User blog:Ducksoup/Why We Don't Unblock You

Greetings.

Wikia is big. And I mean big. There are 350,000 communities on Wikia, with 166 million unique visitors a month. Those numbers aren't joking around. When I recited them to my mother, her eyes got sort of big and she said, “wait, how many people are in community support again??”

And that's a legitimate question! There are eight of us that provide direct support in English. Then dos en Español, eine auf Deutsch, yi ge Zhong wen yuan gong, один на русском, ichi in Nihongo, une en Français, e uma em português. I'm sure most of you have interacted with one of us at some point.

With one of us per 11.8m users, that means we can't know everything that happens on your sites. The local admins will always have a much stronger idea of any context surrounding a blocking than we could ever hope to have. They know you. You're part of their community, a community they want to keep happy and healthy. That means deferring to their judgment is almost always the best idea.

Local admins also know their community much better than we do. Actions or behaviors that are verboten on some wikias would be celebrated on others. Admins know who’s had a history of stirring up trouble in chat, whose edits can be trolly, and who has a history of temporary blocks. That context is important! Staff can try, but we’ll never have the breadth and depth of knowledge that your local admins do.

And on a more philosophical note: your wikia is yours. Staff have a couple sitewide terms of use that we uphold (no cross-wikia harassment!) but we’re much happier to live and let live, as a rule. Admins know better than we do what kind of environment and culture you want your wikia to have; staff unblocking users who have been blocked by local admins wouldn’t be very respectful of that.

We want everyone to have a good time on Wikia. If you feel like you were unfairly blocked, the first thing you should do is read this lovely blog by Sannse. Usually, the best idea is to leave a message for the blocking admin on their Community Central wall. This is a neutral spot for you to talk it out. Depending on the situation staff can even help moderate these discussions.

I hope that was clear! Leave questions in the comments.