Wikipedia:Guide to appealing blocks
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This is an information page, and describes communal consensus on some aspect of Wikipedia norms and practices. However, it is not a policy or guideline. |
This is a guide to making persuasive unblock requests.
Users may be blocked from editing by Wikipedia administrators to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia. Blocks are lifted if they are not (or no longer) necessary to prevent such damage or disruption.
You, as a blocked editor, are responsible for convincing administrators:
- that the block is in fact not necessary to prevent damage or disruption (i.e., that the block violates our blocking policy); or:
- that the block is no longer necessary because you understand what you are blocked for, you will not do it again and you will make productive contributions instead.
Making persuasive unblock requests is also important for other reasons:
- If your request doesn't help us find out whether your block was justified or not, the reviewing administrator may decline your request out of hand.
- In complicated situations, the reviewing administrator may not want to spend a long time reading your whole talk page and all of your contributions. He or she may instead choose to review only the issues that you raise in your unblock request. Arguments made elsewhere may not be read.
- If you make repeated invalid or abusive unblock requests, your talk page may be protected from editing, which means that you may never be unblocked.
To make an unblock request, copy the following text to the bottom of your user talk page: {{unblock|1=Insert your reason to be unblocked here}}. Don't forget to insert your own reason. We will discuss its composition below.
More technical and procedural guidance can be found at Wikipedia:Appealing a block.
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What happens when you request unblock
It may help with your unblock request if you understand how they are reviewed, and by whom.
- After you save the unblock request to your talk page, it is automatically placed in Category:Requests for unblock. Many administrators routinely check this category. Any of them may read your request, and decide to take action on it. By custom, the blocking administrator does not make a decision on your unblock request (unless they are lifting the block), although he or she may post a note for other admins doing the review.
- A reviewing administrator may decide to investigate, or let other administrators consider the request. If they choose the latter course of action, they do not have to indicate in any way that they viewed your request.
- An administrator reviewing your request will likely look over several logs to decide whether the block was merited. These logs, with the exception of deleted contributions, are viewable by any user. Almost always, administrators will review your edit history leading up to the block. They will view your block log to see whether you have been blocked (and unblocked) before, and for what reasons. They will also look over your talk page to see if you were properly warned, and the history of your talk page to see whether such warnings or previous unsuccessful unblock requests have been removed prior to the current unblock request.
- They may, if they choose, leave a note for the blocking admin if they feel they need more information and put your request on hold. If they are considering unblock, administrative etiquette requires they let the blocking admin know and have an opportunity to respond. If the blocking admin is willing to let another administrator unblock and leaves a note on your talk page indicating this, any administrator can unblock you.
- If your request is accepted, they will leave a templated response on your talk page and unblock. If it is declined, they will give their reasons in an edit to the request template.
Composing your request to be unblocked
In practice, a high proportion of unblock requests are declined. This is because almost all blocks are found to be justified. If yours is the rare exception, you should try to make it as easy as possible for the reviewing administrator to see why. Administrators are volunteers; most do not want to make much more of an effort in reviewing your request than you did in writing it.
Understand your block
To effectively contest your block, you must understand the reason for it. Also, if the reviewing administrator concludes that the block was justified, you will not be unblocked unless the reviewing administrator is convinced that you understand what you are blocked for, and that you will not do it again.
You are informed about the block reason in two ways. First, the blocking administrator provides a brief reason that you will see when you try to make an edit. Second, the admistrator may leave a message explaining your block on your user talk page. These messages should include the names or abbreviations of those of our site rules (the "policies and guidelines") that the blocking administrator believes you have violated.
Before you make an unblock request, you should attentively read the policies and guidelines named in your block reason. They are usually one or more from among the following: Vandalism, sockpuppetry, edit warring, violating the three-revert rule, spamming, editing with a conflict of interest or having a prohibited username. You should also review the blocking policy.
Give a good reason for your unblock
As a user requesting to be unblocked, it is your responsibility to explain clearly and briefly, in easily readable English, why your block violated Wikipedia's blocking policy. Specifically:
- Be brief. Administrators will often decline to read requests that are too long.
- Stay calm. Profanities, ramblings, ALL CAPS SCREAMING and the like will lead to your unblock request being declined without further review of your edit history. The block duration may also be extended.
- State what is wrong about your block. It is not enough if you just say that the block was "wrong" or "unfair". You must explain why it was wrong, and why this means that the block violated our blocking policy.
- Address the block reason. As explained above, you have been informed about the reason for your block. You must address this reason in your request. This means that you must either explain why the block reason does not apply to your case, or you must convince the reviewing administrator that you won't do it again.
- Give evidence. If you state that you did or did not do something, please provide a link in the form of a differential edit ("diff") if possible.
- Don't behave like you think lawyers do. Unblock requests are not legal proceedings. As explained in more detail here, a ban or block is a revocation or suspension, respectively, of your privilege to edit this privately owned website. Any legal right you may have to freedom of speech does not prevent us from enacting and enforcing our own policies and guidelines. We may also check which IP address you edit from, and which other accounts use it, where this is necessary to prevent abuse.
- Do not threaten legal action, either. Such threats may, by themselves, result in an indefinite block.
Talk about yourself, not others
If you are blocked, it is because of what you did and not because of what others did. For this reason:
- Do not attack or accuse other editors, such as those you may have been in a conflict with, or the blocking administrator. If they have done something wrong prior to your block, they may be blocked in turn, but that does not matter in your unblock request. The only thing that needs to be addressed is why you did not in fact disrupt Wikipedia or why you will no longer do so.
- Do not excuse what you did with what others did. Two wrongs do not make a right. An unblock request that just asks administrators to block another editor will be declined.
- Assume good faith. It is theoretically possible that the other editors who may have reported you, and the administrator who blocked you, are part of a conspiracy against someone half a world away they've never met in person. But they probably are not, and an unblock request that presumes they are will probably not be accepted.
Agree to behave
If you are blocked for something you did wrong, and especially if you are blocked for a long time, you are more likely to be unblocked if you:
- Admit to it. All your contributions to Wikipedia are logged. There is no point in denying something that you did do, because it can and will be checked up.
- Make people trust you again. Promise, credibly, that you will stop doing whatever got you blocked.
- Don't do it again. If you were blocked for an offensive statement or legal threat, do not repeat it in your unblock request. Even if you feel that your conduct did not deserve a block, evidently at least one administrator disagrees with you on that point. Assume that the reviewing administrator will agree with the block, and write your request in a way that cannot give further offense.
- Tell us why you are here. Say how you intend to help contribute to the encyclopedia after you are unblocked. See here for some ideas about what you could do.
Examples of bad unblock requests
Requests such as these are likely to be denied. If made repeatedly, they may also lead to your block being extended or to your talk page being protected.
You must not stop me from removing falsehoods from Wikipedia and from inserting correct information! (A very long explanation why you are right and why everyone else is wrong follows.)
This is an unfair block! I am new here! I did nothing wrong! The blocking admin hates me! UNBLOCK ME IMMEDIATELY, THIS IS CENSORSHIP, I HAVE A RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH!!!
If you block me, you must block User:OtherIdiot too! He has been vandalizing even more!
Please unblock me. My sister / brother / friend / roommate / pet used my computer and pretended to be me. I won't let this happen again.
Special situations
Blocks directed at you, as an editor
ArbCom enforcement blocks and banned users
Users who have been blocked as a result of an Arbitration Committee decision, or because they violated restrictions imposed on them by an ArbCom decision, are often required to appeal the block to the ArbCom directly. It is usually preferred that this be done via email.
Banned users, too, have special rules for their appeals. Those banned by Jimbo Wales must appeal either to him or the ArbCom. Users banned by the ArbCom must appeal to the ArbCom. Users formally banned by the community can have their blocks lifted without appeal to either the ArbCom or Wales, but a community discussion at the administrators' noticeboard will usually be held to see if there is consensus to lift the ban.
Please note that while most ArbCom decisions ban users for a year at most, the community may decide on its own to extend the ban to indefinite after it expires.
Compromised accounts
If you state in your request that the edits which led to your block were made by someone else who accessed your account without your knowledge or permission, we will have to leave it blocked and request that you start over with a new account. You may have changed the password, but administrators have no way of knowing if it was even you who did this. It is better with respect to security for you to open a new account with a strong password, in any event.
Sockpuppetry and Checkuser-based blocks
Accusations of sockpuppetry result in many blocks and almost as many unblock requests, as Wikipedia policy calls for the sockpuppet account to be blocked indefinitely and the sockpuppeteer to be blocked for some length of time (possibly also indefinitely). Users confirmed or believed to have engaged in the practice must request unblock at their main account. Meatpuppets will be blocked indefinitely, too ... don't edit on behalf of someone else, no matter how well you may know them.
Reviewing admins will usually defer to the blocking admin in a sockpuppetry-based block, especially if the sock account has minimal edits. If the Checkuser tool was used to determine that sockpuppetry had occurred, only another administrator with access to Checkuser can overturn the block as only they have access to the evidence on which it was based. Do not make an unblock request that includes a request for checkuser to "prove your innocence" ... as indicated at Sockpuppet investigations those are so rarely done that you're better off not asking (besides, it is difficult to use it to prove that two editors are different people). Most administrators consider such an unblock request a sure sign of a sock account (particularly one with very few edits otherwise) and will decline on that basis.
Even without the use of Checkuser, or with a result of "unrelated", an account that makes the same edits as a different blocked account, has the same linguistic peculiarities and the same general interests may remain blocked under the "quacks like a duck" test.
Wikipedia admins can never be absolutely sure about sockpuppetry, and the most abusive users can be very devious in attempting to evade detection. If you are improperly blocked for sockpuppetry, you should realize that it may not always be easy or even possible to correct the situation.
If you actually are guilty of sockpuppetry, and want to get a second chance at editing, please do as follows:
- Refrain from making any edits, using any account or anonymously, for a significant period of time.
- Make the unblock request from your original account. Sockpuppeteers aren't often unblocked—since they've acted dishonestly, it's hard to believe them—but the administrators certainly aren't going to unblock the sockpuppet account.
Edit warring ("Three-revert rule") blocks
Many established users who request unblock do so because they have been blocked for violating the three-revert rule. They often post lengthy explanations, with many linked diffs, of why they did not actually violate the rule. If this is what you intend to do, be advised that such unblock requests often take longer to review than others. Given that many 3RR blocks are for a short duration (24 hours or so), long and detailed unblock requests will often go unanswered, or will take so long to investigate that the block will expire on its own. Be aware as well that 3RR is seen as an "electric fence" and that with VERY few exceptions (such as reverts of patent nonsense vandalism or of egregious libel violations) most admins see any violation of the 3RR rule as justifiably blockable. Being "right" is not an exception to the three-revert rule, and claiming that your version is the "better" version is not a reason that will get you unblocked.
Also, be aware that any sequence of edits that violates the "spirit", if not the "letter", of the three-revert rule are just as worthy of a block. Intentionally gaming the system by waiting 24 hours between your third and fourth revert, or subtly changing your version each time so it is not a perfect revert, or otherwise edit warring over the article is seen to be editing in bad faith, and your block is unlikely to be lifted in these cases, even if you did not technically revert more than three times in 24 hours.
"Bad username" blocks
Accounts with usernames that do not conform to the username policy are often blocked indefinitely, regardless of their editing behavior. Most commonly this is because of a name that wholly or closely matches the subject of an article or a link added as spam or otherwise in violation of the external links policy.
Most such accounts are soft-blocked, meaning a new account may be created while the old one is blocked. This is done because it is the account name, not the behavior of the person behind it, which is the problem. While it is possible to request a change in username, this takes a little longer and requires that a user with bureaucrat access do so. Whichever method you choose, it is a good idea to have some review of the proposed new username first, to avoid ending up in the same quandary.
An account with a username that indicates disruptive intent, uses hateful or obscene language or otherwise indicates disruptive or provocative intent will be hard blocked, meaning that an unblock request will be required.
Blocks directed at a problem generally
A number of blocks exist because they are preventing abuse from a given source, such as a proxy server or a particular ISP used by many people. In such cases some users will be responsible for the problem; others may be unavoidably blocked by the solution.
Open proxy blocks
Wikipedia policy on open proxies is clear: editing through them is blocked indefinitely without exception once identified. While some users can use them to circumvent censorship or filters, they have been used far too many times by far too many blocked vandals for Wikipedians to assume good faith on their part. This includes Tor nodes. If your server has been blocked as an open proxy, you will probably need to edit via another connection: in most cases, proxies are "hard blocked", which prevents even logged-in users from using the connection to edit.
The only way such a block can be lifted is if it can be determined that it is no longer an open proxy, or was erroneously identified as one. If you believe this to be the case, say so in your unblock request and the administrator will refer it to the open proxies project, where verified users can determine if it is indeed an open proxy.
Shared IP blocks/Range blocks
Occasionally readers who have never or rarely edited before, or not from that location, with no intention of registering an account, click on edit only to find that editing from their IP address is blocked, for something they didn't do. If you are here because this happened to you, there are two possibilities.
- Range block. Wikipedia administrators can choose to block a range of IP addresses rather than just a single one. This is done if a vandal, sockpuppeteer or otherwise disruptive user has taken advantage of dynamic IP or other situation (such as some LANs) where it is possible to evade blocks by hopping from IP to IP or physically moving from one terminal to another. Yes, this inconveniences many users (the longterm rangeblocks imposed on some large ranges mean that, in certain geographic areas, some users cannot edit without using a registered account). But the Wikipedia community does not take these actions lightly, and while some rangeblocks may be reduced in scope if they were imposed on too many users, it is only done if other methods of protecting the project and its users have failed.
If you are affected by collateral damage from a long term range block, consider creating an account either from another computer or via an email request.
- Shared IP block. This affects large institutions, most commonly schools, that route all their Internet traffic through one or two servers. Since many users can edit through them and we have no way of knowing if a vandal or disruptive user on a shared IP has been prevented from doing so again, or what security arrangements are in place on the other end, administrators are wary of unblocking shared IPs. Those that are blocked (again, primarily schools), are commonly blocked repeatedly and for long periods (up to a year at a time) for blatant vandalism. If the reviewing administrator sees that reflected in the talk page, block log and edit history, the unblock request will likely be declined.
If you are the systems administrator at a site with a shared IP, and you are able to identify and take action against users whose conduct on Wikipedia led to the block, we may consider an unblock if you can prove this. Most commonly, though, the best solution for Wikipedia and users alike is to simply create a registered account and edit with it. This can be done by connecting to Wikipedia through another internet conection that is not blocked, or by making a request via the process at Wikipedia:Request an account.
