DDO wiki talk:Blocking policy

Blocking policy discussion
Figured I would open the discussion here. The policy page is admin protected and this discussion will be semi-protected. Please feel free to voice your opinions here and let's get a universal agreement and policy of how to deal with these things... As I am sure many of you are aware, I'm often available on our, and any discussion on a topic I am aware of is transcribed on to the appropriate talk page here as well. ShoeMaker (Contributions &bull; ) 12:01, August 4, 2012 (EDT)

No problem with Unacceptable Username and their Infinite ban


 * Legit Registered users
 * First instance - Warning
 * Second instance - One week
 * Third instance - Two months
 * Repeated - Infinite


 * Spam/Vandalism Registered users
 * First instance - Infinite
 * Second instance - n/a
 * Third instance - n/a
 * Repeated - n/a

Do to the dynamic nature of IP addresss and some ISPs use a shared IP system, long term blocks are a bad idea. Blocks can be bypasss by a determine spamer leaving legimite users with access problems.


 * IP address
 * First instance - Warning (hahaha skip this one)
 * Second instance - 24 hours - one week
 * Third instance - Two weeks - 1 months
 * Repeated - Three months

And as always: Final discretion is left to the blocking administrator on a case-by-case basis. Bladedge (Contributions &bull; Message) 15:26, August 4, 2012 (EDT)


 * (Kinda tired, so if this seems disjointed, I apologize in advance.)

I've been heavy handed when it comes to spammers. When checking a few of the anon spammer IPs, I discovered they were typically from overseas datacenters that have been setup as proxies or scripted remote workstations designed solely to execute PHP script on websites. These IPs are unlikely to end up in a DHCP pool for the end users. This is not always the case, but mostly.

Either way, the bot-spammers, I vote Infinite bans, IP and/or User, on first instance. The vandalism must be squelched promptly, and we can go back and change the block if we discover we banned an incorrect address.

Heck, If I found a spammer was using a datacenter's DHCP pool, I'd block the whole IP superblock. We had to do it once before (temporarily, of course).

Suspected non-bot vandalism/spamming, block including IP: 1-3 Months, depending on chances of repetition (hacked accounts, personal vendettas, zealotry, etc.). If the user's account has been compromised, include a request to the user to update their password and secure their account or create a new account - I did see we can merge accounts at Special:UserMerge.


 * Reference (perhaps something similar we can implement?): http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Check_Spambots "Tauro" (Contributions &bull; ) 03:01, August 30, 2012 (EDT)

User name length limit?
was wondering how much of the user name length wiki is allowing atm, upon account registration. user names such as is clearly a spam bot, and by limiting it we can prevent some of such accounts to be created = less effort for us to ban spam bots.

thoughts? yoko5000 (Contributions &bull; Message) 09:25, August 17, 2012 (EDT)
 * Special:ActiveUsers - longest active user name we have on the list is, which is 18 characters
 * Special:BlockList
 * how much is allowed on turbine boards? our limit gotta be at least as much allowing as theirs ofc.


 * I can ask on the  next time he is not idle... He is the only one that knows what it is currently set at on the wiki.  As far as the forums go, I think their user name length is set to like 16 or 20 max, but I can't be sure of that.

ShoeMaker (Contributions &bull; ) 09:47, August 17, 2012 (EDT)


 * For the DDO Forum: "Forum Username must be between 3 and 20 characters and must not contain special characters". Bladedge (Contributions &bull; Message) 12:36, August 17, 2012 (EDT)


 * I did catch up with and discuss this on the and there was nothing set for a limit so it was defaulted to 255.  I believe  set it to 20-25, but am not certain.  I will confirm this and set up the proper mediawiki notice pages to inform people to pick a name no greater than the limit and give proper links for if they need any help.

ShoeMaker (Contributions &bull; ) 08:44, August 30, 2012 (EDT)