ToBeFree

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Arbitration Enforcement blocks

Hi ToBeFree. Could you offer some general guidance on what might be considered too short of a duration for an Arbitration Enforcement block? Anything shorter than a month perhaps? Daniel Quinlan (talk) 20:38, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Daniel Quinlan, this is probably about Rob Roilen's 24-hour block that was originally an AE action. WP:CBAN provides some data:

• Site ban discussions must generally be open for at least 72 hours.
• If someone is indefinitely blocked and appeals their block at WP:AN, they are either unblocked or site banned as a result.
• All community sanction discussions must be open for at least 24 hours.

So a 24-hour block will inevitably, per policy, expire before the unblock discussion is closed. That makes the request pointless. The block template for AE blocks correctly notes that an unblock request can only be made through AN or AE, so anyone appealing their 24-hour AE block ends up asking for something pointless.

This is less likely to be an issue for even just a week-long block, although requiring a noticeboard review for a quick week-long block is also hard to justify. Blocks are normally reviewed by individual administrators on the blocked users' talk pages, and the community would drown in appeal discussions if these were all held at WP:AN instead.

In the end, it's (mostly) not about the duration of the block but whether you expect another administrator to disagree and simply undo the action. This was a common fear when AE sanctions were intruduced, with sanctions against "unblockable" established users quickly being overruled by at least one of the then-over-1000 administrators, and reinstatement of the overruled action being prohibited as wheel warring. AE blocks exist to prevent me from being unblocked by you in case I made a personal attack, not to sanction battleground conduct by a newcomer.

Best regards,
~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:56, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I understand now that shorter durations may be problematic given how appeals work. I had previously read WP:CTOP and WP:AC/P which both say Contentious topic restrictions may be imposed for any fixed length of time, or for an indefinite period. and 24-hour to 72-hour blocks don't seem to be rare in the 2023 and 2024 Arbitration Enforcement log (although not as common in 2024). I'm not saying that the current wording of the procedures actually encourages shorter durations, but would it be worthwhile to include some brief practical guidance on those procedure pages? I can file a request if needed, but I wanted to ask for your opinion first. Thanks! Daniel Quinlan (talk) 21:49, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

It's a pretty good question. I guess a not-quickly-undoable 24-hour block of an "unblockable" user may sometimes make sense and may well have been an intended option. Regarding the logged actions, perhaps these are mostly from the WP:AE noticeboard, where practically every action taken on thread closure including short blocks becomes a logged contentious topic restriction that is only appealable on a noticeboard? Perhaps most of the blocked users are aware of their low chance of having the action overturned at a noticeboard, so the actual number of time-consuming reviews is low?

For a clarification/admendment request, I personally would be happy if a specific improvement to the existing policies was proposed. Specific wording that could be used instead; corrections that would improve the procedures.

Perhaps the following at Wikipedia:Contentious topics § Administrators' role and expectations already covers this?

Before imposing a delegated enforcement action, administrators must consider whether a regular administrative action would be sufficient to reduce disruption to the project.

~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:09, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

(It's a bit comical that this comes from me, as I regularly fill the enforcement logs with contentious topic page protections that could simply be normal page protections. The reason why I do so, just for the record, is that placing a year of semi-protection or even a year of extended-confirmed protection without trying shorter protections first is something I wouldn't do if the topic wasn't already known to be contentious.) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, I think you (and many other administrators including myself) are in the clear on that. Without logging those protections as an enforcement action, it would be a violation of WP:PREEMPTIVE. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:22, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, right! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:24, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that blurb, which I've read before, but didn't cross my mind today, is quite clear and would cover many of these cases including the most recent one, but I believe it would still be helpful to add some practical guidance about the duration of restrictions somewhere.

It might also be a good idea to add a footnote (or even a sentence) to Wikipedia:Contentious topics § Standard set and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Standard set to remind administrators about the separate section. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to reply but was unsure what to. Because I agree with you about the idea yet think if this should ever actually happen, that's probably only after someone wrote that practical guidance and the footnote text and presented them as a ready-to-use solution in their request at WP:ARCA. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:07, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I always use an AE action when I'm enforcing a CTOP sanction like 1RR or ECR, since technically the authority to block for those does not exist without AE authority. Another thing worth keeping in mind about when to use AE is if you want the action logged. A block for edit warring is different than a block for edit warring in a contentious topic, and strongly influences further arbitration enforcement. It also provides a helpful log for tracking the baseline disruption in a topic area. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:17, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that's a good point. Similar to the actions resulting from requests at the WP:AE noticeboard. Perhaps these are the main source of 24-hour CTOP blocks. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:44, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2024).

Administrator changes

• Crisco 1492

• Babajobu
• Daniel
• Elf
• Jayron32
• Thue
• Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

Maxim

Oversighter changes

Maxim

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, the discussion-only period proposal that went for a trial to refine the requests for adminship (RfA) process has been discontinued.
• Following a request for comment, Administrator recall is adopted as a policy.

Technical news

• Mass deletions done with the Nuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. T366068

Arbitration

• RoySmith, Barkeep49 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2024 Arbitration Committee Elections. ThadeusOfNazereth and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate from 3 November 2024 until 12 November 2024 to stand in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The Arbitration Committee is seeking volunteers for roles such as clerks, access to the COI queue, checkuser, and oversight.

Miscellaneous

• An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:22, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

A question

Hello, am I currently blocked somehow? I cannot reply to comments in any of the active threads I'm involved in. I'm using the mobile app if that makes any difference. Rob Roilen (talk) 20:22, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

You have no active blocks. While blocks on your IP can affect even you when you're logged in, this is unlikely since you're able to comment here. Also you should get some indication you're blocked when editing. Note that if you're trying to use the Wikipedia:Reply tool to reply, I'm not sure if this has been enabled on the Android app. You may have to reply old style, by editing the talk page and indenting your comment as necessary etc. If that isn't the problem, the Android app has a controversial reputation, I haven't used it much myself but when I have IMO it's decent for reading but has limitations when editing. It might be worth using a browser on your Android device whether with the mobile or desktop site when editing talk pages. The reply tool is enabled on the mobile website. Nil Einne (talk) 20:39, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Rob Roilen and Nil Einne, the reply tool is quickly broken by list formatting and templates. It will work here in this discussion because it contains no special code, but as soon as anything unusual is present in the section's code, it will refuse to work. Editing the section and adding a new comment the manual, old way using colons for indentation will work even then, though. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:42, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) One thing, if your IP is WP:partial blocked with the setting to prevent logged in users from editing with that IP, this would prevent you from editing anything affected by the partial block which might explain why you can edit here but not elsewhere, especially if all the other pages you're trying to edit are the Wikipedia namespace and that's one of the things you're partially blocked from. However you should see a block notice of some sort even on the Android app (Wikipedia:Mobile communication bugs). It's possible there is some weird interaction between the reply tool and the block so it might be worth trying to edit the page directly rather than with the reply tool if you haven't already. If you can find a block notice, it's more likely you could receive assistance as it's almost impossible for anyone to help without knowing if you're even blocked and if you are, by what block. Nil Einne (talk) 20:46, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nil Einne @ToBeFree Noted, thank you both. Rob Roilen (talk) 20:49, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of User:Khan Bijoy

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. A tag has been placed on User:Khan Bijoy requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section U5 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to consist of writings, information, discussions, or activities not closely related to Wikipedia's goals. Please note that Wikipedia is not a free web hosting service. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such pages may be deleted at any time.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. GPL93 (talk) 21:32, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh my. Thanks, GPL93.

For the record, I had moved/merged Khan Bijoy's user page and their sandbox to a draft and replaced the resulting cross-namespace redirect by "The draft that had been added to this user page is now at Draft:Khan Bijoy." I also informed them about the situation on their talk page.

None of this stopped the user from overwriting that text with new self-promotion a few hours later; I hope a two-week block causes them to have a look at their talk page and to consider editing about other topics. If it just continues after the block, please let me know. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:52, 3 November 2024 (UTC)