Talk:Bans and blocks/old
It's a simple strategy (on parole), with many benefits:
- If a banned user ignores the option of attaining forgiveness, then we're no worse off. In fact we're better off, because the ban will be respected by people who would not respect a ban with no possibility of reprieve.
- If a banned user is forgiven, and then immediately channels Satan and has to be banned again, then we're better off, because we at least had three months of peace and quiet.
- If a banned user is forgiven and turns into a model contributor, then we're much better off - plus one good contributor, minus one soure of conflict.
- If a banned user stops trying to come back for three months, in order to be forgiven, and finds a much better site than Wikipedia, decides Wikipedia is actually irrelevant, and moves on, then everyone's better off.
Jimbo made a comment which makes sense.
I, too, object strongly to this practice of creating '/ban' pages as a place to complain about people. It seems likely to escalate a conflict rather than to resolve it.
--Jimbo
I tend to agree with him. It must be totally infuriating to see a subpage appear on one personal page. Doubly to see people quietly discussing banning you on your space. Triply (:-)) when the page is protected for the discussion to go on smoothly without the risk of the banned-to-be user disturbing it. This looks very much like a trial, where "by defaut" a user is said "guilty", and may even not have the opportunity to participate in the trial to defend himself. I don't say this is happening that way right now, but I think this might be a slipery slope. I think no page labelled user/ban should *ever* appear on a user space before he has been convicted (well, I don't even think it should appear after, but this is probably not defendable :-)) ant
- Can we, between ourselves, find a better solution than /ban pages? Prior to my (groundbreaking ;-) creation of the first ever /ban page, best practice seemed to edit wikipedia:annoying users, wikipedia:vandalism in progress, user talk:USER NAME, wikipedia:village pump, any and all talk pages for articles that the user in question had edited, various talk pages of interested sysops ("I think it's Fred", "I agree - it's Fred", "It's definitely Fred!", etc), and also to make long posts to the mailing list in which one is either "shocked", "appalled", or (ideally) "shocked and appalled".
- My desires were:
- Single place for discussion - if I want to know "Why was Fred banned?", I should be able to go to *one* Wikipedia page, read it, and be enlightened.
- Avoid/discourage redundant discussions
- Ability to refactor away redundancy
- Ability to delete page when a banned user is reinstated, or when calls for banning subside and the sweet voice of reason prevails
- Alternatives I can think of immediately:
- Do it on the user talk page
- Have a different name for the page (eg /complaints, /problems, ...)
- Do it on a subpage of wikipedia:annoying users (eg wikipedia:annoying users/Fred)
- Regarding your specific points (I presume it's anthere, right?), I can see what you mean about not adding a link to a /ban page on the user's home space until someone has decided to apply a soft or hard ban. I also agree that /ban pages should not be protected - I wasn't aware that they ever had been... MyRedDice
- Thanks. No, I don't think it has been done on the en wiki. That is again a potential complication of the process I was thinking of. I support discussing any trouble, or possible exclusion of a user on a separate meta page (possibly on meta) rather than on the user page. Incidentally, thanks for the rephrasing, and for putting my text into comment rather than deleting it. I appreciated. Ant
- Why not put them here? Meta is for discussing Wikipedia, right? -- Jimregan
- I just copied this across to en:. I don't know what policy the other languages follow, but I guess it's probably different. I'm not sure what to do with this page now, and how much of the commentary to copy over... Hmm. --MyRedDice
- please, let the page here also for references. On fr, we have only banned once. Well. tried. It was very bad process. We are currently undergoing pbs. It might be usefull. Don't hide it on en where we have no idea where it is and even if it is, please.
- righto. :) I'll update this page now and then, I guess :)
Moved from Wikipedia:Requests for undeletions:
Someday, we will have to face the fact Jimbo only ban people in english. Not in other languages. Cause he can't really judge the situation himself. Then we will have to face the fact meta is not english place only :-) I hope it does not come before a long time :-) [ User:Anthere ]
How to block a username?[edit]
I've attempted to block a user giving a valid username, but instead got the badipaddress message. I've tried this on bg: and on a local copy of MediaWiki and in both ways it didn't work. How can a sysop block a username? --Borislav 17:58, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- The way you block is simply by going to Special:Blockip and entering the username (without the User: or whatever it's called in bg), time, and reason. If this doesn't work, then maybe user blocking is not enabled in your wiki. Can anyone else block in bg? Dori | Talk 18:32, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Username blocking is not enabled on all Wikipedias. If there is a consensus on your Wikipedia that you want this ability, you need to ask a developer to set $wgSysopUserBans=true. Then you will be able to block them in the way Dori said. Angela 18:34, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Aha, I didn't know that. Is it somewhere documented? And is there a special page for such type of requests, maybe Requests for permissions, or one should use the talk page of a developer? --Borislav 19:34, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- It's partially documented at MediaWiki User's Guide: Administration. The quickest way to get it enabled is probably to ask on IRC at #mediawiki when there is a developer there. You could also try the Wikitech-l mailing list, or the talk page of a developer. Angela 20:03, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Thank you, Angela! --Borislav 20:29, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Hmmm I tried $wgSysopUserBans=true; in LocalSettings.php but it had no effect? memobug 11:08, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC) Update - I found it had to go towards the bottom of LocalSettings. It doesn't work right at the top.