GuildWiki talk:Penalties for abuse

If this does become policy then it needs to be moved to Policy as this is the page that is linked to from the "Ban User" page. --Rainith 07:26, 17 March 2006 (CST)


 * I don't think it should become policy without a lot more review and possibly a vote. The current draft is too preliminary to think of it as anything more than a guideline. &mdash; Stabber 07:33, 17 March 2006 (CST)

Not first time - how to ID?
My only question is on the "not first time" list. Does this then require the admin to go to the banning log, then scroll through trying to spot if the particular user ID or IP has ever been banned in the past? A user could easilly edit out any reference to a prior ban from their user or talk pages, so to me it would be extremely difficult to identify "not first time" offenders unless it's all repeated offenses prior to the first ban. --161.88.255.140 07:14, 17 March 2006 (CST)
 * I too am confused by that as I am not going to go back through the block log looking to see if 123.456.789.10 has been blocked before, it is enough of a hassle to see if someone already blocked the IP and didn't delete the ban request. --Rainith 07:26, 17 March 2006 (CST)
 * Luckily for you that is an invalid IP so you don't even have to look! :) But seriously, feel free to edit the page if there is something there that doesn't make sense or is far too cumbersome to implement. &mdash; Stabber 07:33, 17 March 2006 (CST)
 * I think just removing the "First" and "Not First Time" while leaving the "Single Page" and "Multiple Pages" would suffice. What about penalties for a *new* page that the person created?  That hits home for me, as that's why I got blocked for a month - Greven 07:42, 17 March 2006 (CST)
 * I made a first stab at adjusting some points. --161.88.255.140 07:54, 17 March 2006 (CST)

Standard Ban times
Just so the non-admin user know here is a list of the standard ban times we have in the drop down menu on the "Block user" page:
 * 2 hours
 * 1 day
 * 3 days
 * 1 week
 * 2 weeks
 * 1 month
 * 3 months
 * 6 months
 * 1 year
 * infinite

--Rainith 08:12, 17 March 2006 (CST)
 * I modified the durations to fit into the above values. I also extended some durations (I honestly don't think 1-day is effective for anything, so moved most minimums up to 3 days). --161.88.255.140 08:21, 17 March 2006 (CST)
 * The tradition, based on the "recent changes" pages over the last few months, seems to be a week. I think "a week, or maybe three days if you feel kind" is more in tune with what the admins have already been doing, and probably a bit more effective. Thoughts? --130.58 12:13, 17 March 2006 (CST)


 * Well, ultimately, I think the final decision should be up to the admin enacting the ban. I mean sometimes things just don't fit cleanly into a category like that.  I think a little note to the effect of saying that the time listed is the minimum ban time.  Or.... something.
 * Also, what's with the multiple pages, accidental editing == two weeks? That's the same as some of the more malicious vandalizing... perhaps 3 days <-> 1 week?  It just seems kind of harsh to go from zero to two weeks if you happen to have the same mistake on two pages.  Evan The Cursed (Talk) 12:50, 17 March 2006 (CST)


 * I think the penalty should be increased for racist/homophobic abuse. 3 months for a single incident, 6 months or even a year for repeated. Other than that the numbers look okay to me. -- 13:46, 17 March 2006 (CST)


 * The one thing I would be careful about is infinite bans. IPs can switch owners and infinite bans remove a part of the web forever, even if the owner switches. 1 year is a very long time, it should be enough even for bots.


 * My internet connection is provided by a proxy that serves all higher and lower education institutes in the state I am living in. The problem being, some children obviously repeatedly vandalised the german part of wikipedia from school, so a good part of that proxys IP range is now banned, meaning several 1000s to 10000s users from schools and universities now cant edit there infinitly. And while I understand the wikipedia guys (the vandalism was of the hard form and repeaded quite often before the ban went permanent), this is something I'd rather avoid here, especially after the first edit. --Xeeron 21:10, 17 March 2006 (CST)


 * I made a post on this subject on the blog awhile back; basically, I don't think the bans -really- do anything useful at all. I think current top-level feeling about ban is something like: "If I notice it, I will do an infinite ban, because we can, and I am in Wrath of God mode. If I don't notice it, someone else will, and will probably revert it, and life goes on." So.. as far as concrete policy? I don't really think it's needed, but you're welcome to draw up a "these are the current habits" article. --Nunix 16:22, 23 March 2006 (CST)


 * I think the day- or week- long ban is useful as a kind of "cool-off" thing. I've noticed a lot of people tend to get high on the power of being able to slap their worthless graffiti on one page and having five minutes tick by before someone else changes it, causing them to go on happy little sprees. So I would say that short-term bans work, as long as you think of them as a deterent, not a punishment: a short ban is enough to bore almost anyone other than a bot into stopping, and the best way to deal with bots is to protect pages with words like "fur" and "domination" in the titles. Given how IPs work, I'm opposed to infinite bans, even for bots. --130.58 16:31, 23 March 2006 (CST)

I'm also opposed to infinite bans. I think we should just never use them at all. I think "disrespectful" bans should be very short (people who are clearly not following the rules, but aren't advertising, hate-spamming, etc.) One day is probably enough for most people. Lastly, I strongly feel this should just be a "Guidelines" page, never a hard policy. Admins can still agree to do whatever (and should have freedom to judge), and it would actually be most useful for people who actually get banned for short periods of time (to see what is in place and that they aren't being treated particularly unfairly). As a final aside, being able to protect some pages by requiring login would be really good; I know it's not possible currently, but some pages just get spammed more than others. --JoDiamonds 02:31, 28 March 2006 (CST)

ban policy questions
Do you ban users from viewing Guildwiki or posting? I would prefer posting over viewing.


 * The way blocks work in MediaWiki is that you are prevented from editing the page if you are blocked. You can still read everything. F G 15:58, 6 April 2006 (CDT)

What is the status of this guideline? I saw today that it was added to the ban template so I tried cleaning up the table; but I know that many of the admins use shorter time periods for many of these (1e: using 1 day instead of 3, or 3 months instead of 6). The shorter periods seem to be adequate for most offenders and seem to be working. So, should this guideline be updated to reflect what is frequently used; or just leave it as a true guideline, and up to the individual admin's discression to determine variances from it? --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 12:48, 12 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I'll be honest and say that I personally don't use it. I go off of what I think is appropriate.  Some users that I block get a one day ban, some who do something similar might get 3 days of a week.  It really depends on what they do, and how I view it.  Somewhat arbitrary I know, but this is the first time I've looked at this page since the week it was created.  --Rainith 16:02, 12 June 2006 (CDT)


 * If a guideline is not used, it should not exist. Adding delete tag. –70.20&#x260e; 16:07, 12 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I don't use it either, but since it's just a guideline and not a policy, I think it doesn't have to go (my own position on this issue is neutral). Certainly it'd be good if between the admins the penalities are about the same, and right now I think we don't differ much (still depends on what was done, and what mood we are in etc). - 00:40, 13 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Rather than deletion, I would rather see the penalties set to ranges, allowing an admin to select from within an acceptable range. Of course, admins would then be expected to follow the guideline range for any blocks, which may be difficult to implement in the current guildwiki culture. --161.88.255.140 17:08, 13 June 2006 (CDT)
 * If the ranges are based on what the admins have been doing, and let this be more as a guide to let ppl know what to expect when admins ban ppl, that might help? - 18:43, 13 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I agree. Now to document the range of what admins have actually been doing. --161.88.255.140 18:47, 13 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I think for an important matter like this there should be an official policy not just a guideline. Otherwise our sysops may be accused of arbitrary banning, and that isn't acceptable.
 * Personally, I find the current banning guidelines both too harsh and too mild, depending on the case. In most cases it is quite easy to tell if a vandal is just a wiki newb fooling around without really having bad intentions or whether he is a malevolent troll that is trying to cause serious trouble.
 * In case of a wiki newb a warning message is probably much more likely to convince the person to stop further vandalism than a temporary ban. I doubt very much that a ban, even if it's just 3 days, is a good way to "cool off" such a person; actually it is more likely to make him angry and seek for "revenge" after the ban expired and turn into a troll (see next paragraph). A polite but clear warning message may give him a second chance to turn into a valuable contributor.
 * On the other hand, in case of a serious troll any temporary ban is useless and too mild IMO. A troll now will still be a troll in 3 months or 6 months. Human nature. When he has clearly been identified as a troll, ban him permanently! If he really regrets what he has done he can always send an eMail to ask to be unbanned.
 * Whether IP bans make sense at all is a completely different question. A "pro" troll will probably know how to use dynamic IPs to bypass the ban. In that case only switching the wiki to registered users edits only would work. But that's an extreme measure, and the discussion can be postponed to the day we encounter such a troll.
 * Punch line: IMHO short period bans of 3 days or 2 weeks make no sense. Either no ban (just a polite warning instead), or a long ban of at least 6 months or 1 year, preferable even permanent. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 04:45, 14 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm solidly againt the permanent ban concept. Too many dynamic IPs out there.  A permanent block on a dynamic IP can result in at least a session-long block on a large number of people, while the actual culprit is around it the next time his IP is changed. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 07:32, 14 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I just looked at the edit history, and noticed that the only admin to actually contribute to the article itself is PanSola, and that was to aadd the "this is only a guideline, not policy tag". I hadn't realized that before now.
 * If this is to be a true guideline, or even to be formalized into policy, then I feel we need the admins to document what they each consider reasonable for each of the ban situations identified; add additional ban situations they see missing from the list (they would know them better than the rest of us), then we can work towards standardizing their stances on these. This will help in both reaching consistent applications of bans, as well as providing a document so the users can see documents.  To me, it seems reasonable the categories to have ranges rather than hard-and-fast time periods to allow for variables on a case-by-case basis.  Also for special situations, adding a note that justifies an admin to apply something that varies from the guideline and/or policy can be mentioned in the ban summary or in the user's talk page. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 07:47, 14 June 2006 (CDT)