By Mila, with Yerucham Turing To unblock or not to unblock, that is the question … In this blog article, we’ll try to solve the problem algebraically with one variable. Let’s start with an equation: “Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users” + X (the user) states he is not going to edit Wikipedia + Wikipedia:Assume good faith = unblock, right?

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Not so fast, say the wikipediots. Oh, those wikipediots! They don’t act as humans, they act as Wikipedians. They don’t speak English, they speak Wikipedian. They don’t use common sense, they use Wikipedian sense. “Trongphu” is a Wikipedian who is active on Vietnamese Wikimedia projects, and is a sysop on one of them. Two years ago he was blocked from the English Wikipedia indefinitely, and his talk page access was revoked. Trongphu had only one way to appeal the block: by sending an email to the list of admins, and that is what he did. Having already had his share of aggravation from the unfriendly English Wikipedia environment, Trongphu had decided to concentrate his efforts on volunteering on Vietnamese Wikimedia projects. Being blocked from the English Wikipedia had hurt Trongphu’s reputation on the Vietnamese projects. This is what he tried to communicate to the list when he requested his unblock:

*I’m requesting an unblock on condition that you will never see me here again. I promise to not edit here anymore, if I broke my promise, you’re welcomed to block me again. *Please, don’t make blocks punitive. It has become punitive. It is only hurting me. *It is still making a negative impact on me as a devout editor on Vietnamese Wikipedia. Once in a while, someone would bring up the