Battlestar Wiki:Banning policy

From Battlestar Wiki, the free, open content Battlestar Galactica encyclopedia and episode guide
BSG WIKI Policy.png This page is an official policy of Battlestar Wiki.
This policy is considered by the community and its leadership to be the status quo of Battlestar Wiki and is not to be countermanded or ignored, though changes to it can be discussed on the appropriate talk page. This policy was implemented on 30 August 2006.
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Battlestar Wiki Policy
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This is a derivative work from Wikipedia:Banning Policy, which is permissible under the GNU FDL license. All related edits will be released under this same license.

What is a Wiki ban?

A ban is a formal revocation of editing privileges on Battlestar Wiki. Such a ban may be temporary and of fixed duration, or indefinite and potentially permanent. The standard invitations Battlestar Wiki 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 Battlestar Wiki.

Bans are to be distinguished from blocking, which is a power sysops have to prevent IP address or user accounts from editing Battlestar Wiki. 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.

If you are banned, please respect your ban and do not edit Battlestar Wiki while it applies. You can still contribute indirectly by publishing GFDL, Creative Commons or public domain articles and images elsewhere on the web that Galactipedians can use as resources.

Decision to ban

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

  1. The Battlestar Wiki community, taking decisions according to appropriate community-designed policies with consensus support, following consensus on the case itself.
  2. The Administrators can impose a parole whereby any sysop can, at their judgment, impose a 24-hr temp ban for a violation of the parole, even though this offence would not normally be a bannable offense.
    • Such paroles can also be entered into voluntarily, though this is probably a rarity.
  3. Joe Beaudoin retains the power to ban registered and unregistered "IP address" users. While he has banned IP addresses and IP ranges for spamming the site, he has also used this power only once against a registered member.

Appeals process

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

Users who have been permanently banned may, if they wish, appeal to Joe Beaudoin 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 Sharon 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 Sharon doesn't subsequently evade her ban, she 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 Battlestar Wiki.

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 Battlestar Wiki (for example, by email or instant messaging -- such as AOL, ICQ, et al)

Because we discourage people from using Battlestar Wiki 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 Battlestar Wiki with their dignity intact, whether permanently, or for the duration of their ban. Offering to proxy is likewise inappropriate.

Enforcement

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

  • Maximizing the quality of the encyclopedia and episode guide.
  • Avoiding inconvenience or aggravation of any victims of mistaken identity.
  • Maximizing the number of users who can edit Battlestar Wiki.
  • Avoiding conflict within the community over banned users.
  • Dissuading or preventing banned users from editing Battlestar Wiki.

As a result, enforcement has a number of aspects. Note that no one is obligated to help enforce any ban.

Long term blocks

Battlestar Wiki 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.

This may, unfortunately, affect other users who share the same IP address; so the actions of one do affect others, such as in a Japanese stone garden. See Privacy Policy...
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). See Privacy Policy...

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 Battlestar Wiki. 24 hours is a typical length, but times may vary depending on the size of the network, etc. See Privacy Policy.

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 authorized 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 Battlestar Wiki. 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 Battlestar Wiki 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 by tagging them with {{delete}} or {{delete|reason}} tags.

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 off sufficiently high quality (see note for reverts, above).

See Also
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/Battlestar_Wiki:Banning_policy
en.battlestarwiki.org
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