Wikipedia:Banning policy

What is a Wikipedia ban?

A Wikipedia ban is a formal revocation of editing privileges on Wikipedia. Such a ban may be temporary and of fixed duration, or indefinite and potentially permanent. The standard invitations Wikipedia extends to over six billion people worldwide to "edit this page" do not apply to banned users. Banned users are simply not authorized to edit Wikipedia.

Bans are to be distinguished from blocking, which is a power sysops have to prevent IP address or user accounts from editing Wikipedia. The various types of blocks are one mechanism used to enforce bans, but they are used for other reasons too (such as dealing with rogue bots), and they are not the only mechanism used to enforce bans. Perhaps unfortunately, many users, including some sysops, say "ban" when they mean "block." See Wikipedia:blocking policy.

If you are banned, please respect your ban and do not edit Wikipedia while it applies. You can still contribute indirectly by publishing GFDL or public domain articles and images elsewhere on the web that Wikipedians can use as resources. Alternatively, you may contribute to one of our forks.

Decision to ban

The decision to ban a user can arise from five places. Bans from all places are equally legitimate.

1. The Wikipedia community, taking decisions according to appropriate community-designed policies with consensus support, or (more rarely) following consensus on the case itself. The quickpolls policy was one example of this. Some editors are so odious that not one of the 500+ admins will unblock them.
2. The Arbitration Committee can use a ban as a remedy following an arbitration request.
3. The Arbitration Committee can impose a parole whereby any sysop can, at their judgement, impose a 24-hr temp ban for a violation of the parole, even though this offence would not normally be a bannable offence.
4. Jimbo Wales retains the power to ban users, and has used it.
5. Ruling by the Wikimedia Board of Trustees.

Appeals process

Community-derived bans may be appealed to the arbitration committee via a request for arbitration. The arbitration committee will decide such a case based on whether the ban followed a genuine Wikipedia policy, whether the procedures were correctly followed, and whether the ban was consistent with other Wikipedia policies.

Arbitration committee decisions may be appealed to Jimbo Wales. Jimbo also reserves the right to overrule any decision of the arbitration committee.

Users who have been permanently banned may, if they wish, appeal to the arbitration committee or Jimbo Wales after one year.

Penalty for evasion

The penalty for evading a ban is that the "ban timer" is automatically reset (no formal consideration is typically necessary). For example, if Fred is banned for ten days, but on the sixth day attempts to evade the ban, then the ban timer will be reset from four more days remaining to ten days remaining. If Fred doesn't subsequently evade his ban, he will be banned for a total of sixteen days.

Banned users with poor self-control may effectively end up banning themselves indefinitely, until they regain control of themselves, and cease attempting to rejoin Wikipedia.

Dealings with banned users

It is inappropriate to "bait" banned users, taking advantage of their ban to mock them. Being banned is stressful and unpleasant enough without people intentionally harassing an individual. Indeed, as a general principle, it is unwise to post comments to users who are banned, as they cannot easily reply without breaching their ban. Doing so might encourage them to breach the terms of their ban, which is inappropriate. However, you are free to talk to banned users outside of Wikipedia (for example, by email, or on #wikipedia).

Because we discourage people from using Wikipedia to interact with banned users, it is likewise inappropriate to post comments and discussion on behalf of banned users. Such activity is sometimes called "proxying". As people respond to such material, this will inevitably draw in the banned user, and again may tempt them to subvert their ban. Our aim is to make it as easy as possible for banned users to leave Wikipedia with their dignity intact, whether permanently, or for the duration of their ban. Offering to proxy is likewise inappropriate.

Enforcement

Wikipedia's approach to enforcing bans balances a number of competing concerns:

• Maximising the quality of the encyclopedia.
• Avoiding inconvenience or aggravation of any victims of mistaken identity.
• Maximising the number of users who can edit Wikipedia.
• Avoiding conflict within the community over banned users
• Dissuading or preventing banned users from editing Wikipedia.

As a result, enforcement has a number of aspects. Note that nobody is obligated to help enforce any ban.

Long term blocks: Wikipedia will typically block the IP address of banned users who edit from a static IP address, for the duration of the ban. In extreme cases, IP ranges may be similarly blocked for the duration of the ban.

Account blocks: The primary account of any banned user, if they have one, is blocked for the duration of the ban. If the banned user creates "sock puppet" accounts to evade the ban, these may also be blocked (the times can vary). However, see the note on "reincarnations", below.

Short term IP blocks: Where a banned user edits from a range of addresses, it is normal to use short term IP blocks if that user tries to edit Wikipedia. 24 hours is a typical length, but times may vary depending on the size of the network, etc.

Reverts: All edits by a banned user made since their ban, regardless of their merits, may be reverted by any user. As the banned user is not authorised to make those edits, there is no need to discuss them prior to reversion. We ask that users generally refrain from reinstating any edits made by banned users.

As a general guideline, consider if you found the text in question on some open content website elsewhere - is it sufficiently high quality that you would copy it to Wikipedia. If not, you probably shouldn't reinstate it. Also, you should be aware of possible problems with the text. For example, if a banned user is known to be biased on some subject, you should be especially careful to check such text for bias.

If a user does knowingly reinstate an edit by a banned user, they have taken responsibility for it, in some sense, so there is no benefit in reverting that edit again, and there is the risk of causing unnecessary conflict amongst the Wikipedia community.

Deletion: It is not possible to revert newly created articles, as there is nothing to revert to. However, such pages are a candidate for speedy deletion. Non-sysops can list such pages on speedy deletions instead, adding a {{delete}} header.

If someone else has edited the page, particularly if they have made substantive edits, deletion is not appropriate. If you feel it is necessary, try instead to edit the page to remove or rework content contributed by the banned user, and keep content contributed by others. If you feel a newly created article may have been deleted in error, list it on votes for undeletion. For example, you might list a page if you think it's a case of mistaken identity, or because you feel it is of sufficiently high quality (see note for reverts, above).

Reincarnations

A reincarnation is where a banned user has returned to Wikipedia under a false identity. This is a difficult issue, where we have to try to take account of all the competing concerns above. Blatant reincarnations are easily dealt with — accounts can simply be blocked and reverted, as discussed above.

The issue normally arises where a few users start to suspect that some new account is being run by a returned banned user. The first thing to do in this situation is to ask. Where there's been a case of mistaken identity, the victim of the mistake will normally make efforts to prove to you, by a whole series of means, that they're not the person you're looking for. This invariably sorts the issue out, and everyone can mutually apologise and carry on working on the encyclopedia together, in a renewed spirit of trust. This slight inconvenience is much better than working in a climate of suspicion, so it's a good thing.

Sometimes, the suspected reincarnation doesn't give a straight answer to the question, and instead comes out with a rant about the right to privacy, or a rant about being innocent until proven guilty, or just stony silence. This is clearly not very helpful, and tends to be good evidence that the suspected reincarnation is a reincarnation. This evidence, together with a few paragraphs of explanation by the user(s) who have suspicions, is normally sufficient evidence to justify blocking the account, though there will always be edge cases that provoke discussion.

To our knowledge, this rough policy of ask politely, show evidence, consider, block, does not appear to have caused any collateral damage. The closest Wikipedia has got to making a mistake on this issue, and blocking someone who wasn't in fact banned, was when one banned user tried to impersonate another banned user, and was blocked as a result. If it causes collateral damage in the future, naturally that's something we'll have to review.

If Wikipedia does make any mistakes on this issue, they can be appealed following the appeals process noted above.

See also

• Wikipedia:Banned users