Wiktionary:Blocking policy

Draft Blocking policy

The block tool should only be used to prevent edits that will, directly or indirectly, hinder or harm the progress of the English Wiktionary. It should not be used unless less drastic means of stopping these edits have not succeeded.

Interpretation

As a guideline, hindering Wiktionary's process takes several forms:

• deliberately harming our content by deleting useful things or adding useless content or other pages;
• wasting other editors' time by making edits that have to be undone, cleaned up, or otherwise modified to make them correct; and
• causing our editors distress by insulting or being overly incivil towards them.

There are few other means of stopping these edits. The predominant one is by discussion on the user's talk page. If they clearly won't listen, or clearly aren't listening, then a short block can be given. For cases where a user has been instructed more than once, it is more polite to first warn them that they will be blocked if they continue before blocking them.

When patrolling recent changes, it is likely you will want to block some things instantly; particularly if the user behind them has clearly no intent to help.

Particularly:

• Those adding offensive or promotional material.
• People making lots of bad edits in short order.
• Accounts with vandalous or promotional usernames.
• Turks.

However, there are people who make mistakes; they should not be blocked instantly:

• People making one or two bad edits.
• People adding protologisms, or Wikipedia-style articles.

It is rare, but occasionally there will be a seasoned contributor, even an administrator, who is causing the trouble; such cases must be handled with diplomacy. It is not acceptable to block a whitelisted user unless they already know they will be blocked for their actions; for example, they have been warned or are deliberately going against policies.

The length of time for which people are blocked should be the minimum that covers the length of time that there is a threat of harmful actions. For most IP addresses, a first block of one day is used, as the addresses frequently change hands. If there is repeated trouble from a particular IP, then the length of the block can be increased. Proxies that allow anyone to edit Wiktionary through one IP address can be blocked for periods of a year or more. For users, the first block is more likely to be infinite, unless it is intended as a warning.