Blocking is the means by which an administrator prevents a user account or IP address/range from editing Half Blood Wiki. Blocks are preventive rather than punitive measures used to prevent damage by dealing with vandalism and enforcing Half Blood Wiki policies. Block duration may vary, depending on the severity and longevity of vandalism, but in most instances a block can be lifted if the editor agrees to stop the damaging behavior.

Because of the dynamic nature of IPs, and the related risk of collateral damage, most blocks should be in the range of 24 hours to 1 month, with exceptions noted below. Only in very rare cases should non-proxy IPs be blocked for more than three months.

When considering blocking, it is important to remember the axiom "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity"—article blanking or similar apparent vandalism may be just a well-meant attempt to expand the wiki. Always assume good faith, but remember that the rules apply to everyone.

There are two templates to warn users, or related. The {{warning}} is for first-time vandals. The {{av}} is for second time, or more. The av template is added on the user page, unlike the warning, which is on the talk page. After the first block has worn off, a user does not require any more warnings, and shall be enforced by the below graph.

Grounds for blocking Edit

1. Vandalism – Vandalism is defined as any bad-faith edit made with the intent to lower the quality of the wiki or disrupt the functioning of the community. In most cases, users should be warned prior to blocking, though final discretion is left to the administrators.
2. Spam – Posting irrelevant spam links in articles, or creating articles which are entirely spam is grounds for an infinite block (for registered users) or a shorter-term IP block.
3. Move vandalism – Page move vandalism (moving an article to an overly nonsensical or inappropriate title) is grounds for immediate indefinite bans.
4. Inappropriate account naming – Creating an inappropriate account name—be it in terms of user impersonation/insult, or general rudeness/obscenity is also grounds for a no-warning infinite block.
5. Disruption – Users who disrupt the wiki (be it via changing other people's comments, making pointless edits, or harassing other users) may also be blocked.
6. Copyright violations – Users who continually post copyrighted material despite being warned should be blocked so as to prevent further violations.
7. Blanking articles – users should typically be warned prior to being blocked for article blanking, except in extreme cases where the blanking is obviously being done with malicious intent - i.e., 4 articles blanked in one minute.
8. Personal attacks – Users attacking other editors personally (in regards to anything) should be given one warning prior to a cool-off ban. The length of the ban is dependent on the severity of personal attacks.
9. Posting personal information – the posting of personal information regarding other people (i.e. their home address, phone number, etc.) is unacceptable, and will be enforced with blocks. Users doing so should be warned, and blocked if they continue.
10. Open proxies – Due to vandalism concerns, we do not allow editing from open proxies.
11. Editing only user pages and not articles – Users that consistently edit and add to their user pages and subpages without contribution to the main article namespace will be warned and then blocked. As this is a sensitive issue (and this is far from a serious wiki), good judgment should be made pertaining to the user in question and whether or not it is likely that they will actually contribute to the main article space after a warning and a block.
12. Abuse of Half Blood's file upload function – Our policies for uploading images are clearly stated on the upload form itself and the image use policy and user image policy pages which are linked from the upload form.
13. Violation of consensus – Many decisions on Half Blood Wiki are determined by consensus. Do not violate that consensus or you will be blocked.
14. Sockpuppetry – Per our sockpuppetry policy, use of multiple accounts to have multiple vanity userpages, influence votes, or evade blocks will all result in blocks being handed out.

Fan Fiction and Over-BloggingEdit

Fan Fiction and "Over-Blogging" are special blocking cases.

Fan Fiction anywhere on the wiki will result in a warning and the {{Fanon}} on their talk page. Second Offense will be a 24-hr block, 3rd Offense will be one week, and fourth shall be infinite.

"Over-Blogging" is cited as when a user's edit count reports that they have over 15% of their edits in User Blogs. The user shall be warned, and the matter will be dealed with via CBC. The same is applied if the user has over 50% of their edits in User Blog comment.

Block length guidelines Edit

With the exceptions noted above, blocks should usually progress according to the following table. Final discretion is left to the blocking administrator on a case-by-case basis.

When blocking a user or IP for anything less than infinite, a template will be posted saying how long.

A note to AOL usersEdit

AOL uses a shared IP system (meaning they give out the same IP addresses to several people), so if you use AOL and are blocked for vandalism you didn't commit, contact an admin for assistance. Due to the fact that many of the acts of vandalism to this wiki come from AOL IPs, we block each AOL IP that made the offense. The only way not to get blocked due to the actions of others is to switch Internet Service Providers (ISPs). If this is not an option, then just refresh your page until the block message goes away and do any major edits offline.