This is aninformation page. It is neither anencyclopedia article nor one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels ofconsensus andvetting.

Parts of this Wikipedia page (those related to discretionary sanctions followingWP:CT2022) need to beupdated. Please help update this Wikipedia page to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.

Wikipedia sanctions act to limit or removeuser privileges.

The community usually imposes involuntary sanctions following a discussion atWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard orWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Such a discussion must remain open for input for no less than 24 hours, and should usually be closed seven days from when it started (if it isn’t earlier). If there is a community consensus to impose the ones specified, those sanctions are enacted. The community consensus is assessed by a user who is uninvolved in the dispute and is fairly experienced with such matters. The community usually modifies or revokes such sanctions at the same venue at which it was imposed, following the same process.

TheArbitration Committee usually imposes involuntary sanctions following arequest for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee votes on a proposal, and if it passes (due to a majority of support votes), the sanction is enacted. The Committee usually modifies or revokes such sanctions by passing a “motion in a closed case”, but may also do so following a request to amend a prior case.

There are two exceptions to these processes. The first exception is the removal of access tools of administrators and otherfunctionaries – currently, the process for enacting such sanctions is limited to the Arbitration Committee process outlined above. The second exception is with respect to blocks – these may be imposed by individual administrators in accordance withblocking policy.

Blocks are imposed by individual administrators in accordance with blocking policy. Prior to imposing blocks, or as a condition to lifting a block, final warnings may be imposed by uninvolved administrators on individual editors who have repeatedly violated policy to the point that any further violation will result in a block. Final warnings worthy of documenting may also be listedhere. It is important to note, however, that conditional unblocks and final warnings remain distinct in character from editing restrictions.

Editing restrictions, which are logged atWikipedia:Editing restrictions, are imposed by the community or the Arbitration Committee, on individual editors who have engaged in inappropriate conduct. The most commontypes of restrictions include account restrictions, civility restrictions,probation, revert limitations, andbans. When these restrictions are violated, individual administrators enforce the restriction by blocking the restricted user for an appropriate duration, unless otherwise specified in the enforcement details of the restriction.

Unless there is a discretionary sanctions scheme operating, or there is some other community consensus to do so, individual administrators are not permitted to impose editing restrictions. Administrators who nevertheless attempt to impose editing restrictions without such approval will put their tools and positions at risk, particularly if the sanction is disputed, modified or overturned, in any way, by the community or the Arbitration Committee. For this reason, it is always advisable to follow the involuntary sanction process to request the imposition of sanctions, unless there is already specific approval to do so under a discretionary sanctions scheme.

Discretionary sanction schemes, depending on the terms specified, provide individual administrators with the ability to impose or enforce certain editing restrictions on certain users. Discretionary sanction schemes are also often referred to asarticle probation orgeneral sanctions. A log of all current discretionary sanction schemes is available atWikipedia:SANCTIONSLOG.

Discretionary sanction schemes often specify the area where a discretionary sanction scheme may apply. In such cases, the decision of which editing restriction(s) to impose, if any, is left to the discretion of the administrator. Similarly, the users upon whom the sanction may be imposed is also left to the discretion of the administrator. However, sometimes the choice of editing restrictions, or users, is specified in the sanction scheme to specifically limit this discretion.

This is a rough summary of the procedure: for precise details please refer todiscretionary sanctions.

1. Discretionary sanctions for a topic area must be authorized byArbCom, either by an arbitration case, or by an ArbCom motion. They are listedin this section.
2. No editors are liable for discretionary sanctions unless they have received an alert; this is usually a{{Ds/alert}} template on the editor's talk page in the last year.
3. If an editor severely or persistently disrupts discussion, or fails to adhere to certain editing standards, within areas where discretionary sanctions are active, they are liable for sanctioning.
4. Any uninvolved administrator can impose discretionary sanctions, within certain conditions being met. This is usually as a result of a request atWikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement; a consensus of uninvolved administrators may decide this, but it is not required.
5. The main difference to normal proceedings is that uninvolved administrators can imposebans, normally in the form oftopic bans; but site-bans are not normally allowed. This is different to normal banning policy, as bans are normally only allowed by community consensus or ArbCom, or bya few other mechanisms.
6. Blocks of up to a years duration may also be imposed.
7. Review and reversal of bans is only allowed with specified conditions being met.
8. Editors may be blocked for the duration of the ban, if this is warranted. Ban evasion may result in the ban duration being reset. Content created during the ban or block may be reverted.
9. Discretionary sanctions against any editor must be logged ata central log.

This page lists the currently active sanctions imposed through thearbitration process. It transcludes portions of the maingeneral sanctions andpersonal sanctions listings; all changes should be made to those pages instead of this one.

The following is a list of the most common types of restrictions. More unique restrictions which have been imposed in unusual circumstances are not listed.

Account restriction

The user is limited to editing with a single account.

Civility restriction

The user may be blocked if they make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith.

Probation

Generally,editors on probation may be banned from pages theyedit disruptively, either for a set period of time or indefinitely, by action of an uninvolved administrator. (Although the wording of probation remedies sometimes varies, so be sure to check the specific case.) Probation is used as an alternative to an outright topic ban in cases where the editor shows some promise of learning better behavior.

Revert limitation

The user is limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. They may be blocked if they exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion.

Topic ban

The user is prohibited from editing any page related to a particular topic, and may be blocked if they do so.

General restriction

Administrators may impose one or more specific restrictions (as listed in each individual case) on editors.

Discretionary sanctions

Administrators may impose any sanctions which they believe are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.

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Official policies

• Wikipedia:Administrators
• Wikipedia:Blocking policy
• Wikipedia:Banning policy

Other related pages

• Wikipedia:General sanctions
• Wikipedia:Sanctions against editors should not be punitive
• Wikipedia:Global actions

• Wikipedia information pages
• Wikipedia arbitration
• Wikipedia Arbitration Committee-authorised general sanctions
• Wikipedia sanctions

• Noindexed pages