YPPedia talk:Banning policy

Since this has been around since September without a peep, I'll bite.

I think that any banning policy, above all else, has to recognize intent. If we can determine that someone is doing something with hostile intent, we should be able to totally sidestep the warn-warn-warn-block-ban bureaucracy and just ban them outright (with WikiOM blesssing) Likewise, if someone's trying really hard to be good but keeps screwing up, I dislike the idea of banning them for trying too hard.

God, I sound like a daycare teacher. --Ponytailguy 17:30, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

Don't we use this instead? Maybe this should be a redirect, or maybe it should just be deleted. --Emufarmers 17:36, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

Block means 24 hours. Ban means go away and don't come back.--Ponytailguy 17:40, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

I don't think so (a block is the same as a ban in technical terms, isn't it?): The punishments listed on that page are temporary (although they're longer than 24 hours), but I would suspect that's simply because we've never had to deal with a vandal who would come back after being banned for a month. I would assume that it's implied that further action could be taken in that event. --Emufarmers 17:45, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

Well, you'd be wrong. To summarize the Metawiki contents on the matter (check them yourself if you'd like, they're linked off the admin reading list), Blocks are meant to get someone's attention and rattle their cage a bit. Bans mean go away and don't come back. A block might be a form of a ban, but they're both used in different circumstances. Again, to get back to my original point, good faith vandalism merits a block. Bad faith vandalism merits a ban. --Ponytailguy 17:51, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

From reading the pages in question, it looks like we're both wrong: A ban is not necessarily permanent. It simply means that the user is not permitted to edit the wiki. A block is used to enforce that ban if need be by ensuring that the user cannot edit page. Unless I'm incorrect in that reading (I went over the text, and I'm pretty sure I'm right here, but I could always be wrong), we have no real need for a ban policy independent of our block policy, because a ban is always enforced by a block on YPPedia. Right? --Emufarmers 18:04, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

I think we'd better wait for someone with admin credentials to chime in, in any event. --Ponytailguy 18:10, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

Chime. When the banning policy was hammered out, I copied it over to YPPedia:Blocking_policy completely unaware that this page existed. Emufarmers is corect above: on the YPPedia a ban is always enforced with a block and the two terms can be considered synonymous.

There's been some discussion on how to extend the policy if someone whose block has expired returns to commit further offenses; since the situation hasn't yet come up, nothing has been set in stone.--Fiddler 18:16, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

Yay! My ego feels like it's on rum. Chest-banging aside, how about we make this page into a redirect to the blocking policy, add in section there with something like, "in the event that a temporarily banned user causes further trouble upon his or her return, he or she may be blocked for the times listed in the temporary bans section, and, at the wiki Ocean Master's discretion, may be banned permanently" and call it a day? --Emufarmers 18:23, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

/em shrugs... MODF for putting Metawiki above Y!PPedia policy. Although we do need some redirects and deletions to happen. --Ponytailguy 18:45, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

A further note: If a user is so disruptive to the wiki that they deserve a lifetime wiki ban, then they probably deserve a ban from the game. Anyone we would consider for a lifetime wiki ban would be brought to the attention of the Ocean Masters for final disposition. This is one of those few areas where we can and should have different policies than Wikipedia. --Barrister 18:30, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

Agreed --Ponytailguy 18:45, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

*bump* Agreed, on the grounds that the person who is disruptive here is more than likely to be disruptive elsewhere. --Sagacious ^(talk) 13:07, 19 July 2006 (PDT)

Disagreed. This is a place run by volunteers, seperate from YPP. If someone simply does not do anything to warrant a ban on YPP, they shouldn't get banned on YPP. If they're disruptive here, ban them here and you'll be rid of them. Perhaps you can make an exception for a user that keeps coming back on different IP addresses, but only because you'd run out of other ways to threaten them. --Paladin

YPPedia is primarily administered by volunteers, but the servers and backups are maintained by Three Rings. And, without their cooperation, 99% of the images here would be copyright violations (because they own the copyright to all the Y!PP artwork). In my view, that makes the wiki an extension of the game. Also, it's often true that a severely disruptive wiki user is also disruptive in game. It's worth notifying the OMs that there's a problem on the wiki in case it's part of a larger pattern. Think of it like a /complain. The OMs take it under advisement. --Barrister 13:10, 19 July 2006 (PDT)

We review it on a case by case basis, with banning from the game being the last resort, but it IS possible to be banned from the game if someone's behavior on YPPedia is egregious enough. --Eurydice 14:53, 19 July 2006 (PDT)

Not to be a nag, but I've been moving for some changes (Teeg too) for a couple of months now over at YPPedia talk:Blocking policy; as it stands, there isn't anything whatsoever actually in the policy about repeat offenders, so it might be nice to actually codify some of this. --Emufarmers 22:08, 19 July 2006 (PDT)

If a severely disruptive wiki user is also disruptive in YPP, ban him from YPP for being disruptive in YPP and from the wiki for being disruptive on the wiki. --Paladin

It's my understanding that a ban in Puzzle Pirates will earn you a ban in Bang! Howdy and vice versa. I don't see why the forums or YPPedia should be any different. If a company runs two stores across town, and you're caught stealing from one, there's no reason to expect the other to sell to you. --AtteSmythe 08:10, 20 July 2006 (PDT)

Because you're paying for it and can't steal from that other store? Though stealing in that comparison is a bit more serious than what you get banned for from here, you simply can't vandalize YPP. --Paladin

Revising the analogy is trivial: If a company runs two stores across town, and I'm thrown out of one for harassing their customers, there's no reason to expect the other to sell to me. --AtteSmythe 13:28, 21 July 2006 (PDT)

If you're a loyal customer and always behave your best at the other store? It's not even run by the same people, just... owned by the same people. --Paladin

Maybe a bar 'blanket ban' would be a better analogy (as in, get banned from one bar for drunken misbehavior, and other bars won't let you in? Works in Dunedin NZ) --Lizzie 06:57, 26 July 2006 (PDT)

Just wanted to point out that the discussion is kinda moot as Three Rings has officially notified us that the OM's consider ToS breaking inappropriate behaviour on YPPedia to be potential grounds for an in-game suspension or ban as well as a wiki block. Their servers, their rules/decisions. Feel free to carry on with the debate for intellectual purposes. --Guppymomma 15:51, 26 July 2006 (PDT)

Something that isn't pedantic: Are people permanently banned from the game also likely to be banned from the wiki? (Or is it automatic, even?) That is, does what is now established go both ways? --Emufarmers 21:34, 26 July 2006 (PDT)

I'd say not likely, unless they cause problems like our two currently permablocked users. The issue is that in-game bans are not supposed to be public knowledge, but if you also implement a perma-wiki block with that, it becomes that way because it'd show up in the block log and the list of currently blocked users. While from memory, most of our issues come from people who have been banned (in the case of Marioman1 and one other I forget, both mentioned being banned on the forums), I'd say it's not been a big enough problem to warrant linking the two. The two people who were permablocked here are likely to be banned in-game, but since their blocks were for wiki-related stuff, we're not likely to find out if they got themselves banned in-game as well. --Thunderbird 00:25, 27 July 2006 (PDT)

I spoke to a dev the other day about whether it's possible to implement a 'ban from game, ban from forum' system, mainly to prevent the number of 'hlp i bin band' posts we get on there. I was told the systems are too separate to implement it into an automatic thing, and I think it would be a bit too much work for the OMs if the policy changed to manually having to request a forum ban aswell. I'm guessing the wiki system is also detached from the game ban system in the same way, and so if they were going to have a policy of 'ban from game, ban from wiki' - they'd have to do it all manually. I really don't see it happening. The frequncy of users we have seriously vandalising the wiki that they may end up with a game ban is pretty low, and so doesn't create too much manual work for the OMs. --Sagacious ^(talk) 08:22, 27 July 2006 (PDT)