[WikiEN-l] bans and vandalism (was Wik)

Thu May 27 19:08:11 UTC 2004

> Does this mean that at the end of the week, he comes back unbanned?

Note that, in the unlikely event that Wik returns after his ban expires, the other 
components of the arbitration ruling will still apply. However, there is a broader point. 
There are roughly three schools of thought:

A) A ban of one month lasts one month, regardless of attempts at evasion.
B) A ban of one month requires one month of uninterrupted absence from Wikipedia - 
any attempt to evade that ban automatically resets the ban timer. Banned users with 
poor self-control may end up banning themselves indefinately.
C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically triples the ban 
length (after which, (B) applies).

(B) has precedent in that it's how we dealt with Cantus when he evaded a quickpoll ban. 
I'm unaware of any other precedents on the matter, so I intend to write this into 
[[wikipedia:banning policy]], and copy this post to the Talk page. Those who favour a 
different approach are welcome there.

Another issue that has come up in this case is dealing with known users who go on a 
"vandalism spree", which I believe may apply to at least two people in this case. In the 
past this has been a quickpoll matter leading to a one day ban, but that process was 
suspended for 30 days, owing largely to disputes over its application to revert wars, but 
a sufficiently bold member of the cabal may wish to ressurect it for dealing with 
vandalism sprees. There may also be an option for sysops to make unilateral 
judgements to temp-ban following vandalism sprees, even for users who have made a 
few non-vandalising edits, but I'm not clear on this, so perhaps someone more 
experienced in vandalism-defence could clue us in?

-Martin