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Community health initiative/Partial blocks/Description for use in local wiki communities

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The software development team at the Wikimedia Foundation working on the Partial Blocks project is looking for wikis to use a stable version of our new tool. By being an early test wiki, your opinions and feedback will directly influence if we make changes to this tool.

How partial blocks work

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On the "Block user" tool located at Special:Block, a new option will appear that will allow an admin to set a block as "Partial." The rest of the tool will look and work the same as it does today, allowing for an expiration and reason.

  • Partial blocks can be set against users or IP editors.
  • When a partial block is selected, the admin can select up to 10 pages to block a user from editing, and/or entire namespaces.
  • It will not be possible to block a user from a page that does not exist (also known as a "red link") but if a user is blocked from a page and that page is deleted, the user will still be blocked from the page if it is restored.
  • When a block is set, the log will indicate if the block is sitewide or partial. If the block is partial, the log entry will include the names of the pages and namespaces included in the block.
  • When a user attempts to edit a page that they are blocked from, they will see a message that tells them they cannot edit that page, but are not blocked on other pages. The message will also show the block reason, expiration, and the admin who set the block.

Things to learn from the testing

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  1. What is an appropriate limit of the number of pages a user should be blocked from? In the first version limit is 10, but it can be any number.
  2. How should partial blocks be logged to allow for accurate and specific logging while keeping the logs easy to read?
  3. Should a notice appear when someone edits the user or user talk page of a partially blocked user?
  4. What features are missing that need to be built?
  5. Is there adequate description of the process on wiki so an administrator understands how to set a partial block?
  6. Are there sufficient policies and guidelines about when an administrator would perform a partial block?

How you can give feedback

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Please let us know where we should look on your local wiki for questions and feedback.

We're open to feedback via email if you want to send private suggestions. You can reach me at spoore(_AT_)wikimedia.org