Wikipedia:One last chance
 | This is an essay on the blocking policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Sometimes it's best to give people one last chance, making it very clear that it is the last chance. |
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The concept of giving a person one last chance or a last chance is a powerful one. Variations appear widely in film and book titles, legal doctrine, and song lyrics.
Sometimes this is the best approach to take when dealing with blocked users. If they are pleading to be unblocked and swearing up and down that they understand and won't repeat whatever it was that got them blocked, rather than arguing the finer points of the original block or demanding further explanation, it may be better to just unblock them and make it clear that this is their one last chance. If they mean what they say, then unblocking will be the right thing to do, and if they don't, they'll be blocked again soon enough.
Example scenarios
[edit]Example #1: The music fan
[edit]- User:Ididntdoit starts adding excessive external links, unreferenced genres and praise, and other original research to many articles about their favorite musicians, receiving many warnings in the process.
- Admin User:SpamHunter007 blocks them when they continue after a final warning.
- Ididntdoit asks almost instantly to be unblocked, and in their request they state that they now understand what they did wrong, and promise not to do it again, adding that they are really, really sorry and did not know this was against the rules.
Example #2:"The little brother defense"
[edit]- User:Bigbro has a history of making infrequent edits, which are not particularly helpful but not really doing much harm.
- Late one Saturday night, Bigbro begins adding the same childish rhyming couplet to many seemingly unrelated articles.
- Two days into his three-month long block for vandalism, he uses the classic argument that his little brother did it while he was away, and now little brother is in big trouble. Later, Bigbro admits that it was a lie, having learned that compromised accounts will not be unblocked. Bigbro says that he now understands Wikipedia much better and yearns to be a productive contributor.
Most likely responses
[edit]The administrator reviewing such requests has several choices before them:
- Decline promptly because they believe that it is highly likely that the editor is lying.
- Prolonged discussion until the blocked editor and the reviewing administrator and various bystanders have gone over countless edits the user has made and analyzed them point-by-point, with repeated input by the blocking administrator. This is a great drain on community resources.
- Unblock and give them the chance to prove that they do understand what went wrong and can refrain from repeating this same behavior. The best outcome is that Wikipedia has retained a productive editor with deeper understanding of this projects policies and behavioral guidelines. Conversely, the editor has been provided a chance to prove that they do not understand or do not care and were just hoping for a sympathetic administrator to unblock them so that they could continue on the same path of disruptive editing. They need to know that they have now exhausted their one last chance, and will be rapidly re-blocked, probably indefinitely.
This is not to say that unblocking is always the best solution. Sometimes those prolonged unblock discussions produce real results in educating the blocked user about why they were blocked and helping them to edit productively in the future. But as a simple litmus test of a editor's sincerity and willingness to edit cooperatively, it can be very effective. Sometimes, even after a prolonged discussion, it can be hard to determine if the user truly understands the problem and/or is willing to stop editing disruptively, and the only way to find out for sure is to give them the opportunity. Another option in the case of vandal accounts is to decline the unblock request but add {{2nd chance}} which basically asks them to prove it before being unblocked.
When not to use
[edit]- If a user has already been blocked many times for the same behavior, then they've already gotten all the chances that they deserve. The best outcome for the encyclopedia in such clear-cut cases is an indefinite block.
- If the user was justifiably blocked but is not giving any indication that they even feel they did anything wrong
- In cases of overt legal threats or threats of harm to themselves or others that have not been retracted
- In any case where the administrator who made the block has strong objections to unblocking. Consult the blocking administrator before unblocking.
- Site-banned users – users blocked or site-banned by community discussion or ArbCom
- For community bans, the standard offer may still apply
- Compromised accounts
- However, this essay may apply to users banned for repeated block evasion, after a standard offer period
Behind this essay
[edit]At this MFD, it became clear that some users were objecting to another essay; not because of its contents or message, but mostly because of its introductory premise. This essay was written as an alternative to that one.