Talk: Blocking policy

Suggestions

Suggestions:Remove the table of block times, it's overly bureaucratic. Also, allow for more individual-admin discretion (such as "Any admin may block any user that they determine is a detriment to the project") 22:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Addressed and changed. - Cavalier One^{(Wizarding Wireless Network)} 22:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Warning users

I have noticed that some users have been warned, and have stopped vandalizing, yet they are still blocked. How many warnings should a user be given before they are blocked?--Matoro183 ^{Talk - Contribs} 19:34, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Fanon

Excuse me, but could you elaborate fanon? Thank you. 112.202.80.4 08:03, April 10, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I accidentally posted my comment to your topic that may have appeared as a response, it was solely unintended. I moved it to a brand new one. -
 Delaney Wang   Talk   Activity 00:01, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

== Blocking Policy (edited) ==

"Blocking is the means by which an administrator prevents a user account or IP address/range from editing the Harry Potter Wiki." I thought bureaucrats also have this right, should I request to add "or bureaucrat" after "by which an administrator..."? -
 Delaney Wang   Talk   Activity 23:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

SUGGESTION: "Perseverance of Harrassment"

I'd like to make a suggestion to add on to the Blocking policy page. An additional reason I thought would fit is called "Perseverance of Harassment". According to the Once Upon a Time Fandom network policies, one of them say:

• "If you are blocked/banned on this Wiki, it is NOT appropriate to follow any Staff Member (or any user involved with the block/ban) anywhere on the Fandom network other than the Community Central to protest. This will result in your block being extended here.
• If you are blocked/banned on another Wiki, DO NOT follow the blocker here to complain. This will result in you being blocked here as well and possibly an extension on the Wiki in question."

I read through all the policies and they don't say anything about this here, and since I don't think many users here are aware of the above texts, maybe it would probably be a great idea to add this in? -
 Delaney Wang   Talk   Activity 01:53, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I'm glad that you made this suggestion, as I also wanted to talk about this after recent incidents surrounding Pelle Pirat. I don't know about others, but I'd say that it's equally damaging for HPW to talk about local issues in Community Central compared to other wikis, as it's just another platform that's completely invisible from HPW. There've been lots of interactions there initiated by Pelle Pirat about HPW business that span across several users' message walls and are very hard to keep track of. This is certainly not in line with the HPW spirit that anything related to the wiki has to be discussed in the wiki. And to me at least, being communicated on another platform, no matter what it is, by a user after their block here, is very annoying. If a user is blocked, they're no longer welcome to participate in any wiki business for the blocking period, and contacting other users in other sites is just circumventing what a block should entail. Their own talk page is typically still open even during the block, so if the user wishes to appeal the block or say something else, they can still do that there. Admins obviously do check Special:RecentChanges so it's not likely for the message to go unnoticed. MalchonC (talk) 04:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

People should only really deal with HPW matters on the HPW itself, staff should only be contacted in exceptional circumstances. RedWizard98 (talk) 19:48, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Support. I’ll keep this discussion open for seven more days, after which I’ll request an admin or their permission to add this to the policy. - Peregino (talk) 03:15, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Blocking criteria and duration

Since the start of the wiki, the duration of bans for offenses has often been inconsistent, varying from a month to a week, sometimes resulting in no ban at all, and occasionally an indefinite block. I believe we should establish clear guidelines for ban durations based on the severity of the offense and how many times the offense was made.

Initially, I thought of setting specific ban durations for each offense and their level. For example, the first vandalism would result in a warning, a second vandalism would lead to a 3-day ban, a third to a 7-day ban, a fourth to a month, a fifth to a permanent ban, and the first sockpuppetry leads to a permanent ban. However, there’s a flaw: if a user commits multiple types of offenses, how should we handle it? We can’t ban the same user permanently and for a month at the same time. This led me to a new idea.

My idea is to start each user with a score of 100 points, shown on a dedicated page on the Harry Potter Wiki. Points would be deducted for each offense according to specific criteria. When a user’s points reach certain milestones, they would face escalating bans: at 80 points, a official warning; at 70 points, a 1-week block; at 50 points, a 2-week block; at 40 points, a 1-month block; at 20 points, a 2-month block; and at 0 points, a permanent ban. This system would provide a clear, structured way to track behavior and enforce consequences. For users who already have specific ban conditions prior to the policy, such as RedWizard98, who is officially agreed by the community to be permanently banned upon another offense, their points would be set accordingly. For example, RW98 would be assigned 20 points — one milestone before a permanent ban.

Some offenses may allow for partial point resets. For example, if a user loses points due to vandalism but later contributes positively to the wiki, they or other users may request a point reset specifically for the vandalism offense. If a user was deducted 20 points for vandalism and 50 points for a personal attack, and they subsequently contribute positively, cease vandalising, and actively discourage it, they could request an admin to have the 20 points for vandalism restored depending on how the administrator(s) see as proper.

Offences			(Respectively)		Reset Requestable?
			Times (e.g. 1st time)	Points deducted
Vandalism	General vandalism (e.g. Plagiarism, large amount of unnecessary edits)		1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or more	0 (warning issued), 5, 10, 15, 20, 20, 25	Yes
	Fanon		1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or more	0 (warning issued), 10, 10, 15, 20
	Spamming		1st, 2nd or more	15, 25
	Edit-warring	Vandalism reason		5, 15
		Reverting vandalism	Any	0 (warning issued)
Personal attacks			1st, 2nd, 3rd or more	15, 20, 25	No
Inappropriate content: obscene, life-threatening, etc.					No
Excessive user page / forum edits			Any	5	Yes
Sockpuppetry			1st	100	No
Talk page offenses	No signature		1st, 2nd, 3rd or more	0 (warning issued), 3, 5	Yes
	Removal of a talk page			0 (warning issued), 5, 7
Misuse of special tools	Promote or demote a user without community consensus or appropriate reason		Any	50	No
	Using special tools to cause disruption intentionally			30
	Blocking a user without a reason or with an inappropriate reason
	Changing wiki policy without appropriate discussion and consensus (Fixing, editing, or any kind of edits that do not alter the context of the policy do not count as changing the policy.)
Other minor offences (e.g. editing another user’s user page, using American English, adding information without including references)			1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or more	0 (warning issued), 2, 3, 5	Yes

.

The Harry Potter Wiki page listing users’ points will be titled Harry Potter Wiki: Users’ Points, unless someone can suggest a better title. Suggestions are welcome. The page will feature a detailed table listing each user’s name, activity status, remaining points, and whether they are currently blocked or not (example below). Only content moderators and higher will be permitted to edit the page to deduct points from users, and each deduction must include a reason in the edit summary (e.g., -15 points, edit-warring, third time). When a user reaches a milestone specified above the table, it will be notified on the page’s talk page, for administrators to issue an official warning or ban, according to the milestone.

Users	Activity status	Remaining points	Blocking status
Andrewh7	Active	100	Not blocked
Ayla	Semi-active	100	Not blocked
Ironyak1 (Admin)	Inactive	100	Not blocked
MalchonC (Content moderator)	Active	100	Not blocked
RedWizard98	Active (before blocked)	20	Blocked for 1 month
SeichanGrey	Active	100	Not blocked

.

I’ve put a lot of effort and spent a lot of time into this, so thank you for everyone's consideration. Any feedback, especially constructive and beneficial, would be greatly appreciated. I’ll keep this open until the end of November (30 November), and once that time (1 December) comes, I’ll request an admin or their permission to add the conclusion of this discussion to the policy, along with any supporting policies regarding blocks. Best regards. - Peregino (talk) 11:48, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

This may seem a bit complicated, but it’s actually quite simple. In summary: I believe that the duration and criteria for banning users should be consistent. My suggestion is this: start every user with 100 points, deduct points when an offense occurs, and when points reach a certain milestone, the user will be blocked according to that milestone’s guidelines. Also, I think the HPW: Users’ Points page should only list users who have had points deducted, so it won’t become unnecessarily long. - Peregino (talk) 13:43, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Browsing through this section without looking into the details of the table, as I have limited free time (my apologies), I think doing a quantitative scoring system would be a very good start for improving the policies. This way we would be less confused about when or how to issue blocks, it would be a consistent record available for all admins to look at, especially when, say, an admin was not present when previous administrative actions were taken and thus was not initially well-informed of the history of the user.

I would suggest one thing that immediately comes to my mind - we should clarify what constitutes a single offence of a policy. Like, if a user inserts fanon information again merely a minute after a warning is placed on their talk page, it should probably not count as a second offence, as the user may not have seen the warning. Perhaps there should be like a certain cooldown since the first offence before it counts as a second, something like 5, 10, 30 minutes or an hour?

And perhaps the reset system should be laid out in a form just like the deduction system, so that it's objective what a user should do to get points back and also how the points should be added back by admins. MalchonC (talk) 14:31, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I’d suggest that the time since the previous offense and its warning needs to pass for two hours before similar behavior is counted as the next offense. This would only apply if the offenses are of the same type, not different issues. Additionally, the two-hour rule wouldn’t apply if the vandalising user has clearly acknowledged the warning (e.g. replying to it).

I think having a system that allows users to earn back points is a great idea. It could be similar to community service in schools, where students work to regain their conduct points. However, I’m not entirely sure what specific actions users could take to recover points, other than demonstrating clear improvement and requesting admins to consider restoring points in resettable areas. - Peregino (talk) 14:45, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

In principle, this seems like a good system. An issue I see would be the potential obscurity of the system. You mentioned having a list of users with reducted points, I would add that each point gain/loss should be recorded accompanied with a link to the specific edit (or one of them, for the case of serial issues) that caused the incident. AD Vortigern (talk to me) 17:53, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, If the user is a new user and they loose a bunch of points whilst still learning to edit, I would say that if they manage to make 500~ edits (whilst still being under 1000 edits total) without loosing any more points, then their point counter should be reset. "Don't bite the newbies" you know? AD Vortigern (talk to me)

A while back, I was doing some editing on another wiki, I got into an edit war with an admin and they gave me a one month ban. I considered the incident a learning experience and took my punishment with grace. Can you guess what happened once the ban came to an end? The admin reset it an extra month. I am in complete agreement with this point system and a set time limit on bans.

Although instead of calling them Users' Points, I think they should be called Users' House Points. And regarding the time it takes for someone to see the warning message, I think it would be better to play it safe and give them six hours.

Perhaps there should be a box at the top the users profile page that’s tells them their status and point. It could be connected to a template and we could use the same template for that users section of the table on the User Points page.

One last thing, it's fine starting with 100 points, but I don't think there should be an upper limit. That way, the dedicated users have some extra leeway if they make a mistake. Another benefit is that we can use this system to designate whether or not someone is qualified to be promoted to an admin position, once they reach a certain number of points… say, if someone reaches… I don't know, 300, if there's a need for an additional admin I mean.

How about this for criteria: for every 10 minor edits, like fixing a grammar mistake, the user is awarded 5 points, for every 10 major edits, the user is awarded 10 points, and for overhauling an entire page for the better, 20 points.{{GoldenOath20 (talk) 18:03, 12 November 2024 (UTC)}}

A few thoughts. I think that the name fo the Points could be counted as “House points”, totalling 100. Every instance of something negative, the points decrease. And I totally agree that there needs to be a set block duration, although U guess it would be great too if it was something like “up to”, if it was a month, an admin could select up to a month.

Also, for points to regain up to 100 points, I think it would be prudent to allow, some sort of minimum value, as GoldenOath suggested. Like, if it was set at 300 edits over the course of 3 months, that would 50 points, and another 300 edits, from month 4 to month 6, that could reset another 50 points.

SeichanGrey (talk) 18:25, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you all for your feedback; it’s much appreciated. I agree with AD Vortigern and love the quote, ‘Don’t bite the newbies.’ After a user’s first 1,000 edits, their points will reset to 100, provided they haven’t fallen below 60. The idea of tracking points gained and lost is also great; we could use a scroll box function to keep each table entry concise.

However, I disagree with naming it ‘House Points.’ Since this is a policy-supporting page, it’s better to keep it formal rather than themed or role-play-like.

I’m alright with a six-hour gap between offenses, except when a user has clearly received a warning. I don’t think regaining points based on the number of edits would work, as it creates a loophole. For instance, if a user makes 30 good edits in a day, they could gain around 100 points, allowing them to continue poor behavior without consequence, knowing their points won’t reach a milestone for penalties.

My suggestion is that if a content moderator or higher sees a particularly beneficial edit, they can award the user 1 to 3 points as a ‘bonus’, depending on the quality of the edit. Each user can receive bonus points a maximum of five times a week, but they can’t award points to themselves. This prevents any self-awarding of points.

There could also be an award template for users who reach an impressive milestone like 200 points, which would be rare. However, I don’t think selecting admins or users with special tools should be based on reaching a high points level like 300; the current selection process works well as it is. - Peregino (talk) 23:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I kinda like the idea of the User Points. It could be useful in deciding when a user should be warned or blocked and for how long.

Users that are blocked or banned from the wiki should be prevented from creating another account and from being allowed to come back until their block ends. I have noticed that there have been a rather large amount of socketpuppets on the wiki to escape their block/ban after vandalizing pages too many times that resulted them in being blocked for a pretty long time or even banned, like the one that kept on vandalizing pages and said that Harry Potter is not real or something over and over despite being banned from the wiki. Admins could apply the block to logged-in users from the same IP address and automatically block the last IP address used by the user to prevent their new account from being able to edit pages. This will hopefully stop users from socketpuppeting after a block/ban and admins having to block/ban them again. Andrewh7 (talk) 04:15, 13 November 2024 (UTC) Andrewh7

While I can understand the interest in fostering a consistent approach to policy enforcement, I'm not sure a points system is going to lead to the desired outcome. As previously noted, allowing users to regain points creates a situation where doing enough edits/good deeds grants users the "right" to vandalize pages or sling personal attacks as they have the points to spend without consequence. This of course runs contrary to the Harry Potter Wiki:No personal attacks policy's "There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors" requirement for all users. Just because someone has some extra points doesn't mean it's "ok" or "free from consequence" to break policies.

There is also the issue that not all vandalism or personal attacks are equal. Truncating a sentence is different than blanking an article. Telling someone that they're a mister poopy pants isn't the same as deploying homophobic or racial slurs. The idea that every user gets to post a couple pornographic images or homophobic or racial slurs before a temporary block is justified by the lost points doesn't seem like the sort of positive atmosphere or supportive community standards that the policies are meant to enforce. There is a lot of nuance that admins have to take into account when enforcing the policies that are often specific to the situation and the nature of the offense that would be impossible to capture in advance IMHO.

For instance, What exactly is "Excessive" forum edits? How is "Inappropriate" strictly defined in a way that everyone agrees with? Most systems of adjudication ultimately requires someone making a judgement call on these issues. If their judgements are consistently bad, their role as adjudicator can always be revoked. Perhaps in addition the community wants some means of vetoing or overriding an unpopular administrative action when there is sufficient consensus that a bad call was made? Just another thought on a method to make sure community consensus is being enacted.

As an informative bit of history noted at the start of this talk page, Cavalier One removed the original schedule of recommended escalating blocks from this policy back in 2007 as being overly bureaucratic, choosing instead to depend on administration making good judgement calls depending on the user and situation. Given that this system for handling blocks has been in place for 17 years, you're going to want to get overwhelming community consensus, including buy-in from admins and bureaucrats, if you hope to change it.

As a quick aside to Andrewh7, it has been pretty standard for most blocks to include an IP ban to prevent people from sockpuppeting, and in reviewing the recent blocks this is still largely the case. However, many users just use a VPN, lots of which are available for free, to get around the IP block so it's not going to stop everyone. Unfortunately, we're often just stuck with recognizing similar disruptive behavior and addressing it, sometimes over and over again, as needed. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 19:51, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

As I proposed, regaining points should only be allowed if the user’s contributions are genuinely and significantly beneficial. Achieving this would require considerable effort, and the bonus should be capped at a maximum of three points per instance, with no more than 15 points recoverable in a week, even if the user has been consistently and exceptionally beneficial. Users with appropriate rights would have the discretion to judge whether the user’s efforts merit this modest but meaningful reward.

You raise a valid point about the severity of personal attacks and vandalism. In my view, calling someone something like “Mister Poopy Pants” is inappropriate but not necessarily a personal attack—it lacks the intent to truly offend. A personal attack occurs when a user deliberately seeks to insult or harm another individual. Regarding vandalism, while there are varying degrees of it, the common thread is intent. Intentional vandalism, rather than unintentional but unhelpful edits, is what warrants action. All vandals should receive a first warning before any points are deducted. This ensures that users are given a fair chance to amend their behaviour. Moreover, administrators should not have the freedom to ban users based solely on their own perception. Allowing such discretion could lead to bias or favouritism, which is inherently unjust.

The term “excessive edits” is already defined and explained in Harry Potter Wiki:Editing Policy, so I am unsure why clarification is being requested. As for what is deemed “inappropriate,” it is generally evident when such actions occur. Most users recognise inappropriate behaviour without requiring extensive definitions. Regarding Cavalier’s removal of the table in 2007, it seems clear this was his independent decision, and there was no discussion or consensus at the time—likely because such processes were not yet in practice. However, times have changed, and policies now should be rewritten through open community discussions, not solely at the discretion of administrators. - Peregino (talk) 01:19, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

The underlying trouble I see with this system is that, for some reason, "Users with appropriate rights would have the discretion to judge whether the user’s efforts merit this modest but meaningful reward" to return points, but "administrators should not have the freedom to ban users based solely on their own perception. Allowing such discretion could lead to bias or favouritism, which is inherently unjust." There is some underlying notion that administrators aren't to be trusted and must be bound by some predetermined point system in determining when a block is needed, but are to be trusted with discretion to allow for points being regained (but only within certain limits) as if that system is somehow impervious to the same concerns of bias or favoritism.

As I said before, if admins aren't trustworthy to exercise their permissions, then they shouldn't be admins. It's why we made sure to add a Removal of Rights process so the community could address bad admins. As I said, I could see some other community "veto process" working by which a large number of editors along with at least one other admin (to hold the vote and enforce the outcome) overrides a singular bad decision but without revoking rights so that the admin in question has a chance to show better judgement in the future.

I asked about "Excessive edits" to see if you agreed with the (largely historical and undiscussed/unvoted for?) limits given in current policy. I asked about "Inappropriate" as I don't think there is always a clear consensus as to what are inappropriate actions and what should be done to address them - if there was clear consensus then there wouldn't need to be a points system as we'd all be in agreement already. ;) Having points applied to some under-defined set of behaviors doesn't really resolve much as there will still be disagreements if some action was or was not actually inappropriate, a personal attack, etc.

That's my 2 cents at least - as I said, if you want to change practices that go back to the beginning of the wiki, you'll want to get buy-in from the admins and bureaucrats that would need to enforce such a system so I'd reach out to them to get their input and support. As another quick bit of history, it's only the most recent policies that have ratification through community discussion, consensus, and a vote as it was something that I insisted on when helping guide that process. FANDOM in general has been fine with the "benevolent dictator" approach, so we all live under some rules in which we had no say and with which we may not agree. Getting them changed takes a lot of time and wide community effort in my experience FWIW. Cheers --Ironyak1 (talk) 21:24, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Users with special tools who misuse their rights will have them removed under the existing policy. However, under my proposed policy, not only would such users be demoted, but they would also lose points, potentially leading to a temporary block. I’m unsure about the term “appropriate”, so I’d like your recommendations for different levels of inappropriate actions (excluding personal attacks). I understand this is a large change, but I’ll put in maximum effort, as always, to make it possible. - Peregino (talk) 22:58, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I reread my proposal and the discussions again, and I think there’s a slight misunderstanding in my last message above and with Ironyak1's interpretation. The "inappropriate" mentioned in the table refers to "inappropriate content", such as the use of vulgar language in main wiki pages and articles. The term "inappropriate" discussed above regards "inappropriate behaviour". Acceptable or forgivable behaviour on talk pages will be treated as general vandalism, while unforgivable or unacceptable behaviour will be classified as personal attacks. I hope that clarifies everything. - Peregino (talk) 13:26, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there seems to be some misunderstanding as the words "appropriate", "inappropriate", and the like show up in multiple sections of your proposal and my questions were directed at how that exactly is determined. For instance, "Blocking a user without a reason or with an inappropriate reason" - "inappropriate" according to whom? An admin blocks a user, and an editor, maybe even the blocked editor, disagrees - does that make it inappropriate? What if 3 editors disagree with the block - inappropriate now? But what if some other admins or editors agree with the block? How is "inappropriate" determined when there is a difference of opinion (which has to be the case for the rule to even apply)?

This similar conundrum of consensus applies to phrases like "large amount of unnecessary edits" (what is large? how is unnecessary determined?), "Promote or demote a user without community consensus or appropriate reason" (what is an appropriate reason and who gets to say so?), "Changing wiki policy without appropriate discussion and consensus" (who gets to say that the discussion reached an appropriate length or level of participation or whatnot), etc...

As MrSiriusBlack pointed out elsewhere, policy changes tend now to be enacted through a vote held to demonstrate community consensus. This is why I suggested something more like a Community Veto power which would determine when an admin action was "inappropriate" by showing community consensus with a vote, as much of this proposal feels to be motivated by a disagreement with particular admin actions. However, regardless of the desired policy changes, it may help to review Harry Potter Wiki:Voting policy to better understand the reasoning, process, and requirements involved in holding a vote to determine community consensus. Regards --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:39, 27 November 2024 (UTC)