesn't address the last question. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 12:26, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Strengthening WP:PROXYING

The present wording allows proxying wherever an editor thinks it's productive.

Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits.

Would this be better?

Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) without first establishing consensus at WP:AN or WP:ANI that doing so would be productive.

In the present wording it's not clear that the proxy has to show the value of them acting as a banned editor's proxy before doing so, or whom they should show. One reasonable reading is that they can just go ahead and proxy provided they think they can demonstrate it's productive - when asked. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:01, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the wording should be strengthened, but that's not the way I would go with it. The main issue we have with proxying is that people abuse the "independent reasons for making such edits" clause. I see far too many times that people chase down a series of reversions I have done in order to preserve any beneficial edits a banned editor has made and try to claim things like "preserving beneficial edits" as the "independent reason." In my view, if the only reason they thought of making the edit was because the banned editor had made it, they haven't got an independent reason. That clause is intended to prevent people from being accused of proxying when they preserve a perfectly legitimate edit to an article that they normally work on, not to provide cover for people intentionally supporting banned and blocked editors.—Kww(talk) 21:27, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't we support all editors? Are these edits made before or after the ban was enacted? NE Ent 00:14, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

After. And no, NE Ent, no one should be acting in support of banned editors that have been evading a block.—Kww(talk) 03:00, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia dispute resolution is not supposed to be punitive; see Conduct towards banned editors. NE Ent 11:40, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you are straying afield, NE Ent: removing a banned editor's edits is not punitive, it's simply returning Wikipedia to the state it would have been in if our blocking software was more capable of detecting who was editing. That doesn't have any relationship to my original argument: if someone has reverted a socks edits, no one should take it upon themselves to search through those reversions in an effort to preserve content contributed by the banned blocked or banned editor. That's not an "independent reason", that's proxying.—Kww(talk) 17:32, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

It's fine the way it is. The editor who makes an edit is responsible for it, no need to add a layer of let's have sometime else to argue about bureaucracy. NE Ent 00:14, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Seeking clarification

First up, I'm a party to a recent mutual WP:IBAN, and I'm still feeling my way as to where the limits are. The other party is not important here, and I talk of generalities and hypotheticals, but still let us keep the proprieties in mind, and I mention it for that reason. Under WP:BANEX, I may ask for necessary clarifications about the scope of a ban, and that's what I am doing here.

• Hypothetical. Let's say that I begin a discussion on the talk page of an article. Maybe I'm looking for sources for statistics on firefly fatalities. Several editors jump into the discussion, and we discuss reliable sources, the role of spring and seasonal impacts. A free and wide-ranging discussion as one often encounters here. Suddenly I notice that the other editor in the interaction ban has participated in "my" discussion topic. He is responding to another editor, and I am not mentioned directly or indirectly. There is no interaction, but still it is my topic goddammit. Am I entitled to knock on an admin's door and demand they drop a block on the other guy?

• Clarification. Under WP:BANEX, I'm allowed to ask an admin to take action against a violation of an interaction ban by the other party (but normally not more than once). So when an admin states that You are welcome to seek redress elsewhere, of course, is this truly the case? I can take my complaint from admin to admin, or to ANI?

Any guidance gratefully accepted. --Pete (talk) 17:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

It looks to me that User:Drmies adequately addressed the issue at User talk:Skyring#IBAN, Talk:Operation Sovereign Borders. He declined to block you, but he warned you not to continue. Surely you aren't challenging his decision not to block you? Since User:HiLo48 opened that particular thread at Talk:Operation Sovereign Borders I don't see how one would think that it's your topic. Also the request came from HiLo48, not from you. You did not complain that *he* broke the interaction ban, and it's hard to see a case for any such complaint. EdJohnston (talk) 18:04, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Let us consider the hypothetical raised, if you please. I am not seeking to review the past, but to find illumination for the future. I mentioned fireflies, as a shining hypothetical example. Cheers. --Pete (talk) 18:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not complicated. If two users are banned from interacting with one another they should not both be participating I the same discussion. So if a user sees a discussion that was started by the user they are banned from interacting from they should stay out of it. Period. I hope that's clear enough for you. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:27, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Skyring, if you want to raise a general question, you must be asking about the two things you mention:

1. 'Am I entitled to knock on an admin's door...' Yes, once.
2. 'seeking redress elsewhere'. User:Drmies must be offering HiLo48 a chance to appeal to ANI if not satisfied. The policy as currently worded does not encourage appeal from the single admin's decision, although Drmies is willing to allow it in this case. EdJohnston (talk) 18:41, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Again, I'm looking for general wikipolicy here. One appeal to an admin on a perceived IBAN vio, then possibly bump up to ANI and I guess an appeal to ArbCom is theoretically possible. But no admin-shopping, yeah? --Pete (talk) 18:49, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Beeblebrox. The wording I'm puzzling over is this: Although the editors are generally allowed to edit the same pages or discussions as long as they avoid each other…. Perhaps the wording on the page could be modified to include your clarification that discussion topics are owned by editors? --Pete (talk) 18:53, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

You are asking about things that are not in the policy as written. Admins will probably use common sense. Like treating a change in another editor's section heading as being a violation. And your appearance in HiLo48's thread as being injudicious. As always, feel free to propose changes in the policy, etc. etc. EdJohnston (talk) 19:07, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Let us consider the hypothetical case, if you please. I'm asking about the precise wording of the policy for my own future guidance, and that of others, including admins. If discussion topics are owned by editors for the purposes of identifying violations, then that should be included. For clarity. --Pete (talk) 19:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

• I'll give you a less-than-hypothetical case. User A and B have an IBAN. User A starts a thread on a talk page, user B stays out of that thread. End of case. I really don't understand the complications here, and I detest this kind of wikilawyering: it suggests not a difficulty with any kind of policy, but rather a willful ignoring of common sense for the purpose of...what? EdJohnston's comment, above, is absolutely on the money. Drmies (talk) 22:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm looking for guidance, and I will accept guidance. That's the way things work best. My interpretation of Although the editors are generally allowed to edit the same pages or discussions as long as they avoid each other… was that two editors with a mutual IBAN could edit the same page. And that they could edit the same discussion. The question of who creates a page or who commences a thread is not mentioned in policy. That's why I responded to an uninvolved editor on the talk page for the purpose of improving the article. We negotiated an included table with some useful figures taken from a reliable source. If the consensus here is that editors "own" discussions, and it seems to be trending that way, then I will observe that consensus. There are very few in this community in a position to say, "well, I'm going to ignore consensus developed by senior editors and follow my own interpretation," and I am certainly not one of them. I came here for clarification and I used a hypothetical case for that purpose. Simple as that. --Pete (talk) 23:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I see that this is old territory for some admins in this discussion, but it's new to me. Browsing through the archives of this page I note that this point has been raised before. One such admin offers his opinion that, "We should try to make IBANs work, if we can, allowing some slack in the enforcement when people appear to be genuinely confused."

Well, that's how I started off - confused over the imprecision of the wording - but on looking through the archived discussions I can see why the wording of the policy is not made more explicit and prescriptive. It allows some common-sense latitude for all parties. On that note, thank you to all involved for their advice. Cheers. --Pete (talk) 02:46, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, this is really all about me. I think I have a right to comment. Pete/Skyring has created what he calls a hypothetical, but it just happens to be the reverse of what actually happened (so hardly a hypothetical), with one major difference. He also claimed "The other party is not important here." Well, it is important. He has been stalking me for years, hence the IBAN. What actually happened is that I began a discussion on an article Talk page. Pete/Skyring joined the thread. But he didn't just contribute to the thread, which I regarded as a breach of the IBAN in the first place. He changed the name of the thread, to something more controversial and confrontational, without even an Edit summary explaining why. Now, the title of the thread was my words. I am the first poster. To anyone looking at the thread later it would inevitably look like I wrote the new title. And I didn't. After having the problem pointed out to him, Pete/Skyring changed the title back, with an incredible edit summary of "I shouldn't have changed the heading title. Please forgive honest mistake." This is all from an editor who is constantly claiming an in depth knowledge of policy and rules here, and fighting battles on that front. (That's really what he's doing here.) One cannot change a thread title accidentally. It was obviously deliberate. The absence of an Edit summary may have been a mistake (that's surely questionable for a person of his experience and claimed expert knowledge), but changing the title I wrote wasn't. Readers can possibly guess my opinion without me having to state it. I wrote on Drmies' Talk page about it, Pete/Skyring copped nothing more than yet another warning, and now we're here. (Riddle: When is a warning not a warning? When it's a Wikipedia warning. You can repeat offend, and get just another warning, then repeat offend, and get just another warning, then repeat offend, and get just another warning, then....) I guess I'm seeking clarification too. I kept my side of the IBAN. Pete/Skyring didn't. Why is he even allowed to come here seeking more rights to hassle me, with still no further consequences? (I sit here patiently awaiting the chance to see Pete/Skyring receive yet another warning.) HiLo48 (talk) 22:46, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

A PS to that: Pete/Skyring claims that in contributing to the thread he "negotiated an included table with some useful figures taken from a reliable source." At that point, having seen him post, I felt unable to respond with my thoughts on that matter without breaching the ban myself. An IBAN cannot allow one of its subjects to take over a discussion commenced by another. Could I have disagreed with his proposal without breaching the ban? I don't think so. His claim is actually evidence of a breach of the IBAN. HiLo48 (talk) 00:12, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• An interaction ban is not intended to establish "justice"—who is right and who is wrong does not matter. The purpose of an IBAN is to stop the drama, and there is no possible way to misinterpret WP:IBAN other than plain obstinancy. If someone inadvertently breaches an IBAN, they back out quietly and quickly, and they do not start threads debating the issue. Pete/Skyring should probably be blocked, not for an inadvertent IBAN breach, but for the WP:NOTHERE mentality exhibited at User talk:Skyring and above. Johnuniq (talk) 00:44, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

You've missed the point here. I think the IBAN is a good thing. It did, for four weeks, stop the drama. But now it's been breached. (After only four weeks, of course!) That where the justice issue comes in. (I guess a warning will be issued, as always...) HiLo48 (talk) 03:23, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• • Skyring, if all this isn't enough guidance for you then I don't think there's anything else that could be done. The best thing you can do right now is bow out of this conversation, let's say "per Johnuniq". Further disruption (yes, this qualifies as disruption) is blockable, and I will not hesitate to block you for any infraction of the IBAN's letter or spirit, or for any further wikilawyering about the boundaries of envelopes. My cup of GF is nearly empty.

    HiLo, I have no easy answer for your quandary. If you chose to reply to that comment, once, purely about content, in neutral terms without naming names and whatnot, I couldn't fault you for it--as long as you don't in turn start pushing boundaries. Well, I might tell you to not do it again, but I just did, really. Drmies (talk) 02:25, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I didn't reply, and I think I that was the right thing, and don't intend to reply, but I still object to Pete/Skyring claiming credit for something he did while, IMHO, breaching the IBAN. And so, he's got his warning again, again, again....? HiLo48 (talk) 03:23, 4 December 2013 (UTC)