Help:Blocking FAQ

How do I block a user across all of Fandom?
If a user or IP is publishing spam or vandalism on your local wiki, and you feel that this may be happening elsewhere and the user or IP may need to be blocked on all wikis, then please contact the VSTF for Spam or Vandalism and contact Fandom staff for other situations.

This ability is used sparingly and problems in one community don't necessarily mean that a user should be blocked across all of Fandom. In general, this is only used for spam, large scale or persistent vandalism over several communities, impersonations, severe Terms of Use violations or underaged users (reported to Fandom Staff). If there is a problem happening only locally, please contact the admins of that community, or if there are no active admins, see above.

What do I do if I am caught in a global block?
If you are accidentally caught in a global block targeted towards your username or IP address, please use Special:Contact to contact Fandom staff. In order to effectively locate the block and look into the matter, you must include all of the information in the box you see while you're blocked (which can be seen when you try to edit a page), especially the block ID.

If you are caught in a content block that is blocking addition or modification of content on a page, please use this form and give the most information possible.

What do we do about vandalbots?
A vandalbot is a script which automatically performs some kind of malicious edit or similar operation to a wiki at high rate. Since a vandalbot may be attacking other communities too, it should be blocked as soon as possible. If you see one, try to report the bot via Report:Vandalism, or try to contact a VSTF member in the VSTF IRC channel, or staff via Special:Contact.

See Vandalbot on Meta-Wiki for more details.

Should we block open proxies?
Anonymous or open proxies should usually be blocked, when identified. You can set the timestamp for "infinite".

Try not to block ISP proxies since this would affect a wide number of users.

Should we block ranges?
Range blocks aren't recommended unless you need to deal with severe and prolonged vandalism from a particular range of IP addresses, and you are very sure what these mean and how to use them.

Can I customize the text that a blocked user sees?
You may customize the block message by editing MediaWiki:Blockedtext on your wiki.

How can I block a user indefinitely?
On the block user screen, in the "Expiry:" section, choose "Other time:", and in the box, type infinite, or indefinite. Then, click "Block this user". Alternatively, you can add "infinite:infinite" option to the MediaWiki:Ipboptions and then select it through the expiry option.

Can I block everyone from the wiki so only one person can edit?
No, blocking everyone to make it so nobody can edit except you in order to make the wiki private is not allowed - even if you are the founder of the wiki. Fandom is based around the concept of openly-editable communities. If you notice this happening, feel free to contact Fandom Staff through Special:Contact to get it resolved.

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