[WikiEN-l] Quick request for feedback on Blockedtext

[Charlotte Webb]

On Nov 20, 2007 1:11 AM, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Blockedtext#Revamp_of_header.3F

I feel qualified to weigh in on this as I've probably had my screen flooded by the "user is blocked" text at least as many times than anyone here.[1] First of all, the "blockedtext" page is largely TL;DR, and has been for quite some time. While I probably wouldn't complain if somebody took a chainsaw to it in the meantime, I think the most widely favorable solution would be to re-examine the core purpose(s) of the page -- to inform the user...

1. You are blocked (not "your editing is disabled" or "your parrot has snuffed it" or any other sugary euphemism).
2. A brief(!) description of what it means to be blocked.
3. Who blocked you, for how long, and for what purported reason (for this, I think simply mirroring the relevant block log entry would be worth a thousand words. Do we have enough variables to do that now?)
4. Whether we owe you an apology or vice versa (this would usually be easier to extrapolate from #3, rather than by reading a vague description of every possible scenario).
5. Whether anything can be done about it (again, this question is too open-ended to answer on one general-purpose page).

Thoughts?

—C.W.

[1] If a tree falls... err, I mean... If you fire random shots into a forest and cause trees to fall, is this "collateral damage"? Note that this is another profanely euphemistic term we ought to avoid using in any correspondence with the affected party, much less on the blockedtext page.