Community health initiative/Blocking tools and improvements/Feedback

Partial blocks

Partial blocks are designed to give wiki administrators a more robust set of tools to be able to better respond to different user conflict situations. We are using block evasion and editor retention data to measure their effectiveness but we also want to hear directly from administrators and communities who use the feature to know how the tools are working and how we can possible improve them in the future.

Feedback from wiki administrators

Please include your username and the wiki where you are an administrator.

• The functionality per se might very well be OK, but at least on nl.wiktionary it is probably not something we will use any time soon. We are however blocking spammers on a daily basis. The addition of this option means it becomes necessary to scroll the page every time and that is really annoying. Would it be possible to have a few buttons high on the page to select a combination of selections that is used very frequently. Ideally the effect (and even the presence) of these buttons could be decided by the respective communities. --MarcoSwart (talk) 12:14, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
• I am an administrator at en.wiki. I have no comment at this point on partial blocks. However, I really do not want to see that banner at the top of a page after I block someone: "You now have access to partial blocks on this wiki. This change allows you to make per-page and per-namespace blocks as necessary." with a big blue button to "Learn more". Is there a way to get rid of it?--Bbb23 (talk) 01:08, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bbb23: The intention behind it is to give users a prominent link to be able to understand the context behind partial blocks and leave feedback if they want to. We were planning to do away with it by next week. Would that be alright? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Hi, admin at trwiki here. I find this feature to be an excellent addition. There are always users whose disruptive editing is limited to a single article or namespace, and this is the right way to address the problem. I've recently used this for a user who was blocked for disruptive editing to the biography of his grandfather followed by sockpuppetry. He was given a second chance, and then he proved himself to be an excellent addition to the community while being partially blocked for the article in question. The block has since been removed. I am also planning to implement another one for a user who abused the local XfD but is being considered for unblocking. I have my reservations about the namespace blocks, but there might be cases for which they would be useful. I've always been a proponent of compartmentalizing, both in terms of user rights which are not necessarily have to be held only by admins and in terms of the opportunity to manage the problems a feature is designed to deal with in a more efficient manner. So, kudos to everyone who has had a part in this.--Vito Genovese 11:14, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

• I am an admin at nl.wiktionary. I am slightly annoyed by the changed presentation of the user name to be blocked: in a kind of rounded button with an x. This way, it has become impossible to cut and paste the name to check it on Special:CentralAuth. This is a usual step before blocking potential spammers, to weed out bona fide newbies. Would it be possible to restore the original form? Another solution (even better) would be to have a link to the CentralAuth info added to the accounts on the log of New Users. --MarcoSwart (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Feedback from other users who witness how partial blocks affect their community

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Feedback from users who are partially blocked

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Other feedback about the function and design of Special:Block

Partial Blocks are a highly anticipated development, practically missing from the project since the community explosion around 2005. Site-wide blocks were designed for vandalism-only accounts in the early days of wikipedia, when contentious topics and disagreement between editors was not as common as nowadays. I've suggested partial blocks in the recent community discussions, unaware that it was already in development.

The purpose of blocking is to stop disruption, that usually happens in a specific area (an article / a topic / between specific users / etc.). A site-wide block unnecessarily removes the ability of a user to contribute to other, non-problematic areas, and removes the ability to communicate on-wiki, such as to participate in their own case on noticeboards, or in arbitration. This just causes problems and unnecessary bureaucratism, as seen in some of the comments in the well-known Fram case on enwiki.

Site-wide blocks are also unnecessarily punishing in non-trivial cases, when two good-faith editors disagree, and the dispute escalates. Because of this, the threat/fear of being blocked is often present in purely content disputes, negatively influencing the neutrality of the outcome. Partial blocks are a less harmful solution to minimize disruption.

—Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 06:37, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Design screenshots: phab:M255, Partial blocks#Second designs

• Design suggestion: list of articles recently edited. It would ease the task of admins selecting the blocked pages, if a list of articles recently edited by the partially blocked user were shown in a drop-down list, when that input field is selected.
• Design suggestion: white-list of pages that can be edited. In the case of site-wide blocks, the list of pages should serve as a white-list of pages that can be edited. The default value could be the noticeboards and arbitration pages (different per project), where the user can participate in, or appeal their case. In case of a non-appealable ban, or abuse of these pages, these can be removed from the list.

Related phabricator ticket, and another similar ticket (closed, although the "duplicate" ticket does not cover this use-case). — Aron M (talk) 23:17, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Also requested on talk page.

• Design suggestion: pop-up editor for long lists of pages. To use partial blocks for topic bans that aren't covered by a single category, one has to add a great number of pages to the list, preferably in batch. This is not the primary use-case, therefore the UI necessary to do this should not be part of the basic blocking page, but rather a pop-up, that has 2 columns: the added pages on the left side, a search field and found pages on the right side. Adding pages is done by double-clicking them on the right side, or by selecting more pages (with shift-, ctrl-click, or with a selection box while the mouse button is pushed), then clicking an left-pointing arrow button between the two columns. Removing pages is done similarly on the left side.
• Multiple blocks with different expiration times will become necessary to allow long-term topic bans and short-term page blocks for the same user at the same time. Sample design: Community health initiative/Partial blocks/Multi-blocks
• Category blocks are necessary to implement topic bans.

—Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 06:37, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

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User name format

• I am an admin at nl.wiktionary. I am slightly annoyed by the changed presentation of the user name to be blocked: in a kind of rounded button with an x. This way, it has become impossible to cut and paste the name to check it on Special:CentralAuth. This is a usual step before blocking potential spammers, to weed out bona fide newbies. Would it be possible to restore the original form? Another solution (even better) would be to have a link to the CentralAuth info added to the accounts on the log of New Users. --MarcoSwart (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

This has been reverted in phab:T334870. P858snake (talk) 10:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the revert. MarcoSwart (talk) 17:34, 21 April 2023 (UTC)