Wikipedia:Update/1/Enforcement policy changes during January 2009

• Wikipedia:Arbitration policy
  • Added See also link to WP:Arbitration guide

• Wikipedia:Banning policy
  • Per Help:Section, I removed a subsection heading with the same name as another subsection. (Renaming also would have worked.)

• Wikipedia:Blocking policy
  • Removed "Blocks are not punitive in the sense that they aren't retribution" from a footnote, and the rest of the footnote text was moved to the lead section.
  • WP:BLOCK#When blocking may be used renamed to WP:BLOCK#Common rationales for blocks
  • Removed: "if a situation is not listed below, then a block is more likely to be controversial than otherwise."
  • Added to WP:BLOCK#Disruption: "If discussion with the offending editor has been attempted and exhausted, or in extreme circumstances, then [a block for disruption may be necessary in response to] ..."
  • Added: "Disruptive edits are sometimes subjective, and users may not fully understand wikipedia etiquette (especially the strict code of civility). Except in extreme circumstances, blocking for these offenses should be used only after discussion attempts have proved unsuccessful. In the case of incivility, administrators are urged to err on the side of caution, and avoid escalating a dispute by blocking when a clear discussion of etiquette could be a successful alternative."
  • In WP:BLOCK#Open or anonymous proxies, changed: "Open or anonymous proxies are prohibited from editing by the Wikimedia Foundation, and may be blocked on sight" to "Open or anonymous proxies may be blocked on sight."
  • Added to WP:BLOCK#Dealing with off-wiki block requests: "Consensus about blocks or other subjects should not be formed off-wiki."
  • New subsection, WP:BLOCK#Collateral damage, added to WP:BLOCK#IP address blocks, with two new sentences: "When an IP range is blocked, other users who also use that range may be unintentionally affected", and "They may be able to be given IP block exemption so they will not be affected."

• Wikipedia:Consensus
  • New section, WP:CON#Purpose of consensus

"Consensus" among a small number of editors can never override the community consensus that is presented in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines; instead, consensus is the main tool for enforcing these standards. The focus of every dispute should be determining how best to comply with the relevant policies and guidelines. Editors have reached consensus when they agree that they have appropriately applied Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, not when they personally like the outcome.

• • Added to WP:CON#Reasonable consensus-building: "To ensure transparency, consensus cannot be formed except on Wikipedia discussion pages. "Off-wiki" discussions, such as those taking place on other websites, on web forums or on IRC, are not taken into account when determining consensus."
  • In WP:CON#Consensus can change, changed "changes are sometimes reasonable" to "one must realize that such changes are often reasonable."
  • Added: "But in all these cases, nothing is permanently fixed. The world changes, and the wiki must change with it. It is reasonable and indeed often desirable to make further changes to things at a later date, even if the last change was years ago."

• Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines
  • Added to WP:POL#Making a proposal: "[Add the {{Proposed}} template to the top of your page] or {{Promote}} if the page has already existed."
  • WP:POL#Proposing demotion of guidelines or policies changed to WP:POL#Proposing change to guideline or policy status, with corresponding changes throughout the section
  • In WP:POL#Changes to guideline and policy pages, changed: "Minor edits to existing pages, such as formatting changes, grammatical improvement and uncontentious clarification, may be made by any editor at any time. However, changes that would alter the substance of policy or guidelines should normally be announced on the appropriate talk page first. The change may be implemented if no objection is made to it or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change." to "Policies and guidelines are supposed to state what most Wikipedians agree upon, and should be phrased to reflect the present consensus on a subject. Minor edits to existing pages, such as formatting changes, grammatical improvement and uncontentious clarification, may be made by any editor at any time. However, changes that would alter the substance of policy or guidelines should normally be announced on the appropriate talk page first. The change may be implemented if no objection is made to it or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. If there is no consensus for a given text, old or new, it should not be asserted as though it were consensus; possibilities include silence on the issue and acknowledgement that editors disagree on the point."
  • Removed "Overuse of these tags, particularly {{disputedtag}}, is considered disruptive. They may not be used as badges of shame or expressions of personal dislike, and they should be removed when active discussion ends or when it appears unlikely that any substantial change will be accepted. It is unlikely to be appropriate to place a {{disputedtag}} on a long-established page or section, since silence is considered to indicate consensus, whatever procedures may have been followed when the original change was made. The stability of major policies and guidelines is important to editors involved in the Wikipedia:Featured articles process and other areas of editing. Edit warring is particularly deprecated in this area."
  • Added: "Like all editing tools, these can be overused, and be disruptive; please be sure that these are marking a real dispute."

• Wikipedia:Protection policy
  • In WP:PROT#Semi-protection, added: "[... administrators may apply temporary semi-protection on pages that are:] Subject to edit-warring where all parties involved are anonymous or new editors (i.e. in cases in which full-protection would otherwise be applied). This does not apply when autoconfirmed users are involved."
  • Sentence fragment added: "Although administrators may also choose to change the block settings to block the user from editing their talk page instead, since there is no need to synchronize the block period with the page protection time period with this method."
  • In WP:PROT#User pages, added "and subpages" and "not fully protected".