Forum:10 Years on, Amnesty Once More

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Opening Post

Way back in the days of yore, circa 2013 at Thread:146820 in User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon II it was decided that there would be a general amnesty of every blocked account on this wiki in honor of the 50th anniversary, ~400 blocks. We are now 10 years on from this decision and it seems natural that we revisit this decision. (And, quite frankly, looking at some of these I'm unconvinced they should be blocked in the first place. Some of these users are just blocked for using numbers in place of letters.)

(But why, I hear some of you cry, don't we have more important things to do, like Forum:(SPOILER: The start of RtD2) Quickstart Guides? Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it.)

Stated simply, do I think we should completely mirror the decision made in Thread:146820 sans any changes? No. In that thread the only exceptions made for unblocking users were for violations of T:MISLEAD USER, T:OFF USER, and T:SPAM USER. We only have 500 blocks 10 years on, we can afford to be slightly more discerning in how we unblock users. Topics for discussion:

1. If we have a rule that our spam filter automatically catches variations of a username you've repeatedly referenced to troll admins with, you should probably stay blocked. The immediate instance I'm thinking of is Doug86+1, which will remain blocked for a misleading name anyhow, but just in case, probably a good idea to say that if a filter is set up to keep you out you're staying blocked.
2. Should the names of organizations and/or businesses be allowed? Traditionally they are not, and we've actually blocked User:Obverse as a result. I think this is a mistake.
3. Should Youtube Channels be allowed as usernames? Yes, people were blocked for this.
4. How do we deal with sockpuppets? I've read the ToU, sockpuppets aren't explicitly against them except insofar as Fandom can do whatever they want at any time. We have a few accounts that were locally blocked for sockpuppetry, do we just accept the people back if they say "this is the account I'll be using from here on out"? (I know in at least one instance the user insisted that they really were two separate people and they just occasionally used a friend's account - albeit, the friend did have an earlier account they forgot the password to. How do we deal with that?)
   1. And if a user was previously blocked for sockpuppetry but came back under a new account, just the one at a time, but has been editing here without issue (potentially as sort of an open secret) how do we deal with that? Do we forgive and forget so long as they admit it when the amnesty goes through? Before? I dunno. It's something we do need to talk about.
   2. Also, just briefly, do we care if global blocks exist for sockpuppetry? Would we still allow someone back under a new account even if their old one was globally banned if they admitted it?
5. Which brings us to the issue of our relationship to Fandom ToU more generally. Do we unblock people who explicitly violated Fandom ToU but only have local blocks? We have a few.
   1. Theoretically we could go further and ask if we allow back users who violated Fandom ToU and got global blocks so long as they identified their previous accounts. The issue here is that I think we're getting into really dicey territory with this one and the last one. (Is there anyone in particular we'd be missing by not allowing this? I know some people who are historically prominent have the Fandom block/user choice notice, but I can't tell which is which.)
6. Finally, when do we do it? The last one was done on Christmas because that's when most people would want to be editing, during the handover between Doctors. Part of why I made this thread this early is because I do think we need to think about this, but also because I'm not sure that Christmas is the right time for this year. First of all, we have the 60th, but we also have all of our decisions on the wiki leading up to the 60th. There's a fair argument to make that this should be done as soon as possible. I don't think I agree. But neither do I think Christmas is optimal.

If nobody feels that exceptions should be made and we should just follow the precedent of Thread:146820, we can, of course, ignore these points of discussion. But I at least think it's worth discussing these issues. I also think that it's a wonderful idea to do a relatively broad round of amnesty every 10 years or so. People change over time, as do approaches to moderation. How far we wish to go is up to us. Najawin ☎ 22:58, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Oh, I note it might be worth involving Tangerine/Czech and maybe Spongebob in this thread specifically. Najawin ☎ 00:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)