Forum:Changes to User block policy

Forums: Yew Grove > Changes to User block policy

This page or section is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. This thread was archived on 20 August 2009 by Calebchiam.

Hi there. I'd like to propose a set of changes to be made to RuneScape:User block policy. I find that some parts ought to be clarified/changed as they differ from what some administrators may do today (in terms of blocking, etc). I've discussed this with Tienjt0.

These are the set of changes:

• Where the block is akin to "Dharoking a chicken". If a warning would suffice, use that instead.

Reason: This is relatively minor, but "Dharoking a chicken" isn't exactly a very clear analogy.

Change to: In the case where a block is unnecessary, and a warning would suffice, use that instead.

• To be banned, a user in question must have community consensus or Wikia staff approval.

Reason: We've never asked for Wikia staff approval thus far. Also, wouldn't you think that Wikia staff would rather let us decide, seeing as we are the community, and we should be making the decisions?

Change to: To be banned, a user in question must have community consensus.

• Blocks should generally not be used against isolated incidents of vandalism.

Reason: Today's administrators often block users/IPs for isolated incidents of vandalism, because at times, it is blatantly obvious that the user's edits are malicious.

Change to: Omit statement

• We would also like to propose that users may be blocked for the use of offensive summaries in the examples provided in the introductory paragraph.

• In addition, we've noticed that under the section "How to block," it states that users should be given a message when they are blocked. Whether this includes IPs or not needs to be clarified.

If you have any disagreements/feedback, please go ahead and post them, this is what the discussion is for anyway. C.Chiam^Talk 13:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Support - as nom. C.Chiam^Talk 13:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - The page definitely needs some clarifying.  Tien  13:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose I lol'd too hard at the 'Dharoking a chicken' to support changing it. However, it could be altered to have a tooltip that comes up and explains it when the word "Dharoking" is pointed at with the cursor.

I'mma go dharok chickens now guise. --Allonym 14:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

What about the other changes we proposed? What are your opinions on those?  Tien  14:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I skimmed over those, and as I am new to this Wiki thing, I was taking a moment to think about them. " * To be banned, a user in question must have community consensus or Wikia staff approval.

Reason: We've never asked for Wikia staff approval thus far. Also, wouldn't you think that Wikia staff would rather let us decide, seeing as we are the community, and we should be making the decisions?

Change to: To be banned, a user in question must have community consensus. "

I agree with this change. However, I would like the author to clarify further on the last part. --Allonym 14:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

How could I clarify further? C.Chiam^Talk 14:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

"Blocks should generally not be used against isolated incidents of vandalism." May I ask why we have this rule in the first place? Because I would think most people who go under an IP are more likely to vandalize than those with accounts. So if you're asking we should change it to, 'be able to block based upon edit made' or something around those lines, then I would support that, as well. --Allonym 09:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why that rule was put in either, most of the content in the user block policy was written quite a while ago, so I suppose it was accepted then. Anyway, I believe that it's generally accepted among administrators that blocks are based upon the severity of edits, so I don't think what you mentioned would be necessary. C.Chiam^Talk 09:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Then, can you explain what "Change to: Omit statement" means exactly? Sorry if that's a stupid question. --Allonym 09:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Omit means that the statement is left out/taken out/removed. C.Chiam^Talk 09:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh! I thought it meant to add a statement, my bad. In that case, I agree. --Allonym 09:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Per nom Frede^Talk 14:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - I never did get the dharoking a chicken part. With these changes, it should be a lot clearer.(And the offensive summaries is there :D ) Powers38 ^おはようヾ(´･ω･｀) 14:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - clarification never hurts. Doucher4000^******r4000 16:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Varied:

Dharoking a chicken - Why not have both? - We could put both analogies for different people to understand.

Remove wikia staff approvl - Oppose - A user can be banned by Wikia staff without approval of the community (and actually, regardless of what this rule says). This has been done before on other wikis (example).

Isolated incidents of vandalism - Neutral - We must, however, try to assume good faith and make sure it is actually "vandalism", and not editing tests and such.

Offensive edit summaries - Support.

Butterman62 (talk) 20:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've never really fully understood "Dharoking a chicken". My intepretation of it is overkill, although that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Perhaps you could explain it better? C.Chiam^Talk 09:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Dharok's armour is renowned for its ability to hit extremely high (110+ is it?) at low health. Chickens only have 3 hitpoints, so if you could use dharoks (70 attack, strength and defence) you should easily be able to kill a chicken unarmed - no need for the dharoks.

Or basically, yes, overkill.

I'm support/opposing per Butterman, makes sense to me.  @Gaz#7521 12:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know what Dharok's set special effect is. I was talking about the relation between overkill and blocking. C.Chiam^Talk 13:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - How about we remove all retarded and unfunny Runescape analogies from the policy that governs the wiki. All three changes look good. TEbuddy 21:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Make it clearer!--Joe Click Here for Awesomeness 09:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - All changes, per the above. --Quarenon  _Talk 11:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - It just makes sense to me. ShinyUnown _{T | C | E} 14:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Thanks for taking a look at this and clarifying our policy. While I do think Dharok reference is funny, I don't think it belongs in our official policy. I wonder how it got in there in the first place... Tollerach hates SoF 21:19, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Whatever that thing is about a chicken makes no sense. It looks like something that would only make sense to members, and that is senseless. The rest is per all (as in all that supported, on for the sake of Murphy.) User:Stelercus/Signature 22:01, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Support most - Just axe the Dharok metaphor (pun intended). There's no need to keep it in and its not very professional. I do have a question about this particular phrase: "To be banned, a user in question must have community consensus." This is in no way an indictment of the admins, but they rarely, if ever, actually ask for community consensus. They should be able to act on their own belief. http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu33/Psycho_Robot/Sigs%20and%20Avatars/kitty.pngPsycho Robot talk 01:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, come to think of it now, you are right about the community consensus thing. Admins give indefinite blocks to disruption-only accounts (and maybe advertising-only accounts) and accounts with inappropriate usernames. Once I gather enough feedback, I'll create a new section with a revised proposal with the tweaks and changes. C.Chiam^Talk 04:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Support All - Per all. Why do we have such a pun in a serious and important policy, honestly. - TehKittyCat (talk) 06:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Er.... its not really a pun... Its kinda stupid, yes, but not a pun http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu33/Psycho_Robot/Sigs%20and%20Avatars/kitty.pngPsycho Robot talk 14:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Per most people. Mo 55 55 ^Talk|Sign 07:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - The clearer our policies are, the better. Laser Dragon 05:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Dharoking a chicken? I don't get it... — ^En_ig^ma 05:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Revised proposal

After gathering your feedback, this is the revised proposal.

• Where the block is akin to "Dharoking a chicken". If a warning would suffice, use that instead.

Change to: In the case where a block is unnecessary, and a warning would suffice, use that instead.

• To be banned, a user in question must have community consensus or Wikia staff approval.

Change to: Administrators may ban advertising/disruption-only and accounts with inappropriate usernames without community consensus. However, community consensus/Wikia staff approval should be obtained when banning established editors.

• Blocks should generally not be used against isolated incidents of vandalism.

Change to: Omit statement

• Users may be blocked for the use of offensive summaries in the examples provided in the introductory paragraph.

• In addition, we've noticed that under the section "How to block," it states that users should be given a message when they are blocked. Whether this includes IPs or not needs to be clarified. Exact statement - Don't forget to notify the user of their block on their talk page!

• Instead: Administrators may wish to notify the user of their block on their talkpage.

Sentences that are bolded indicate that there has been a change from the previous proposal, or that the section requires more discussion. We still need to discuss whether IPs need to be notified when they are blocked or if the sentence applies to users (meaning, editors with an account) only. Discuss . C.Chiam^Talk 08:52, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion (2)

Support - Per the person below me. Also, I think all accounts should receive an explanation. Its no more difficult to post on an IP's talk page than on a User's talk page, is it not? http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu33/Psycho_Robot/Sigs%20and%20Avatars/kitty.pngPsycho Robot talk 16:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Makes more sense to me. ShinyUnown _{T | C | E} 17:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Per above. - TehKittyCat (talk) 17:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Cool. Makes pwning vandals less complicated. — ^En_ig^ma 18:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I don't think it should be compulsory for IPs to be notified on their talkpage about their block. They are informed when they attempt to edit a page while blocked, so it shouldn't be necessary. This too applies for users with accounts, so I think the sentence should be omitted. C.Chiam^Talk 04:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, by notifying, I mean something like the block template. Throughout my time on the wiki, I can't recall a time when I've seen another administrator notifying a blocked IP with the template, or something similar. C.Chiam^Talk 11:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I like to leave the message "blocked vandal" on an IP talk page. The template is too formal, they know what they did. The message is more for others to see how we treat vandals rather than the IP itself.--Degenret01 15:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Mmm, but the thing is, should we make it mandatory for admins to add something like that to an IP's talkpage? I don't think we should make a rule to enforce this. C.Chiam^Talk 07:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Support changes except the omission of Wikia staff. They reserve the right to ban any user for any length of time, without consensus from the community. Dtm142 17:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as you and other users have supported adding that Wikia staff may freely ban, I've added it in as further clarification. C.Chiam^Talk 09:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Changed to support then, as that was my only concern. Dtm142 21:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Per Caleb. Why was the Dharoking a chicken thing in the policy in the first place? ~  Sentry Telos ^Talk  21:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Clearer rules, better wiki.

Bonziiznob ^Talk

00:23, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - Sounds great.  Tien  01:07, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Support - No question, great idea, surprised no one brought it up sooner... Kudos 2 U Talk! Edit count! Contribs! 07:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Note - I hope no one minds that I added "Administrators may wish to notify the user of their block on their talkpage." to the proposal above. This serves as a reminder to administrators that they may notify users of their block, but also establishes that it is not mandatory to do so. C.Chiam^Talk 10:55, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Closed - Seeing as there's been full support for this, I've made the necessary changes. C.Chiam^Talk 09:16, 20 August 2009 (UTC)