Board Thread:Community Voting/@comment-25625534-20150530052600

Yes, I'm totally plagiarizing NationStates' format.

''Note: this vote was written with the notions described by Madkatmaximus in this reply to the original vote in mind. I would implore all of you to read the entirety of this thread, the original vote and any discussion below before coming to a decision and voting. If you have thoughts you wish to share, please do.''

The vote in question: Thread:215310

About Globally Blocked Users

''So not too long ago we had two users who were blocked across Wikia for legit reasons, but they used proxies and made new accounts and were users here once again. That is obviously not allowed, but no one here did anything about it. Eventually the one user was banned from here for trolling and other stuff, and the other user was recently caught by Wikia Staff and blocked once again. Should globally blocked users be blocked once their indentity has been confirmed?''

The vote passed 20-17.

Simply put, this vote goes entirely against the point of local blocks, and the reasoning behind it is weak at best. The main argument is that users who have received a global block are likely to be trolls/vandals/similar and should not be allowed here; but this is not always the case. Recently, I'mDivergent and Wolfasa were globally blocked for claiming to be Edward Nigma on CC. They have done nothing locally to justify any kind of punishment, and their gblocks themselves had nothing to do with any form of spamming, vandalism, trolling, or otherwise. Nonetheless, in accordance with the current policy, any duplicates they make are to be blocked as soon as their identity is confirmed.

As well as defeating the purpose of a local block, this policy even encourages rule-breaking behavior. If a gblocked user were to come onto this wiki on an alternate account, the policy would see them blocked; if they were to assume the identity of a new user or an existing user, they could participate in the community without being blocked. This, of course, is impersonation, also against the rules. If the gblock policy were to be repealed, we'd avoid unnecessary problems that would arise from having to confirm the identity of every new account to confirm they're not a gblocked user, and indirectly encouraging rule-breaking.

Madkatmaximus: ''There's another flaw with this vote: If this passes, it's only going to cause Gblocked users to try and hide their identity, which as of now they don't bother doing. As it is now, if you have valid evidence you can simply report them to staff. This will only make doing that even more difficult so it's completely pointless. Basically this will pretty much cause the opposite of the desired effect of this vote...''

There are also issues with the way the vote itself was conducted.

Madkatmaximus: ''I would also like to call out the poor wording in the vote options for Gblocks - it makes it look as if opposing users are fine with "harboring" gblocked users which isn't exactly the case. It should be worded the same as the following COPPA votes.''

EpicWarrior72: ''I think a lot of people are tricked up by the wording of [the gblock vote]. Could you fix it perhaps so people don't make a mistake by picking the wrong one? - I think a lot of people might have misread it. I did at first and changed my vote.''

Ajraddatz: ''Furthermore, the first question still has loaded wording, as Mad pointed out. That should be changed to something more neutral, like "should we enforce Wikia's global bans locally?" - anything which doesn't contain an implicit value judgement.''

ZXSpidermanXZ: ''I agree it should be reworded. People should read thoroughly what they're voting on anyway. :P But yes it should be reworded.''

While the wording was eventually simplified and made clearer, there was no public notification, and so any users who may have mistakenly voted for the wrong option may not have been aware of this, and thus unable to rectify it.

Other arguments against the passing of this vote include:

Madkatmaximus: it's not a local wiki's job to enforce such things, but if you want to report the users in question to Wikia staff then go right ahead.

Obi the LEGO Fan: ''As far as g-blocks, it is not local admins' job to enforce these blocks. If you want you can report these accounts, as long as there is evidence. The thing is, often times people who are globally blocked have not done anything against local policies. We only block people who violate our local policies.''

Bourgeoisie via BrickfilmNut: ''First of all, neither of these topics are in a local wiki's reign to determine anything about. This wiki's local policies are to affect local matters. There are no grounds to determine global matters on this local wiki. If you want to get involved with global matters, contact Wikia staff or put in a job application at Wikia. As for global blocks, this is a matter that pertains exclusively between Wikia staff and the indended blockee. Global block reasons are not public, and therefore this wiki's administration is not responsible for investigating them or enforcing them. If a globally blocked user is evading a global block, that also does not belong in this wiki's jurisdiction. It's still a matter that's exclusively between the intended blockee and Wikia staff. In order to enforce a global block, you need access to tools such as MultiLookup and LookupUser. These tools are restricted to Wikia staff for a reason. The only legitimate way to "prove" that a user is the same as a globally blocked user is to find a match with the user's IP addresses, email addresses, or other personal information that this wiki's local administration does not have the ability or a justifiable reason to be able to access.''

A5637: ''While I agree with the necessity to ban those circumventing Global blocks ... the jurisdiction for those actions is not ours, but as others have said, Wikia's, unless members violate our own wiki policies.''

Vote to revert the policy changes implemented resulting from Thread:215310.

A: Revert all policy changes implemented resulting from Thread:215310 and any actions that may have been taken due to these policy changes.

B: DO NOT revert the policy changes implemented resulting from Thread:215310, nor any actions that may have been taken due to these policy changes.

Vote tally: N/A - N/A

''Again, this vote was written with the notions described by Madkatmaximus in this reply to the original vote in mind. I would implore all of you to read the entirety of this thread, the original vote and any discussion below before coming to a decision and voting. If you have thoughts you wish to share, please do.'' 