[Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia-wide global blocking mechanism?

[Andrew Gray]

On 31/01/2008, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Presumably such a global block would only be available to stewards, on
> due consideration.
>
> Before anyone starts coding - what are the devs' thoughts on a global
> blocking mechanism? What could go badly wrong?

My immediate note of caution is rangeblocks. Do we have any figures at
all on how often rangeblocks prove overzealous? This does have the
faint air of a catastrophe waiting to happen...

Other useful options:

i) an individual blanket opt-out for specific projects (I am not sure
how many would take it up, but it seems the sort of thing that people
like to know is there)

ii) Some way of telling the blocked user that they've been blocked on
a sitewide level, please contact so-and-so about this, rather than the
normal project block message. (Linguistic issues here)

Otherwise, it's mostly a matter of social safeguards - don't overuse
it, don't block indefinitely, etc, and stewards are fairly well
selected for sanity ;-)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk