Wikipedia:Banning policy

This is (still!) not hard policy, but is perhaps closer to it.

What is a ban?

A ban is a formal revocation of editing priviledges on Wikipedia. Such a ban may be temporary and of fixed duration, or indefinate 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 authorised to edit Wikipedia.

Bans are to be distinguished from blocking, which is a power sysops have to prevent IP addresss 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. See Wikipedia:blocking policy.

If you are hard 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, or set up your own.

Decision to ban

The decision to ban a user can arise from three 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/is one example of this.
2. The Arbitration Committee can use a ban as a remedy following an arbitration request, or following a violation of parole.
3. Jimbo Wales retains the theoretical power to ban users, though he does not intend to use it.

Appeals process

Community-derived bans may be appealed to the arbitration committee (via a request for arbitration). The arbitration committee would decide such a case based on whether the ban followed a genuine Wikipedia policy, whether the process for that policy was correctly followed, and whether the ban conflicted with any other Wikipedia policies.

Decisions of the arbitration committee can be appealed to Jimbo Wales. Jimbo can in any case overrule all decisions of the arbitration committee.

Although it is impossible to verify "who" is behind any account or IP, in principle users may be hard banned at any time by Jimbo Wales, our "benevolent dictator" or "GodKing". He does this by announcing it on the WikiEN-l mailing list. Alternatively, bans can be declared by the arbitration committee.

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. 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 vias.

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 unnnecessary conflict amongst the Wikipedia community.

to be continued