Wikipedia:Blocks and bans
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This page is an official policy on the Simple English Wikipedia. Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard way that all users should follow. When changing the page, please check that the other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to propose a change. |
Administrators can block users for many reasons. When a user is blocked, they will not be able to edit Wikipedia, but can still read wikipedia.
Common reasons for blocking are:
- Vandalism
- Breaking Wikipedia policies
- Adding pages or sentences that are against copyright
- Having an inappropriate user name
Users should be warned with appropriate warning templates before administrators block them, but administrators can block a user at any time if they are intentionally disrupting Wikipedia or violating other policies. All administrators who block users must have a working email address in their personal settings so they can be contacted by a user affected by a block if necessary.
Administrators also have the right to block users who have been banned on other Wikipedias or other Wikimedia Foundation projects. This will be decided on a case-by-case basis. For example, a vandal can be blocked, but a user who ignored rules should not be blocked, unless it can be demonstrated that they may repeat it here.
If you feel you have been unfairly blocked, please contact the person who blocked you. On your talk page or in an email what IP you are using. When you go to edit a page you will see this, and it will tell you your IP address. Contact details for administrators are listed on the administrators page.
Most blocks should be for 24 hours. However, a user may be blocked for a longer period if it is necessary.
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Block options
When blocks are set you change the effects of the block, they are listed here:
- Auto block
- This changes the effect of a block on a registered account. When enabled, it blocks the most recently used IP address by that user, and any following addresses they try to edit from.
- Block account creation
- This changes the effect of a block on a registered user or IP. When enabled, it will stop them from creating an account while they are blocked.
- Block anonymous users only
- This changes the effect of blocks on IP's. When enabled, the block will only affect anonymous users editing from that IP address, not registered users.
- Block e-mail
- This changes the effect of blocks on registered users. When enabled it prevents them from using the emailuser feature. This should be used to stop abuse of the emailuser feature. In some cases it may be used for unacceptable usernames.
Vandal/Spam bots
Vandal and spam bots should be blocked as soon as possible. If you need help to stop an automated vandal, ask a steward in the the #wikimedia-stewards IRC channel or at meta:requests for permissions, where someone else may be able to report it to the IRC channel. A bot may be attacking other Wikipedias too, which is why you must report it. See this page for more details.
Proxies
Administrators should block anonymous proxies. This was talked about on the Wikipedia mailing list. The administrator can set the timestamp of the block to "indefinite", which means the anonymous proxy will be blocked forever. If it is a tor proxy it should be less since they are not usually tor's for long.
Administrators should try not to block ISP proxies; this sort of block would affect lots of people.
Related pages
- Special:Ipblocklist - Currently blocked users, excluding those blocked by range
- Special:Blockip - Use this to block or unblock a user (sysop only)
- Range blocks - Please do not block ranges unless you know what you are doing!
- MediaWiki:Blockedtext - the text a blocked user sees when they try to edit a page.
- Requests for unblock
- Open proxies blocked on Wikipedia
- http://www.as3344.net/is-tor/ check for TOR nodes
