Punishing Malicious Users
From Planipedia
Malicious users are considered to be any users who break the Planipedia Rules, or harm Planipedia content according to the reasons listed on the Block Users page. Most acts of misbehaviour are likely unintentional and minor, and can be suitably dealt with by reminding the user of the rules and offering some basic tips. As the severity and frequency of the offenses increases for a particular user (IP address or login name), appropriate warnings should be issued.
The main portion of this article will deal with punishing users that are continually creating malicious content.
Reviewing a User's History
Upon finding a malicious entry as noted on other administrative pages and in the Planipedia Rules, administrators should review the history of a user. While in the user's page, on the left-side toolbox, a new link to "Logs" will appear. In this Special:Log&user=___ page you will have the ability to select "Block log" from a drop-down list of log types. Clicking Go will then bring up any previous times this user has been blocked from using Planipedia. If a user has already been blocked, as an administrator you should more highly consider blocking the user again, for a longer period of time, as opposed to just issuing a warning.
Back on the main user page, there is also a toolbox item called "User Contributions". This page appears similar to the Recent Changes screen, and will allow you to review the changes the user has made through the (diff) page. If several contributions are of a malicious nature (and not merely minor offenses), you should more highly consider blocking the user for a period of time, as opposed to issuing a warning.
Issuing Warnings
If the offenses made by a user are only of a minor nature (for example, referencing their company and services within an academic article, or submitting subjective content), or has only made a single offense (not of a sever nature), administrators should politely issue a warning.
The warning should explain to the user the contributions that were considered malicious and why, as well as reference the Planipedia Rules. If there are suitable Help materials to recommend to the user to help correct this problem, they should also be provided to curb their reoccurence. You may choose to include the likely punishment should the malicious activity be committed again.
After you issue a warning to a user, the administrator should had the "User Contributions" page to their watchlist to more easily keep track of the content added by the user, ensuring the cited offenses are continued.
Blocking Users
Once a user is deemed as ignoring your warnings and continuing to violate the Planipedia Rules, or in the instance where a user commmits a single, very severe act, administrator should act to block the user.
On the Block Users page, an administrator can enter the IP address or user name according to the cited contributor for the malicious change. The length of the time period set for the block should correspond with the severity and/or frequency of the harmful contributions. While this is generally up to the discretion of the administrator, the Special:BlockList page can be used to review which users are currently blocked, the reason, and whether they should be unblocked due to an unfair banning.
Generally, first offenses from users will not warrant a long block period; a short one should suffice to get across to the user that if they continue to do so they can be refused access to all Planipedia content.
Reasons should always be documented for why a user was blocked, and if it does not fall into the default list provided, you should include your own description.
