Wikisource talk:Blocking policy

Feedback[edit]

All thus looks fine to me. Its good to have it so clearly codified. Apwoolrich 19:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very well-written. If it is based on a parallel text (perhaps at Wikipedia) then we should keep a link to it. Dovi 11:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Drafting Addition[edit]

Proposal to add a new section to the policy, located before the section Justifications for blocking. This is a very rough draft, with changes, comments, and revisions encouraged. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:48, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatives to Blocking

Wikisource strives to create a culture that makes our fellow contributors feel welcome, appreciated and safe. The preferred path for any conflict is resolving disputes through open communication. In any situation other than the most blatant shock vandalism and spam bot activity; polite communication with the user should be the first action, blocking is the action of last resort.

Wikisource does not have a formal policy like Wikipedia:Assume good faith but we consider it a basic premise of all wiki activity. Nor do we have vandal warning templates. Should you encounter inappropriate edits the expectation is to create a friendly message on the users talk page questioning or discouraging the edit style. Alternatively post a message at Wikisource:Administrators' noticeboard for someone else to interact with the user.

Support -- Though we could do without the sentence The category Category:User_talk_templates contains welcome templates, but not a single vandal warning template -- the absence of one thing doesn't really give evidence or support to another thing. George Orwell III (talk) 15:55, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support, although we could just import Assume Good Faith rather than comment we don't have one. Maybe we should also think about a simple warning template too. I don't want to recreate some the problem Wikipedia has and is trying to fix (specifically, the impersonal templates putting new users off and the So Template It approach where users use a template for every problem and consider it finished without actually fixing anything). Nevertheless, it might be useful and it may help establish a stage of rule enforcement if there is just a little bureaucracy to remind people it's there. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:12, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Getting our own AGF and vandal templates, are good considerations, but would be separate from this discussion. I don’t recall any conversations about either. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:08, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Well written, Jeepday, and those are good comments below your statements. I think "Assume Good Faith" is extremely important as is go to the poster's page. Kind and subtle warnings can take place on the talk page. X # of warnings and then block for 5 days. 2nd Block 10 days -- something to that effect. I refer only to our known editors. I also think too much open charges of speed-editing will cause people to simply stop validating. I have often asked about the value of validating even though I know it is important. The replies naturally were that it is very important but yet with charges of speed-editing will cut down on validating. Nobody has to validate. Perhaps an incentive of good, quality validating may help? I really enjoy WS and the people and it is hurtful and harmful not to be kind to each other. Some of us need to control ourselves better. Teamwork is important. —Maury (talk) 16:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of changes in response to comments to date. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support I changed one letter of case. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Posted to policy page Jeepday (talk) 10:36, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to add a new section to the policy, located within the section 5.6 Controversial blocks. This is a very rough draft, with changes, comments, and revisions encouraged (wording/formatting partially stolen from Jeepday above.) MODCHK (talk)

5.6.1 Justification for lifting of blocks

Blocking must always be considered an action of last resort, where all alternative attempts to approach the blockee have either been exhausted, or have been realistically assessed as unlikely to be successful. In particular, should no attempt have been made to contact the (potential) blockee before the block be applied, it should be the automatic right for any administrator to lift the block without further consultation should the blockee provide reasonable request to do so.

Such unblocking should not be considered a rebuke to the original blocking administrator, yet should remain an encouragement for taking the opportunity to provide appropriate guidance to the potential blockee.

While I echo the underlying sentiment, not sure this is appropriate for the blocking policy page. It implies we have admins running around blocking without cause, which is not the case. Maybe a bit on the admin page I tried writing something, but it came out as an invitation to wheel war. Jeepday (talk) 11:12, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

O.K. Good point. I am happy if you want to move it elsewhere; but I think the underlying concept is still worth recording somewhere. It is, after all a proposal for a rule I truly hope does not get much use! MODCHK (talk) 22:40, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Further thought: The intent of this proposal is not at all to encourage "wheel warring." Rather it is to discourage "lazy sysoping." Feel free to tone down the language appropriately. MODCHK (talk) 23:18, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a worthy addition to the blocking policy. I've almost completely given up blocking users because I often see that we'll block users/IPs for a ridiculously long amount of time for something like blanking a page. This is easy to fix with one click and doesn't warrant a 1 month ban from the project. We have {{test}} for such occasions and I wish we would use it more. I think we admins have a duty to first contact the user and try to establish whether they will be disruptive or if it was a one-time thing. I think it would be good for admins to lift blocks if the blocking admin never tried to communicate with the user as I believe we need to strive to be more communicative and community-like.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 00:43, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Duration of Blocking[edit]

One of the things that struck me hard recently was not so much about blocking as it was about the duration of the blocking of a person for two weeks while knowing the individual's background on WS. I was a bit stunned at the length of time. Perhaps it would be best to consider Duration of Blocking according to the circumstances. —Maury (talk) 19:04, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Codifying duration of blocks, has been considered at Wikipedia where it is a significantly more used tool. It is difficult to give in "if A > than B" set of rules. The standard excepted process is to use the least length of time that is mostly like to get the attention of the vandal and result in the end of the inappropriate edits. I generally base the decision on the edit history of the account and type of vandalism, A brand new account, with several rapid fire edits gets a block in the 3 to 24 hour range, a probable school vandal gets in the 24 to 31 hour range, a repeat vandal who has had a previous 1 day block gets a 1 week. Of course in all of the cases, one to four warning have been given, because the goal is to stop the vandalism with the least restriction possible, we don’t want to prevent the editor from editing we want to change the behavior. Blocking is a tool that we use after the discussion has failed. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:11, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jeepday, I wasn't thinking about strangers aka vandals. I meant our regular editors as in "recently ousted". I recall a handed-out and not told about it "2 weeks" which is an absurdity in my opinion. Do whatever you please with real vandals. Hand those over to Edgar Allan Poe. —Maury (talk) 18:12, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I heard what you meant, but this is not the place for that discussion. That topic is scheduled for discussion in July (presuming no other incidents). Regardless the same principals apply, for for blocking. There is another term "Banning" you may not be familiar with it as we don’t use it here much. See w:Wikipedia:Banning policy. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:34, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why some people would willingly be blocked or banned. I looked up "Banning" due to your mention of it. Thank you for the link. I view wikisource as an ~incredible~ and ~wonderful~ place which is why I have been here a long time. The only possible option I think might be better is creating webpages without wikisources' restrictions. There are more freedoms in creating webpages but webpages die and are not archived like works on wikisource. This policy you are working on here is highly important and I am perplexed as to why more people do not bring up other points. Perhaps they don't know about it? Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 02:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I posted at Wikisource:Scriptorium#Addition_to_Blocking_Policy so everyone would have the opportunity to be aware of this discussion. There is a general tendency in the wikifamily not to add to just for the sake of adding. You may be familiar with w:WP:BOLD the core being that if you have an good idea go with it, if your good idea involves policy, at least toss it out there for discussion first. If the community does not think your idea is as great as you thought it was then w:WP:SNOW comes in and it gets closed. This can be seen in play on WS with the recent fairly significant change and closure that promotes three guidelines [1], Suggestion made, little or no feedback, decision implemented, no negative responses = Consensus achieved. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Blocks should be as short as reasonably possible to engage in conversation, manage the situation and minimise real damage to the project; and if in doubt, block for a shorter period, not a longer period. Note that this is 'real' not 'perceived'. Where possible organisation a self-regulated restriction, even by namespace is better than a user page or globally restrictive block. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well said; Maury - for those without previous experience in blocking on a more active wiki, you can review Special:Log and select "Block log". Decisions generally are made based account activity and many of the edits by blocked users have been deleted, and deleted edits are only visible at the admin level, so it may be difficult for the non-admin infer the relationship between edit history and block duration. But it should provide some sense of relationship.

Pre-emptive blocks[edit]

I believe we need something about pre-emptive blocking. I'm thinking about a couple of specific cases where a user page has been created and then blocked because it is the name of a sock-puppet on a sister. I find this controversial because a) the editor has never edited here; b) while we are an inter-dependent community within the wider Wikimedia family we are also independent and set our own policies and procedures; and c) the less wikidrama imported here the better.

I suggest that a bullet point is added as the fourth to the Controversial blocks sub-section, so that the list reads (addition in bold):

The most controversial blocks are:

blocks of suspected "sock puppets" or "reincarnations" of banned users;
blocks of logged-in users with a substantial history of valid contributions, regardless of the reasoning for the block;
blocks made under the disruption provision of the blocking policy;
pre-emptive blocks of user names that have never edited here; and
blocks that, while possibly wise, lack policy basis.

Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:11, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]