to be improved

• need to add some stuff about banning "simple vandals". How to phrase this?
• needs to be reviewed to ensure this is a workable consensus - and edited if not
• Are "soft ban" and "hard ban" good names?
• needs general copy editing

bans is the justification/background for this - ip death squad is a random link I'm adding in case someone can figure it out...

Most Wikipedians are good contributors, and we encourage people to show good wikipedia:wikipetiquette when dealing with them. In other words:

• Good edits - kept (or improved!)
• Bad edits - generally fixed - some may be reverted or moved to Talk
• Talk edits - kept, replied to

However, some contributors are troublesome, and we wish to encourage them to leave Wikipedia and find another community more suited to their style, or else adapt to the community expectations of Wikipedia. Hence:

Users who consistently break community norms or make bad edits to articles may be placed under a "soft ban". This means:

• Good edits - mostly reverted, but some may be kept at our discretion, or moved to the user's talk page
• Bad edits - reverted, or moved to the user's talk page
• Talk edits - at user's discretion

The decision to soft ban someone is, like most decisions on Wikipedia, a consensus one made by the community as a whole. If the community decides to soft ban a user, the following text should be placed on the user page of a soft banned user, to inform them of their soft ban:

This user is under a [[wikipedia:bans and blocks|soft ban]] - see [[user talk:USER NAME/ban]] for details. All edits by this user may be reverted, though they do not have to be.

Reasons for the ban should be placed on the /ban page - discussion elsewhere is strongly discouraged. If you wish to act as a character witness for a soft banned user, you should do so there. However, the best way to get a soft ban lifted is for the banned user to take on board the feedback they've been given, and make only good edits. Banned users should not delete the ban notice, but third parties are encouraged to delete a soft ban notice if they feel that it does not reflect the consensus of the wikipedia community (as expressed on the /ban page). In any case, soft banned users should be unbanned following three consecutive months of good behaviour.

If you see a good edit by a soft banned user, you are free to reinstate it. However, please do not reinstate bad edits - only reinstate edits that you believe are accurate and unbiased. Please do not flame users who are soft banned - the policy of no personal attacks still applies.

Users who do not improve in conduct after being placed under a soft ban may be placed under a hard ban. Hard bans are very much a last resort, and the ultimate decision is made by Jimbo Wales, the owner of this website, after reviewing evidence on the /ban page. When there's a wikimedia foundation, it could be taken by the wikimedia board.

All edits by a hard banned user, regardless of their merits, will be reverted. In addition, hard banned users may face technical measures to prevent them editing Wikipedia. The following text should be placed on the user's page:

This user is under a [[wikipedia:bans and blocks|hard ban]] - see [[user talk:USER NAME/ban]] for details. All edits by this user will be reverted. Please do not reinstate any edits made by this user.

Please do not flame users who are hard banned - the policy of no personal attacks still applies.

If you are hard banned, please respect your ban and do not post to Wikipedia while it applies. Hard banned users will be unbanned following three consecutive months of good behaviour. This includes not posting to any part of the Wikipedia project (including under pseudonyms) and not threatening Wikipedia contributors.

Users who are unbanned will be on parole - if they start making the same mistakes that lead to their previous ban they are likely to be swiftly soft banned again, and this may lead to another hard ban. Unbanned users are encouraged (but not required) to apologise for any mistakes they feel they may have made, and to give assurances that they will behave differently this time round.

Wikipedians should refrain from witch hunts of users who may be older users coming back under a new name. It's probably reasonable to politely ask, though, so that in cases of mistaken identity the new user can quickly set us straight (see below for some of the many kinds of evidence one could use to do this). If the community consensus is that a new user is probably the reincarnation of an old user, the community may soft ban that user, as described above. Evidence that the user is a reincarnation should be placed at user talk:USER NAME/ban.

As a last resort, Jimbo Wales (or the wikimedia board) may decide to hard ban reincarnations, after reviewing evidence on the /ban page.

If you are the victim of a mistaken identity, please provide some evidence of who you are. This evidence might include a photograph of yourself, or a non-disposable email address, or a work address or telephone number, or a link to your home page. Your evidence needs only be sufficient to convince the community that there is some reasonable doubt - it need not be conclusive.