Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Multiblocks/de

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Multiblocks
Layering/Timing of blocks
Group:	Community Tech
Team members:	Joydeep Sengupta, Dayllan Maza, Harumi Monroy, MusikAnimal, Sam Wilson, Karolin Siebert, Sandister Tei, Sammy Tarling
Lead:	Dayllan Maza and Karolin Siebert (Product Owners)
Updates:	Updates

Multiblocks was the #14 wish in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023. The objective of the wish is to make it possible for admins to impose different blocks on the same user in parallel. This page outlines Community Tech's approach to addressing this need.

Currently, admins can either impose a sitewide block on a user, or partially block the user from editing specific pages or namespaces. However, they cannot do both. For example, it is not possible to block a user sitewide for a day, but keep them indefinitely blocked from editing a specific page. Therefore, it can be difficult to find the right block for the severity of the situation. It may not be possible without causing collateral damage (as with IP ranges), or removing an existing partial block just to impose a temporary sitewide block.

See original Wish

Background & Problem Space

The number 14 wish on this year’s (2023) Community Wishlist Survey was Multiblocks. Wishes related to the blocking functionality appear regularly and frequently on the different wishlists.

Current status:

• When one tries to layer blocks the previous one has to be removed.
• It seems the former Anti-Harassment Tools team has considered multiple overlapping blocks.

Where do blocks exist in our Projects?

There are existing designs and exploration by the former Anti-Harassment Tools team.

Existing Documentation

• User Documentation: Blocking users
• Admin Documentation: Block and unblock
• Extension: GlobalBlocking
• Action Blocks

Current Shortcomings of the Blocks

• Unable to have both sitewide and partial block at the same time.
• Can’t block different namespaces for different time periods.
• Only one reason, shown to both the blocked user and to other admins.

Glossary

Block

See Manual:Glossary on mediawiki.org

Reblock

Action by an administrator to edit an existing block to amend values in a block. The administrator that last updated a block will be the owner of the block.

Target

The IP address or username that a block is applied to. Usually the IP address or username has engaged in vandalism.

Edit block

When an Admin edits a block, in the back-end we remove the old format of block and add a new one. See Reblock.

Change block

See Reblock.

Unblock

Removing a block on a target.

Remove block

See Unblock.

Arbeitsumfang & Anwenderberichte

User-Story-Anforderungen

• Als Administrator des Wikis, wenn ich Seiten oder Teile von Seiten sperren muss, möchte ich in der Lage sein, sie für einen gewünschten Zeitraum zu sperren, damit ich böswillige Bearbeitungen verhindern kann.
• Als Administrator des Wikis, wenn ich Seiten oder Teile von Seiten sperren muss, möchte ich in der Lage sein, partielle und globale Bearbeitungen zu kombinieren, sodass ich abschätzen kann, wann sie ablaufen werden.

Wichtige Einschränkungen

Nicht im Geltungsbereich:

• Interaktion mit Autoblocks/Cookie-Blocks
• GlobalBlocking?
  • nb. GlobalBlocking hat keine partiellen Blöcke, also sollte dies wahrscheinlich nicht im Anwendungsbereich sein
• Schichtung von IP-Blöcken?
• Nur minimale UI-Änderungen (d.h. kein Dialog wie in den alten Designs)

Technische Datenermittlungen

In the user interface, Special:Block will require major updates. Currently, when a user tries to block a target which is already blocked, they may elect to "reblock", which means to delete the old block and insert a new block. Simply inserting an additional block is not permitted. Similarly there is a reblocking concept in the action API's block action. These user-visible concepts of conflicting blocks and reblocking will need to be updated. API clients which perform block actions may need to be updated.

MediaWiki already has the CompositeBlock class, which represents multiple blocks on a given user. There is some technical debt in this area which we will try to rectify, but broadly, permissions checks and the Block hierarchy will continue to work as before.

The current schema has an ipblocks table with a unique index on the target fields. We plan to split this table, with a new block_target table for the target fields. Almost all queries on this table will have to be updated. In WMF production, there are approximately 6 affected write query callers and 18 affected read query callers. The Cloud Services replicas are also affected, although it would be feasible to provide a view for backwards compatibility.

Warum und wie haben wir diesen Wunsch angenommen?

Dieser Wunsch wurde in unserem Priorisierungsprozess für 2023 hoch eingestuft. Er hatte Rang 14 und wir glauben, dass die Auswirkungen dieser Arbeit für Admins und die Qualität unserer Inhalte sehr wichtig wären, da wir besser gegen Vandalismus vorgehen könnten.

Updates

February 2024 – Design Updates

Over the last few weeks we’ve been designing the user experience and user interface while talking to some admins. Here are some design decisions we want to implement:

• Landing page We’ve enhanced the Special: Block user page for Admins, making it a cleaner and more intuitive experience so that users can issue, modify, or remove blocks with ease. Changes include improving the page’s order of operations, adding descriptions, a condensed layout for easier block management, and UI components from Codex (Wikimedia’s design system).
• Account filled in
  • Now that an “account” can have multiple blocks, it’s important that an Admin can see an account’s active blocks at the top of the page.
  • We moved the “block log” to the top of the page as well, so that an Admin won’t have to scroll.
• Active blocks table displayed Admins can now remove or edit blocks from the Special: Block page. We hope this allows volunteers to make quick changes to the blocks on an account, should they need to.
• Partial ban interaction The partial ban form is hidden behind one click, which allows us to condense information on the page. If an Admin wants to issue a partial ban, once they click “Partial” they will see the remainder of the content they need to fill out.
• Edit/remove block menu Admins can now remove or edit blocks from the Special: Block page. We hope this allows volunteers to make quick changes to the blocks on an account, should they need to.
• Editing an active block Admins can now remove or edit blocks from the Special: Block page. We hope this allows volunteers to make quick changes to the blocks on an account, should they need to.
• Remove block When an Admin wants to remove an active block, they will remove the block using this dialog.
• Block log The block log for the account will be displayed in the table, with the current design.
• Setting expiration time We’ve removed the calendar date picker for now, so the expiration time will be set just with the dropdown menu. We haven’t changed any of the options in the menu.

• <span lang=
• 
  Landing page
• 
  Account filled in
• 
  Active blocks display
• 
  Partial ban
• 
  Change block
• 
  Editing an active block
• 
  Remove block
• 
  Editing an active block
• 
  Block log
• 
  Setting expiration time

December 2023 – Design Updates

User job story: Adding multiple blocks (T350485)

• When ... a target is disruptive in multiple locations
• ... I want to create more than one block for the target,
• ... so that I can dissuade them from disruptive behavior while not completely driving them away from the wiki.

User job story: View blocks (T348682)

• When I need to create/remove/re-block a target ...
• ... I want to see the list of active and past blocks on a target,
• ... so that I can make better decisions

User job story: Unblocking workflow (T350486)

• When I want to unblock a target ...
• ... I want to have a simple and consistent workflow that is easy to find with predictable results,
• ... so that I can easily manage this important task on top of my other volunteer work.

How do we know we’ve been successful?

• Possibly survey a section of admins who use and/or voted on the feature and they report being satisfied
• We see multiple blocks being used and possibly standardized through community-created policies