Wikipedia:Guide to appealing blocks

This is a guide to making unblock requests. Users may be blocked from editing by Wikipedia administrators to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia. Blocks are lifted if they are not (or no longer) necessary to prevent such damage or disruption.

You, as a blocked editor, are responsible for convincing administrators:

• that the block is no longer necessary because you understand what you are blocked for, you will not do it again, and you will make productive contributions instead; or:
• that the block was not necessary to prevent damage or disruption (i.e., that the block violates our blocking policy); or:
• that your conduct (under any account or IP address) is not connected in any way with the block (this can happen if a block is aimed at resolving a separate situation and you are unintentionally blocked as a result because you use the same IP range).

It also helps to clearly state your reasons for requesting an unblock because:

• If the background or reason isn't clear, your request may be declined out of hand.
• In complicated situations, the reviewing administrator may not read your whole talk page and all of your contributions. Relevant information not in your unblock request may be overlooked.
• If you make repeated invalid or offensive unblock requests, your talk page access may be revoked which makes it even more difficult to request unblocking.

To make an unblock request, copy the following text to the bottom of your user talk page: {{unblock|1=Insert your reason to be unblocked here ~~~~}}. Don't forget to insert your own reason to replace "Insert your reason to be unblocked here". Its composition will be discussed below. If you find that you cannot edit your talk page, fill out the form at the Unblock Ticket Request System.

More technical and procedural guidance can be found at Wikipedia:Appealing a block.

Before you request unblock

It's important that you understand the reasons why the administrator blocked you before starting an unblock request. A block is not intended as punishment; it's meant to prevent you from making disruptive edits, either in good faith or as vandalism.

Don't ask questions within your unblock request; that's reserved to explain why you will not be a problem to the project, not to request clarifications about policy. Before requesting to be unblocked, you can ask the administrators that blocked you any clarification about their actions, and they're expected to answer them, though first you have to read the policies they have linked as the reason for the block. If you need to attract the attention of an administrator, you can write {{ping|UserName}} in your comment and they will get a notice, provided that you sign your edit with four tildes (~~~~).

What happens when you request unblock

It may help with your unblock request if you understand how they are reviewed, and by whom.

• When you save the unblock request to your talk page, it is automatically placed in a special category for administrator attention.
• Administrators are volunteers. Be patient. Any review will be carried out by an administrator other than the one who blocked you.
• An administrator reviewing your request will look at the reasons given for the block, and your unblock request, in light of relevant policies. The aim in each case is to reduce disruption, damage, and similar issues from affecting Wikipedia.
• They may, if they choose, leave a note for the blocking admin if they feel they need more information and put your request on hold. If they are considering unblock, administrative etiquette requires they inform the blocking admin and allow an opportunity to comment.
• Often you will find more than one user commenting on your block, or a mini-discussion happening. The administrator who blocked you may contribute, but any decision will be made by the reviewing administrator who takes all points made into account.
• If the reviewing administrator thinks it is necessary, or it is required by policy (such as community bans or equivalent), the reviewing administrator may open a thread at the administrative noticeboard for further comment.
• In some cases, unblock requests may require functionaries (such as CheckUsers or Oversights) to comment. They may also be forwarded to the Arbitration Committee if required.
• If your request is accepted, they will leave a templated response on your talk page and unblock. If it is declined, they will give their reasons in an edit to the request template.
• Verbose or undetailed appeals may not attract administrators to review. In these cases requests may be closed as {{decline stale}} if nobody decided to act within two weeks. Appeals that are brief and focused on the concerns of the blocking admin will help administrators decide more easily.

Composing your request to be unblocked

Try to make it as easy as possible for the reviewing administrator to see why your block is not or no longer needed. Be clear, using easily readable English. Administrators are volunteers, and may have limited time or patience for trying to find out what you mean to say. Write your request yourself; requests that appear to be written with an AI bot or chatbot are likely to be summarily rejected. The reviewer wants to hear from you, not an AI. Also, you should only have one open unblock request at a time for reviewing. Any new request you make while your existing one is still open will likely be procedurally declined.

Understand what you did and why you have been blocked

To effectively contest your block, you must understand the reason for it. Also, if the reviewing administrator concludes that the block was justified, you will not be unblocked unless the reviewing administrator is convinced that you understand what you are blocked for, and that you will not do it again.

You are informed about the block reason in two ways. First, the blocking administrator provides a brief reason that you will see when you try to make an edit. Second, the administrator may leave a message explaining your block on your user talk page. These messages should include the names or abbreviations of those of our site rules (the "policies and guidelines") that the blocking administrator believes you have violated.

Before you make an unblock request, you should attentively read the policies and guidelines named in your block reason. They are usually one or more from among the following: vandalism, sockpuppetry, edit warring, violating the three-revert rule, spamming, editing with a conflict of interest or having a prohibited username. You should also review the blocking policy. If you have read these pages and don't understand, then a first step might be to request a clearer explanation. Attempts to work with others and understand their concerns will be seen positively.

Give a good reason for your unblock

As a user requesting to be unblocked, it is your responsibility to explain why you believe your block violates Wikipedia's blocking policy or should otherwise be reversed. Specifically:

1. State your reason for believing your block was incorrect or for requesting reconsideration. It is not enough if you just say that the block was "wrong" or "unfair", or another user violated a policy first. You must explain why it was wrong to block you, or why it should be reversed.
2. Address the blocking administrator's concerns about your conduct (the reason given for your block). As explained above, you have been informed about the reason for your block. You must address this reason in your request. This means that you must either explain why the block reason is incorrect or not applicable to your conduct, or you must convince the reviewing administrator that you won't do it again.
3. Give evidence. If you state that you did or did not do something, or that the blocking administrator is missing something important, please provide brief details and a link in the form of a differential edit ("diff") if possible, or other evidence showing that you don't (or didn't) do what the block reason states.

Stick to the point

1. Be brief.
2. Stay calm and civil. The use of profanities, ramblings, ALL CAPS SCREAMING and personal attacks will lead to the decline of your unblock request without further review of your edit history. The block duration may also be extended. You may also lose access to your talk page.
3. Provide key information briefly. If a mistake has happened, show actual evidence or explain it (briefly). Don't make vague claims that cannot be checked, or allege conspiracies or bad faith unless there is clear good-quality evidence in the form of diffs.
4. Focus on the concerns of the blocking admin and the situation going forward. Show that you understand the blocking administrator's concern and what they want you to do better. Blocks happen because the community has to prevent certain behaviors, and we want you to understand some things matter to us. If you show willingness to appreciate our concerns, discuss the incident in good faith, genuinely learn from mistakes, and show you can keep to the spirit of community policies, often that is all that's needed. If the community still doesn't agree and the block isn't lifted, you will be seen positively when it's over for showing maturity, accepting the outcome, and showing that you are willing to abide by consensus.

Do not make legal threats and do not resort to coercion

You are blocked because of concerns about actions that are a problem. Responding by threats or attempts that show gross lack of understanding makes it worse; it suggests you will not learn in the future.

If you have made a threat, or might make a threat, click 'show'.

Genuine defamation, privacy breaches, copyright breaches, and misinformation, are taken very seriously. Gossip, unimportant information, and some private details may also be removed at times. Wikipedia has many ways of checking whether our policies or the law governing our website supports your position, and it fields many user teams for this purpose. We act very quickly in response to well-founded complaints. Often, however, people who think they have legal grounds for complaint actually don't according to the law that governs our content. Wikipedia is not written by an editor-in-chief or paid staff. The Wikimedia Foundation does not act as "editor in chief". It is created and changed by volunteer editors worldwide, and the views of other editors may differ from yours. Wikipedia is a neutral reference work. If editors see your demand as one-sided, poorly supported, or inappropriate (for examples, a) the creation of a glowing article about yourself or b) the removal of a matter that others feel is appropriate, sourced to a high standard, and written fairly) then you may be unsuccessful. That is how it should be. Do not use Wikipedia for advocacy, PR/promotion, battles or writing about yourself and connected organizations. Given Wikipedia's status as a neutral reference work, if others do not agree with you or do not feel our content policies have been violated, then it is very unlikely that a threat will accomplish any goal that you may have. The Wikipedia community (editors) usually doesn't care about legal threats you make. They care about our content and our criteria for suitability, quality, and reliability. If they review your complaint and disagree, then a legal threat will not change their mind. The Wikimedia Foundation legal staff will simply decline to act because of threats if they believe there is no legal case; if there is a legal case or other fair reason they agree with, then a threat isn't needed anyway — they will be glad to quickly help. If you don't know what to do, then the email team is a very good starting point. Do not make threats, and do not ask or hire a lawyer to write it — doing so is no more effective than a simple personal email and may get you blocked if your message appears to contain any kind of implied legal or other threat. If you did make a threat and were blocked, then taking it back is often a big part of being unblocked. A message to the effect of "I take back my threat and won't repeat it again; can anything be done to resolve this?" is a good approach. Ask for advice; don't shake a stick.

1. Don't treat your unblock request like a legal proceeding. A ban or block is a revocation or suspension of your privilege to edit Wikipedia. Because we are owned by a foundation with bylaws, your freedom of speech does not prevent us from enacting and enforcing our own policies and guidelines. In order to prevent abuse, we may also check your IP address and other accounts using it.
2. Don't threaten or imply legal action. Making a legal threat to get your way will almost always result in an immediate indefinite block since it conflicts with the principle of respecting consensus decisions, and also to prevent escalation happening here. Just don't go there: If your concern is valid, other channels are sufficient to address it; if not, then no channel will be sufficient.
3. Do not offer to make a donation to Wikipedia. Equivalently, do not threaten to stop donating to Wikipedia. This will likely only serve to confirm that you still do not understand why your behavior is a problem. The administrators reviewing your block are volunteers and do not work for the Wikimedia Foundation; they decide appeals with the goal of minimizing disruptive editorial activity, and are not concerned with whether editors are supporting the encyclopedia monetarily.
4. Do not threaten or imply retaliation. It will not help you in the slightest but rather will lead only to a more comprehensive block or an escalation to a ban.

Talk about yourself, not others

You are blocked because of what you did, not because of what others did. For this reason:

1. Do not complain about other people, such as editors you may have been in a conflict with, or the blocking administrator. Disagreements with others should be addressed through dispute resolution after you are unblocked, but your unblock request is not the place for this. The only thing that your unblock request needs to address is why you did not in fact disrupt Wikipedia or why you will no longer do so. Unblock requests that contain personal attacks or incivility against others will be declined and may lead to being blocked from your talk page.
2. Do not excuse what you did with what others did. Two wrongs do not make a right. An unblock request that just asks administrators to block another editor will be declined.
3. Assume good faith towards others. The other editors who may have reported you, and the administrator who blocked you, and everybody involved, are not part of a diabolical conspiracy against someone half a world away they've never met in person, and an unblock request that presumes they are will probably not be accepted.
4. Assume others have assumed (and will assume) good faith towards you. The blocking administrator will have tried to assume good faith on your part, as did any administrator who had reviewed previous requests, and the administrator who will review your current request. There is not much need to remind administrators to assume good faith, or to accuse administrators of failure to do so.

Agree to follow Wikipedia community customs

If you are blocked for something you did wrong, and especially if you are blocked for a long time, you are more likely to be unblocked if you:

1. Admit to it. All your contributions to Wikipedia are logged. There is no point in denying something that you did do (or that other editors examining the record agree it is very likely that you did), because your edits can and will be checked. Even if they were deleted, all administrators, including the one who will answer your unblock request, are still able to see it.
2. Give people a reason to trust you again. Promise, credibly, that you will stop doing whatever got you blocked. Earn back our trust by proposing improvements to articles or proposing firm steps you will take so the issue cannot happen again.
3. Don't do it again. If you were blocked for an offensive statement or legal threat, do not repeat it in your unblock request. Even if you feel that your conduct did not deserve a block, evidently at least one administrator disagrees with you on that point. Assume that the reviewing administrator will agree with the block, and write your request in a way that cannot give further offense.
4. Tell us why you are here. Say how you intend to help contribute to the encyclopedia after you are unblocked. The community portal and the task center contain ideas for helpful contributions.

If unsatisfied despite everything

In most cases, if others disagree with your request then it's best to accept it. Rarely, a situation may have become so heated or words exchanged, or there may be a genuine reason to worry that the blocking admin has misunderstood or is being extremely unfair. Do not "rant", "flame" or attack others even if you feel attacked yourself. It is the worst thing you can do.

If you have good cause for worrying, it is far better to check you have briefly and calmly made clear your concern and any evidence, and just ask for other independent opinions. Administrators asked to independently review a matter will come to it fresh – often more than one will respond – and may be able to explain or help. They will also consider whether or not the blocking admin appears to have acted reasonably, and what they think has to happen. If they disagree with you, then this can be useful reassurance that the initial view was not unreasonable.

Examples of bad unblock requests

Requests that look like the examples shown below are very likely to be denied. If made repeatedly, they may lead to your block being extended or removal of talk page access by either a change of block settings or your talk page being protected from editing.

Click 'show' to view some examples of bad unblock requests

My edits were right, so I wasn't edit warring! (Optionally, a very long explanation on why you are right and why everyone else is wrong follows.) This is an unfair block! I am new here! I did nothing wrong! The blocking administrator just hates me! UNBLOCK ME IMMEDIATELY, THIS IS CENSORSHIP, I HAVE A RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH!!! User:A and User:B conspired to have me blocked!!! Corrupt admins condone their doings, they are POV railroading against me! Here, this is a list of their great wrongs!: If you block me, you must block User:OtherUser too! They have been vandalizing even more! Please unblock me. My sister / brother / mother / father / friend / roommate / enemy / pet used my device / computer and pretended to be me. I won't let this happen again. Oh lighten up, I was drunk / having a bet with a friend / just playing around. It was a joke! Oh come on, the blocking administrator is stupid / arrogant / idiotic. Remove their administrator rights and block them! They blocked me for nothing! My account was hacked. / My computer / device was infected with a virus; I didn't make any of the edits I was blocked for. / I've regained control of my computer / device. If you do not promptly unblock me, I will have absolutely no choice but to sue Wikimedia in order to get my editing rights back. If you do not unblock me, I WILL continue to harass User:A and other people. I'll make a big donation to Wikipedia if you unblock me as a sign of my good faith. This isn't fair. Admin X is from Z country and they are biased against me and my country. This is discrimination, not vandalism. I only made those edits to prove to my students / kids / parents / friends that you can't trust what it says in a Wikipedia article. I only made those edits to test Wikipedia's security. THIS IS AGAINST THE LAW! Wikipedia is AGAINST THE LAW!!

Special situations

Arbitration enforcement blocks

Special rules apply to users who have been blocked because they violated an Arbitration Committee decision, or restrictions imposed on them (such as under contentious topics procedure) by administrators in accordance with an Arbitration Committee decision.

Appeals by sanctioned editors

Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:

1. ask the enforcing administrator to reconsider their original decision;
2. request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN"); and
3. submit a request for amendment at the amendment requests page ("ARCA"). If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email through Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-enwikimedia.org).

Modifications by administrators

No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:

1. the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or
2. prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" below).

Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped.

Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied.

Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions.

Important notes:

1. For a request to succeed, either

(i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or

(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA

is required. If consensus at AE or AN is unclear, the status quo prevails.

2. While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.
3. These provisions apply only to discretionary sanctions placed by administrators and to blocks placed by administrators to enforce arbitration case decisions. They do not apply to sanctions directly authorized by the committee, and enacted either by arbitrators or by arbitration clerks, or to special functionary blocks of whatever nature.
4. All enforcement actions are presumed valid and proper, so the provisions relating to modifying or overturning sanctions apply, until an appeal is successful.
   — Arbitration Committee, Standard provision for appeals and modifications

A reviewing administrator acting alone, therefore, is not allowed to undo another administrator's arbitration enforcement block. (This does not preclude the blocking administrator from accepting an unblock request from the blocked editor.)

To request that such a block be lifted, you may:

• Address your appeal to the blocking administrator either on your talk page or by email (using the "Email this user" function on their talk page).
• Address your appeal to either the arbitration enforcement noticeboard or the administrators' noticeboard by using the {{unblock}} template, asking the reviewing administrator to initiate a community discussion. You should prepare the appeal in the form provided by the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}} on your talk page, below the unblock request, so that the reviewing administrator may simply copy it to the appropriate community forum.
• Address your appeal to the Arbitration Committee by sending an email to Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-enwikimedia.org).

Banned users

Banned users, too, have special rules for their appeals. See WP:UNBAN for procedures of ban appeal.

• Users banned by the community (but not under ArbCom bans or blocks designated to be appealed to ArbCom only) are normally unbanned only after a community discussion at the administrators' noticeboard determines whether there is consensus to lift the ban. You should read Wikipedia:Standard offer before appealing a community ban. Users may be considered banned by community for repeated abuse of multiple accounts. Such users may either appeal to community or Arbitration Committee, but after a CheckUser being consulted they will usually be deferred to administrators' noticeboard.
• Users banned by the Arbitration Committee must appeal to the Committee (normally by sending email to arbcom-enwikimedia.org.) For users also under community sanction, ArbCom usually will consult the community either at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard or as an amendment request. The ban will not be lifted without sufficient community comment.
• Users banned by Jimbo Wales prior to April 2022 must appeal to the Arbitration Committee.

Compromised accounts

See also: Wikipedia:Compromised accounts

Sometimes administrators or CheckUsers will block an account as compromised. This happens most often when CheckUsers have proof that the person who created the account has lost access to it, and it is now controlled by another person. If your account was blocked specifically as a "compromised account", you should contact a CheckUser or steward, who can hopefully verify that you are now back in control again. You can also ask a Wikipedian who has met you outside of Wikipedia to vouch for you, or you could use a previously disclosed {{committed identity}}. If none of these options are available, the account might simply be unrecoverable because we have no way of knowing who is in control of it.

If you have made an unblock request and claim that your account was compromised, hacked, or used by someone else, this will likely not work. This is generally a variation of the "my little brother did it" excuse. Accordingly, administrators will often react skeptically to claims that your account was hacked or compromised. Instead, your unblock request should focus on addressing the reason for your block. If this sort of claim worked, everyone would claim that their account had been compromised.

Sockpuppetry blocks

Accusations of sockpuppetry result in many blocks and almost as many unblock requests, as Wikipedia policy calls for the sockpuppet account to be blocked indefinitely and the sockpuppeteer to be blocked for some length of time (possibly also indefinitely). Users confirmed or believed to have engaged in the practice must request unblock at their main account. Meatpuppets will be blocked indefinitely, too ... don't edit on behalf of someone else, no matter how well you may know them.

Reviewing admins will usually defer to the blocking admin in a sockpuppetry-based block, especially if the sock account has minimal edits. Even without the use of the Checkuser tool, or with a result of "unrelated", an account that makes the same edits as a different blocked account, has the same linguistic peculiarities and the same general interests may remain blocked under the "quacks like a duck" test.

Wikipedia admins can never be absolutely sure about sockpuppetry, and the most abusive users can be very devious in attempting to evade detection. If you are improperly blocked for sockpuppetry, you should realize that it may not always be easy or even possible to correct the situation.

If you actually are guilty of sockpuppetry, and want to get a second chance at editing, please do as follows:

1. Refrain from making any edits, using any account or anonymously, for a significant period of time (e.g. six months), in the English Wikipedia. You are strongly encouraged to make significant and useful contributions to other Wikimedia projects prior to appealing.
2. Make the unblock request from your original account. Sockpuppeteers aren't often unblocked—since they've acted dishonestly, it's hard to believe them—and the administrators certainly aren't going to unblock the sockpuppet account.

If you appeal a sockpuppetry block, you should also disclose all relevant information that might be relevant or might help explain why the community suspects sockpuppetry. Examples of circumstances that you should disclose include if you were encouraged to edit a Wikipedia page on social media or by a friend, if you share an internet connection with others whom you know edit Wikipedia, or if you were paid to edit Wikipedia. As an editor on a collaborative, community-based project, you have an obligation to avoid deceiving the community or its administrative processes, and failing to divulge relevant information may be considered an attempt to intentionally deceive the community.

See also guides for appealing CheckUser blocks and bans for repeated abuse of multiple accounts (you should still follow the advice above if you are guilty of sockpuppetry).

Checkuser blocks

A small group of administrators have access to a tool called CheckUser, which allows them to search for and view some of Wikipedia's private technical logs. CheckUser data can be used to determine that a user has abused multiple accounts against policy (sockpuppetry). If your account is "CheckUser blocked" (which is usually marked by using the {{checkuserblock-account}} tag within the block reason), this means that private CheckUser data was retrieved, determined to be relevant, and was taken into account or was a factor behind the decision to block the account. If you are trying to appeal a CheckUser block, please review Wikipedia's guide to appealing sockpuppetry blocks. Checkuser blocks are expected to be appealed on-wiki or via the Unblock Ticket Request System; however, the Arbitration Committee may hear appeals of such blocks, at arbcom-enwikimedia.org, if there are compelling reasons to hear an appeal in private.

Oversight blocks

In some rare circumstances, material that is added to Wikipedia is considered to be problematic enough that it is removed from Wikipedia's public archives, as well as suppressed from administrator view. This process is called "Oversight" or "suppression". A small number of administrators, called Oversighters, are the only users who can suppress material, as well as access or view suppressed material. Editors may sometimes be blocked for repeatedly adding such problematic material to Wikipedia despite being asked to stop, or for other reasons that relate to information that has been suppressed. These blocks are called "Oversight blocks" (which is usually marked by using the {{Oversight block}} tag within the block reason). If you have been "Oversight blocked", do not add the suppressed information in any public block appeals or responses; if your appeal quotes or references suppressed information, you should appeal your block to the Arbitration Committee by sending them an email.

Edit warring blocks, including "Three-revert rule" blocks and others

Many established users who request unblock do so because they have been blocked for edit warring. They often post lengthy explanations, with many linked diffs, of why they did not actually violate the three-revert rule. If this is what you intend to do, be advised that such unblock requests often take longer to review than others. Given that many edit warring blocks are for a short duration (36 hours or less), long and detailed unblock requests will often go unanswered or will take so long to investigate that the block will expire on its own. Also, be aware that 3RR is seen as an "electric fence" and that with VERY few exceptions (such as reverts of patent nonsense/vandalism or of egregious libel violations) most admins see any violation of the three-revert rule as justifiably blockable. Being "right" is not an exception to the three-revert rule, and claiming that your version is the "better" version is not a reason that will get you unblocked.

Also, be aware that there are many situations in which it is possible to be blocked for edit warring even if you did not break the "three revert rule". For example, if you have made the same revert a large number of times over a long period, you may be blocked even if there was never a period of 24 hours in which you made four reverts. Also, any sequence of edits that violates the "spirit", if not the "letter", of the three-revert rule are just as worthy of a block. Intentionally gaming the system by waiting 24 hours before your fourth revert, or subtly changing your version each time so it is not a perfect revert, or otherwise edit warring over the article is seen to be editing in bad faith, and your block is unlikely to be lifted in these cases, even if you did not revert more than three times in 24 hours.

"Bad username" blocks

Accounts with usernames that do not conform to the username policy are often blocked indefinitely, regardless of their editing behavior. Most commonly this is because of a name that wholly or closely matches the subject of an article or a link added as spam or otherwise in violation of the external links policy.

Most such accounts are soft-blocked, meaning a new account may be created while the old one is blocked. This is done because it is the account name, not the behavior of the person behind it, that is the problem. While it is possible to request a change in username, this takes a little longer and requires that a user with global rename access do so. Whichever method you choose, it is a good idea to have some review of the proposed new username first, to avoid ending up in the same quandary.

An account with a username that uses hateful or obscene language or otherwise indicates disruptive or provocative intent will be hard blocked, meaning that an unblock request will be required.

Advertising-only accounts

Accounts that seem to exist only to promote somebody or something ("spamming") are normally indefinitely blocked, because Wikipedia may not be used for promotional purposes. Such promotion may include posting articles that read like advertisements or inserting inappropriate links to other websites.

As an advertising-only account, you will not be unblocked unless you indicate that you will stop your promotional activities. In addition, you must convince administrators that you intend to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia that are unrelated to the subject of your promotion if unblocked. To do so, your unblock request should include specific examples of productive edits that you would like to make.

Blocks directed at a problem generally ("collateral damage")

A number of blocks exist because they are preventing abuse from a given source, such as a proxy server or a particular ISP used by many people. In such cases some users will be responsible for the problem; others may be unavoidably blocked by the solution.

An administrator or checkuser will investigate and consider whether it is likely this has happened.

Open proxy blocks

Wikipedia policy on open proxies is clear: editing through them is blocked without exception once identified. While some users can use them to circumvent censorship or filters, they have been used far too many times by far too many blocked vandals for Wikipedians to assume good faith on their part. This includes Tor nodes. If your server has been blocked as an open proxy, you will probably need to edit via another connection: in most cases, proxies are "hard blocked", which prevents even logged-in users from using the connection to edit.

The only way such a block can be lifted is if it can be determined that it is no longer an open proxy, or was erroneously identified as one. If you believe this to be the case, say so in your unblock request and the administrator will refer it to the open proxies project, where verified users can determine if it is indeed an open proxy.

Shared IP blocks/Range blocks

Occasionally readers who have never or rarely edited before, or not from that location, with no intention of registering an account, click on edit only to find that editing from their IP address is blocked, for something they didn't do. If you are here because this happened to you, there are two possibilities.

• Range block. Wikipedia administrators can choose to block a range of IP addresses rather than just a single one. This is done if a vandal, sockpuppeteer or otherwise disruptive user has taken advantage of dynamic IP or other situation (such as some LANs) where it is possible to evade blocks by hopping from IP to IP or physically moving from one terminal to another. Yes, this inconveniences many users (the longterm rangeblocks imposed on some large ranges mean that, in certain geographic areas, some users cannot edit without using a registered account). But the Wikipedia community does not take these actions lightly, and while some rangeblocks may be reduced in scope if they were imposed on too many users, it is only done if other methods of protecting the project and its users have failed.

  If you are affected by collateral damage from a long term range block, consider creating an account either from another computer or via an email request.

• Shared IP block. This affects large institutions, most commonly schools, that route all their Internet traffic through one or two servers. Since many users can edit through them and we have no way of knowing if a vandal or disruptive user on a shared IP has been prevented from doing so again, or what security arrangements are in place on the other end, administrators are wary of unblocking shared IPs. Those that are blocked (again, primarily schools), are commonly blocked repeatedly and for long periods (up to a year at a time) for blatant vandalism. If the reviewing administrator sees that reflected in the talk page, block log and edit history, the unblock request will likely be declined.

  If you are the systems administrator at a site with a shared IP, and you can identify and take action against users whose conduct on Wikipedia led to the block, we may consider an unblock if you can prove this. Most commonly, though, the best solution for Wikipedia and users alike is to simply create a registered account and edit with it. This can be done by connecting to Wikipedia through another internet connection that is not blocked, or by making a request via the process at Wikipedia:Request an account.

See also

Help desk

• Wikipedia:Appealing a block
• Wikipedia:Standard offer