Wikipedia:Sanctions (essay)

This is an information page.

It is neither an encyclopedia article nor one of Wikipedia'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 of consensus and vetting.

Wikipedia sanctions act to limit or remove user privileges.

Involuntary sanctions

Process of imposing involuntary sanctions

Community process

The community usually imposes involuntary sanctions following a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard or Wikipedia: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.

Arbitration Committee process

The Arbitration Committee usually imposes involuntary sanctions following a request 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.

Exceptions

There are two exceptions to these processes. The first exception is the removal of access tools of administrators and other functionaries – 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 with blocking policy.

Types of involuntary sanctions

Blocks

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 listed here. It is important to note, however, that conditional unblocks and final warnings remain distinct in character from editing restrictions.

Editing restrictions

Editing restrictions, which are logged at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions, are imposed by the community or the Arbitration Committee, on individual editors who have engaged in inappropriate conduct. The most common types of restrictions include account restrictions, civility restrictions, probation, revert limitations, and bans. 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

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 as article probation or general sanctions. A log of all current discretionary sanction schemes is available at Wikipedia: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 to discretionary sanctions.

Discretionary sanctions for a topic area must be authorized by ArbCom, either by an arbitration case, or by an ArbCom motion. They are listed in this section.
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.
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.
Any uninvolved administrator can impose discretionary sanctions, within certain conditions being met. This is usually as a result of a request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement; a consensus of uninvolved administrators may decide this, but it is not required.
The main difference to normal proceedings is that uninvolved administrators can impose bans, normally in the form of topic 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 by a few other mechanisms.
Blocks of up to a years duration may also be imposed.
Review and reversal of bans is only allowed with specified conditions being met.
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.
Discretionary sanctions against any editor must be logged at a central log.

This page lists the currently active sanctions imposed through the arbitration process. It transcludes portions of the main general sanctions and personal sanctions listings; all changes should be made to those pages instead of this one.

Types of sanctions

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 they edit 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.

General sanctions

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Case	Applicable area	Standard sanctions	Special restrictions	Notes
Abortion (WP:CT/AB)	Abortion, broadly construed	Contentious topic		A one-revert restriction (1RR) was removed in September 2020.
Acupuncture (WP:CT/CAM)	Complementary and Alternative Medicine, broadly construed	Contentious topic
American politics 2 (WP:CT/AP)	Post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, broadly construed	Contentious topic		The year was changed from "1932" to "1992" in January 2021.
Antisemitism in Poland (WP:APL)	Polish history during World War II (1933–1945) and the history of Jews in Poland	Extended confirmed restriction (area also falls under WP:CT/EE)	All articles and edits in the area are subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction. When a source that is not an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution is removed from an article, no editor may reinstate the source without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or consensus about the reliability of the source in a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Administrators may enforce this restriction with page protections, topic bans, or blocks; enforcement decisions should consider not merely the severity of the violation but the general disciplinary record of the editor in violation.	The extended confirmed restriction in this area is from 2020; the "reliable source consensus-required" restriction was added in 2021 and modified in 2023.
Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 (WP:CT/A-A)	Armenia, Azerbaijan, and related ethnic conflicts, broadly construed	Contentious topic
Article titles and capitalisation 2 (WP:CT/AT)	All pages and discussions related to article titles and capitalisation, broadly construed	Contentious topic	Contentious topic restrictions are authorized for all pages and discussions related to article titles and capitalisation, broadly construed. The scope of this remedy includes: discussions about the policies and guidelines mentioned changing the capitalisation of a phrase when editing a page changing the capitalisation of a page title by moving or renaming a page individual requests for comment, move requests, move reviews, as well as discussions on article talk pages, user talk pages, or other venues, where the discussion directly relates to article titles and/or capitalisation.
Civility in infobox discussions (WP:CT/CID)	Discussions about infoboxes and to edits adding, deleting, collapsing, or removing verifiable information from infoboxes	Contentious topic	Any uninvolved administrator may apply infobox probation as a contentious topic restriction per remedy 2. That user will be indefinitely restricted from: adding, deleting or collapsing infoboxes; restoring an infobox that has been deleted; or making more than one comment in a discussion, where that discussion is primarily about the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. For clarity, an editor under probation is permitted to edit an already existing infobox, but should be cautious of giving the appearance that they are attempting to game their probation as this may lead to more contentious topic sanctions. They may, if they wish, add an infobox in the same edit or series of edits when they: create a new article; or convert an article from a redirect. The user under probation may also participate in wider policy discussions regarding infoboxes with no restriction. All discussions about infoboxes and to edits adding, deleting, collapsing, or removing verifiable information from infoboxes, are designated as a contentious topic.
Climate change (WP:CT/CC)	The climate change topic, broadly interpreted	Contentious topic
COVID-19 (WP:CT/COVID)	COVID-19, broadly construed	Contentious topic
Eastern Europe (WP:CT/EE)	Eastern Europe and the Balkans, broadly construed	Contentious topic		The original Balkans remedy is from 2011's Macedonia case; Eastern Europe was added in 2019.
Editing of Biographies of Living Persons (WP:CT/BLP)	All living or recently deceased subjects of biographical content on Wikipedia articles	Contentious topic
Editing of Biographies of Living Persons (WP:CT/BLP)	Zak Smith	Extended-confirmed restriction	If an editor believes this restriction should be extended, they may request the Committee consider an extension by posting an amendment request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment in the final month of the restriction's timeframe.	This restriction is set to lapse automatically after September 30, 2026 (one year after the enactment of this restriction).
Falun Gong (WP:CT/FG)	Falun Gong, broadly construed	Contentious topic
Gender and sexuality (WP:CT/GG)	Gender-related disputes or controversies and associated people	Contentious topic	In any challenge to the closure of a formal discussion within the WP:GENSEX topic area (e.g. an RfC or AfD), users who participated in the underlying discussion are limited to at most two comments, not exceeding a combined total of 250 words. Uninvolved administrators may remove violating comments, in whole or in part, as an Arbitration enforcement action, and may use repeated violations as the basis for other sanctions.
Genetically modified organisms (WP:CT/GMO)	Genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed	Contentious topic; 1RR
Gun control (WP:CT/GC)	Gun control, including governmental regulation of firearm ownership; the social, historical and political context of such regulation; and the people and organizations associated with these issues	Contentious topic
Historical elections (WP:CT/RNE)	The results of any national or sub-national election	Contentious topic		Starting in 2026 and checked yearly afterwards, this designation expires on 1 January if no sanctions have been logged in the preceding 2 years.
Horn of Africa (WP:CT/HORN)	All pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed	Contentious topic		Originally a three-month trial, made permanent in November 2021.
Iranian politics (WP:CT/IRP)	All edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed	Contentious topic
Kurds and Kurdistan (WP:CT/KURD)	The topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed	Contentious topic
Palestine-Israel articles 4 (WP:CT/A-I)	The Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted	Contentious topic; extended confirmed restriction; 1RR	Reverts made to enforce the extended confirmed restriction are exempt from the provisions of 1RR. Also, the normal exemptions apply to 1RR. Editors who violate 1RR may be blocked by any uninvolved administrator.
Pseudoscience (WP:CT/CF)	All pages relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted	Contentious topic
Race and intelligence (WP:CT/R-I)	The intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour	Contentious topic
South Asia (WP:CT/SA)	All pages related to the region of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal), broadly construed, including but not limited to history, politics, ethnicity, and social groups.	Contentious topic
	The topic of Indian military history is placed under the extended-confirmed restriction.	Extended-confirmed restriction
	The topic of social groups, explicitly including caste associations and political parties related to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal is placed under the extended-confirmed restriction.	Extended-confirmed restriction	Administrators are permitted to preemptively protect pages if there is a reasonable belief that disruption will occur
The Troubles (WP:CT/TT)	All pages relating to The Troubles, Irish nationalism, and British nationalism in relation to Ireland, broadly construed	Contentious topic; 1RR
Yasuke (WP:CT/YA)	Yasuke	Contentious topic		Starting in 2026 and checked yearly afterwards, this designation expires on 1 January if no sanctions have been logged in the preceding 2 years.

Notes

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