Duration length reasons[]
Since I am the one that is establishing the block duration guidelines, I thought it best to share my reasoning behind those durations. Some of them are based on the "three strikes" rule.
- Profanity
- The first offense might have been done just for shock value, to see what kind of reaction they will get. But if they do it a second time, then it becomes more apparent that it is a conscious decision on their part. By the time they do it a third time, there is no doubt that they are doing it deliberately and will continue to do so.
- Insults and harassment
- "No tolerance" policies sometimes degrade into ridiculousness where common sense says it was stupid to enforce it for a particular situation. That's why there's a little more leeway here. However, by the time a third infraction occurs, we're entering the point where there's little doubt that the previous instances were deliberate.
- Racial slurs, hate speech or sexual statements
- Racial slurs and hate speech are detrimental to this community's well-being and hate speech is almost always unrelated to this wiki's subject. We don't need either of those here, which is why the block reasons are longer than for profanity. (Profanity really should have similar blocks, but I realize that many people use them as part of their everyday speech. They just spew it from their mouth without noticing it any more.)
- On Nickelodeon's teen shows, there may times when relationships on the show mention or discuss sex. Shows for younger kids typically will not. We will take our cue from Nickelodeon and go no further than what that show includes. This means that any discussions of this nature should be kept in general terms, must be related to a specific event on a show and confined to a discussion about that show. Anything outside those parameters, such as specific descriptions of sexual activity, is not allowed and is subject to the block policy.
- Pornography
- Not acceptable on most websites and definitely inappropriate for this wiki, not to mention illegal given that most of the characters are under-age. Best that we get rid of those kinds of people as fast as possible.
- Inappropriate pictures (non-pornographic)
- Since it is permitted to include some pictures on user pages that are not about Nickelodeon shows, a block should be set when a person goes overboard and starts uploading a lot of off-topic pictures.
- Spam (advertisements, rants against third parties, political statements)
- Spammers don't care where they post their messages, so we're not going to put up with them. A one year block is usually enough to make them go away permanently.
- Unacceptable user names
- Selecting a user name is a deliberate choice by a person. User names that are accidentally unacceptable will be few and far between, typically when the name is offensive in a different language. As a result, we really don't need to see unacceptable user names in the permanent record of who made each edit. Many of these people aren't interested in making this wiki better anyway, just seeing what problems they can cause.
At the moment, vandalism is not included because many times it includes one of the reasons above. However, if necessary to add durations for vandalism, we will. In the meantime, a good guideline to use is "is this a deliberate attempt to harm the wiki?" If the answer is no or it may appear that the person might just be "playing around" or might have made a mistake, then they should be given the benefit of the doubt. Leave them a message explaining why their edit was undone and what they could change to make it better. (If you have done this several times with no answer back from the person, then it becomes clear that they are doing it deliberately and it is vandalism.) RRabbit42 M·C·E January 23, 2012 (UTC)
Pre-emptive blocks[]
Occasionally, a block may be placed on an account or IP address that has not made any edits here. Typically, the account or IP address that is being blocked will have caused enough problems on other wikis that I or another administrator consider it a serious enough offense to head them off before they appear here.
The block notice will always give a reason. "Cross-wiki" or "Cross-Internet" means that I did a search for an exact phrase and it turned up results on multiple sites, clearly indicating that this is a spammer. Repeated problems like vandalism or profanity elsewhere show they're deliberately acting that way, so those kinds of things warrant blocks here, too.
Pre-emptive blocks can be summed up this way: they don't care what they're doing is wrong and they aren't interested in making the places they visit better, so we're not going to put up with them here. RRabbit42 M·C·E January 23, 2012 (UTC)
Discussion[]
Discuss the content of this article here. If anything needs to be improved or updated, be specific about what needs to be changed. Recommendations for changes will be accepted from January 23, 2012 through February 7, 2012 so that they may be implemented before voting begins.
Voting[]
When voting begins, it will be added here.