Global actions

Error message when trying to log-on to an account that has been globally locked

Global actions refer to several administrative actions that when taken have a global effect; that is, they affect all Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) public wikis, such as Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikibooks, in all available languages. These wikis are all listed at Special:SiteMatrix. Global actions include global blocks, global locks, global bans, and global rights.

Full descriptions and policies can be found in pages in Category:Global actions; this is a brief overview only, and the relevant Meta-Wiki pages should be consulted in case of problems. The stewards' handbook contains practical advice on how stewards should proceed.

Global blocks

Global blocks prevent IP editors from editing on IP addresses on all public Wikimedia wikis, except for Meta-Wiki. They are applied for cross-wiki vandalism, spamming, or other types of disruption, or to block open proxies. Options and policies are very similar to local blocks of IP addresses; key points include:

• Access to editing (including own talk page editing) can be blocked. User email can also be blocked, but IP editors cannot access this anyway.
• Range blocks are an option.
• They may only be given for a fixed period of time, per policy.
• Account creation from IP addresses is blocked by default.
• Optionally they can also be hard-blocks, which means logged-in registered users cannot normally edit from those IP addresses.
• There is no option for autoblocks.

Global blocks cannot be applied directly to registered users, although hard-blocks will prevent registered users from editing from blocked IP addresses; an exception to this is members of "global IP block exempt" global user group. However registered users can be globally locked (see below).

Requests for global blocks should be made at Steward requests/Global. Global blocks can be appealed by email at stewardswikimediaorg, or through their Meta-Wiki talk page if available. Globally blocked IPs can also be unblocked locally, for that wiki only, by any local administrator at Special:GlobalBlockWhitelist.

Global locks

Global locks prevent registered users (i.e. users with accounts) from logging into their accounts, and will apply to all Wikimedia wikis; attempts to do so will be met with an error message. Locks cannot be applied to IP editors. Again the main criteria for global locks is cross-wiki abuse of some kind (vandalism, spamming, etc.); but some other particularly serious conduct issues can also lead to global locks, such as accounts with offensive or abusive usernames, and globally banned users will have their accounts locked. Accounts belonging to deceased users are also globally locked.

The locking of accounts is often permanent, but can be applied as a temporary measure to suspected compromised accounts until they are returned to their rightful owners. Locked accounts can be identified by other users by looking at Help:User contributions pages, which will contain the text "set locked"; or by looking at global account information, where the global account information section will contain the text "Locked: yes".

Requests for global locks should be made at Steward requests/Global. Global locks can be appealed by email at stewardswikimediaorg.

Global bans

Global bans are formal revocations of editing and other access privileges against members of the Wikimedia editor community. They are intended to be permanent measures. Global bans apply to users rather than users' accounts, but they are enforced with global locks. Serious cross-wiki abuse is the usual reason for global bans, although simple disruption (e.g. vandalism or spamming) is usually met with global locks instead. There are two types of global ban:

• Global bans enacted by the community, in accordance with a successful request for comment as described at global bans. Bans enacted by the community can be appealed by emailing stewards@wikimedia.org to open an appeal using the request for comment process.
• Global bans enacted by the WMF, in accordance with WMF Global Ban Policy. It is possible to request WMF global bans in accordance with policy. Most WMF bans cannot be appealed, however some office actions undertaken around the behaviour of specific users can be appealed through a review by the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.

See also this list of globally banned users.

Others

Other actions will also have global effects. Global rights can be given to users by stewards, and will affect all Wikimedia wikis. Stewards can also be requested to give local rights, and perform other global actions, such as CheckUser, account renaming, URL blacklisting, and title/username blacklisting. See Stewards for more information on their abilities.