Help:I'm blocked

Occasionally, good people get blocked from editing. Sometimes, bad people get banned. But let's assume that you're a good person. So what do you do when you've been blocked?

Blocking types
There are two or three types of block. It's important to figure out what kind of block is stopping you from editing. You can find out a lot of information about the block yourself by trying to edit a page and then looking at the notification which pops up. If you're editing in the monobook skin, the notification will be extremely obvious. But if you're in the normal Wikia skin, then you'll have to hunt for it a bit. Begin editing a page and then look at the upper right-hand corner of the page. You'll see a line that says "Need help editing?", and under that will be a thing that says "Notification". Click on "Notification" and you'll see something that looks like this:

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You're blocked. You can contact $1 or another Special:ListUsers to discuss the block. Please include all details in the above box — but especially the block id number in gold — in any queries you make.

The most important parts of this are the bits in yellow and green, so take special note of these.

Global
One kind of block happens at the global Wikia level. This can happen because a Wikia staff member has been alerted to your unhelpful editing practises, and has decided to do something about it. In such a case, there's nothing anyone here at Tardis can do about it. You'll likely need to ask a local admin to confirm whether you are indeed globally blocked. If so, your only recourse is to send a Special:Contact message and hope for the best.

Range IP
Another type of block that might be affecting you is the range IP block. These are rarely instituted, but they are helpful when a spam bot or vandal "hops" around from IP to IP, thereby mounting a sustained attack upon the website. The best tool for dealing with this is to establish a pattern to the attacks and block that whole pattern.

Unfortunately, this means that a lot of good users may very well be cut off from the wiki. You'll need to ask a local admin to investigate, but if your IP doesn't immediately pop up for the admin then they'll likely refer you on to — you guessed it! — a Special:Contact form.

Local
A local block is one imposed by a local admin here at TARDIS. You'll be able to tell you're locally blocked by looking at the "blocking admin" section of the notification (as seen above), and noting the color of the name. If it's a deep purple, then they're a local admin.

Local blocks are by far the most common type of block, and the rest of this document will be dedicated to giving you guidelines about how to go about dealing with local blocks.

How not to deal with a block
As opposed to global and IP range blocks, it's generally a waste of time to get Wikia Staff involved in a local blocking dispute. If one of our admin left you a message on your talk page which clearly explained why you were being blocked, Wikia Staff aren't going to touch it. If the admin has additionally cited local policy in his or her blocking of you, there's very little chance of it being overturned. If the admin has given you warnings before a policy-based block, don't even bother contacting Wikia Staff. They definitely won't touch it.

Overall, therefore, it's best to avoid involving Wikia Staff at all.

How to respond to being blocked
A good "neutral ground" wiki is w:c:community — the central Wikia wiki. Because Wikia Staff probably won't help you, somehow you need to get in touch with local admin. The only way to do this, if they're preventing you from all communication on their wiki, is to go to another Wikia wiki — neutral ground as it were — and leave a message on their wall/talk page there. If they don't respond to you after one (again, one) polite and reasonable attempt at apology, you can make one last attempt.

Your can then seek out a different local admin than the one who blocked you and plead your case. (Again, you'll have to contact them on a different wiki, and again you'll need to keep your cool when you do it.) Admit that you were wrong and ask the "neutral" admin to perform an internal review of the case. If you make your case politely and you admit you were wrong, you might get the blocking re-considered. The blocking might not actually get overturned, but at least you'll have gotten some sort of review by the only people who can overturn it.

Having said all this, you need to be very careful about contacting people who have blocked you. Don't carry on a conversation with a person on wiki a about events on wiki b. The admin of wiki b might not like it, especially if the conversation turns ugly. You could easily end up being banned from wiki b too. Make it one note. Make it apologetic. Don't swear. Don't accuse. Just say, "I made a mistake. I apologise profusely. Is there any way you could review the block and lower it?" That's it. And remember: one attempt at communicating with a blocking admin is reasonable. Two or more attempts can be considered harrassment.

And if by some miracle you do get the blocking overturned, don't make the same mistake again. The blocking that will come after letting you back in will almost certainly be worse.

Why do bad blocks happen to good people?
Most blocks done locally are enacted because the admin believes you've done something which is a violation of one of our policies, or because they're trying to save you time. In most cases, you should be given an explanation of why you've been blocked, and a good idea of when the block ends. That said, the blocking notification seen above should give you this information as well.

The best way to deal with most blocks is to read all this information and try to understand what they admin is saying to you. If the admin directs you to specific policy pages, go there and read them.

Above all, remember that being blocked does not actually mean you are a bad editor. Most of the time, blocks simply mean that you need to hold on a bit and read something before continue to edit around here.