Blocking Policy

A block is defined as an administrative action taken on certain account(s) and/or IP address(s) to prevent them from contributing in order to enforce the wiki guidelines or to prevent vandalism and other bad faith contributions.

## How blocks should be appealed

### Admins

Fandom encourages admins to leave blocked users’ walls left open on most block instances so that they can appeal their block. There are, of course, exceptions, such as:

* Spammers
* Terms of Use violations
* Major disruption concerns
* Under-age users (who you should then be reporting to staff!)

### Editors

Have you talked to the admin on your wiki yet? If not, make a good faith effort to have that conversation. Community Central is the best place to do so

Only send in a support ticket via ZenDesk about a block if you have made a good faith effort to discuss your block with the admins (or can’t) and the block is longer than 2 weeks (or represents a pattern of shorter blocks). If you meet those conditions, Fandom will review it. You will be required to submit a link to said discussion.

## Permanent Blocks

Admins will usually give up to 3 temporary blocks before permanently banning a user with exceptions in certain cases. In other words, unwillingness to change your attitude and behavior and refusal to listen to an admin's warnings will result in a permanent ban from the wiki.

To appeal a ban, please contact an administrator on Community Central.

## Scenarios where Admins will block accounts

**Vandalism** – Vandalism is defined as any bad-faith edit made with the intent to lower the quality of the wiki or disrupt the functioning of the community. In most cases, an Admin will warn the user in question once before blocking. If they ignore the warning they will be placed under a two-week-long block to allow them to reflect on their behavior. If they make a new account during that time to bypass their ban that account will be permanently banned along with the original account. If when their ban has expired and they come back and continue causing problems they will be permanently banned on the spot.In extreme cases the first ban can be permanent.

**Spam** – Posting irrelevant links in articles, or creating articles which are entirely nonsense are grounds for an infinite block. This also applies to the Discussions. If a user keeps posting links to external websites that have no relation to the topic of the thread they will be permanently banned on the spot. Excessive posting is a little different though. The generally acceptable practice is if you post more than 3 new threads within an hour the extra posts will be deleted and the user will be warned about their behavior. If this scenario repeats itself more than 3 times the account will be temporarily blocked. If they continue to not listen to Admin warnings they will be banned for a longer amount of time, increasing successively.

**Bad Faith Edits**- Generally Admins will assume good faith, but if an account clearly has no intention to positively contribute to the wiki (blanking many different articles within a minute, moving articles to inappropriate names, etc) an immediate and indefinite ban will be given to the account.

**Edit Warring**- Undoing another editor's contributions to an article repeatedly qualifies as edit warring. Please make an effort to discuss any disputes with your fellow editors. If the conversation breaks down please ask an administrator to mediate the discussion.

**Inappropriate account naming** – Accounts that have rude/inappropriate account names will be blocked immediately and permanently. This also goes for accounts that attempt to impersonate/harass specific users (Ex- User A is Dumb).

**Disruption** – Users who solely contribute to disrupt the wiki (be it by changing other people's comments, making misleading edits, or harassing other users) may also be permanently blocked.

**Copyright violations** – Users who continually post copyrighted material despite being warned will be blocked so as to prevent further violations.

**Fanon** – users adding fanon will almost always be warned prior to blocking. However, if the user continues to disregard warnings an Admin will block them.

**Personal attacks** – Users attacking other editors personally (in regards to anything) will be given one warning prior to a cool-off ban. The length of the block is dependent on the severity of personal attacks. Users may be permanently banned if they repeatedly ignore admin/moderator warnings. Admins will generally give up to 3 temporary bans before deciding that a user is not fit enough to contribute to a wiki anymore and permanently ban them. If you are having problems with another user and can't find a solution to the conflict please ask an Administrator or Moderator to step in and help.

**Ban evading sockpuppets**- Any user trying to bypass their ban, Admins will always permanently block sockpuppet accounts (and can choose to do the same with the main account) if they have sufficient evidence they are the same person.

**Terms of Use violations:** Please see Fandom's Terms of Use for reference. Any violation of this agreement will lead to the user being blocked and reported to Fandom.

All conditions mentioned above should be satisfied for a ban/block to occur. There can be reasonable exceptions to all rules. Exceptions will be made on a case by case basis by the banning/blocking admin. They can seek advice from other admin(s)/local staff/global staff should they wish to but they will have to make their own decision and in good faith keeping the betterment of the wiki and the community in mind.

## Ban Reasons

Admins will always leave a reason for your block in your BlockLog. They will generally provide a link to what they are referencing to in the BlockLog. Here are the most common ban reasons Administrators use:

1. *"Spamming the wiki with external links unrelated to it: link"*

2. *"Vandalism and/or general disruption: link"'*

3. *"Personal Attacks: link (additional info may be added)"*

4. *"Intimidating Behavior: link"*

5. *"Harassment: link"*

6. *"Abusing multiple accounts- Sockpuppet of (User): link/Fandom Support Request Number"*

7. *"Unacceptable Username"*

8. *"Clearly has no intention to contribute positively to the wiki: link"*

Keep in mind that these are not the only ban reasons Admins use, these are just the most common ones.

A big thanks to Harrypotterexpert101 for the initial write up on the policy!