Scratchpad:Blocking policy

 See also: Help:Blocking, Scratchpad:Blocking policy, mw:Help:Blocking users, and mw:Manual:Block and unblock

This page documents an official policy on Scratchpad. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.

Administrators can block and unblock users. When a user is blocked, they cannot edit any pages except their own talk page.

Temporary blocks are used on disruptive IP addresses and users who have vandalised a few times.
Indefinite blocks are used for persistent disruption.

Temporary blocks

Temporary blocks are generally used (especially for IP-only editors) when:

• A user is vandalising
• A user advertises for something
• A user adds linkspam to external sites
• A user is uncivil
• A user continuously fails to assume good faith.
• A user is generally not following one or more of Scratchpad’s policies (e.g., SP:CAST)

Indefinite blocks

An indefinite block is a block that does not have a definite (or fixed) duration. Indefinite blocks are usually applied when there is significant disruption or threats of disruption, or major breaches of policy and/or guidelines. In such cases an open-ended block may be appropriate to prevent further problems until the matter can be resolved by discussion. Like all remedies, this is not a punishment. It is designed as a “time out” to prevent further disruption, and the desired outcome is a commitment to observe Scratchpad’s policies and to stop problematic conduct in future.

Only in extreme cases would there be no Administrator who is willing to lift the block, which would effectively make the uncooperative editor banned by the community.

Indefinite blocks are used when:

• A user is disruptive
• A user is a vandal- or spam-only account
• A user violates multiple policies or continues to do so after a final warning
• Open proxies or zombie computers
• Compromised web-servers

Open or anonymous proxies

Main page: Scratchpad:Open proxies

Given that editing from open proxies and/or zombie computers is equally prohibited on both Wikia and Wikimedia Foundation wikis, Administrators at Scratchpad will, from time to time and in order to comply with Wikia’s policy, have to block IP-only editors editing from proxies/zombies. To that end, the procedure at Scratchpad:Open proxies is to be followed.

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Wikipedia:Blocking policy. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Scratchpad, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Licence.